Giving every £ a job

[Deleted User]

OMG you are going to turn into a chocolate orange!  Good work by your DH.  I hear you on office politics and prima donna prancing - we have that at the moment in spades!

savingholmes

I am jealous of your choc haul although I got bags of QS this week for £2.28 and thought I'd done well. 

Must be so lovely knowing you are on a countdown to leave... I get you on the 1 more month trap. I think for me it will be important to ensure that I still have £ to spend on doing nice things like crafts or it won't work for me.

QueenJess

OMG! I wouldn’t dare have that much chocolate lying around and those are dangerously addictive. It’s hard to stop eating them!

lucielle

Love the chocolate orange jenga!!!
L

Sun_Addict

I’m happier when I’ve got a meal plan. I tend to do something very similar to yours. 

Work doesn’t sound great, bet you can’t wait to escape. 

Blackcats

Thanks for your comments.  The chocolate oranges are indeed hard to resist but trying to limit ourselves to a maximum of 4 segments (each) in the evening with a cup of tea.  (In my expert opinion they are very thin segments).  I've had a good week sticking to the meal plan - only extra spends have been for milk.  Looking forward tonight to  peri peri chicken (using chicken breasts liberated from the freezer) and Nan-do's style spicy rice.

I saw on Twitter that Jack Monroe is repeating her £20 shopping basket exercise - she is going to buy the same products this year as last year and see the difference in prices.  Got me thinking about inflation and if I apply 5% to my monthly food budget of £320 that will be an extra £192 per year which is not good.  

An odd week at work .... prima Donna is now in victim, sulking mode ... I used to warn my kids to be careful not to trip over their bottom lips when they sulked and I feel like doing the same to my colleague.  Another senior colleague seems to be in a whirlwind of causing chaos - interfering and meddling.  However, went out for brunch today with OH and had a good chat about timelines for leaving and I've done some financial modelling this afternoon and it's all looking good for this summer which is by equal measures exciting and surreal.

off to catch up on diaries now as I had a few evenings off line this week.  Also need to update the grocery challenge thread with latest spends.

foxgloves

Good idea to try & factor in inflation, @Blackcats. Our monthly grocery budget is set at around the same level as yours, so I was interested to see your adjustment for inflation over the coming year.
I did smile at 'Don't trip over your bottom lip", as my Mum used to say that to me when I was growing up, despite the fact that I don't think I particularly had or have a sulky temperament. I'm more of an exploder. I am rational & patient up to a point, then when that line is breached, I go off on one fairly spectacularly. My Mum also used to say 'Less of the cart horse lips' which must have been a much older saying as it meant lips stuck out so far with sulking, that you could ride a cart horse along them. I used to get in trouble frequently so got to hear a lot of sayings.
F x

savingholmes

Love the lips sayings - not heard of those before. Definitely need to put in a book somewhere...

How exciting to be planning your exit and to be able to float above.

MissRikkiC

I love that saying, I might use it with my little as she’s older although at 18 months she’s already started sulking. 

I saw that tweet too from JM and was curious as to the items and what she returned to the shelves! It’s a scary number and one I’m not sure I’m willing to part with yet. Instead I may adjust our meal plans to accommodate 

[Deleted User]

Well done on the very very low spend week - that's awesome.  I also love piri piri chicken - Rick Stein has a lovely pub in cornwall called the Cornish Arms and they do an amazing one there, along with the best sticky toffee pudding I've ever tasted (and I've tried quite a few!).  It's also not off the scale expensive which is good.

This cost of living crisis is quite scary.  I was actually talking to my boss about it on Friday and asking her if it worried her (which it does).  She has 3 kids (young) so the impact on food for them is going to be significant.  DH actually said to me earlier "when was the last time we went out for a meal?" - and it was mid-Dec when my parents were over, which is unusual as we eat out often.  But we have been cutting down due to house move but also now because of this increase in cost of living.  I have really noticed (when I look back at my list of things bought back in I think Sept/Oct when I started recording it) the price of every day items has jumped.  Will be really interested to follow Jack Munroe and see what her conclusions are.

Urghhhh, I feel your pain - at least you know that you will be out of it soon and that you can to a degree let it wash over you as you won't be stuck there much longer.