NST: September: the Turtles go Wombling

apple_muncher

Fmess - come and sit on the sofa and have a relax. You are working so hard and I am personally proud to know you and see what you are doing to fight the debt. It rose by a LOT earlier this year and you are fighting tooth and nail to reduce it. You are an inspiration! I hope you get your payrise x. Could you focus on the £300 to payoff by Christmas, if the other is on 0%, as that may be more achievable? And NO WAY would we suggest cutting back on your doggies!!!!!!

Stewby - if I recall rightly, even kat spent £100 per month on food for just her. Maybe up the budget for October (double it?) and see how you get on. It is much nicer to come in under a generous budget than struggle to stay within a tight one. I agree with dolly about using some of the credit card money to buy in some staples.

498louise - we never buy the school artwork cards (stingy us!). However, could you make a copy of them and make your own cards? Either scan it in and then print onto card, or colour photocopy it on to card. And well done on sending the voucher thingy back - respect!! I've never had one, but would send it straight back.


My food ideas may be a tad weird as I'm trying to eat in a more primal/keto style. I don't always manage it, but have been struggling with anxiety recently and keeping totally off sugar and grains helps tremendously with that. So, having forewarned you, here's what I've made recently: my version of fat bombs, given that I have no coconut oil in the house: mix together a tub of whipped cream with a tub of cream cheese with 200g almond nut butter. Put into ice cube containers and freeze. Love them!

misstara

Stewby our food budget is £130 for two people and we normally manage to stick to it. However, luckily I eat at work for free which saves us a huge amount of money, we do most of our shopping in Aldee and OH doesn't have a big appetite. If it wasn't for that, we'd really struggle. I think there's a few threads about eating on a budget over on the old style section of MSE if you haven't already had a look.

Louise well done for thinking through the spree book purchase and deciding that it's not good value for you.

Fmess sorry to hear you're feeling down, sending hugs. Fingers crossed for that pay rise.

Did our weekly shop at Aldee yesterday so no NSD, went to the gym though so 5/12. Had a girlie lunch round at my friends house and spent most of the afternoon there which was lovely. Today will be a NSD as I'm just at work all day. Had a couple of hours break so have been watching rugby - looking forward to Scotland's first game on Wednesday - and then I start back work at 2.30pm.

On the meal plan this week:
Tonight - scrambled eggs and toast (just had a huge lunch so won't need much later)
Tomorrow - roast beef, tatties and veg, going to attempt some gf yorkies too
Tuesday - Beef stew using up leftovers
Wednesday - Salad with sliced cold beef if there's any leftover
Thursday - Spaghetti bolognese
Friday - Cauliflower cheese, crusty bread

academiablues

Afternoon all! Apple, oh my GOODNESS I want your fat bombs (I'm lactose intolerant so definitely not, but they sound AMAZING!!). Fmess, maybe posting a SOA might be a good idea, just to get it all out there? Definitely never going to suggest cutting down on the doggies, but if you could save a fiver here and a few pounds there, it might be worth it?
We spend £40 a week on shopping and sometimes don't even manage that, but we eat the same things day in, day out and don't really mind not having much variety, so if I make a HUGE vat of chilli we'll eat that every night for a couple of weeks. OH has also adapted to eating like me (smaller meals) so I don't have to feed him extra!
Went to London yesterday - OH had tickets for the Rocky Horror, which was very good. I insisted on taking food with us, so we only had to buy one meal out rather than two. New oven came today and is very nice and wasn't too pricey got a friend coming over this week so I've been looking at new recipes, going to try "teriyaki cauliflower bowls" (if you put that into google, the first one that comes up) - might do rice rather than cauliflower though, depends how "chef-y" I'm feeling! Hoping next week will be low-spend, and then it's payday the week after, woop! Have a lovely Sunday everyone x

Synonymous

Hey everyone, hope you're all having a good weekend! I'm showered and clean after the allotment and have a few minutes spare before heading to the Buddhist centre for a festival.

11SFDs here but will spend tonight on drinks at a birthday party. Running low on fresh stuff but will switch to frozen soup for lunch and freezer stuff for tea, and make a fruit loaf in the bread maker for morning toast. Still drowning in apples from the allotment!

