One income family of four - can we get ahead even after pay cuts?

Bluegreen143

Bit of a slow day today - very rainy and we can’t go visit anyone due to Glasgow lockdown. Luckily nursery is still open.

Decided to get a move on potty training Bambi (nearly 21 months). Obviously has money saving advantages now we are using disposables, plus she is driving us nuts taking her nappy off constantly. She’s well aware and shouts in gibberish at you to change her as soon as she uses the nappy 😅 Monkey was a similar age, maybe a month older and it worked out ok with him.

So we did full day nappy free today (except nap) and out of four pees, she successfully verbally asked for & used the potty twice (despite only having a handful of words, poo is one of them so she uses it for both & to mean potty, bless her). And two accidents but she told us straight after/as she was doing them. I’ve done nappy free days a handful of times the last few months to check how she gets on and happy this time that it’s clicked and she’s just needs practise now. But it will mean sticking closer to home the next few days while she gets the hang of it which is the slightly dull bit.

Did some lovely activities today. My friend really sweetly sent me a one off of a subscription box for Monkey & I to do together as a belated birthday present. We did a really nice activity from it - the theme was confidence and you draw round the child on a big bit of paper then we brainstormed together lots of things he can do for himself and I wrote them all in the outline. We talked about what confidence means and about how if you feel nervous trying new things you can take confidence from all the things you’ve already mastered. We also planted some cress from the same box as it had a few activities.

Later on I did painting with both kids - we painted on food bags then used them to make a print onto paper which was fun. I did get really irritated all our paintbrushes have vanished yet again as I’m the only person who puts things back where they belong 😡 when I went to Tesco later I did spend £2.50 on a new pack of paintbrushes. I was going to get them as a stocking filler but we are down to two tiny ones and we paint 2-3x most weeks so I’d rather not wait that long.

Got some basic clothes at Tesco as decided that, while I’d have got more for my money at Primark, the chances of me actually organising babysitting and driving half way across the city to go shopping (which I hate) was slim. Got 2x vest tops, 2x leggings, jeggings, 2x tops and a pair of tights. I’m down to one pair of jeans with many holes in, no decent pairs of leggings and I’ve gradually gone up a clothing size over the last year, so it was necessary for decency/comfort and I had the money budgeted but still felt weirdly guilty not putting it all into savings...

Plan for tomorrow is have a baking day. Trying to revive my sourdough starter which isn’t too happy. Did make the loveliest softest yeast bread last week though so may end up making that again. Also been meaning to bake a quiche as have masses of eggs.

MagicCat

Hope you're having a good week @Bluegreen143 and the potty training is going well.

Bluegreen143

Argh I’ve not posted for like a week! Bad me neglecting my diary!

Potty training is a bit so so but we ended up putting it off to the weekend in the end as I realised I needed help for getting other stuff done at the same time. After three days of focus on it I’d say I’m pretty confident she is getting it but she’s not reliable at all yet. However as we are now back in lockdown and have nothing else to do I may as well continue!

Will update later with YNAB totals but we are pretty much on track for the month. Only thing is the small freezer accidentally got defrosted this week as Bambi left the door open 😡😡😡 but nothing too expensive was in there. It did inspire Red to finally put a cupboard lock on it as I’ve been nagging him to do at least.

Had a busy baking/cooking day today:

- roast gammon with herby sweet potato/potato mash & veg for dinner (leftover ham for a pie and also to be sliced up in my meat slicer for sandwiches)

- peach & nectarine sponge pudding to have with ice cream for pudding

- loaf of bread

- onion and leek quiche

- few little jam tarts with the leftover pastry 

- lentil soup with the ham stock from cooking the dinner 

Baileys_Babe

Good to see you back @Bluegreen143 glad to hear it was only normal life getting in the way of you posting and not something more series 👋 

joedenise

Wow that was a busy day you had yesterday with all the cooking and plenty of meals sorted for a few days.

Bluegreen143

Thanks ladies!

Going to try out doing a fortnightly meal
plan with a big shop every second Thursday. Not sure if it will save money but I feel like having to do the meal
plan and shopping list etc is just so much hard work right now!

