£29,303...Enough is enough!

WelshKitty85

Made a whopping sale today...£300 for an old garden item. We want to ring fence that money to put back into the garden but our plans depend on how easy/expensive it would be to get power to the end of the garden. We've got somebody coming to price it up next week so we can start making plans. We won't be rushing into getting anything done though so have put the money to savings for now.

WelshKitty85

Today was my last of 6 days off work. I really needed and appreciated the time off to spend with the DCs and just de-stress from the pressures of work. I'm only working 3 days this week but have also agreed to make a birthday cake for a family member, so that will take up almost a full day. DH & I do have a table booked at a local restaurant though (with the 50% deal) so that's something to look forward to.

I've spent some of my time off re-evaluating my budgets and really need to focus on our spends for the next few months. We've currently got just over £1,500 put away between various savings accounts, and are continuing to add an average of £125 per month. Although we're likely to have to dip into this for annual expenses (car insurance etc), I'm determined not to dip into this unnecessarily. I put most spends on the credit card, as I find it easier to track, then pay it off in full each month. So, my budgeting month usually runs to 24th, in line with the cc billing months. Recently, with school holidays, buying household items etc I've decided I need to track the category of spends better. So far this month we've spent:

Groceries: £134.34
Clothes: £63.23
House: £46.83
Days out: £15

I've budgeted £300 for groceries. I'm hoping that, if I'm careful with the grocery shopping, we might be able to pay for the house items from that budget, otherwise it will have to come from savings. I'm expecting to do 3 more grocery shops this month so that's would mean an average of £40 per week to spend. That might be do-able as I did a big shop last week (I got a bit carried away in the new Lidl that's just opened and spent £66 instead of my usual £45-50 grocery spend) and the cupboards are still jam packed. I ran into Iceland on Friday for some burger baps and picked up an extra large chicken reduced to £2.75. This has done us a roast dinner today and I'm hoping to get 4 more meals from the leftovers - 2 of them being risotto and stir fry that will be bulked out with veg and just a small amount of chicken to trick DH & the DCs into believing they're not meat free dishes 
and I've still got a fair amount of ys meat in the freezer. I really like the new Lidl and think my plan going forward will be to do a mid-week shop in Tesco for bread/milk and to check for ys reductions, then do my main shop in Lidl on a Friday.

I've got £140 that I've made selling things that is to cover the clothes & days/meals out. Once DH & I have been out for dinner I expect there will be about £30 left of this. I'd really like to plan some more activities with the children. The £30 would cover an aquarium visit, but could do with getting creative and thinking up some alternative low cost days out/activities.

Sorry for the long post, I just felt the need to get my thoughts/plan in writing before the madness of work takes over my mind tomorrow.

savingholmes

Well done on the sales. Enjoy your meal out - simple pleasures... 

WelshKitty85

Things aren't going to plan already -

• I've had to pay £14 to the birthday kitty in work (3 colleagues have big birthdays coming up)

• I forgot about school uniforms. I'm hoping jumpers will still fit as they haven't been worn in such a long time, then we should only need trousers for DC2 and shirts for DC2 & DC3. We can hopefully pick these up from a supermarket for under £10.
• It's DHs birthday at the end of this month. I hadn't forgotten about it but have been putting it to the back of my mind. I will have to either leave presents til last minute so they come from next month's budget, or use savings.

WelshKitty85

Almost as soon as I posted my last update I got interest in 3 separate items I'm selling. I had 2 offers on eBay items - 1 for £4 and 1 for £50 - both accepted! I also sold £6 worth of children's clothes on fbook. The clothes have already been paid for and collected. I was starting to worry that the ebay bidders weren't going to pay, but my phone's just pinged to let me know I've received a £50 payment. Still waiting for the other £4. I think the £6 will go to the days out fund & the ebay money will go towards DH's birthday.

We had fajitas tonight with some of the left over chicken, loads of veggies, loads of cheese, and a 30p spice mix from Lidl. Delicious! There's still a bowl full of chicken left. DH & I are going out for dinner tomorrow and DC2 has requested home made pizzas. I'm working from home so can keep an eye and let them make their own basic dough with yogurt & flour. I will ration out some of the chicken for them to use on top, as well as cheese, sweet corn, peppers, mushrooms etc. Then we should still have plenty of chicken left for risotto (I've got some frozen mixed veg that's supposed to be a soup mix but will be ideal for bulking this out) and a stir fry.

savingholmes

Glad it all worked out. Food sounds lovely too.

WelshKitty85

We had a lovely meal out last night. Went slightly over budget as we both had dessert, which we never usually do. Can't complain though at £32 (£35 with a tip) for 3 courses & wine. I've agreed another £5 sale so that will cover the difference.

Today is cake baking day. I had a disaster mid morning when my blue icing turned green and my frozen lake started looking like an ogre's swamp. Rushed to Tesco for more blue food colouring and noticed there was loads on the reduced racks. Will pop back at final reduction time to see what bargains we can get.

WelshKitty85

The trip back to tesco was definitely worthwhile. I picked up:

Lamb shoulder
4 x pizzas
2 x mini pizzas
5 x packs of 6 yogurts
Chicken kievs
Duck pancakes
2 x shortcrust pastry
Chicken lattice
Chicken fillets
Beef meatballs
Chicken thighs
2 x fajita chicken
Samosas
Mushrooms
8 x corn cobbetts 
Broccoli
Tomato ketchup
2 x passata
Pate
Stir fry sauce
Doughnuts
Chocolate eclairs

All for £20.02

Grocery spends are now up to £166.34 

mark55man

That's a great haul - you've had a good week one way and the other

I'm struggling to get the Grocery bill under control.  I may have to reawaken the YS monster in me, and also keep a running total to keep me honest.  

WelshKitty85

Thanks @mark88man. I'm really pleased with tonight's haul. The lamb alone should have been over £9 at full price, and the pizzas would have been £10.25, so I'm thrilled with the amount we got for the money. The freezer is full again now.

Our grocery bill has crept up recently so I'm making an effort to go back to basics - ys shopping, meal planning, keeping a running total etc. I put all my shopping on the credit card and have been relying on checking the balance to see how much I've spent on groceries. But with other categories of spends creeping in I find it easy to misjudge how much was actually spend on groceries and either think I have more availble that I really do, or get disheartened unnecessarily. So I've created a new spreadsheets to log and track the catergory of every spend.