A new royal start

QueenJess

Nearly at the end of the week!  I spent my commuting days this week trying out every combination of parking places, tickets, method of paying for tickets, different trains etc.  Researching train tickets seems more complicated than my actual day job!  I am currently enjoying the quiet trains over the summer and not looking forward to potentially having to stand come September.  I'm getting a lot of book reading done on the train

Still settling into the job and trying to work out what is going on and who does what.  Whilst I have to get up at a certain time for the train 3x a week (working from home the rest), I am trying not to mess up my body clock by getting up at this same time all week and I am using the extra time in the morning on the days I am at home to do baking/chores.  Yesterday morning I baked a chocolate marble cake and flapjacks.  Today I have 12 rolls and a load of bread proving on the side that I can throw in the oven at lunch time.  I am also on my second load of washing and all the beds have been changed.

Lunch today is just me as DH is taking DS out and DD is at nursery.  I'm going to make pesto pasta with green beans and courgettes (uses up some of the huge amount of hm pesto in the freezer from all those carrot tops Riverford delivered to me over the summer).  I'll be making twice as much so I already have my lunch for Monday's office day ready and don't have to spend time doing it over the weekend.  Dinner is a big tofu stir fry to use up whatever is hanging around in the fridge with noodles.  Dessert is the chocolate marble cake.

Better go and think about logging on for the day now!

themadvix

Glad the job is going well.
 Early mornings are the only time for baking at the moment! I’ve been up at 6 most of this week - best time for doing stuff when it’s this hot.

QueenJess

themadvix said:

Glad the job is going well.
 Early mornings are the only time for baking at the moment! I’ve been up at 6 most of this week - best time for doing stuff when it’s this hot.

Ah yes, that’s true. I’ve been jumping from an air conned office to a train to a car to home, so I’ve not really felt the heat. Gymnastics last night has no air con, so that was pretty brutal!

QueenJess

I was awake early this morning, so I went through the joint account. Everything looks dire (as expected really) and so I am trying to be extra frugal until the joint account recovers since we no longer have nursery fees to come out. 

I did the shop and thought I didn’t go overboard (although I couldn’t resist 1x pack of ys organic chicken - however I left 4 other packs there, so it’s progress!), but my freezer is very full and my fridge is completely rammed. I must have miscalculated somewhere, but now we are back on trying to use everything up and I’m hoping for a much cheaper food week next week all round. Spent £97 in sm (everything seems to be getting more expensive recently), £15 zero waste shop and £40 riverford. Only £2 over the weekly total so it isn’t a total disaster. I just need to rein it in a bit.

DH is taking DD out whilst I take DS to gymnastics so lunches are separate (they have packed a picnic). I am planning to have the leftover pizza slice with the leftover stir fry veg from last night. DS will have an egg and soldiers with the leftover beans in the fridge. Dinner is chicken (spiced for the adults) with hm chips, corn on the cob and I’m thinking of making a quick coleslaw as well. Dessert is ice cream or marble cake.

After the food shop I had 30 mins before I needed to leave the house, so I popped washing on and then made some ice cream. I picked up 2 years worth of Good Food magazines on Buy Nothing and have been slowly going through the ones for August. I found a strawberry jam ripple ice cream recipe which is very similar to the one I usually make anyway. I made some blackberry jam recently and so subbed that in instead.  It looks amazing

Edit: I reviewed the sm receipt earlier... about 25% spent on dairy products, 25% on meat, 10% on chocolate (for some planned baking), 10% on wine and the rest on general stuff and the odd bit of veg/fruit to top up the Riverford order.  Dairy is definitely my biggest regular spend, but I absolutely love cheese...

QueenJess

Got up early this morning (working from home) and made a batch of gooey chocolate brownies and some custard creams.  Then put away clean washing, hung a new load out to dry and changed DD's bed (will do the rest tomorrow).

Busy working today, but I have been paid this month    It's been a while since I've been paid and it's nice to add to the funds rather than keep spending them!  I've also set up my account for my train car parking (almost 1/3 of the price of usual parking) and will need to set up my weekly train ticket as that's 1/3 off as well.  Travel spending is still very high, but that's just the delights of train fares round here in peak times.  Most my salary this month is on travel and joint account spends, with a bit left over to top up my in-between jobs savings account that I've been using for the past 2 months.  Hopefully I can start topping up my ISA from next month again.

Given I'm spending more now (travel), it means I'm getting a lot more into my round up savings account to pay down the mortgage.  I already have £100 ready for September and there may be the odd month I get up to the dizzy heights of £200. 

In other money news I got round to cancelling my home phone line as we don't use it anymore.  I still need to check on my internet now I'm out of contract and see if it's cheaper to sign up again.  Otherwise I am trying to spend as little as practical to build up all the depleted accounts now I'm working again.  Got 6 months and then I'll be back to no salary!