So not quite finished it yet but current mealplan:

Fri 18 - pizza, salad, chips
Sat 19 - salmon fish fingers, savoury rice, veg
Sun 20 - roast chicken & trimmings
Mon 21 - chicken risotto
Tues 22 - chicken & chickpea curry
Wed 23 - falafel wraps
Thurs 24 - veg fajitas
Fri 25 - fried chicken 
Sat 26 - veg lasagne
Sun 27 - roast beef
Mon 28 - chilli & rice
Tues 29 - beef pasta
Wed 30 - chicken & ham pie
Thu 1 - veggie enchiladas 

Will tweak tomorrow and finish off my Tesco order. Will need to do a small top up shop in between but just for bread and maybe milk.

Baileys_Babe

We too meal planned tonight, but we only managed a week. When inspiration hits we manage 5 weeks at a time occasionally.

Once a week we have a meal where each person gets to choose from the frozen single portion leftovers.
We talked tonight about reintroducing a night a week where we have a lighter meal, say something on toast, in our case probably Wednesdays as we eat lunch later than normal due to commitments. Currently, we end up eating dinner later as no one is hungry. You could always add a filling pudding afterwards like crumble.
By including these 2 things weekly we only need to think of 5 meals with is some disproportionately easier for us than 7. 

joedenise

I plan a month at a time using up HM ready meals from the freezer plus using things like mince, chicken thighs and fish to make other meals some of which end up in the freezer as next month's HM ready meals.  However I still prefer to shop weekly but I  don't  do online shopping but if I did then I'd probably do a big monthly shop with top ups weekly for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Baileys_Babe

We batch cook so we have HM ready meals in the freezer, we are having one tonight pork & turkey meatballs.

Bluegreen143

I’ve really fallen away from batch cooking at the moment (except both Red and I might make double of things like spag bol sauce - actually he is really good at that when he is cooking). When I worked I did it loads but I generally have the time to cook fresh at the minute. That said it’s always handy to have some in so should really get back to it. 

It’s a good idea re “something on toast night” and I suspect the littles would be over the moon but I fear my husband, who is otherwise generally easy going, would be most put out if I didn’t serve a “proper” dinner. I don’t think either of us have ever made something on toast for a family/couple dinner in 10 years of living together so I’ve made a rod for my own back there (and I do remember eating it for dinner growing up and as a student) 😂 he used to very much frown upon soup as a dinner (though he will eat it for lunch) but he does eat it now. Perhaps I ought to make a weekly soup & sandwiches night. Though as I do soup and/or sandwiches (and indeed “things on toast”) a lot for lunch it feels like we already eat these things quite a lot!

Had a nice dinner time success today. Made a Moroccan chicken thigh tagine type thing with chickpeas, dried apricots, veg etc in and served with couscous. Despite my fears the children would, as per usual, turn their noses up they actually ate it! Bambi, my less fussy one, ate two bowlfuls of everything, including the veg/chickpeas. Monkey ate a decent amount of chicken, picked all the chickpeas out to eat (as he has randomly decided he likes them) and then at least tried a few mouthfuls of the sauce/couscous. I put a bowl of raw veg sticks (cucumber/carrot/pepper) out and he demolished that, thankfully it’s one healthy thing he likes.

I absolutely love his nursery in most ways but one thing that is driving me nuts is they are quite permissive with the lunches/snacks and he told me today that when he didn’t want his chicken curry/rice they made him a cheese sandwich instead. I never make an alternative for him (though I put effort into making sure there are some things he likes on the table eg the raw veg I put out today plus I knew he’d eat the chicken). The most I do is offer Greek yog + honey or fruit/veg to end meals if he’s still hungry. I know they don’t want the kids to be hungry but I do feel that making him sandwiches instead is just totally pandering to him being a fussy wee sod and frankly undermining the work I’m doing at home to broaden his tastes. And as they give them ridiculously big snacks (bowls of cereal or toast/cheese/jam or sandwiches with lots of fruit etc) both in the morning and at 3pm on how long days he really isn’t at risk of starving in any case. Anyway, rant over 😆