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

Silver_Queen

The aubergine and chorizo stew sounds really interesting. Do you have a recipe you could share when you get a minute?

Interesting to hear how your finances are being split. It sounds like a large amount of your guilt about not contributing enough to the budget etc was actually pretty misplaced, given that you really have things under control now.

You actually inspired me to take up yoga last year, and it's something that I really love now. I really notice the difference in my mindset and body (re: aches and tense bits) when I don't practise for a week or two. So, thank you for that

db2016

welcome back,

just make sure any new places don't have a £50 or whatever it was washing up bowl!

Verbatim

Thanks TOPM
Of course, links. Doh. The simplest explanation ofter eludes me.

Treadingonplaymobil

Hello everyone! Thought I'd pop in for a midweek update.

I've adjusted this week's menu plan a little - I have loads of leftovers from my solo meal last night, so I'm going to take that home with me and do a bit of a freezer dive for the DCs. If there's enough in the freezer for XH and the kids to also eat leftovers on Friday (rather than switching tonight's meal to Friday) then I'm going to try freezing the tofu I have for tonight's meal, as apparently it changes the texture completely (for the better) and I'm kind of intrigued! Also means I can have it next week, rather than leaving it for XH to cook when he'll be rushed with Friday clubs etc. I'm already kind of looking forward to doing next week's menu plan and seeing if I can meet my underspending challenge for the month - I'll need to do the rest of the month on a shade over £100 in order to do it. Fingers crossed!

I had a bit of a baking day in between bits of paperwork yesterday, and achieved:
- Many portions (maybe 5? 6?) aubergine chorizo stew in the freezer for lunches (recipe below)
- four loaves of sourdough
- a couple of dozen bread rolls to freeze for lunches (I have a load of cooked ham in the freezer so this will do for the planned 'batch cook for lunches' from the menu plan for now).
- a batch of flapjacks for school snacks.
- a batch of granola bars for snacks/breakfasts on busy days.
- Made a hugely indulgent chocolate ginger cake with leftover ingredients from Christmas. Looking forward to the DCs enjoying it later.

Aubergine and chorizo stew recipe
3tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
120g mushrooms, sliced
1 aubergine, diced
1 tsp mixed herbs
100g chorizo ring, diced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
400g tin chopped tomatoes (if I double the recipe I generally use three tins rather than two)
1 red pepper

Sweat the onion in the oil for a few minutes, then add mushrooms, aubergine, herbs and chorizo. Cook for another 5 mins or so. Add garlic, fry briefly then add tinned tomatoes. Cook for a good 40 mins on a gentle simmer.

Because there aren't many ingredients, the flavour is pretty simple - it's best made the day before and left to sit overnight, as it all develops and becomes much more interesting. I usually make double or even quadruple the quantity, as chorizos tend to come in 200g size *(I just get the bog standard chorizo ring they sell in Morrisons).

What else is going on? Not much really. I seriously dialled back my To Do list this week, and it's really nice. I'm feeling pretty on top of things! I need to get my tax return done, then I can really start to look at my plans and goals for 2020 in earnest. It's going to be really hard to make concrete plans until I know what the deal is going to be with XH, but I can still set a direction to travel in in terms of my life and my business, and the more I can move in that direction, the less vulnerable I'll be to whatever ends up being agreed with XH.

Silver Queen thank you! I'm so glad you're enjoying yoga. And yes, I think I had a lot of misplaced guilt around our finances. I've really realised how much XH totally abdicated any responsibility, while still spending without guilt. I feel like I've grown up and learned so much about myself, about my finances, about life in the last year or so.

Sea Shell good point, thanks for making it. She seems nice, but you're right to point out that she's very much going to be on XH's side, not mine, which is how it should be.

Isitdoable my DCs are theoretically old enough not to wake in the night, but DC1 is frequently up till 11:30pm because he struggles to drop off, DC2 is up from 6 and DC3 frequently wakes (albeit very briefly) in the night. So although it's nothing like the early days, making sure I get enough sleep can still be a bit of a challenge!

Right, need to go and pack up my stuff to move back from new chap's to my house (this is one of the most draining aspects of the whole separation, I loathe packing up my life every couple of days, and can't afford duplicates of anything, so I'm really feeling very homeless). It's made me determined to make sure the DCs feel as grounded and rooted as possible in both their homes, with multiples of anything humanly possible, so they don't feel like they're packing up their lives every few days).

lucielle

I spent most of last week reading your diary. I was conscious as I got closer to the end that there weren't enough pages for the coming year, so really glad you're posting again.

Good luck with your business and hope the divorce goes through smoothly.

L

Honeysucklelou2

So are you having to cook at new chaps and transfer food as well? Even more impressed at your organisational skills . Will be trying the chocolate ginger cake, sounds amazing!

Kantankrus_Mare

Thanks for the aubergine stew recipe! Will jot it down to try sometime.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Hi Topm - really good to see you back here.

I reread quite a bit of your diary recently hunting out recipes you've previously shared - there should so be a 'find this recipe option' on this forum.

Once again you are proving yourself Superwoman splitting yourself in multiple parts for the best for the children. Just remember to look after yourself too. Grief for your situation may poke its ugly head up at some point and bite you on the bum!

How are the children doing through all of this? Has dc1 starting secondary school now? I can't quite work out where we are up to.

I'm trying to think of a TOPM approach to the lack of doubles of stuff when you are house swapping - decanting stuff into repurposed jars? Hairdryers/straighteners etc as birthday pressies? Although I guess the swapping isn't a long term situation (it may be a medium term one) so not particularly frugal or environmental to double up and I don't think charity shops sell electricals do they? Maybe just putting the word out amongst friends you are looking for any they've got lurking in the back of their cupboards.
Have a good evening.

