Getting there...slowly.

girlatplay

I have £6 left over from pocket money for the week past so I will pop that into my sealed pot.

Today's good news was that my friend insisted it was her turn to pay for lunch. I checked back my diary and sure enough, it was!

Got such a busy weekend on. I feel exhausted just thinking about it. My old colleague, Grinders, is getting married tomorrow and LMG and I are going along to the reception for a little while

Have a good weekend.

girlatplay

Ooft that was a busy weekend. Had the vet for the cats on Saturday morning (£98 :eek:), LMG had dancing on Saturday afternoon (I went for coffee with my mum - £6), popped to Asda for lunch stuff for Sunday to save us money (£42 :eek::eek: but got toilet roll, kitchen roll and a few grocery items towards this week's meal plan), we went to the wedding reception on Saturday night (petrol circa. £7, £20 for a present, £:o towards new shoes for LMG and I), got home around 11pm.

Sunday we were up early as LMG had a golf lesson (paid for by grandad but I bought my sis and I a coffee and tea (£3.20), then to LMG's dancing competition for the rest of the day - petrol circa. £10 but NO OTHER SPENDING FOR THE REST OF THE DAY :j:j as my parents paid us in to the comp and we took our 42 quid packed lunch with us :rotfl: The parents paid for our tea on the way home. We pass a Toby Carvery on the way home and it has become a habit to pop in each time. I always drive so the paying in to the comp and the carvery on the way home is their way of saying thank you to me for the lift.

Got shoes heeled over the weekend so £6.95 and I put the 5p in the charity bottle.

My poor wee credit card had smoke coming off it and the grocery budget for this week is all but gone. I will have to be extra creative with meals this week :cool:

I am expecting money from CSA in the next couple of days so that will go towards the shoe money from Saturday and towards some petrol, if there is enough left over.

I took the money from the cats' account to pay the vet bill so that is covered.

I paid for the lunch/groceries directly out of the food budget so by debit card.

All is good, it just felt a bit scary at the time.

Off out for tea tonight with the bride (sis) and other bridesmaids. Sis is paying, she wanted us to all get together for dinner as a thank you from her for being her bridesmaids. We are going to Pizza Express as she gets 40% off on a Monday. She apologised to me for being tight (wanting to go to PE because of the discount). I had to remind her that I am a regular on here :money:!

Busy at work again. I managed to catch up with other diaries at lunchtime (after walking to collect my shoes) so back to the grindstone now!

girlatplay

Got £24.15 from CSA. Nowhere near enough to cover shoes and petrol so put £10 towards petrol (still have £8.87 left over in petrol budget) and £14.15 towards shoes. Got another text from CSA though and I am due another payment in the next couple of days so hopefully it will be a bit nearer what I am supposed to get.

I am going up to John Lewis at lunchtime today to get my free coffee and cake It doesn't really constitute "lunch" but it's free!

Going to the parents' for tea tonight. I think the only reason I have got away with spending so much of the grocery budget on non-meal items is because of last night and tonight.

This week's vague meal plan:

Chilli (in the freezer from last week)
Chicken with potatoes and some veg (still to buy the chicken & veg)
Probably Enchiladas with the left over chicken (I'm not good at the rubber chicken thing)
Tomato & mozzarella pasta (have to buy basil)

That covers wed/thur/fri/sat and then we are back to Sunday again (parents' for tea).

I need to do a small top up shop tomorrow: cooked chicken, milk, basil, veg and a couple of non-food grocery items. Should come in at less than £10 which is what I have left in the budget. Whew! I feel lucky

girlatplay

Yesterday lunchtime I was so busy wandering around the forum here I totally lost track of the time so I didn't have time to go to JL for coffee & cake. It's fine though as I used up stuff in the fridge at work I had forgotten about which would have got wasted otherwise. I will probably go to JL tomorrow instead.

Put £18.34 petrol in the car last night. Hoping that will last until payday (25th). It's showing as half a tank, even although it costs £45-50 to fill my tank.

I paid the 53p left from petrol budget across to the cc account together with the other CSA money that came in today. It was much better but I am still £10 short of the cc balance. I will shuffle pots to cover it though.

Paid out more this morning for sis's hen. All that is left to pay now is the meal on the night (£16.95 each for LMG and me), the afternoon tea balance (£10 covers us both) and any drinks on the night. I still have £26 left in my general spends account for the month and will be topping that up on payday anyway. Will probably use some of that to balance the cc.

All seems to be working out *crosses fingers*

I'm so looking forward to tea tonight. I decided on the chilli so took it out the freezer this morning.

