NST; January Challenge- The Money Saving Game

liltdiddylilt

Hi all,

SFD: 2/18 nothing spent today or yesterday
Groceries: £40.59/£150.00 (added some misc pre-Jan overspends in here. Only a couple of quid but am determined to be accountable for these little overspends.)
Exercise: Still no exercise, but once I am back on form I will be starting physio and pilates, as well as WTW and back which is 4 miles a day, 3 days per week.
LTW: Not been but had the freezer stacked with soups, broths, & stews ready to go with some (hopefully homemade) bread.
Food donation: Out on a DD £10 per month to TT.
Brand dropping: Well.. I had a look through the cupboards and fridge. I completed this exercise many moons ago and have stuck to 90% of the non-branded stuff. The stuff I still buy branded is super noodles & bachelors pasta n sauce simply for Him's lunches and having tried every own brand or on offer branded item, these cannot be beaten. Always bought on offer when they are less than 50p each.
Meal Plan: I haven't written it down yet, but I am planning each meal we have with precision and cutting out all waste by batch cooking things that are likely to go off soon. I will write my plan now whilst I have some down time. How in depth do people go with this? Breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks?!

Have been trying to find motivation to meal plan for months. I did it and it worked so well but only managed 3 weeks I think the woman I work with who knows what she is having Monday to Sunday every day of the week from here until kingdom come puts me off. I don't want to be chicken kiev and chips thursday girl...

Am struggling with my back and finding it very hard to sit to type. Lying down doesn't work with this current set up. Roll on Mac Monday! xx

WelshKitty85

Spend day again today, but only £1.49 on 6 rolls of wrapping paper, 3 lovely Xmas cards for special people and an engagement card for a family member.

Stuck to meal plan last night, having roast gammon (using up left overs still) and made extra to take for lunch today.

Went for a walk at lunch time and found a whopping 1p roadkill! Also managed to update my budget planner up until April.

Can't wait to get paid next week so I can make some payments towards my debts!

Calling14

Lilt totally agree with you, meal planning is halfway step to shopping On Tuesday, Bin day excitement Weds..... Like being tad unpredictable and surely a bit of what you fancy is FUN.

Do always take lunch to work, my drawers are crammed with Sardines, pilchards, beans, spaghetti, porridge oats - war should break out I am ready.

Want to get off the boring step this year, might be savvy as bf calls me, but there is world out there to explore. Starting local tomorrow.

Fmess

SFD number 3 was nearly mine however OH just convinced me to go halves on a takeaway. I need more willpower!

I did however walk the dogs so that's one more exercise session done . Also done all more chores and a little bit of decluttering, so quite a successful day, even with a lurgy.

Hoping for a SFD tomorrow as I'm out all day with my family but there may be an unexpected cost that I don't yet know about!

stewby

Well.... today was incredibly successful as I have left my handbag (with both wallets) at my auntie's house. No spending here at all.


We have raided our freezer and will kinda meal plan using it but plan is to have a roast every Sunday and attempt a new meal every week. So that is two days sorted.


Hope everyone is doing well.
Hugs.

sazzlebgood

had a lovely day with friends we've not seen for ages. Had aimed for nsd but discovered my swimming costume had gone thread bare and we're taking the kids and DD2's best friend swimming tomorrow.To make matters worse it had gone bare on the butt. God knows how long i've been flashing my butt for. LOL

liltdiddylilt

Calling you must know my colleague.... :rotfl:

fmess - gutted. I too often fall to the call of a take away. Have decided this month it is EITHER a taxi to/from work to carrry heavy stuff and protect expensive stuff, OR a takeaway. So if I exercise, I can have a take away.. and if I am lazy I can't lol!

Welshkitty am very impressed with your purchases vs. price! Gotta be Card Factory right?! Him works there...

sazzle oh my absolute goodness on the swimming costume!! :eek: I hate that. I once went to school in trousers with a hole in the bum I never lived it down. I was 14 bad age for that kind of flashing!

Feeling very virtuous. Despite being back to the original, so much pain I can't put a sentence together stage of my bad back I have today made jam tarts, lemon curd tarts and mince pies with the littlie.. I then chopped endless amounts of veg and made a beautiful pasta sauce with relatively few and highly inexpensive ingredients. 6 portions, plus 2 for the littlie and it is full of chunks of the leftover boiled ham. Jellytot ate it with gusto which does me the world of good as I know just how much veg went into it - the rest of the veg I added to some scotch broth mix of dried split peas, barley, red lentils, chickpeas etc which I soaked overnight and cooked this morning, and added the final half of the leftover ham in chunks. I estimate at least 8 portions of that to be frozen and popped to work ready for lunches for the foreseeable my biggest pan is full to the brim!!

Still working my way through the Christmas splurge shop for the most part. Snacks etc all coming from the goodies cupboard and there is still tonnes as I was gifted box after box of chocolates, biscuits and sweets. Not great for the wasitline but in reality I would have bought it anyway... so it is saving me a fortune, especially as I anticipated it and didn't spend on any of these things myself! :T

Still haven't meal planned, but my *it is coming out of the fridge and the cupboard, in order of the date it goes off* plan is working great

Still working myself up to making dough for a loaf to bake tomorrow. Am tired after 4 successive nights of 2 hours broken sleep.

WelshKitty85

Lilt got it in one! The majority was from Card Factory. I was hoping to find a nice Nanna & Grandad card to put away too but they only had either Nanna or Grandad - like they assume everybody only has the 1 grandparent! The 3 nice ones were from my work and with staff discount on top of the sale price cost me 20p for all of them! They should have been £2.50 each!!!!

I feel for you with your back pain. I have just finished physio for mine and thankfully feel like a different woman now. Not sure what the cause of yours is but I hope you can get some relief from it.

Bobarella

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Meal Plan: I don't want to be chicken kiev and chips thursday girl...

That is hilarious. I have been in stitches...

liltdiddylilt

Haha had to be with those numbers. I've no idea how they make money at all!! Yay for such bargains on your cards!!

I had physio and it didn't help one bit with my back. In short I did a lot of damage when I was 11, various accidents, came off a horse, swimming & high jump accidents in a short space of time... spent years with pain on and off, but then 18 months ago I was cleaning a rug, felt something go and woke up and couldn't move the next day. Called the doc out, MRI scans, physio etc... I had bulged 2 discs in my back and torn them. Degenerative disc disease it's called, and more will go with time. I'm only 28. I now have a knock-on disease from the discs being flat as pancakes, called facet joint disease. It isn't nice. Restricts a lot of movement and sitting is the worst thing I can do. I had an operation on the 30th on my spine, to try and release some pressure, pump in masses of steroids and a nerve blocker. It is just in the acute pain stage of hopefully getting much better now I am hoping once I feel better to be able to do physio and pilates to strengthen my core and help with my ongoing pain management rather than popping hundreds of heavy duty painkillers a month

Sorry boring post!

ETA: LOL Bobarella :rotfl: glad I amuse someone you know what I mean!!!