It's been a whirlwind week with massive amounts to do in my job - as a result, I haven't done any excercise, alcohol level hasn't reduced and the garden has been abandoned due to awful weather! 🙈 I've employed a cleaner though so house is good! 😉 I am happy spending the cash - it's worth it for my mental health if nothing else and if the kids don't start to pull their weight after the end of the month (I have a new grandbaby so I'm giving them a few weeks to get used to being parents 😉) then their rent will increase to cover half the cost... Food has been from the garden and stores - I've made sushi and inari, Mediterranean potatoes (served with the remaining tandoori seitan), bolognese, morroccan couscous and pizza over the past week - today I'm doing fried rice with veg with the leftover sushi rice 😉 Finances are fine - I'm happy with what I'm achieving and am still being very careful with spending (although I did do a few spends yesterday on my eldest grandbaby 😉😍) hopefully I'll hit the targets I've set. I received an email today to say my holiday refund is being processed so next month I'll need to use the cc for food/petrol as there is no balance on it for the refund to pay off! The cash will go to savings instead 🙌
It's been busy and expensive! 🙈 Work is still crazy - I don't mind though as I really enjoy my job 😉 I had visitors at the weekend and spent a small fortune - I also decided to use my holiday refund to get a heater for my dd's house to save her some money - her heating isn't great and it takes a long time to warm up (very old cottage and unable to have wall insulation so gets very cold) plus she's on bottled gas so spends a small fortune during the winter 😔 - with the heater she can get her rooms to a decent temperature quickly and easily. It's worth the outlay imo. I had a good weekend (despite the expense! 😉) - I went on a 5 mile walk on Saturday and a 3 mile one on Sunday so got the excercise in.
I foraged while on my walks and have enough sloes and wild greengages for two lots of gin, plus my visitors brought me enough cooking and eating apples to feed an army!! 😂 I've only processed 2 of the 5 bags of bramleys so far and have 5 boxes of apple sauce for crumbles or eve's puddings and 3 large kilner jars of dehydrated sliced apples for apple powder!! I shall do some more today for the dehydrator- this time I'll do small chunks so that I can put them into hm granola and use for apple sauce. I'm also going to make apple vodka with some of the remaining apples 🙌 Once I've done all of that, any left will be distributed to dh's work colleagues- I just don't have enough space to process and keep them all 🙈
Garden is a shambles - the weather just hasn't improved at all 😔 it's been like living in the lake district!! I've never known this much consistent rain in this area- it's definitely hampering my efforts on the garden but in all honesty my weekends have been so busy I don't think I would have achieved very much anyway....this weekend, rain or shine, we need to get some jobs done out there! House is fine - cleaner is off for a week next week though so I need to make sure that we don't let it slide - dh finally got round to doing a job in the kitchen yesterday that I've been asking him to sort for weeks so I'm really happy with that! 😊 Alcohol- oh dear! 🙈 Very heavy weekend but I was drinking wine as opposed to spirits so the actual units consumed was probably lower than normal. I only had one drink yesterday too so pretty proud of that! 😉 Food has been expensive over the weekend- mainly for the family though and not me - but will be eating from the freezer this week as I need to clear it out a bit. All in all, I'm happy with where I am - I'm planning on having a much stricter month in November as I should have no major events, visits or expenses to come so can concentrate on getting a bit more organised! 😂 Right, essay over - got to get sorted for work!! Have a fab day!! 😊
I've just worked out our alcohol spends this month and was horrified! 🙈 I've made the decision that I'm quitting for at least a month from 1st November- I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks trying lots of alternative drinks that don't have alcohol in them to find the best substitute.
Big garden day planned today - looking forward to finally getting my bulbs planted but got to move about 3 tonnes of earth to make the beds for them first! 😂 We've got the greenhouse to clear out too - I'm going to be exhausted by the end of this!!! 🙈
@smushesma - This might sound revolting but try 1-2 Tbs balsamic vinegar in 2 litres of Diet Lemonade and it tastes like Pimms! Put in all the chopped fruit, cucumber & mint and it even looks like one.
