Getting my Old Style mojo back

lessonlearned

May I,join you ladies.

I need to get back on the wagon.......

I am quite thrifty as a rule, but my food bill has rocketed this last month or two, so I need to get back on track. I am too embarassed to say how much it was last month.

Reporting here will make me more accountable.....:rotfl:

I will read the thread properly later to see what tips I can pick up.

I do need milk today but will today and make it a very low spend day.

Then later I will do an freezer and cupboard inventory and work out a meal plan.

I probably have enough to feed a small army for a week or two.

My aim is to shave off at least £100 off the food bill this month.

The odd thing is I rarely throw anything away so I guess that's something positive.. I think I'm guilty of stockpiling too much so I think an inVentory will help.

pollys

Hello lesson learned, I find meal planning really helps but I do change my plan if need be. Tomorrow night we were going to have fajitas but one DS is now working, one has football practise and I have an excercise class after work, so I've left the chicken in the freezer and we will make do with what's in the fridge, it needs to be quick and simple so will be something like bacon and egg or beans on toast. We will now have chicken fajitas on Friday instead of the planned homemade fish and chips. I was going to buy the fish on my way home from work so that has saved me some time and money.
Thank you for the links - I will have a read later.
I've had three days of no unnecessary spending and tomorrow should be the fourth. I'm managing to organise things so I'm keeping on top of the washing,ironing, cleaning and putting the breadmaker on.
We have a very busy few days coming up so my organisational skills will be put to the test. Fingers crossed everything goes to plan.

Have a lovely evening/day
Polly

Caterina

Good evening, ah well, some you win, some you lose. The meal out, which I had paid for in advance, proved to be such a shambles, this was part of a gala run for a permaculture conference. Supposed to be lovely food, music, elderflower drinks...the queue was such a mess, nobody knew where it started or went. All these old hippies were so full of endorphins, coming from their perma-encounter, but DH and I arrived there, after a days work, tired and hungry. I would not even minded having to queue for the food, if there had been less chaos and a bit of a normal queue. No, they had to make it the permaculture way and make it go into a spiral. Gimme patience!

After realising that we would probably starve before arriving at the food, and then it would have probably been finished, we decided to cut our losses and went away. Lost £20 but gained in sanity.

It reminded me why, every time I had some sort of encounter with anthying vaguely "permaculture" I got mega disappointed, or irritated, or both! I am not exactly what one would call "square", but dear me, that scene is a bit too alternative even for old hippy me. Not to speak about DH!

So we ended up in a nice veggie Indian buffet restaurant where for the grand sum of £6.50 per person we could eat to our heart and tummy's fill. Then for dessert we went to w8rose around the corner, bought ice cream and drank free tea. Total spend £16 for the two of us, not counting the £20 which was an inevitable and unexpected loss. All out of entertainment budget, so a shopping NSD.

We also had a nice walk, saw a part of town where we had never been, found a nature reserve that we plan to visit in future and had an overall really lovely evening out in spite of the perma-failure!

Good night.

Caterina

Hello,

Another nice NSD and I gave DD a whole load of veg from the fridge but, alas, I won't be able to switch it off because it is joined to the freezer, I don't think they work independently, and I did not manage to empty the freezer. However I have made serious inroads towards it and will finish the job when I get back.

Tomorrow will see us eat crumbs from the bottom of the bread bin and scales from the bottom of the fridge hehehe. And some frozen peas from the massive stash in the freezer!

Good night.

amandaatnumber7

Hi eveyone and welcome Lesson Learned :hello:

Thanks for the link Caterina :T
The permaculture dinner sounds like a nightmare :eek::eek:

We had a unseasonably warm day yesterday of 30C so hubby and I took the little boys for a picnic dinner at the park where we had our engagement party. It was a really nice for a change and apparently its forecast rain for the next 3-4 days.

I had a bit of a spending day yesterday but I got some very cheap clothes, pants down from $79.95 for $10!! and couple of presents to put away for xmas.

My DS1 has a specialist appointment today which is going to set me back almost $200 so I'll need to tighten belts a lot this week and have quite a few nsd.

I've loads of lemons on my tree so I really need to find some time to make some lemon curd and preserved lemons.

Have a lovely OS day

Caterina

Hi all,

Amandaatnumber7 preserved lemons are wonderful, it's one of the staples in the fridge that I did not manage to finish but they will keep well so I am not worried. I chop them finely in every stew and salad, they have a very interesting flavour.

And yes the permaculture dinner looked like a car wreck. Never again!

End of challenge today and will have to declare it bust, as I need to eat out today for practical reasons (running all over the place). Same with DH, I had to ask him to buy his own lunch today as I emptied fridge and pantry to a point where there's nothing portable, other than tinned tuna, without salad or anything else!

But I am not too bothered because we have done well overall. Tonight we will have pasta or rice with cauliflower and the last carrot and onion, some frozen peas and veg sausages from the freezer, tomorrow for breakfast the last 3 eggs with 2 ancient pitta breads from the freezer and then we are off on our holiday.

Have a good day.

pollys

Have a wonderful holiday Caterina.

We too have spent today. I had a meeting straight after work and have two extra for tea. I knew the boys would be starving so I bought in pizza and burgers from the supermarket. I didn't feel good buying items I could make or buy better quality from the farm shop but needs must. Sometimes arrangements have to be changed at the last minute and I was helping a very good friend out.
Apart from the shopping glitch we are doing well. I'm up to date with the washing and ironing. The house is tidy but will need a clean tomorrow. We are out for most of the weekend so it's important we keep up with our good intentions.
Have a restful evening.

Polly

meanmarie

Really trying to keep spending to a minimum, hopefully we have enough food for the rest of the month, allegedly food has gone down in price here, but I cant see it....mind you I dont envy you having to feed a family in WA Amanda, DD 3 lives in Perth and I was horrified at food prices when I visited her in 2012.

Apples will be our fruit of choice to keep costs down, trees are fruiting well this year, now if I could only find some ripe blackberries, very late this year here, hopefully I can get some.
Really need my bed, very tired.

Marie

amandaatnumber7

meanmarie wrote: »

Really trying to keep spending to a minimum, hopefully we have enough food for the rest of the month, allegedly food has gone down in price here, but I cant see it....mind you I dont envy you having to feed a family in WA Amanda, DD 3 lives in Perth and I was horrified at food prices when I visited her in 2012.
Marie

The cost of living in WA is really high, a hangover from the mining boom. Vintage is trendy and you very rarely find a good find in an op shop (charity shop) any more. I use to op shop a lot when my eldest was little, clothes and toys but these days its just the odd find here and there and its generally for the kitchen not the kids.

Hubby and I are actually thinking about moving interstate to change our lifestyle, go back to just one of us working (him ) And have more time together as a family but still be able to afford to take the kids away and have some adventures.
Our current situation is good in the respect that that constant stress about money has gone but we don't have much time together as a family, its about finding a balance

Or a lotto win :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Caterina have a wonderful holiday :cool2:

amandaatnumber7

Well we didnt win lotto

Not too much to report from this end, DS4 and baked some GF cookies on monday, they turned out ok but a bit dry. I still havent made any lemon butter but I have found a recipe for lemon marmalade which looks delish
I'm seeing my Mum today and I'm thinking of telling her about our plans to move :eek::eek:
I'm really not sure how she'll react.

Have a lovely day