£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 63: Day 6

Morning! A quick one this morning in between rushing around.

Funny moment last night - they had camping chairs in Lidl and I sent DH a message asking if we should get them (we have been discussing chairs and a table for perhaps two years) and he said 'best not - think of the budget.' I pointed out that we actually have £300 in the holiday pot and when I got home (i didn't buy them) he said he'd forgotten that the upside of all this budgeting and not spending is that there's money for things when we need them. Made me smile. It is so nice to actually have money in advance of needing it. Although still not getting the chairs, as we want to pay for a camping trip and buy a trailer before anything else camping related. That reminds me, must set up an eBay search for the trailer.

Experimenting with gluten free baking last night and made flourless chocolate cookies. They are a bit too sweet for me, but quite nice. Definitely a lot of progress to be made on this gluten free thing.

Ooh, have doubled my 'rounding down' pot target for April (£60 rather than £30), how pleasing. Have paid £473.27 off the debt in April, compared to a minimum budgeted sum of £308.

Three things to do today:
1. Clean the bathroom.
2. Bread out of freezer
3. Plan tomorrow once clients have gone.

Debt repayment:
- £60.18/30 April rounding down pot.
- £2,051.77/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

XSpender

I make Marry Berry's Victoria Sponge with gluten free flour and an extra egg for the rise and most people cant tell the difference.

8oz of GF flour, butter and sugar (I usually use 6oz of sugar), 1tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla and 5 eggs. Chuck it all in the same bowl and mix it together. Bake for about 25 minutes.

You can change the flavour like a normal sponge by adding coffee, cocoa etc. Or put lemon curd, jam, syrup under it in ramekins to make little sponge puddings or use to top stewed fruit for Eve's pudding or slices of tinned fruit for an upside down cake. Or make in to buns.

Can you tell this is my go to pudding? :rotfl:

Treadingonplaymobil

XSpender wrote: »

I make Marry Berry's Victoria Sponge with gluten free flour and an extra egg for the rise and most people cant tell the difference.

8oz of GF flour, butter and sugar (I usually use 6oz of sugar), 1tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla and 5 eggs. Chuck it all in the same bowl and mix it together. Bake for about 25 minutes.

You can change the flavour like a normal sponge by adding coffee, cocoa etc. Or put lemon curd, jam, syrup under it in ramekins to make little sponge puddings or use to top stewed fruit for Eve's pudding or slices of tinned fruit for an upside down cake. Or make in to buns.

Can you tell this is my go to pudding? :rotfl:

Thank you! That's super helpful. Have not even attempted gf sponge yet.

Treadingonplaymobil

I have made a teensy bit more money today, which means the total I need to earn per day from 1st May onwards has dropped again. From £29.77 down to £29.23. Every little helps!

Have also made another debt overpayment, having paid all the 'rounding down' money from my business account and the percentage towards overpaying from my extra income this morning. debt repayments this month now stand at £485.28! That's around £172 overpayment, the rest is minimum payments.

My challenge now my clients have gone is not to collapse in a heap and drink tea until DH gets home with the DCs. Usually I write the whole day off when I have clients, but actually if I can power through I still have a good few hours left to achieve things before the end of the day, and it's this extra time which will make the difference when it comes to earning (or not) that £5k towards the extension this year.

Three things to do today:
1. Clean the bathroom.
2. Bread out of freezer
3. Plan tomorrow once clients have gone. Guess what I'm doing next.

Mini goals:
- £72.19/30 April rounding down pot.
- £2,064.53/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

kayannie

Although I love reading this diary, I don't usually join in. However, I have just read that you are experimenting with gluten free baking. I am no expert, but have been baking gluten free cakes, biscuits etc for the last 48 years since my DD2 was diagnosed as a coeliac. I find that, if making a sponge-like cake, it is vastly improved by substituting half of the GF flour with ground almonds. The only drawback is the added cost, but for an extra nice cake it is worth it, & I find the almonds are cheapest at @ldi.
KA

[Deleted User]

You've well and truly smashed that rounding down target! Well done!