@joedenise - The only bit that sounds wrong to me is the diet lemonade! 😂 I'll give it a go with some full sugar stuff though - thank you! 😊
I thought the same, I will not drink or eat things with sweetener in them. But I will happily try the full-sugar variety with balsamic vinegar, but it will have to wait until we have some lemonade in as we only buy it occasionally.
Fashion on a ration 2023 66/66 coupons remaining Rolled over coupons 62.5/62.5 remaining (using for secondhand purchases)
Can't see any reason why it wouldn't work with full fat lemonade but haven't actually tried it; only tried it with diet lemonade. Have to say it's not something I drink regularly though.
@Baileys_Babe and @joedenise - I'll give it a go next week and let you know how it is! 😉 Yesterday was a full on garden day - we've filled up two beds with soil and planted half the bulbs, I stripped the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouse and sil fixed our downpipe, took the old sky dishes off the house and cut up and took away 2 metal swing seats! 🙌 Bless him, he's such a good lad 😍😊 Dh and I are exhausted today though - we've both slightly damaged ourselves doing the garden stuff so have decided that today we will have a recuperation day - I'm going to cook up the tomatoes I picked yesterday and sort a meal plan for the week ahead (mainly from the freezer) but other than that it will be snoozing and chillaxing! 😂 Yesterday ended up being a good day financially too - I've had appalling issues with BT over the past few weeks so have changed supplier saving myself £15 per month but getting a similar broadband speed plus a TV package! 🙌 I'm pretty impressed with it - it won't solve the outage issues I've been having but I'll be paying less and getting more so I can live with that 😊 Anyway, I'm off to get some food - have a fab day!! 😊
The inlaws have asked us to look into sorting out their internet/phone/tv package, they are currently with BT, I was horrified how much they are paying. They are still in contract so we need to wait for that to end, but then they are leaving BT who we feel have taken advantage of the inlaws, who had no idea what their plan included except tv and enough internet for browsing and email.
Fashion on a ration 2023 66/66 coupons remaining Rolled over coupons 62.5/62.5 remaining (using for secondhand purchases)
@Baileys_Babe, I'd definitely look around for better deals for them - I only went with BT due to my location, they were the only ones at the time who could offer decent internet speeds. After having the amount of outages I have had recently and being on hold three times over the last three days for 25, 40 and 90 minutes respectively to try to find out what is happening, their customer service failures are enough to make me move on their own! 😠
Tomatoes have been diced, shed loads of garlic and onions added along with salt, a sprinkling of sugar and some balsamic and are bubbling away in the oven 😍 I've got a couple of vegan 'steaks' out of the freezer and peeled potatoes for horseradish mash so dinner is sorted 😊 for lunch I had a box of cabbage and cumin in the freezer which I blitzed into soup as it was too 'sloppy' a texture for my liking - glad I did as it was lovely!! 😂 I've decided that between now and the end of November, I'm spending no more than £10 per week on food - we have so much in the freezer and stores it's stupid to keep buying extra...let's hope I can keep dh in line! 🤔😂
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I've employed a cleaner though so house is good! 😉 I am happy spending the cash - it's worth it for my mental health if nothing else and if the kids don't start to pull their weight after the end of the month (I have a new grandbaby so I'm giving them a few weeks to get used to being parents 😉) then their rent will increase to cover half the cost...
Food has been from the garden and stores - I've made sushi and inari, Mediterranean potatoes (served with the remaining tandoori seitan), bolognese, morroccan couscous and pizza over the past week - today I'm doing fried rice with veg with the leftover sushi rice 😉
Finances are fine - I'm happy with what I'm achieving and am still being very careful with spending (although I did do a few spends yesterday on my eldest grandbaby 😉😍) hopefully I'll hit the targets I've set. I received an email today to say my holiday refund is being processed so next month I'll need to use the cc for food/petrol as there is no balance on it for the refund to pay off! The cash will go to savings instead 🙌
I had a good weekend (despite the expense! 😉) - I went on a 5 mile walk on Saturday and a 3 mile one on Sunday so got the excercise in.
