Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

Honeysucklelou2

XSpender said:

Honeysucklelou2 said:

I find meal planning to be essential...I’ve done it so often now that DD2 requests 2 pieces of paper on a Friday morning and we’ll write a meal plan and list together! My food budget was between £600 and £800 to feed 9 of us ( the upper end was school holidays) but it’s now around the £400 mark. I’ve had to be more savvy because the higher figures were unsustainable. We have a jacket potato tea once a week, a pasta based meal, kedgeree is becoming quite a favourite and pasties often feature. We probably have meat 4 times a week and vegetable based meals the rest of the time. Sometimes the most satisfying meals can be the most simple, like egg on toast.

That you can feed your family of 9 so well, and with all that lovely baking, for less than we spend on 3 just shows me that we can cut back a lot further. I have found a new pasta recipe to try but I could do with some more to make a change from a jar of tomato and cheese pasta bake. I make some nice veggie pasties using wraps for pastry but they are not so cheap with GF wraps for me.  Maybe is should try making GF pastry again? 

The GF ingredients are expensive aren’t they, so that will affect your grocery budget.  Are there ever any yellow stickered GF foods available in the supermarket?  A book that I’ve found quite useful for meals is a cookbook by R*verford. They sell veg boxes  but have  also done an Autumn/winter cookbook and a Spring/Summer one. We’ve had kale hash from these books which has proved popular and adaptable and a recipe for a rather colourful beetroot curry. The recipes are quite useful for helping me to see how much more versatile vegetables can be!

XSpender

Honeysucklelou2 said:

XSpender said:

Honeysucklelou2 said:

I find meal planning to be essential...I’ve done it so often now that DD2 requests 2 pieces of paper on a Friday morning and we’ll write a meal plan and list together! My food budget was between £600 and £800 to feed 9 of us ( the upper end was school holidays) but it’s now around the £400 mark. I’ve had to be more savvy because the higher figures were unsustainable. We have a jacket potato tea once a week, a pasta based meal, kedgeree is becoming quite a favourite and pasties often feature. We probably have meat 4 times a week and vegetable based meals the rest of the time. Sometimes the most satisfying meals can be the most simple, like egg on toast.

That you can feed your family of 9 so well, and with all that lovely baking, for less than we spend on 3 just shows me that we can cut back a lot further. I have found a new pasta recipe to try but I could do with some more to make a change from a jar of tomato and cheese pasta bake. I make some nice veggie pasties using wraps for pastry but they are not so cheap with GF wraps for me.  Maybe is should try making GF pastry again? 

The GF ingredients are expensive aren’t they, so that will affect your grocery budget.  Are there ever any yellow stickered GF foods available in the supermarket?  A book that I’ve found quite useful for meals is a cookbook by R*verford. They sell veg boxes  but have  also done an Autumn/winter cookbook and a Spring/Summer one. We’ve had kale hash from these books which has proved popular and adaptable and a recipe for a rather colourful beetroot curry. The recipes are quite useful for helping me to see how much more versatile vegetables can be!

I did pick up some GF bread rolls 12 for 75p instead of £3 yesterday and always keep my eye out for reduced GF bread.  These were Morries own and are OK, a bit like an English muffin, and as you have to toast GF bread to make it edible they are fine. The rolls I prefer are £2 for 4 or the loaf is £3.50. I try not to have bread everyday because of the cost and have had some success with egg wraps (very thin omelette).

Thanks for the reminder about the Riverford cook book! I have the Veg one and a seasonal one I got free with a box and will have a look through them this afternoon once I have mucked out the house.

XSpender

janb5 said:

Amazing progress and you`ve inspired me to set to and do a meal planner!
If you have any left over bread, fruit and veg you can utilize the freezer.  the bread can be broken up and dried out in the oven or on a low heat until hard and then made into crumbs in liquidiser.  Could used it in cauliflower cheese or mac. cheese.  Any odd fruit could be frozen ready for crumbles and the veg frozen ready to add to a soup or added to spag bol.
Always handy to have a odds and sods box for odd portions of food to be used up for lunches or Pot Luck night.
Some things just seem to miss the stocktake and ` hide`` in the frig!

I never thought of drying and then crumbing the bread before freezing.  It would be much easier to use like that. Thanks for the tip 🙂

apple_muncher

I use lettuce leaves as wraps. So rarely get reduced gf items, and it costs us enough just buying for dd, so I try to avoid the expensive 'replacements'...

Suffolk_lass

I add cauliflower or broccoli (or both) to macaroni cheese. Leeks are good too and with a bit of pasta.

