Crazy Cat Lady Chapter 4 - The Aftermath

Honeysucklelou2

Ciara is certainly in full swing here.  The poor camellia bush is swaying furiously.  

Hope the tutoring and marking goes well and you get time to relax.

foxgloves

You are sounding really focused with your budget, CCL. Great idea to get the kids on board with tweaks & also ideas they may have. Ultimately though, you control the food budget, not them, so if your budget dictates a need to spend no more than £X per month on groceries, then that is how much you have available, regardless of anyone in the household thinking there's nothing in the fridge/cupboards that they fancy. Pre-LBM, I could be guilty of this myself, often swerving into a supermarket carpark on my way home from work because I fancied eating something other than the food I already had in. I know from years of experience what top-up shops can do to grocery budgets! There's nothing as potentially spendy on the food front as when you are tired, hungry, reeling from a bad day at work....... & being in a supermarket!! 
I think it would also save you a little money if you could all eat the same meal at least a couple of days a week. After the LBM, we cut our grocery spend hugely. I think swapping to A*Di helped but the main thing for us was definitely proper meal planning, batch cooking now & again and writing a tight shopping list based squarely on that week's meal plans. I bet you'll be surprised what you can achieve - You've got everything to play for now, because getting that debt down will lead to a better mortgage deal on a house which belongs solely to you.
We will be cheering you on for sure. 
F x

crazy_cat_lady

As I suspected, ds is far less on board with it. He is such a snob - turned his nose up at the Aldee ketchup and chicken (surprise). - but I've told him that there's a finite budget and he either compromises or will have to go without something. I will allow him his own share of the grocery budget for his extras that he likes to have but he will have to make his choices of what to spend that money on and do without some things. I know that us all eating the same stuff would be brilliant but we're just not at that stage yet unfortunately. I don't know if I could get the pair of them to agree on something that they could both eat. DD is fussy, but totally on board with money saving, but ds is like me when I was younger and foolish and thought I could have everything that I wanted. Think he's going to have to learn the hard way like I did.
I have marked the extra 17 long papers - I really hope that is it now... And I've done all the reports I needed to so I think I can safely say that's my marking done for this marking window. I'm pleased because it's been a really busy few weeks. I don't know if I'll get any marking in the March session - I hope I get one paper for the money. Then nothing until May and that will be 5-6 weeks.
Now, I have 2 and a bit hours before bed so I'm going to have a shower, put lunches and money together for tomorrow and then I'm going to crochet! YAY!!!!

1LuckyLady

I did get my lot to swap brown sauce from hp to aldee but I had to do it sneakily by decanting brown sauce into the hp bottle. 
Once I'd proved the point they've not complained about aldee one again. 

Honeysucklelou2

Realising the budget is finite is something I think my children needed to grasp, not in a worrying way but just so that they can learn to be careful with what we have. A couple of weeks ago, my lot ate through boxes of cereal. I buy the basic weetabix ( shop’s own ) and other cheaper non or low sugar cereals. I told them it had to last until Friday but the boys particularly helped themselves morning, afternoon and night, so they had to have porridge for a few days. No one starved but they did learn a lesson  about not “gannitising” the food...a well used word in our house!

dawnybabes

Funnily enough my DH is a ketchup snob but will happily have Aldi ketchup 

janb5

Would it work to have own choice day once a week? That means ds chooses his meal once a week as does dd and the rest of the time eats what the family is having?  Or is that a stage too far.....!

f0xh0les

Ooh, have you tried reading the back of the packet to them and saying - ooh look this contains 4 portions! oh good, that and 2 packs of sausages and you are fed for the week. When it is gone it is gone and it is.......... Beans on toast time! (ta da!)

Is H- 57 his favourite ketchup?  

I weighed out 30g of cereal for my kids to show them a portion.  There was nearly a riot. Apparently the manufacturers do not know what they are talking about, I do not know what I am talking about, I am a lunatic, it is child cruelty,  so as they were not happy with the nutritional value of the product,  now they get porridge (15 p a sachet), or own brand wheat biscuits, muesli, or toast and jam. There is still a lot of frowning and gurning when I tell them 2 slices of toast is an adequate portion for one child. The only time they get anything else is if it is YS -  they love bagels but they always start fights.

So what do the CCKids eat? Obv ds has a nugget habit - how does he have them? in a wrap with salad or just neat with ketchup? We can help I bet. What's on the menu for this week?

Congratulations on finishing the marking and all on time too.  Nearly half term. You can do it.

crazy_cat_lady

Evening all  
The problem with my kids is that they just really like different things. DD will eat the chicken bits as well so that is always a fail safe meal for the pair of them but she prefers stuff in sauces like spaghetti Bolognese, chilli (and she hates cheese), whereas he prefers stuff without sauces like pizza, chicken nuggets (with any form of potato), gammon and roast potatoes etc. She will eat roast dinner but he will only eat roast chicken with the potatoes and Yorkshires. It's just difficult. Tonight I made bangers and mash, which he loved but she refused to have (hates sausages). The only sauces he likes apart from expensive ketchup are gravy, rice pudding and custard. She prefers chocolate to actual pudding stuff. There seems to be no middle ground at all. But any suggestions gratefully received.
I talked to ds on the way to school again today while I had him as my captive audience in the car. He's quite on board with visiting lots of shops during the week if we can get a bargain - so my nsd's will dwindle to nothing but we will be doing a couple of items of grocery shop every day during the week. I can put up with a quick 10-15 minutes shopping after school every night but not a big grocery shop one night after school. So he helped me to come up with a list of shops and things that we want to compare prices on. However, agreeing on meals is less likely. Strangely though he still asked if we could have takeaway tonight. Little so-and-so. We popped to Liddle on the way home for a loaf of bread (which I'd forgotten on Friday) and to price up a couple of things to make a start.
Bit stressed to find that my cleaner has broken my bathroom sink. She is (obviously) going to replace it but it's a bit stressful waiting for that to be done. Second thing she's broken in a few weeks - dread to think what number three is going to be.
Work was rubbish - apparently I'm in a mood today. I am exhausted and didn't feel great but I am ok. Just can't be bothered with anything much. Half term is on the horizon and to be completely honest I really need the rest. Tonight I'm just going to crochet and aim for an early night. Try not to obsess too much over the budget and planning.

beanielou

The cleaner broke the bathroom sink.
Where's that eek smillie when you need it!