Returning to MFW, my elusive unicorn!

coldcazzie

coldcazzie said:

a prolific survey popped up, which is to do with practicing using memory strategies and how they improve one's memory. 35 minutes and £4, with a second part the same length in two days. 

Second half of this done today and approved so cashed out £8 and transferred it to the OP pot. Total now £464.18. That £500 target is so close I CAN SMELL IT!!  

Big Small is now due in college 4 days a week instead of 2, as some of her online classes have been moved face to face. This is going to require a transport change I think, probably that she will get the bus 3 days a week and we will do the journey in the car on Tuesdays as she has other things on that day which mean there's no enough time for bus travel. Having checked out the bus prices for students, and calculated the cost of driving there and back twice a day, it will work out rather cheaper this way (~£13 per week rather than ~£22 if we drove them all). Not sure exactly how we'll do it though, as to pay for the bus tickets using the bus app you need Paypal, and Paypal is 18+ so she can't have an account for another 2 years, but you can gift tickets, so perhaps the thing to do is buy the tickets for the week, and then "gift" them to her for her to use when she needs them? We'll see, I guess.

I think as part of my fleabay challenge I am going to have a bit of a sort out of my wardrobe. There are a few items in there that I have been clinging to out of:
a, nostalgia
b, the impression that I will somehow go back to being a smaller body size than I am now, even though I don't actually want that
and I can likely move them on to new homes where they will actually be used, unlike here. Clothing deserves to be worn, I think, and if it isn't being worn, why is it in my wardrobe?! Wish me luck haha

QueenJess

coldcazzie said:I think as part of my fleabay challenge I am going to have a bit of a sort out of my wardrobe. There are a few items in there that I have been clinging to out of:

a, nostalgia
b, the impression that I will somehow go back to being a smaller body size than I am now, even though I don't actually want that
and I can likely move them on to new homes where they will actually be used, unlike here. Clothing deserves to be worn, I think, and if it isn't being worn, why is it in my wardrobe?! Wish me luck haha

Ooh.. good luck! 🍀 I always put off sorting out my wardrobe for as long as possible.  It seems to take an age to find out what does/doesn't still fit and whether I like it anymore.  I've now resorted to not buying anything new until I've got rid of at least 1 other item.  At least that way it won't get worse!

South_coast

coldcazzie said:

Nipped into Asd@ for some ham, pickled onions and painkillers

What an eclectic mix of items! I'm envisaging some kind of crazy Ready Steady Cook creation 🤔!

coldcazzie

South_coast said:

coldcazzie said:

Nipped into Asd@ for some ham, pickled onions and painkillers

What an eclectic mix of items! I'm envisaging some kind of crazy Ready Steady Cook creation 🤔!

I said to Big Small on the way back from college "I need to go to the PO, and then to a supermarket cuz we need ham, pickled onions and painkillers, and then I'll have the perfect salad!" and she snorted at me, in that teenager-y way

coldcazzie

CC tickover. Money shuffle is all set up for the end of the month. Deficits in the clothing and pet budgets, which I am hoping to make up through selling some stuff between now and the end of the month! Big petrol increase due to driving Big Small to college and back. Everything else is fine.

I've been casting my eye over the spending since the beginning of the diary. Sometime in February ish (?) I looked back over the previous 6 months and made the decision to change from Morris0ns to A1di for our main shop. I wasn't sure tbh whether it would make much of a difference. It's longer than 6 months since then but I am going to do a comparison.

Timeframes for comparison:
13th July 2019 to 12th January 2020 (6mos) for food/toiletries/booze/cleaning/house/home but the full 12mos for the others
13th January 2020 to 13th October 2020 (9mos)

Category                                  2019                                  2020
Petrol                                      £123.92                             £57.06           (lol)
Other car                                £139.75                              £92.02           (includes ins & MOT for last yr but only ins so far this yr)
Food                                       £505.87                            £470.09
Booze                                      £31.37                              £28.76
Toiletries                                  £21.47                              £19.16
Cleaning                                  £9.69                                £13.98
Pets                                        £42.56                               £41.77           (expecting this to go up as changed cat food this month)
Health                                     £40.41                               £37.66           (this does not include pilates classes!)
Clothes                                    £94.34                             £123.89          (can someone stop my children from growing pls&ty)
Gifts                                        £71.45                              £45.72            (have not started shopping for the BIG C yet)
Entertainment                         £40.20                              £40.45
House                                                                              £64.18
Home                                      £42.97                              £37.76
Vape                                       £28.15                              £33.85
Eating out/takeaways             £24.38                              £10.19             (no surprises there...)