Another cheats tea is some of the rigatoni or pacheri, (only about 6-10 bits per serving) with 4-5 small meatballs, a little tomato (jar) sauce poured over then sprinkle with some grated strong cheese, under the grill for 5-10 minutes - we use small 6" diameter cast iron pans and eat it out of the pan on a board - we had it in either Ask or Zelli's years ago and I copied it - a great alternative to pizza for a Saturday night supper (especially if "cocktails" ie a pre supper drink and snack are involved)

XSpender

Thanks for the wrap and easy meal ideas.  Spud and pud night has gone down well this evening.

I am shattered today even after a decent nights sleep last night.  I feel an early night coming on.  I’m also fed up as I found out, 3 days before pay day, that we are not getting 100% of our bonus.  First time ever and due to business performance not my performance 🙁 Its not a huge amount and I am grateful to still have a job and to get any bonus at all in the current climate but it is a bit disappointing.  

DH is having the pressure piled on at work and it is at times like this I wish we had other streams of income so we’re less dependant on our salaries and had less outgoings so we could manage on less.  Oh well, we are where we are so will just on keeping on keeping on.

Mr T sent me a nice £9 off £60 spend voucher so they will be getting my money this weekend and I will transfer the £9 to my Feb savings pot.  

I am currently reading the millionaire next door and am enjoying it, I can’t believe I haven’t read it before as I was so familiar with the title.  I am on target to achieve my 1 book a week for 2020 although I don’t feel like I have read as much in January as I usually do.  

1 more DD to leave the account and I can move everything but my £100 buffer over to the ISA and update my signature 🙂

Suffolk_lass

If you fancy a bit of light relief The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is very easy and a bit of a romp - it's also the Book at Bedtime on R4 if you wanted to podcast it while doing something else

XSpender

Suffolk_lass said:

If you fancy a bit of light relief The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is very easy and a bit of a romp - it's also the Book at Bedtime on R4 if you wanted to podcast it while doing something else

I didn’t realise you could listen to the Book at Bedtime on a podcast!  I can’t see the one you mentioned but I can see a few others I would like to listen to.

XSpender

Pay day for DH tomorrow and me on Friday.  Both our payslips are viewable on line and less than my estimate so a bit more juggling of the budget was needed.  We can do lots of things with our money this month, just not everything we had planned.

January results are in.......

• Savings (excludes sinking funds and 365 x 2 challenges) - £713.74💰

• Paid off debt - £805.04 💳

• Food spends - £497.88 🥦

• Extra income - £1.60 🤦‍♀️

• Read 3 books will complete 4th this week📚
• I won’t achieve my walking target due to the amount of ice that has lingered on the pavements over the last 2 weeks. ❄️

What was surprising in Jan is that, apart from paying the delivery driver for our Chinese on New Year’s Eve I haven’t spent a single penny in cash. This is probably why my transaction tracking and tie up of my monthly budget has been spot on this month.

February Goals

• Save £1000 to emergency fund💰
• Save £500 to pet pot for puppy insurance, 2nd vacs, KC reg. and equipment 🐶
• Make an extra £100 💵
• Pay £700 off debt 💳
• Food budget £480 including meat run to Costalot 🥩
• Read 4 books including at least 1 non-fiction 📚
• Walk 50 miles 🚶‍♀️

The savings goal is doable with a bit of hustle and grind.  It is the target I set before the change in bonus payments and I would really like to be able to achieve it still.

I have a £32 credit due which will cover the broadband bill and £70 set aside for a haircut and colour (which won’t be happening on Saturday) still included in the budget so will move those sums to savings.  I also budget an amount for DS activities and school things that come up but will reduce it. Last month I spent £1.50 from it on school supplies.  Apart from some new T-shirts (he will keep growing) and his pocket money, I don’t have anything to come out of it this month.

I am participating in 2 savings challenges, will round down my accounts and spending categories weekly, finally pay in last year’s piggy bank savings and have budgeted a sum to go straight to the ISA and regular saver when we get paid. I am still a bit short of the target so will keep looking for those extra savings.

The £1000 target doesn’t include savings to sinking funds or the two 365 savings challenges DH and I are completing this year.

Suffolk_lass

XSpender said:

Suffolk_lass said:

If you fancy a bit of light relief The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is very easy and a bit of a romp - it's also the Book at Bedtime on R4 if you wanted to podcast it while doing something else

I didn’t realise you could listen to the Book at Bedtime on a podcast!  I can’t see the one you mentioned but I can see a few others I would like to listen to.

They have stopped calling it that - if you wanted to catch up on The Thursday Murder Club here is a link - I got to it from Radio 4 sounds, schedule then it is on at 12.06 as well as 22.45 - then as an all episodes link