Stewby, My food budget for just me (including household and toiletries) is £60. So yes, on the one hand I think you can do it at £120 for two, but depends on what you eat, how your eating differs as a pair etc. If there were two of me at my house I would save money as there are lots of things that are hard to use up for one person unless you want to eat the same thing everyday. But if I shared with someone who liked different treat food/alcohol/sandwich fillings/didn't want to batch cook then it would probably be more as we wouldn't be able to save on bulk buying and would have two sets of weaknesses to contend with! My main shop is at Aldi which makes a huge difference, then I get some things at the Asda up the road which I know I can get cashback for on Shopitize. I think apple's idea of doubling the food budget might work for some, but could be a disaster for someone like me who loves food and would go a bit mental buying stuff that's not healthy Do you know how much you are going over budget by each month for the last 3 months? Maybe have a meat-free day each week? Or a thrifty day where you have beans on toast or something for tea.

On a different note, some people recommend getting your EF in place before overpaying your mortgage as it's a lot harder (or impossible) to get the money back out of the mortgage if you need it later, and you could end up going back into debt if you have a big emergency spend. So it could be a good idea to switch your saving goals once you're debt-free, so that you pay more to the EF/wedding savings and OP less to the mortgage until the EF is full. Just a thought, but of course you know what's right for the two of you.

Fmess, could you post an SOA as if you weren't a dog owner? Extract their costs from your budget and don't mention them? Then people wont get hung up on them and will give you other constructive ideas. Our gas and electric even with lodgers is about £40/mth in winter so there might be things you can do to bring it down - singlie things like half as many showers should bring the costs down now too. You mentioned you have a big car, and I guess that can help with the dogs? But if you don't transport them all very often, could you downsize and save on fuel/tax etc? Having a lodger could also be a great thing especially when you're not used to living alone - I've done this for five years on and off and overall it's been a great experience, and income boost.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone

crazy_cat_lady

Hey everyone
Think I might finally be done for the weekend with a couple of spare hours to relax
It's been another busy weekend but I am getting there - slowly but surely. I'm not doing well with NSD's though - took DD to the cinema for her birthday yesterday, then had to spend £2.89 for something I had forgotten today. Once back at work then I should be racking up the NSD's again. I have no choice really as my budget is mega tight to get to the end of the month.
I've done my batch cooking today:
chicken curry with cauliflower rice
chicken and chorizo kebabs with roast veggies
gammon steaks with mash and veggies
I have some beetroot left in my veggie box, and am rather embarrassed to admit that I have never cooked beetroot before, so I'll need to investigate what to do with it.

apple_muncher

academia - my 'basic' fat bomb recipe is 90g coconut oil, 60g butter , 20g cocoa (and poss peanut butter, or ground almonds). The original recipe added stevia or some other sweetener, but I never have. So, you could do 90g coconut oil, 60g margarine, 20g cocoa, and take it from there. Be warned, before you melt them all together and pour into ice cube molds, pur the ice cube tray on a plate so as to drop as little as possible on the floor (here speaks the voice of experience...!)

Discovering cashew nut butter is heaven!

I confess to having just finished off a LOAD of my mix, it is that good! And I know that so long as I keep off the sugar and grains, I'm okay.

dolly84

Fmess - hang in there, you are doing so well. Pets are an expense these days, when me and DH got our first dog and cat it wasn't expensive to keep them at all, no one had pet insurance and vet bills were totally affordable.

DH put diesel in the car and we have £12 left from this months fuel budget so that has been transferred to the debt today.

Got the fish in Tesco, what a faff trying to get it as near to the £4 voucher as possible (paid 3p extra), you have to be at £4 or more for the voucher to work and obviously Tesco want you to spend more but there's just no way I will go over by much. They want me to trial the products after all.

Calling14

Managed to gain 2 Sfd.

I am totally lacking in energy this weekend and besides a wee walk today been a lazy mere.

Dolly84 your so right, whereas I would love another doggie, the thought of vet bills always scared me. Luckily my last doggie besides annual injections never visited the vets. Going to wait until next year before making any decisions.

It must be the time of year to feel flat. I still craving a mini break away going to plan for October hopefully.

Need to sort out my utility bills tomorrow fixed tariff gas/electric runs out October and talk talk price increase, need to sort that as well.

Dentist tomorrow dreading the cost. Check up but so many dodgy teeth.

Calling14

What are fat bombs used for?

apple_muncher

Calling14 wrote: »

What are fat bombs used for?

Eating! Heard about them via Lilty

( but only really in a high fat, moderate protein, low carb sort of way. Low carb being lots of veggies and some berries really. It trains the body to use fat for fuel instead of carbs.)

I aim to be a lean, mean, fighting machine instead of the current flump shape + feel :rotfl:. Or just feel good and possibly look halfway decent when I go swimming. Begone, oh beached whale