I'm overall pretty happy with that.

QueenJess

Eek.  I think you put me to shame there.  Note to self.. must try harder!

coldcazzie

QueenJess said:

Eek.  I think you put me to shame there.  Note to self.. must try harder!

Would it help if I shared what I do?

I have an app called Meal Planner (it's purple with a clock, only the clock hands are a knife and fork!) and I have 5 weeks worth of meals on rotation, with a few meals in reserve for if we get to a particular meal and decide we actually don't fancy it. I don't actually stick to the days in the app, it's more a case of it being useful to have a week's worth of meals already written down so I don't have to remember them, and we have so many because we get fed up of the same thing too close together. The app has a shopping list function so you can add what ingredients you need for your meals, and it then compiles them into a list so you can use that to check your cupboards and then shop. I have used it in the past but don't currently. It also has breakfast and lunch slots, but I don't use those either as everyone tends to sort themselves out between whatever they're doing that day.

We shop twice a week, Mondays and Fridays usually - the bulk of it in A1di and then swing by Morris0ns/Tesc0/Asd@ to pick up any bits that we prefer from there/can't get in A1di. I sit down Monday morning, open the app, flick to the next week, and write down on a piece of paper what meals we're having when - taking account of if one of us is working in the evening, or the kids have dance class, or even I'm due on soon and know I'm going to be low on energy and don't want to do heavy cooking! Then from there I write out a list on the back of an envelope usually, and a second one for later in the week. The list comes with me and I've a pen in my bag and I cross things off as I go. The other list and the list of meals go on the freezer for all to see.

I batch cook a fair bit, especially things like bolognese, chilli, pie fillings, soup, curry. Last time I made chilli I used 2kg mince and it made 6 family sized portions - probably about £18 in ingredients so £3 per meal for 5 of us. Tiny portions can make nice lunches too. Often buy bigger joints so that they will do more than one meal, eg a 1.3kg gammon joint will do a roast dinner and the leftovers will do one or two pasta meals with some sauce, a big lamb shoulder will do two or three lots of lamb and dumplings. Leftovers and batches are frozen until needed. The upright freezer is... 6 foot tall? More? And I use all of it. The smaller freezer under the fridge is used for cat food, ice blocks, and currently also has 2 placentas and a bunch of duck feet/necks/giblets from when I last culled some ducks (there you go @South_coast - told you I'd win your weirdest freezer contents competition!! And no, neither of those placentas are mine...! I think that makes it worse?! ) I have 2 slow cookers and use them as much as I can. I also take advantage if I'm doing something like jacket potatoes and will bake extra ones to make stuffed potatoes to freeze for lunches.

I absolutely hate meal planning, and writing shopping lists, but by having the app there to hold that information for me I find it less stressful. I absolutely cannot handle having to spontaneously think up meals each day - that is SO MUCH WORSE for me. I will just choose not to eat or eat the same old stuff over and over. When we were much harder up (circa 2005) I used to meal plan the whole month in one go. At that point in our lives there were 3 of us and a cat and we had £44.10 a week for all our groceries because that was how much I got paid for a couple of evening shifts at the pub. It really makes you examine everything when you have to live like that. Whenever I have a wobble over what is going on financially, I remember those times and how far we've come, and give my head a shake lol.

QueenJess

Thanks, that is helpful! I do save all my meal plans just in notes on my phone. I list them by week so I can go back for some inspiration. I try to rotate things a fair bit so we don't get bored (I say we, but I think it's only me - everyone else is happy to eat the same thing all the time) and we always have a roast at the weekend and use the leftovers to make two other meals.

I'm currently thinking part of the problem is that my freezer is far too small, but DH refuses to let me have any more space in the garage that would take away from his precious cars/car washing apparatus 🤦🏼‍♀️

I also think when I don't concentrate, the extras creep in which suddenly make it expensive.

coldcazzie

QueenJess said:

DH refuses to let me have any more space in the garage that would take away from his precious cars/car washing apparatus 🤦🏼‍♀️

I also think when I don't concentrate, the extras creep in which suddenly make it expensive.

We don't have a garage LOL. The giant freezer is in the dining room. Not ideal but nowhere else for it to go cuz the kitchen is approximately shoebox sized. He doesn't get a say in it - the kitchen is my domain hahaha. I decided we needed more freezer space. I went and got a freezer. Voila, more freezer space!  

QueenJess

Ha ha! I just don't think we have room for it anywhere else. I'm already having nightmares about my food delivery tomorrow as I have a load of freezer food coming and I really don't know if I'll be able to fit it all in  it's going to be a long and stressful game of freezer Jenga!