Lunch today was poached eggs, beans and toast a la DH (I'm sure it's the only thing he ever makes for lunch!).  Dinners are separate as I have a very early gym class so will have a sandwich later this afternoon.  DH has leftover pasta to use up, DS has leftover pizza and DD is a law unto herself post nursery 

QueenJess

Well it's the end of the month and so I looked at the joint account earlier and then wished I hadn't.  No good all round after the long holiday and somehow I spent way over budget this month for food (to be fair, not helped my growing kids and inflation).  September is back to school and as I am working full time, I am aiming to be incredibly frugal to get things back on track.  I suspect we've just been a bit lax all round and before you know it, the little bits really add up.

Today DD is at a birthday party (just about to come back) and so I spent a bit of time adding to the kids gift lists.  I keep them on my phone for me and the kids as I think of things so I don't panic come xmas/birthdays and buy things that don't last the distance.  I stumbled across 12 books in great condition (second hand online) for DS for £14 including postage and so I jumped on that.  The books are impossible to find second hand in charity shops and he does love reading them.  As we already have a game, some cars and a small Lego set DS wanted, that's xmas pretty much wrapped up for him.  I'll probably make chocolates or sweets for the end of his bed and get him some bath bombs (my kids love them).  I've started thinking about it for DD and having a cast around for what's out there, but not made any decisions yet.  We don't go crazy with gifts and I try to buy a few things that they will really love and use for a long time.

As it's been really busy this week at work, I caught up yesterday and made fairy cakes with buttercream icing and ginger biscuits (half plain and the other half dipped in dark chocolate).  My lunch is already made for work tomorrow (pesto pasta with green beans and courgette) and I made a big bowl of popcorn as DH is supervising the kids tomorrow so they can munch on that and fruit as snacks.  Dinner tonight will be beef stew from the freezer.  I've been waiting for when DD doesn't need to eat as she didn't like it last time and I had made double portions.

Fingers crossed for a frugal September!  I'm off to now see if I can cash out some points from my credit card to use against some school tops I will need for DD and some wellies DS will need.  Already packed a passport photo so I can get my weekly train pass tomorrow which also saves a bit of cash.  Looking forward to making my £100 mortgage overpayment later this week

QueenJess

It's the first week of the month, so I've overpaid the mortgage by £100 plus the odd amount to round it to the nearest £100.  I now owe £118,700.  I would love to set some targets, but it's just not going to happen at the moment as there's no wiggle room right now, so all I can do is play around the edges and hope one day I suddenly have a much lower mortgage!

Being good this week and generally not spending any money for frugal September.  However, DH doesn't have the memo and has been spending  At least school and work should stop that next week.  Feeling mixed about money... on the one hand the joint account is dire and needs a lot of work, but on the other hand I logged into my pension accounts after not doing so for about 6 months.  Wow... they've gone up quite a bit!  I have to say getting paid each month really makes a huge difference to my finances!  I've got another 5 months of this job to get myself back to a good position and then I'll look for the next job, possibly with another break in-between.

To the all important food... lunch is just me today and I am using up the massive batch of roasted veg with spices, pearl barley and green lentils I made a few days ago.  Ironically now I've used up the bag of green lentils, I've realised I really like them, so I would love to repurchase.  I will just get a little bit from the zero waste shop for my lunches at work though as it's just me that likes them.  Going to hold off until I use up the elderly pearl barley first though.  Dinner is just me and the kids, so thinking of easy jacket potatoes with beans and cheese unless I can convince DS to eat leftover pizza with some beans.  Yesterday I made chocolate chip brioche and this morning I made some biscuits that I will ice in fun colours later.  I might even make an apple and plum crumble for dessert to be served with hm vanilla ice cream.

I'm doing an absolutely rubbish job on clearing down some of the freezer... the meat is slowly declining (I think I've only got 3 weeks ish left in there), but there's a mystery section in the middle of the freezer all the way down to the bottom where I can't remember exactly what is there anymore.  I know I have random veg scraps somewhere waiting for soup weather and I may even have purple cabbage leftover from xmas, but anything else is a mystery.... I'm trying to count ins and outs of the freezer, but I'm still putting more in than I'm taking out, so must try harder.  I don't want to empty it all, just make sure older things are being used up and I'm using up the random bits and pieces that will otherwise be forgotten.

Better get back to work!

themadvix

I think it's always the case when you try to use something up that you end up liking it and wanting more! 😆At least the refill shops allow you to just buy enough, not a whole pack. We're currently working through bulgur wheat (which I only even tried because it was past its BB and my original refill shop offered me some for free as they knew me!) - but I'm already thinking I might want to get more... it might be a seasonal thing though. And then there's a jar of harissa in the fridge that's been there for a year - but we've just found a recipe that uses it, so we'll replace it at some point (or not have it in when we want it).

My freezer is also full and I'm not sure with what. I need to sort it out - lots of veg in small quantities I think - perils of growing it!

edinburgher

I have to say getting paid each month really makes a huge difference to my finances!

It'll do that! 😂

The baking sounds delicious, as always 🤤 

South_coast

I thought that as well, Ed 🤣!