I foraged while on my walks and have enough sloes and wild greengages for two lots of gin, plus my visitors brought me enough cooking and eating apples to feed an army!! 😂 I've only processed 2 of the 5 bags of bramleys so far and have 5 boxes of apple sauce for crumbles or eve's puddings and 3 large kilner jars of dehydrated sliced apples for apple powder!! I shall do some more today for the dehydrator- this time I'll do small chunks so that I can put them into hm granola and use for apple sauce. I'm also going to make apple vodka with some of the remaining apples 🙌 Once I've done all of that, any left will be distributed to dh's work colleagues- I just don't have enough space to process and keep them all 🙈
Garden is a shambles - the weather just hasn't improved at all 😔 it's been like living in the lake district!! I've never known this much consistent rain in this area- it's definitely hampering my efforts on the garden but in all honesty my weekends have been so busy I don't think I would have achieved very much anyway....this weekend, rain or shine, we need to get some jobs done out there!
House is fine - cleaner is off for a week next week though so I need to make sure that we don't let it slide - dh finally got round to doing a job in the kitchen yesterday that I've been asking him to sort for weeks so I'm really happy with that! 😊
Alcohol- oh dear! 🙈 Very heavy weekend but I was drinking wine as opposed to spirits so the actual units consumed was probably lower than normal. I only had one drink yesterday too so pretty proud of that! 😉
Food has been expensive over the weekend- mainly for the family though and not me - but will be eating from the freezer this week as I need to clear it out a bit.
All in all, I'm happy with where I am - I'm planning on having a much stricter month in November as I should have no major events, visits or expenses to come so can concentrate on getting a bit more organised! 😂
Right, essay over - got to get sorted for work!! Have a fab day!! 😊
Big garden day planned today - looking forward to finally getting my bulbs planted but got to move about 3 tonnes of earth to make the beds for them first! 😂
We've got the greenhouse to clear out too - I'm going to be exhausted by the end of this!!! 🙈
Rolled over coupons 62.5/62.5 remaining (using for secondhand purchases)
One income, home educating family
Yesterday was a full on garden day - we've filled up two beds with soil and planted half the bulbs, I stripped the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouse and sil fixed our downpipe, took the old sky dishes off the house and cut up and took away 2 metal swing seats! 🙌 Bless him, he's such a good lad 😍😊
Dh and I are exhausted today though - we've both slightly damaged ourselves doing the garden stuff so have decided that today we will have a recuperation day - I'm going to cook up the tomatoes I picked yesterday and sort a meal plan for the week ahead (mainly from the freezer) but other than that it will be snoozing and chillaxing! 😂
Yesterday ended up being a good day financially too - I've had appalling issues with BT over the past few weeks so have changed supplier saving myself £15 per month but getting a similar broadband speed plus a TV package! 🙌 I'm pretty impressed with it - it won't solve the outage issues I've been having but I'll be paying less and getting more so I can live with that 😊
Anyway, I'm off to get some food - have a fab day!! 😊
Rolled over coupons 62.5/62.5 remaining (using for secondhand purchases)
One income, home educating family
Tomatoes have been diced, shed loads of garlic and onions added along with salt, a sprinkling of sugar and some balsamic and are bubbling away in the oven 😍 I've got a couple of vegan 'steaks' out of the freezer and peeled potatoes for horseradish mash so dinner is sorted 😊 for lunch I had a box of cabbage and cumin in the freezer which I blitzed into soup as it was too 'sloppy' a texture for my liking - glad I did as it was lovely!! 😂
I've decided that between now and the end of November, I'm spending no more than £10 per week on food - we have so much in the freezer and stores it's stupid to keep buying extra...let's hope I can keep dh in line! 🤔😂