The light is well and truly on!'

RhiBi

You're very welcome!

I do a big musclefood order every 2 months which means I buy very little meat in my weekly shop.

Main meals this week are:

Sunday - Roast chicken dinner
Monday - chicken curry (with left over chicken
Tuesday - chilli Con Carne (all ingredients already got)
Wednesday - meatballs with tagliatelle and spicy passata sauce
Thursday - chicken and peppers in peri peri sauce with rice and salad
Friday - fajitas
Saturday - homemade pizza

The only meat I've bought is the chicken for tomorrow's dinner. I've also got ingredients to make fairy cakes for the weeks packed lunches. We also have ham, tuna, cheese for packed lunch sandwiches as well as fruit and crisps. So that's the children's packed lunches for the week. I usually make soup to take to work and have everything here for that too!

We're not gourmet eaters by any means, but it works for us

Xxx

RhiBi

Afternoon!

Food prep is all done for roast dinner, and I've currently got chocolate fairy cakes in the oven for packed lunch! I may do some jam tarts too. I'm trying to bake things that I don't like much so that I'm not tempted to eat them, that means welsh cakes are off the menu!!!

The youngest daughter is back from a sleepover, she seems to have enjoyed although grumpy tiredness is now kicking in!!

I need to buy a toaster, ours is jamming and burning too much bread! I want a cheap one so looked on amazon and was shocked at some of the prices!!! One was over £200, needless to say I've not ordered one! My budget is £10 maximum!!

As I've mentioned previously I think, eldest daughter are 18 and 21 in July, 4 days apart - didn't think that one through did we!!! I want to get a jewellery keepsake but not spend a fortune. Looking on Etsy there's some lovely one for around £25 which is far better than the prices in some jewellers. I'm wary of buying without seeing them though, but I'll keep looking

One batch of cakes is out so I'll get the next lot in now, catch you later:) xxx

doingitanyway

Ooh, jam tarts

RhiBi

Evening! A cold day here today but at least it's been dry!

Work today was uneventful, lunch taken with me, I've currently got butternut squash soup cooking for work tomorrow!

The new money transfer has gone through to our bills account and so I've Paid £100 off the Next account, the balance is now £1159, next month I'll definitely be below £1000! I'll continue my PADding on that account too! I'm really pleased that since January I've knocked nearly £1000 off that bill alone! Once that bill is paid off, the snowballing will come into effect with the credit cards.

I really believe we can do this, I am so confident and focussed on it! This is an expensive year for us with 18th and 21st birthday, a daughter's graduation and a holiday, plus another daughter starting uni, so if we can make these inroads with all those expenses, next year will be even better!!

I'm going to sit with s cuppa and catch up on Corrie now! I'll be back later, my new habit is a cuppa in bed reading these forums!!

RhiBi

Evening! Fairly uneventful day today, I'm full of cold and have a sore throat so feeling sorry for myself! I've also had stomach pains which have thankfully now eased. I could feel my health paranoia starting to reawaken, overthinking aches and pains! I know it's normal after a cancer diagnosis, but I'm also able to recognise that it is irrational too! Two years on, the paranoia is getting a lot less, but does rear it's ugly head occasionally!

An nsd here today, planned meal was chilli, which I had everything here for! Tomorrow we're having peri peri chicken!

I've done my PADding of £5 to Next, and dh has paid one of the credit cards from the bills account. I did order shoes from Next yesterday as my daughter has her school prom, the dress has been bought but she needed shoes to go with it. These shoes will not be added to the Next bill, they're paid for

My plan is now to tuck myself up in bed with a cuppa and hope I feel better tomorrow!

Enjoy what's left of the evening everyone xxx

RhiBi

:cool:Morning! What a lovely day it looks

The cold is finally easing thank goodness, just in time for hay fever no doubt:cool:

A lovely king weekend ahead, a few little things planned, but not a lot really!

My daughter has an optician appointment this morning, she's 18 in July so sorting it out now whilst it's relatively cheap! After that, it's food shopping, meal planning and shopping list have been written whilst I'm sitting in bed! I think this afternoon I'll just sit out the garden for a bit and enjoy the sun.:cool::cool:

Tomorrow we've planned a bit of geocaching, so no spends there.

Our new way of paying bills is going really well, and it's really focusing our spending too. We're writing down everything we spend and it's also making us think twice before buying something which is great. The bank balance is looking healthy, and I get paid in 10 days so I'm confident that I can add to the holiday spends pot and pay extra off our debts too!

All in all, it's looking good :j

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like you are doing really well. Tracking spending is the best way to keeping on top of it. When you see it in black and white all added up at the end of the month it makes me think twice and try to do better the following month if we overspend on a budget.

RhiBi

I didn't realise how much living expenses were by the time we lost food shop, top ups, and petrol it's already over £100. Currently my daughter has a maths tutor which is £30 a week. That'll finish next month after the A levels are done so that'll be a huge help!

What I'm finding great is that every bill is paid out of our bills account, so there are no nasty surprises in the current account because of a forgotten direct debit! What we see is what we have, and I want to get the debt down so we are being very careful with our spends!

RhiBi

Morning! Another gorgeous day here!

Yesterday didn't go as planned, not a huge disaster but the spends went a little awry shall we say!!

It all started well with the food shopping at Aldi, shopped from my list that I'd made. Next onto Tesco to get the few things that Aldi didn't have. The sun shining and this is where we went off plan and ended up with some wine (that'll be nice in the garden as it's sunny), and suddenly we'd spent more in Tesco than we had in Aldi! Dh wanted to go to b&q to get a washing line as ours has broken so I looked around the garden centre, and bought seeds, a few plants (strawberry and tomato) compost and a little propagated, totalling £37...

Now, I could beat myself up about this, but I'm trying to be philosophical! It's things I did want (not need, I know). I didn't use a credit card and I still have more than enough in my budget for everything that needs paying. What it does mean is that the extra payments I was planning to make won't be as much as I'd hoped.

Back to it today, a relaxing no spend day, and enjoying time with my family

RhiBi

My sealed tin is full so I'm going to open and count that today! The money will then go in the holiday spends pot!

I'll report back later with the total - I'm hoping for around £100!