I have my small list ready for this afternoon's trip to the grocery store.

mooomin

I haven't put any petrol in the car yet this month. We're not really planning on going anywhere, so I'm waiting to see how long it takes for the red light to come on and then I'll put a cheeky tenner in

girlatplay

I have already driven around East Lothian delivering wedding invites and been to Falkirk and back for a dancing comp this month so the petrol was looking quite miserable with it's wee self I don't have anything else big planned for the rest of this month so hopefully it will last.

Top up shop yesterday came to £11.36 so just a little over budget but I got a basil plant so will wash and freeze some for other meals. I pulled the chicken apart ready for tonight's meal (chicken, potatoes & broccoli with gravy) and Saturday night's (chicken enchiladas to use up the other half of the enchilada stuff from last week). I think that chicken died of old age :cool:
Note to self: in future, wait the 25 minutes for the chicken that is being cooked instead of taking the one that looks like it has been there since Monday.
I only got one carton of milk. Had planned two but the chicken was more expensive than I had allowed for. Still cheaper than if I had cooked it myself though. We have everything we need so all fine.

I ordered A Girl Called Jack's recipe book. I had £16 left over in Amazon vouchers so decided to treat myself. I like her recipes and I "looked inside" on Amazon and liked the intro. Still got just under £10 left in vouchers but I get vitamins every month so that will go towards them next month (unless I see another book that I fancy ).

Definitely going to JL for coffee & cake at lunchtime today

girlatplay

Well I had my free coffee & cake yesterday. I'm quite glad I didn't pay for the cake, it was a bit dry. My mum has always been a good cook and baker (since we were kids, she says she wasn't great when she first got married) and her cakes are the best! Lovely and moist when they should be. Anyway, it was free so I can't complain too much. I will just get a different cake next month. The coffee was good

I'm not meeting my friend for lunch today. She is not well. It is my turn to pay so I will just be paying next week instead. In the meantime though, I was looking forward to a bought lunch so I will buy lunch anyway. It comes out of my pocket money so no need for me to feel guilty. I am craving a galaxy caramel today!

-Up to £17.10 on OnePoll.
-No word from Quidco yet about the money I am due.
-Still waiting for the £100 switching bonus from the new bank (due by 11.10.14 so I might not get it until next month).
-Still waiting for £7 odds from ACO.

Tomorrow is the weekend again :j only two weeks until payday.

giblet1979

Hey gap,

Just catching up - what a busy time you've been having! Lovely to read the updates, and you're doing so well. Very impressed

Really wish I could avoid filling the car up with petrol - hate doing it, and need to every week because I drive 'a LOT' for work. Get some of it back, but it doesn't really cover it, and it only affects my tax code anyway...

Oh well....grump over, lol

Hope you're having a lovely week so far x

girlatplay

giblet1979 wrote: »

Really wish I could avoid filling the car up with petrol - hate doing it

Me too. It's not even from a money point of view, I just don't like going to the petrol station and putting fuel in. Really don't.

Can you believe there were no Galaxy caramels in the store?? I had to buy a pack of 4 ripples. £1 for the pack so was better value than a single caramel anyway.

Yesterday we had a local/bank/something holiday so LMG and I went out with my parents for the day. We had such a lovely day. We went up to Callander, stopped for a coffee in a wee coffee shop. It was nice coffee and my piece of millionnaire shortbread was good , round towards Loch Lomond but took a wrong turn so stopped for lunch somewhere (?) black pudding roll with brown sauce Then back on the right route we drove down the side of Loch Lomond and stopped at the shopping centre for a browse. Back in the car to Edinburgh and we got caught up in the Glasgow rush hour traffic! Typical. We weren't thinking about the time. My mum insisted on paying for both coffee and lunch and dad wouldn't let me contribute towards petrol (long story but there is always a "conversation" about petrol, no matter whose car it is and no matter what it is being used for) so a completely NSD for me. We love spending time with my parents. They are like second parents to LMG and we all get on so well. I know I am very lucky

My A Girl Called Jack book arrived today. I planned to read it at lunch time but I got caught up on here as per, haha. I am going to use it to get ideas for meal plans and hopefully to get into a better routine of saving as I grocery shop.

I spent £32.36 on groceries on Sunday. I still have a couple of bits to get which I will need to get from Morrison's but they should come to less than £7. I have misplaced my meal plan The only thing on it that I remember is pizza!

mooomin

girlatplay wrote: »

My A Girl Called Jack book arrived today. I planned to read it at lunch time but I got caught up on here as per, haha. I am going to use it to get ideas for meal plans and hopefully to get into a better routine of saving as I grocery shop.

I'd love to hear a review as to how the book is - I've had it on my Amazon list for AGES :rotfl: