The thriftyish way to debt freedom

joedenise

We use the Swedish store's tempered glass dinner plates - they are plain white and only 50p each!  They are virtually indestructible!  Really useful with kids.

Bluegreen143

@f0xh0les great idea with the shot glasses. When they were babies we used these little open baby cups you can get (the brand name is actually baby cup). I remember ordering them as they had been recommended and when they arrived I realised they were the exact shape and size of a shot glass! So if I had been braver I could have used some of our existing glass shot glasses instead. My youngest has never taken a bottle (her brother was more easy going!) but likes a cup of milk pre sleep now we have finished with breastfeeding and I fear using a tumbler cuddling up reading stories would result in a spill so we have one with a straw lid for her.

Baileys_Babe

joedenise said:

We use the Swedish store's tempered glass dinner plates - they are plain white and only 50p each!  They are virtually indestructible!  Really useful with kids.

We have the side plates, deep plates (like pasta bowls) and bowls from this range.

On my next visit to Ikea, I plan to investigate the plates to see if they do a size that we could use for our dinners, I don't want anything to big.

thriftyish

@f0xh0les. I think I found the wilk0s ones you mentioned, but only in a set on the website, I will have a look when I am next instore and see if I can spot them individually - thanks. We have practically identical glasses to the 25p ones, they are a perfect size for the kids. I am nowhere near a voucher yet, might have to part with cash! I am sure the ones we have are from the Swedish shop and they are quite big, I could do with a smaller plate! We do sometimes use the side plates for the kids! I am still keeping an eye out at the c/s, we are in an area that is quite deprived, lots of minimum waged workers, and endless tiny terraced houses, the charity shops are a good representation of the area, there is never a lot in the way of plates ect, but I enjoy looking anyway! A lot of the towns around us are similar, one of my aunties loves frequenting the c/s's in the 'posh', more affluent towns, I might have to go and explore the c/s there when the children are back at school and I feel safe enough to go! 

@Bluegreen143 'Too good to go' is an app, you download and it tells you which local businesses are part of their scheme. You usually buy a 'magic bag'  from them and collect it the following day during a collection time slot. All the M0rrisons around us take part, and a few local-ish growers / carvery places, although I've only ever got them from M0rrisons as the other places are a bit far out. This what we received on Sunday for £3.09, no fruit/veg this time. All the bread goes in the freezer and we take it out as we need it. I was very impressed with the eggs & milk! 


@Jophi2b Whooo! I still get excited now, so do the kids! The sale normally starts 15 minutes after the collection slot for the day has closed, so I have an alarm set for two minutes before. I am trying not to spend this week and its taken a lot of will power to ignore that alarm! I hope you get a good selection tomorrow

@joedenise I think am pretty sure they are the ones we have! But I thought they were discontinued as I haven't seen them in store on my last few visits, and can only see the bowls online (I didn't spot them before, have just checked when you said!). I am pretty sure we had twelve, and the chips and reduction in numbers occurred at a similar point to us asking the eldest two children to help to with unloading the dishwasher! I will keep looking when I visit, just in case, thanks!

Today
Another NSD - DH is finding this testing and keeps searching the cupboard for junk, will do some inventive baking so I can hold out until Friday! Inventive because we have only a tiny bit of sugar.

I got off to a very slow start. I balanced all my spreadsheets for the month early, then went for a bath and climbed back into bed while the children were happily playing on technology. I am still not feeling great, it could just be hormones as they seem to be sending me on a wild ride at the moment, and I've had quite a bit of nausea, which I usually get just before totm.

I dragged myself out of bed, made lunch for 5 and took the kids to the park for a few hours, via the allotment to drop off a bag of chicken manure/bedding, and all our compost scraps in the compost bin. We called back at the allotment on the way back to dig up some potatoes for dinner, and I stayed for half an hour to weed the carrots with dreams of spending Saturday morning with DH instead of weeding. I am an awful mother, my children were absolutely dying of thirst and boredom:- shockingly they survived, didn't die of thirst and made it home just fine.