Treadingonplaymobil

kayannie wrote: »

Although I love reading this diary, I don't usually join in. However, I have just read that you are experimenting with gluten free baking. I am no expert, but have been baking gluten free cakes, biscuits etc for the last 48 years since my DD2 was diagnosed as a coeliac. I find that, if making a sponge-like cake, it is vastly improved by substituting half of the GF flour with ground almonds. The only drawback is the added cost, but for an extra nice cake it is worth it, & I find the almonds are cheapest at @ldi.
KA

Thanks for the tip!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 63: Day 7

Almost at the end of April. I feel like it's been a good solid sensible month, in budget/MS terms. Nothing wildly exciting has happened, but I've been able to keep on top of everything, and am ending the month with the savings pots intact (assuming no dramas tomorrow). I'll do a proper round up then. I know I keep saying this, but getting to the end of the month with money (especially money which totals in the thousands between the business and personal accounts) still in the bank still impresses me enormously.

Looking forward to submitting my contract work invoice tomorrow - it will cover all of August's expenses/salary (to keep me up to three months' buffer) and then the leftovers will be divided up as usual. Once I have a buffer up to October sorted I'll be able to relax a lot, as I know that even if work dries up completely, I'll get through the really lean part of the year without any problems - last year it was not earning from June-September (and not saving to cover that period) that completely messed up my budgets and resulted in using the CC.

Lots of batch cooking to do today, in between work - DH and I are going to sit down over breakfast and work out who is going to do what, as part of the deal with me trying to earn this extra money is that more chores get done on the weekend. He took the DCs out for the whole day yesterday, with the aim of staying at home today. Ooh, and we are having a fry up for breakfast today, haven't had one for aaages, not since Christmas day! So expensive to get sausages and bacon for five, but feels like such a treat.

Many things to do today (hopefully not all by me):
1. Bake gf bread
2. bake muffins for snacks.
3. make oatcakes - the ones I whipped up last week were a huge hit, randomly.
4. make quiche (must rescue a couple of rashers of bacon before cooking breakfast).
5. make something else for packed lunches - I'm wonder if some sort of veggie meatball might be possible. Will be on Pinterest shortly...
6. roast all the sad veg in the fridge - I can freeze them and pull them out for lunches during the week.
7. Make dal for lunch/dinner (I cooked lentils on Friday then realised I didn't have any onions, so the cooked lentils have been in the fridge ever since).
8. set up ebay trailer search.
9. finish contract work for next week. Must try and get further ahead with this during next week.
10. order masa harina - I want to try making corn tortillas and apparently this is the thing to use (I'm assuming it's very fine cornmeal). It's available on Amazon.
11. make go-with-anything cake for pudding tonight. I've made this a few times and it's yum.
12. order a new A2 pad stand for work - I managed to finally terminally break mine yesterday. :eek:
13. chase an Amazon refund I was promised weeks ago after an incorrect item was sent then the correct one never arrived.
14. plan next week's work.
15. start a new knitting project.
16. driving license update
17. sort the garden for veg planting - if the weather holds!
18. plant the strawberries and potatoes out. Can tomatoes go out now too?
19. email the architect with my 'improvements' to discuss next Friday when he comes over.
20. clear the ironing.
21. tidy the DCs bedroom
22. tidy our bedroom.
23. tip run with all the recycling that can't go in the kerbside collection.

I think that's probably enough for now...

Mini goals:
- £72.19/30 April rounding down pot.
- £2,064.53/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.

Suffolk_lass

Re tomatoes - You can put your tomatoes out during the day, but I would bring them in at night (assumes they are in pots and not a grow bag). I would do this for at least a week if you have been growing them on indoors to "harden them off". Otherwise it is a bit of a shock for them and an unexpected touch of the 2 degrees will turn them white and dead.

Or you could pop some bubble wrap (repurposing some you have already, given your plastic views) or similar commodity with insulating properties, around them for the next week or two of chilly evenings. It is the 4am thing that gets them.

One more bit of advice - tomatoes and Potatoes are the same family and so you should never grow them in the same soil (or repeat plant them year after year) or you may get blight (slimy rot). So if your garden is small, consider a large container for your potatoes (some great bag options available) and a grow bag split between three old shrub-pots for your tomatoes. Start using diluted tomato feed when they start flowering.

pennyforthepot

Just popping my head round the door before heading back to page 55 as I wanted to share my joy at the purchase of the washing up bowl :j

Heading back now - desperate to find out if you finished the fence :rotfl:

Great diary, talk about being thrown to the lions, a true gladiator with your responses. I can't 'turn the pages' quick enough. I blame you for losing 2 days of my life

PFTP X