A Year in the Life of...

girlatplay

BlackCoffeeNoSugar said:

Hope you avoided the worst of the weather today! Could barely keep track of all the varying combos of:  ❄️☃️🌬☔️⛅️
All looking good with your spends and forward planning - let's hope the snow leaves off now for a bit!

I know!  I caught the tail end of the first snow on my way to work and the same when I left work so could have been worse.  I heard the buses had delays but it doesn't really affect me because I live on a good bus route so can take a few buses from my bus stop.  Hope you're home safe and cozy and didn't get caught up in the weather/bus nonsense.  I'm hoping it will be away by tomorrow as I really don't like it.

girlatplay

@jwil I forgot to mention, I used the frozen wine in a risotto and it was absolutely fine so thank you for mentioning that earlier.  Today I bought a bottle for £5.50 (I'm not a wine snob when I'm cooking with it, or actually, any time 😳) so I'll separate that into 7 or 8 portions (depending on how generous I'm feeling at the time) and freeze 👍🏻

savingholmes

Hi GAP - to multi quote on a laptop - you press quote - then perhaps insert a line by pressing return - and then press quote for the next item. Worked for me earlier. You are sounding super organised. I had snow too today on my way to work - I felt like a walking snowman as I made my way across the car park.

[Deleted User]

Good to know the wine experiment works! I quite often have a dreg left, but by the time I make something for it to go in, it's slipped into vinegar (some might say it's safer just to drink it in the first instance) I'll save my liver in future and freeze the leftovers! 

girlatplay

savingholmes said:

Hi GAP - to multi quote on a laptop - you press quote - then perhaps insert a line by pressing return - and then press quote for the next item. Worked for me earlier. You are sounding super organised. I had snow too today on my way to work - I felt like a walking snowman as I made my way across the car park.

@savingholmes thank you!  It works on my phone too but not when one message to quote is on one page and the other is on a different page, without some jiggery pokery (or copy and type reply before pasting) as I have just discovered.
I'm not a winter person 🥶

BlackCoffeeNoSugar said:

Good to know the wine experiment works! I quite often have a dreg left, but by the time I make something for it to go in, it's slipped into vinegar (some might say it's safer just to drink it in the first instance) I'll save my liver in future and freeze the leftovers! 

Yes, this freezing wine thing is great.  I know all the jokes about leftover wine but actually, some of us have some self-control 😉
The test was if 100ml would freeze and defrost okay and it really did.  Didn't take long to defrost either as I put it on the warm radiator while I was doing other things.

dawnybabes

I just lob mine frozen wine in frozen, it soon melts 

girlatplay

dawnybabes said:

I just lob mine frozen wine in frozen, it soon melts 

I do that with frozen spinach.  It was because I was making risotto that I defrosted it so that it was ready for the rice to absorb 🙂

girlatplay

I've just taken some time to sit down and work out what happened with January's budget (£200).  I checked all receipts and split into three categories (this does not include personal spends as I have a separate budget for that):

Food items: £207.52
Non-food: £55.83
Medical: £8.25
TOTAL: £271.60

Non-food includes cleaning products, toilet roll, toiletries, bin bags, etc. (also certain cheaper items of make up when the personal spends money is low).

I have been through the receipts a few times and there is nothing I could have cut back on non-food-wise.
I'm pleased with the medical supply spend as it seemed to be more than that at the time.
The food spend is where the disaster struck.  I was careless and didn't plan properly.  I had a night in with friends where I organised cheese, fizz and nibbles and this worked out quite expensive (about a quarter of the full amount spent on food 😱).  If I hadn't done that I still would have gone over budget but by a much smaller amount.  There were little spends over the month that wouldn't have happened if I had meal planned.

I seem to be on track for February so far, so that's promising.

Sarahwithlove

At least you know where you went wrong and hopefully can plan for it in future. 

girlatplay

Sarahwithlove said:

At least you know where you went wrong and hopefully can plan for it in future. 

I knew at the time but I didn't do anything about it.  When I suggested the night in I was just recovering from another bout of illness and it was to save me cooking.  Of course, by the time the date came round I was absolutely fine so could have cooked 🙈  I could have changed the menu plan for that night but it was lazy January for me so I didn't.  Lesson learned though.


I finally got a survey!  38p.  I have checked the bank today too and those are the only two financial things I've done today.