Food
Tea was homemade chips with y/s fish (fish fingers for the children) and peas. I must have found my mojo because I also boiled the beetroot I had saved for my plot neighbour. I delivered it this evening, with a jar of the beetroot relish, and some lemon cupcakes I had made while for pudding while tea was cooking. He gave me a cauliflower, which we will have tomorrow with something from the freezer and more potatoes and green beans from the allotment, yum!

Allotment & missing cauliflower
I intended to grow some cauliflower this year, I bought the seed and sowed it, and it's only just occurred to me that have no idea where it has gone. The cabbages all got a bit mixed, and instead of a lot of green cabbage and a little red, I have a lot of red and a little green. I know this because shortly after planting the seedlings the 'green' cabbage started turning red  I have no idea where the vanishing cauliflower is, but I am hoping it surprises me and I find it happily growing at the plot.

Hoe, Hoe Hoe
I bumped into another plot holder on the way home and she was telling me how impressed she is with how full & tidy my allotment is looking considering I've only been there since January. It looks tidy because I'm good at hoeing (hoe hoe hoe!) If you look closely the weeds that need hand weeding are growing as rapidly as the veg - which is fine, the veg is still growing. It looks great without my glasses. The children spotted calabrese broccoli growing on my neighbour's plot and were amazed to see that's how it actually grows, DS (who is 10!) declared he's definitely not eating it in future, awesome.

Chicks
The second set of chicks are due to arrive tomorrow. The first set are huge now in comparison to how they arrived, they are only 11 days old! And they have most of their wing feathers and love zooming about the cage. They are starting to look really quite odd, as they have patches where they are growing their feathers and patches of down, I have heard it gets worse before it gets better! Their cheeps are lower, but they make a right old racket scratching about the sawdust in the cage!

Almost at the end of the month, which is very exciting, I think I've peaked by updating my spreadsheets early!

Pollie

Don't know if you have any honey or jam but there is a website which gives lots of recipes for sugar free biscuits, cakes, puddings and pies using these as alternatives.  Just google sugar free biscuits uk and you will see the website. It starts with 'Sugar Free'. (Sorry, not sure if allowed to add link)

thriftyish

Thanks @pollie, I think I might try to make some of the no-sugar shortbread tomorrow as DH is craving biscuits!

Quick update tonight - very unlike me!   Only a small spend of £3.34, I popped to Morribobs as we were completely out of milk and a cup of tea just isn't the same with the coffee whitener stuff. I bought a few 6-8p packs of breadcakes, hummus, coleslaw & falafel. I couldn't resist 3 packs of 6 pain-au-chocolates for the kids at 34p each and splashed out at a big loaf of tiger bread for 30p.  You can tell I am used to buying reduced bread when I am shaking my head at spending 30p on a loaf  I've just had a slice of hot buttery toast though, and am happy to report it was worth the 30p 

Grocery total for the month as my feet won't set foot in a shop tomorrow: £290.19 - a saving of £109.81 on my £400 budget! 
Which means we have spent £9.36 per day on food, to feed 6 people!

I also worked out today that I pay £7.13 per day in interest on my mortgage - and that they add the interest on daily and I am not inept and writing the figure down wrong    I am not sure on the daily interest on my debt, but I am shocked that it is so high on the mortgage! 

Bluegreen143

I am so in awe of how little you spend on food! Nearly £200 less than us last month and there are only four of us here. It costs a bit more here using our local greengrocer’s boxes for fruit and veg (which I want to keep supporting, and we really enjoy) but we could easily do it for a lot less than we do. Hoping to bring it down a lot more in August!

thriftyish

@Bluegreen143 The food budget is our biggest budget after the mortgage, and one that I have the most control over daily - so the one I am hitting the hardest at the moment. I am not sure how sustainable it will be over the year as we do need more expensive things this month such as tea  & coffee, and it only works when I cook and bake - DH really likes biscuits and isn't impressed at the lack of them  - maybe I just need to buy more! I think I am going to keep a spreadsheet on how much we spend in each area - so how much on cheese/milk/bread/biscuits/veg, but I know that it will be a nightmare to keep up with, so it might not last!

