Here we go

Betterthanever

Another one here jealous of your dressmaking skills. Once upon a time I even made my own ballgowns and cocktail dresses.....now I think I am doing well if I can hem a pair of trousers evenly!


Loving the pumpkin exercise, though!

smallholdingsister

Great name - I love Mog!

Botherthatcat

Betterthannever - thank you, although I'm sure you must be very good if you can do ballgowns - I'm still terrified of trying a pattern that doesn't say 'easy' :rotfl:

Thank you, Smallholdingsister many many hours have been spent reading Mog books with my children

Quick update as have a very busy day today. There's a technical matter at work that I keep on putting off (am a big sufferer of Ostrich Syndrome), but it's reached the point where I must deal with it today, otherwise I will be stressing about it all weekend. Once this entry is completed, I will sit down and deal with it. Oh yes I will.

Spendy day yesterday, took the children to the cinema again (£10.48), then to avoid the painter lunch out (again!) (£16.00) and in the evening I had a meal out with some old work colleagues (£24.00). Thankfully, the children are at holiday club this morning and then we have an afternoon at home (hoping that the painter will be done by then).

Supermarket spends haven't been too bad, £10.26 and £10.53. Still trying to get through the freezer, but I'm finding that because there's been someone in my kitchen all day, I haven't been as organised with cooking this week as I should have been. Am going to attempt some batch cooking at the weekend to avoid this happening again next week.

CC payments are also due on Monday. Am annoyed that I have any this month (and will next month too :mad:) but after that the CCs are being locked away unless there's an emergency. From December we can start our OPs again, so hoping that that reduces the temptation of any unnecessary spending.

Hoping for a quiet weekend. Haven't stopped all half term. DH has promised to help the DCs carve the pumpkins and I've been looking up some Halloweeny craft things to do on Pinterest, as when I was clearing out I found a box full of craft stuff we've been saving for some mystical time in the future. Am trying to declutter and use up what we have rather than saving things 'for best' or for 'another day'. Instead of using our old plates we've had since our student days, we have started using our wedding china. If a plate breaks, does it matter? It can always be replaced. Better making use of the things that make us happy rather than keeping them locked away (although I'm hoping the palpitations I have everytime I load the dishwasher subside soon ). The old stuff has also been donated, so more space in the cabinet too.

Welshlassie

Wow well done you. i made a few litems of clothing years ago, but with help from my mum, don't think I'd have the confidence to try now. Cushion and seat covers are my limits. I do like to cross stitich though

We're on mission freezer clear out as well so we have room to put the vension carcass we're about to order in there.

You've made huge progress on your mortgage well done, we're about to extend ours to do an extension that will take it up close to where you are now so following your journey with interest.

Botherthatcat

Thank you Welshlassie and good luck with your freezer clearout. Have been googling receipes for stewing steak today and think that tomorrow's meal will be Mexican beef chili as with a little ingredient adaption I can make it without buying anything new

My planned non spend weekend was a bit of a fail. Friday and Saturday we ended up having to go to the shops (£5.41, £5.26 and £6.44) purely due to disorganisation :mad: (Although one of these trips in my defence was to buy another pumpkin as when we began to carve DD's we realised the inside was rotten ).

Got into the Halloween spirit and took the children to local attraction that was doing a children's activity evening (free for DCs and I as we are members and half price for DH £5.75). Children had a wonderful time (Halloween appears to be DS's favourite new holiday as it means free sweets) and we agreed to let them have a special treat of takeaway pizza to mourn/celebrate the end of half term (£19.79). All this excitement, apart from creating lots of kodak moment memories, also had the added bonus of tiring the children out so we managed to complete our bingewatch of 'Stranger Things' last night once they had gone straight to sleep at bedtime. :T

Today we went to a free open day at the local farm and a walk afterwards. Although I can't technically claim this as an NSD as I need to order some bits online later. Am going to have a good look at our spending from this week - we did eat out a lot more than I intended, but I do realise this was more so due to having painters in the house. Have already told the children that we won't be eating out during the Christmas holidays anywhere near as much (although I find once the big day is over, eating out tends to be the last thing I want to do!).

One thing I have realised since starting this diary is that these random trips to the shop need to stop as we always manage to find something that we 'need' (normally of the confectionary variety). Better organisation required this week. Apart from around £30 on milk, fruit, etc. we shouldn't need to spend anymore apart from lunch with a friend for her birthday tomorrow. Hoping that will make my day better as my task I needed to complete on Friday didn't get completed so that's first on my list in the morning

smallholdingsister

Hope you ate that frog!

Botherthatcat

Thank you Smallholdingsister - I managed to eat the frog, but unfortunately the original frog has bred so there's a couple more issues to sort out this week(!)

Had one of those days today where anything and everything seemed to go wrong. Also have an assignment to write which is due soon. Need to get started tonight as it's going to be very busy this week with Halloween and lots of appointments.

Financials today - had to make the credit card payments (one more next month then that is the end of that). That probably didn't help my mood(!) Met my friend for lunch (£11.40). Managed to resist the temptation to pop to the shop on the way home despite the bad day meaning a serious desire for chocolate. :A

Mexican beef thing I made is currently still sitting in it's pot and have a feeling the only place it'll be going is the bin. DH took one look at it when he walked through the door and requested pizza :rotfl:

Tomorrow is another day

Botherthatcat

Quick update as need to go to bed after an evening of research for assignment due on Tuesday (but am optimistically hoping I can get it finished by Saturday night :rotfl:)

Yesterday Halloween - spent £16.80 on flowers and chocolates for lovely friend who bravely entertained my two (and seven other) very exicted children at her house for a Halloween party and trick or treating up and down our road (worth every penny )

Food spends - £15.17 on fruit, vegetables, coffee and tinned tomatoes (on offer) and around £12 at another shop for milk and butter. Also had the supermarket home delivery arrive today so no more popping to the shop for the rest of the week. Annoyingly two of the jar lids were broken, so I complained and got a refund for those. Not convinced the half an hour I spent online with the helpful customer services was worth the £4.32 refund when I have an assignment to write, but it's a matter of principle.

Last mortgage payment of this 'year' coming out on Friday so I'll soon be able to work out the exact figure we can overpay in 2018 (am far too excited about this).

Words written for assignment - 34 (the title) :eek: Must try harder tomorrow.

Silence101

I remember assignments, and just how awful I was at writing them! I sometimes imagine I'd like to be a teacher, but just the thought of all the writing I'd have to do just for the training puts me off trying. Maybe I should do some practice assignments to see if they are as bad as I remember.

Our goal in the long term is also to try and use my (future, as I'm a sahm at the moment) salary for OPs. It should be mostly achievable as long as we don't fall for the lifestyle creep that we've already noticed with pay rises.

Secret_Saving_Squirrel

Good luck on your MFW journey! You will be amazed at how much you can save once you start really thinking about where and why the money disappears!