NST; January Challenge- The Money Saving Game

Fmess

Thank you for all your kind words, it's lovely to feel people out there somewhere are thinking of you when times are tough.

Loving the soup freezing tips! Just need to get round to making a soup!

Quite a spendy evening but OH and I feel a bit revived and cheerier, so well worth it.

Today I am grateful for;
1. Having a sister who is also my best friend
2. Having warm snuggly loving dogs
3. Seeing OH's softer side and remembering what a lovely person he is

WelshKitty85

Good evening everyone! Sorry i haven't had chance to reply to anyone's individual posts, but would like to say well done to everyone for doing so well and send hugs to anybody who needs them.

Today has been a spendy day for me. 2 food flasks for children's packed lunches cost me £12. I feel happier though knowing that they can have a hot meal at lunchtimes (I just can't afford school dinners) plus I can give them left overs/things I already have in and not have to buy additional packed lunch items.

Treated myself to a scented candle which was reduced to £2.99. I have had one the same before and they last ages and smell lovely, so more economical than the cheaper small ones.

Went to Argos for new frying pans, saucepans (that I have desperately needed since moving house) and printer ink (essential for uni work). Came to just over £22, but I have a £20 voucher off them for failing to deliver a Xmas present when they were supposed to, so used that towards it.

Also did weekly food shop which was just over £33. Have around £80 left in shopping budget to last the rest of the month. If I can make what meat I have last and not need a trip to the butchers, this should be doable.

I have batch cooked a bag of mince today and made a big lasagne, bolognaise sauce, and 2 portions of bolognaise with pasta so I have a few easy meals and lunches in for next week.

Went to my freebie event tonight with DH and DD. DS didn't come because of risk of infection after his op. Took drinks etc with us, but we were so cold when we got there I treated us all to a hot choc/ latte for £8. Still not too bad as if I had paid for the tickets they would have been around £60!!

Work for me all weekend. Hopefully the weather won't be too bad so I can get out and lunchtime and hunt for roadkill.

Today I am grateful for:
- hot drinks
- the inspiration you lot have given me to batch cook so I can have a few easy meals next week
- hot water bottles

Have a good weekend everyone!

mothernerd

Hailstone here today but made it to the bus stop and mum's in between showers. Mad puppy wasn't there - her owner is away and her twin decided 1 dog, 1 toddler in the pushchair was enough (mad puppy wouldn't have liked the hail and would probably tried to climb in on top of the toddler) and left her at home.

Well fed all day, mum insisted we eat the chocolate eclairs (cake ones not sweets). just hope my little cholesterol tablet can cope. I have spent money so not claiming a SFD but mum gave me money for a taxi so ended the day in profit. One small problem - I have acquired another 2 £2 coins and put them in the savings cow but the money I have available to spend is shrinking proportionately.

Good things
1) I got to play with a new baby (born between Christmas and New Year).

2) Free food - came home with sausage rolls for the freezer, a few potatoes, onions and carrots (they were on my list but wouldn't risk the walk across a big car park and back to get them in case it hailed) and a portion each of mashed potato and cheese sauce - mum was hunting for a portion of veggie lasagne but I said I had enough (still 7 or 8 lots).

3) Kind helpful taxi and bus drivers (we will pass over the one who wasn't as the others were so nice).

speakingofart

Thinking of you and your friend's family fmess.

Slightly spendy day yesterday, stocked up on some bread for the month and a couple of treats. Annoyed as I wanted a spendy day, but never mind! Am having a productive weekend and planning to hibernate as the weather forecast is for cold and snow, so I'm going to stay in the warm and get work done as I'm back to uni on monday night. Also need to fill in a job application - eek!

Groceries 15th Jan - 15th Feb £11.57/100
Fuel 15th January - 15th February £0/£50
Spending money - 3.95/11.37
Lunch to work: 9/20
Lunchtime walks at work 10/20
Food bank 0/£3
SFDs: 7/18

shyspender

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Shyspender re your question on stacking homemade stuff... I do the same with everything; I've always saved the plastic containers from takeaways etc, and I just pour one portion worth or enough for 2 people into these with no bag etc. Pop in the freezer and once it has frozen solid, take it out, pop the container with the lid off upside down on the kitchen counter and press gently in the middle until the solid soup/stew/sauce block plops out. I then bag the block and stack them which saves a lot of space. Him sometimes complains my freezer is like jenga.