Wish.

Treadingonplaymobil

Hi everyone! Just finishing up this week’s menu plan/food shop, so it seemed as good a time as any to update here.

Honeysucklelou2 to answer your question, yes, mostly baking at new chap’s house! Single layer food like biscuits or oven chips are doable at mine, but things like a big roast or a cake are completely impossible.

Wishingthemortgageaway the lack of searchability is one of the main downsides of a diary format! I’ve thought a few times about shifting to a blog and copying over posts from here, recipes, mindset stuff etc.

DC1 starts secondary in September, so we’ll get school confirmed in the spring. Fingers crossed! All three have been amazing, although DC1 struggled with the very early days of the news, I think more fear of transition/what it meant. XH and I have been absolutely determined to make it as stable and positive for them as possible, and I’m tentatively confident we’re doing ok so far.

The biggest constant packing/doubling up issues are:
1. clothing - I have a pretty capsule wardrobe, so not enough for sufficient clothes in both places. This includes sports gear (yoga and running).
2. Ingredients for recipes - cooking at new chap’s and ferrying ingredients one way and finished dishes the other is tedious. He has no room for all my stuff, and also I do cook at home too, so spices, flour, sugar etc all used in both spaces.
3. Outdoor gear - waterproofs, walking boots etc. All bulky, all used regularly in both places.
4. Weighing scales (for people, not food). This one is ridiculous, but I weigh myself daily and that one bit of control stops me being obsessive about my weight (my mother was obsessed with me being fat as a teen. I don’t think it’s done my body image any favours).

So, other stuff...

Ginger cake feedback - excellent, but could have been a thinner cake to improve the cake:icing:crystallised ginger ratio. I will make again, but with half the cake ingredients (apart from the ginger in the cake, which made a lovely sticky layer).

XH and I have our first joint mediation session this week. I SO hope it goes smoothly, and that we can start to make progress towards sorting the house/debt/assets/childcare schedule situation out. It's all so up in the air, and I desperately want to be able to move things forwards.

However, regardless of what is agreed, something that I've become really ridiculously clear on over the past six months is that I need independence, freedom and choice. And that means being financially stable by myself, regardless of my relationship, with a good solid income which is significantly higher than my bare minimum needs, so I can put plenty by for a rainy day/begin to think about retirement income. With that in mind, I've been spending today on business planning for 2020, and I'm feeling pretty positive about what I can accomplish. I find it amazing, in a way, that I sacrificed this freedom/choice for so long (I mean, I know it was so I could be there for my children etc, so it's not like I regret it). But it's one of the main reasons I'm self employed rather than employed, and I need to start making it pay and allowing myself to reap the rewards of self employment rather than seeing it as a limiting factor which keeps me to a small income.

I'm pretty epically pleased with my menu planning and budgeting this month. Including this week's shop, which will take me up to the last couple of days of the month, my food spend (including solo food shops) is at £240. I'm expecting the total for the month to be £290 or so, but that will be a food shop which will do half of the first week of February's food.

Menu planning
I’ve been trying to keep notes this week of things that we either have a lot of or that have been hanging around a while. The list looks like this:
- popcorn
- suet
- dried fruit for mincemeat mince pies etc (unused bulk purchase made by a friend and donated to me - I have about 2kg of ready mixed raisins/sultanas/currants/mixed peel)
- prunes
- apricots
- rice crispies
- marshmallows
- macaroni
- batch cooked soft rolls in freezer
- batch cooked granola bars in freezer
- red wine (gifts)

With that in mind, the menu plan currently looks like this:

Monday
Breakfast - porridge (chia pudding for me pretty much every day, as I've found it's improved my somewhat temperamental gut SO much)
Lunch - pizza slices
Snack - fruit
Dinner - Cauli/tofu korma

Tuesday
Breakfast - french toast and stewed fruit
Lunch - sausage rolls
Snack - popcorn
Dinner - macaroni cheese with bacon

Wednesday
Breakfast - porridge
Lunch - leftover macaroni cheese
Snack - granola bars
Dinner - soup from freezer and homemade sourdough

Thursday
Breakfast - granola, yoghurt and fruit
Lunch - soup from freezer
Snack - biscuits/cake
Dinner - choose meal with DC3 tonight and add to shop, lemon pudding

Friday
Breakfast - porridge
Lunch - savoury popcorn
Snack - toast and jam
Dinner - beef stew and dumplings (use up suet and wine)

Saturday
Breakfast - pikelets
Lunch - carrot, ginger and turmeric soup with fresh sourdough
Snack - fruit
Dinner - fish and chips, prune cake

Sunday
Breakfast - porridge
Lunch - freezer dive
Snack - fruit
Dinner - freezer dive

to make
mincemeat - salted caramel, pear or similar (NB dough in freezer)
rice crispy squares
oatcakes if short on snacks

enthusiasticsaver

Good post TOPM. If you are thinking of a blog format rather than a diary check out The Frugal Cottage which is a blog by another MSE member slowlyfading. She does recipes but is also aiming towards FIRE but the format may be something you could adapt for you, including recipes, mindfulness stuff and so on. You could still keep the diary but put links to the blog in your post. Niknak does one for her sepsis recovery story too.

I am impressed with your food budgeting this month and can appreciate this must be difficult splitting yourself between two houses. Hopefully 2020 will be the year you see your business developing further and some clarification on the debt/house/childcare etc post separation. From all accounts it is not a quick process though.