Chicks
We have just one chick, the second didn't make it sadly. This one is very yellow, and looks very much like a stereotypical chick, the others were all darker from the previous hatch. We have 3 in total now. I have been informed they are called Lucy, Eden and Goofy 

Selling stock photos
I think I am going to sign myself up to some 'stock photo' websites and see if I can sell some of my photos online. I've a few photographs in mind, but I might see if I can take some of the chicks too.

Food
Fairly thrifty day. We had toast for breakfast, the children had y/s peanut butter sandwiches for dinner (their choice, I had laid the table with a colourful array of salad stuff too which they snacked on instead) DH had a salad sandwich and I had a hummus pitta with salad and falafel. Dinner was freezer pesto, with garlic bread. I fried some courgette like you said @f0xh0les, and added to my salad pitta, it was really nice. I also grated, fried and stirred some through my pesto pasta tonight @MagicCat, and I really enjoyed that too! 

Surveys.
Pr0lific I am still continuing with pr0lific - I think that's my favourite. I have their app for chrome which sends a voice notification when new studies are available, and if I already have the window open, I can quickly refresh and reserve a spot. If I have to find the tab, or open the shortcut I am too slow, they disappear so fast! 
Postal Survey - I have registered for the postal survey, but have heard it might take a while to hear back.
Football Survey - I can't find a link to join the football one, only to log in. I think either they have no space, or that you need an invite.
Valued Opini0ns - This was FANTASTIC for the first day, but I haven't had anything since
Youg0v -  I have completed a few surveys, they seem to be slow and steady I am up to £3, but cash out is at £50
Niels3n - I have signed up to scan shopping - hopefully waiting to hear if I am successful
P0pulus - I've taken my first popul0us survey tonight, fingers crossed for more!
Pinecone Research - I've signed up but heard nothing more

I've also just signed up to life points, qmee & branded surveys, I think I've earnt about £6 today, but it's hard to keep track of all the points/tokens and lots of the payouts are high. 

Allotment
- I found my cauliflower plants, they are the worst looking plants on the entire plot. I think a caterpillar got in the net and her babies have had a feast. I've never seen slugs so big either. The nets are off so we will see if they survive.
- I rescued a bird from my allotment neighbours netting, that is the reason I refuse to use that type of net! His wings were all tangled and he must have been terrified, so glad I spotted him & managed to cut him free. He managed to fly to the top of a nearby tree so I think he's okay.
- My plot neighbour is going to Germany for two weeks (he's brave - there are other words!) and he's kindly offered me free reign over his cauliflower, cabbages and runner beans because otherwise, he says they will go to waste. We probably won't eat the runner beans but I will definitely rescue a few caulies before they blow, and a cabbage, they are HUGE, bigger than footballs! 
- Another plot friend has found me a greenhouse - it's plastic and fairly big, just waiting to hear how much he wants because I didn't really want to pay much - but second hand is MUCH better than new.
- I sowed some more french beans as the kids go crazy for them. Its a tad late but they might give us a late harvest.

Arent months that begin on weekends awkward? I feel like I have to wait until Monday when all the DDs have gone out to see where I stand!

Kakiste

I love prolific as well. I've made £83 on it so far and I only started using it at the end of June!
I've got majorly into receipt scanning as well in the past 2 weeks. I use 4 apps and just take pictures of any receipts I get (they use the data for market research) and get between 5p/30p per receipt. Most of them let you cash out at £5 but you can let it build up longer. 
I've made about £2.50 ish on each app so far. 
Your dinner from yesterday sounds lovely

MagicCat

Glad you enjoyed the courgette!

Your shopping budget is amazing, I am also v impressed! 

What do you tend to make with cauliflower? My DH isn't keen on it so I do cauliflower cheese but not much else.