:rotfl:

Lilt thanks for that. I wasn't sure if they would come out of the container easily. Found some round takeaway soup pots yesterday that I am going to give it a try with. The only issue may be finding room in my freezer!

shyspender

Synonymous wrote: »

PS. Re: freezing soup. I put the soup in zip-loc type freezer bags, fold the top half over and lay them down on their sides (like they would be with a sandwich in). Then I stack these on top of each other in a container to freeze, so they keep their shape, and they come out like 'sheets' of soup, it that makes sense? I also initially pour the soup into the bag whilst it is sitting in a soup bowl, so that I get the portions right as I'm rubbish at that!

Synonymous thanks for this. I'm going to try a few different methods until I find something that works. I do the pouring into the soup bowl thing for portions already

blubella

Hi Turtlies

Have been away for a few days with my housemate...she has been a Godsend especially with her contribution in rent as I don't know what i'd do without it! Took all homemade ready prepared meals with me so did not have to buy anything extra while I was away.

I can confirm that I have 10 SFD up until yesterday :j, really happy about that but won't count today until i've managed to get through it.

£62.52 spent on food so far this month which is a miracle, i'm going to have to continue being creative..i think a big pot of spicy lentil and tomato soup will be on the go today! Have about £20.00 to last me until the end of the month...I think it will be a struggle, thankfully had a little refund of £13.00 so that has bumped things up a little!

Keep up the good work:T

liltdiddylilt

Hi guys

Sorry for no post yesterday - I thought I copied it but I wasn't concentrating and obviously hit the wrong button, so then when I lost it I couldn't paste it back in.

3 things for yesterday

1. For getting through the working week without too bad a back
2. For beautiful baby pictures and giving useful advice
3. For accidental food poisoning not being too bad... :eek: poor Jellytot. She is currently bouncing on my bed in Rudolf tights and a fluffy rabbit onesie so nothing too bad. But one duvet thoroughly ruined and thrown away :huh: as it costs less to replace than to send to the cleaners

Yesterday was not a SFD. £5 of cake for work purchased and well deserved. Brought some home too. Also bought a Burger King with a voucher due to aforementioned food poisoning cancelling my salmon dinner need to watch my mentality of *well it is a spend day anyway* as I then went to top up shop to tide me over until Tuesday - had a fist full of Mr S vouchers and needed some tops for Jelly and a new jumper for me. £47 later, £29 of that clothes, £3.50 shower gel and kids shampoo and the balance food to tide me over. But £15 in Nectar points added...

New totals in my sig. Am off to meal plan to use up a lot of lentils and pulses this week. xx

Synonymous

Just need to have a rant to sensible MSE people :mad: before I go down to the allotment to hack, saw and burn things to make me feel better!

Noticed today that Natwest has reduced my monthly mortgage payments - not helpful when you're trying to get rid of the bloody thing as fast as possible! Rang up and asked why, and if you make a single payment over £1k (which I did at the end of Dec after doing a SOA and finding I could afford to), they automatically recalculate the monthly payments down, basically ensuring that they can bleed interest money out of you for as long as possible :mad::mad: I've never heard this rule or read it anywhere for a mortgage (although CC's do this as standard), and if I'd known and made two separate payments adding up to £1k, it wouldn't have happened.

The difference is just less than £10 a month, which I checked equates to about £1800 in interest I now wouldn't save, and 10 months extra time to pay off my mortgage. I can chose to (and will) continue to pay the same monthly amount, by 'overpaying' the £10 they have knocked off, but this is eating into the amount I am allowed to overpay every year. The worst thing was that she JUST DIDN'T GET IT that I was not happy with this, she didn't see that it made any difference! :mad::mad:

Makes me so angry as many people wouldn't even notice the £10 difference, or think "oh, good, I've got £10 in my account to spend on other things", not realising that they are being manipulated to stay in mortgage debt forever.

Rant. Over. Maybe this will help someone else be aware - if you come into some money and decide to knock it off the mortgage, do it in little chunks or ring and check if they have this rule first.

liltdiddylilt

Oh my goodness... you need to post this somewhere in a mortgages thread and shout loud about it!! MSE needs to read this and Martin needs to address it!!! How awful!!!