mummypinksparkles - becoming a thrifty mummy once and for all!

mummypinksparkles

Had a busy couple of days thanks to our boiler breaking down! We had a plumber come and look at it yesterday morning, fixed it only to switch it on last night and it tripped all the electrics! So today’s adventures have involved visiting my mum (which the kids loved as they love their Granny!) and tucking the kids up on the sofa infront of the log burner, I think they quite enjoyed the adventure, meanwhile I was freezing trying to clean the rest of the house! The lovely plumber has been out to us tonight and fingers crossed it’s now fixed.
Meal plan and shopping done yesterday, came £1.33 over budget but stocked up on a couple of whole chickens as they were 50% off Our meal plan for next week looks like this:


Meals for this week:
Friday - Pasta bake & baguettes
Saturday - spaghetti and meatballs
Sunday - Roast Dinner (with the 50% off chicken!)
Monday - Veggie Stir fry
Tuesday - HM Puff pastry pizzas
Weds - Jacket potatoes, cheese and beans
Thursday - HM veggie soup and HM bread

Treats this week will be a marble cake I’ve got in the oven

Hope everyone’s okay x

marcsshell

How did the owl cake go?

Sounds like us with our boiler. Stupid thing is dead and had a quote for a new one from one of the major companies who offer 2 years interest free but it will cost over 4,000 :eek:
We aren't that bad as we have a dishwasher, fire in living room and an electric shower.
Need to clear some of our debt off and build some savings before I can get it sorted. Hopefully our gas bill will go down though :rotfl:

mummypinksparkles

marcsshell wrote: »

How did the owl cake go?

Sounds like us with our boiler. Stupid thing is dead and had a quote for a new one from one of the major companies who offer 2 years interest free but it will cost over 4,000 :eek:
We aren't that bad as we have a dishwasher, fire in living room and an electric shower.
Need to clear some of our debt off and build some savings before I can get it sorted. Hopefully our gas bill will go down though :rotfl:

Oh gosh £4000?! :eek: We’re very similar, thank heavens we have an electric shower, dishwasher and log burner! Boilers are so expensive but something that you just can’t live without!
Thank you for asking about the cake, it was an adventure! I’d forgotten to buy sugar of all things so ended up starting it at 10pm when DP got home from work! I was worried it looked evil(!) but they loved it and they asked me if I’d give the nursery children a little talk about how I made it. I’d forgotten how cute 3 year olds can be, they were £just lovely and I’m so glad I could help them out x

marcsshell

I will be shopping around for cheaper quotes lol. If it comes down to it I will have to ask my dad if he could loan us the money.

3 year olds are cute. I miss mine at that age. Was looking through my old Facebook posts and came across a video of my youngest at 3ish "reading" a book out loud. It was really sweet. Now she is 11 and fast hitting the dreaded teenage years :rotfl:
She would have loved your owl cake as she is obsessed with anything owl related x

mummypinksparkles

marcsshell wrote: »

I will be shopping around for cheaper quotes lol. If it comes down to it I will have to ask my dad if he could loan us the money.

3 year olds are cute. I miss mine at that age. Was looking through my old Facebook posts and came across a video of my youngest at 3ish "reading" a book out loud. It was really sweet. Now she is 11 and fast hitting the dreaded teenage years :rotfl:
She would have loved your owl cake as she is obsessed with anything owl related x

Here you go lovely, the recipe for your daughter She could well do this with a little help https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2303680/chocolate-owl-cake

mummypinksparkles

Today has been busy but lovely. Spent the morning cleaning as we have a viewing tomorrow. Keeping everything tidy with the kids around has been somewhat of a challenge! Had a NSD as we went to a lovely local country park with a brilliant play park and brought a picnic, DD made cookies so took those for a treat instead of going to the tea room. The kids was running/toddling around laughing, all rosy cheeked from the cold and it was just so lovely to see them like that. I have to hold onto that when I’m trying to prise them from their beds tomorrow!
In debt news the balance transfer I requested has come through so is now on 0% interest card, ready to start paying down.
Monday tomorrow, kids at school and music class for little DS so should be a NSD

mummypinksparkles

Hi all, happy Monday
Well wasn’t a NSD as found out one of the mums in Big DS’ class was taken to hospital yesterday. They only live round the corner and we do share the school runs through the week so popped into Tesco and bought a lovely bunch of tulips for £5.
Apart from that haven’t spent anything. Big DS has started football training tonight after months of asking us so he was very excited! He’s full of swagger and confidence but you could see he was nervous walking in, he was getting involved within 5 mins though!
Some bad and very annoying news, our house viewing today didn’t turn up and no word from them. This has happened a few times, it’s so frustrating especially when it means sacrificing family time to clean top to bottom. We do not want to rent it out, but DP and I have talked about it and if the house doesn’t sell by March we’ll put it on Airbnb for the summer. It’s a lovely, clean 4 bedroom house in the middle of a beautiful part of the country, and although Airbnb is a lot of work it would be silly to have it empty through the summer hols when a family could be enjoying it and it makes us some pocket money (which will be saved).
The good news? DH has had to take a 4 hour round trip for work and won’t be back until 9, but is bringing back a KFC courtesy of business expenses. We very rarely eat takeaways or fast food so I’m very excited! I just hope my 2 hour Zumba class I’m off to now burns it off :rotfl:

mummypinksparkles

It’s been a few days since I’ve updated mainly due to morning sickness So have not done an awful lot although took little DS to soft play yesterday (he has an annual pass so was free) and as the weather was horrendous today we popped into my sister’s and little DS and my niece had lunch and played for a couple of hours which was lovely It’s getting harder to hide my small bump although I don’t think anyone would ever think we’d have another so can probably keep it to ourselves for another week or so!
I’ve started looking more into the logistics of putting using our house as an Airbnb as we’ve had no luck selling it. The estate agents can’t work out why, and soon it’s going to sit here empty. So although Airbnb makes sense, it will need some investment. Nothing major, replacement blinds, kitchen stuff etc, it will still cost a few hundred pounds. To be honest it has been tempting to stick it on a credit card but for once my brain has engaged before I do anything silly. Meaning no spending on credit cards, loans or anything else. It’s just too risky and we don’t need that hassle. DP is really keen to Airbnb the house and thinks there’ll be a bonus to cover the costs, but we’ll see. I feel guilty when he uses his bonus on us, it should be his fun money, although he insists he doesn’t do much work on reality he works very hard.
Grocery shopping tomorrow so will have to do my meal plan in a min! DD has asked for homemade steak pie on Sunday so will try to work that in if the budget allows!

Hope everyone is keeping warm x

mummypinksparkles

Just done a super quick meal plan and shopping list with DD’s help:

Friday - Cottage pie
Saturday - HM Soup & Toasties
Sunday - Steak Pie
Monday - Salmon and Stir fry
Tuesday - Jacket pots & choose your own fillings (ham, cheese, beans)
Weds - HM Puff pastry slice
Thursday - Veggie Frittata & Salad

Treats for the tin this week will be Chocolate orange muffins (as I have leftover chocolate oranges from Christmas!) and Apple, Oat and Cinnamon
Muffins for breakfast/after school snacks