A new royal start

beanielou

Mine is 1982. Shhhh.

QueenJess

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81920719#Comment_81920719

With all the extra time I have? 😂

Random tasks done today:

1. Measured DD for purposes of checking clothes sizes
2. Scrubbed and dried a cuddly toy that was dropped in a puddle
3. Sewed up DD's tights.
4. Put in some shelves for DS's new furniture. Still got some more to do.

Also made banana bread and a slow cooker chicken stew for dinner. Tomorrow is another day with lots more to get done.

QueenJess

Food shop day and also my budget check day. Too many things this month are pushing my finances off a cliff - a very expensive heating fix, DD's party, DS's furniture (my fault - I should have waited to purchase it) and holiday. Had to pull some money out of savings to fix the joint account, which couldn't take the hit as I still am trying to pull various categories out of deficit.

Going to draw a line under it and try to be more cost conscious and not spend unless I need to or find a cheaper way. We simply just need to spend less and although I don't scrimp every penny, I am hardly extravagant either. This will be our first holiday abroad for 10 years..

Anyway, grocery spend this week was £127 - £98 sm, £23 zero waste shop, £3 Lidl and the rest was milk. Nothing from Riverford this week as I barely needed anything and couldn't meet the minimum, so grabbed the odd thing I needed from the sm. I did buy some (expensive, with no emulsifiers) chocolate to use to make the kids Easter eggs, which I completely offset with a voucher from my credit card points. Very reasonable this week and I have to admit to some ys organic chicken breasts that fell into my basket along with another rack of lamb (the lamb was organic and £48 reduced to £17!!!! I couldn't leave that on the shelf..). We are very well stocked still, so I am hopeful for a couple of cheaper weeks of shopping whilst I attempt to clear down the freezer (not doing a good job).

Need to run as off out to see a play with my sister we booked ages ago. I have my lunch ready packed. Tomorrow will be a huge roast cooked by DH and there is a massive leg of lamb defrosting in the fridge ready (one of my Jan bargains). I shall be making an apple and blackberry crumble with custard for afters to use up some of the blackberries still in my freezer.

Oh - you might appreciate this, but I made a massive loaf of bread yesterday in my vintage bread tin. I love that it ended up with the imprint of the name on the bread (Prewitts). Small things make me happy :) When I have more cash I would love to get another one as I usually make two loaves at a time and only have one tin.

QueenJess

I hope everyone is having a good Sunday. I am feeling very sleepy after a large meal of roast lamb with all the trimmings and a glass of red wine. Tons of leftover lamb for the freezer and I am looking forward to my apple and blackberry crumble with custard later. I had too much filling, so I stewed up some extra to have with yogurt/porridge etc.

Thought I'd drop in with some good money news:

• I fixed our mortgage before the current crisis (saves us £90 from April)
• I fixed our energy bill in December for 12 months and due to the reduction in fixed costs from April from government changes, they've decided to give the reduction to us immediately rather than sticking with the fixed price contract.
• One of the clothes I ordered for DS was cancelled by the seller, but I found something £1 cheaper instead.

Also DD has been quiet for ages (not like her!) and it turned out she was drawing a lovely picture of me and her together 😍 Happy Sunday!

QueenJess

Not having a good time at work at the moment. Trying to decide whether it's worth it or not (the fun of contracting as I am always ready to walk away if required).

Anyway, more important to keep control of the pennies if my income is going to disappear. Spent £158 this week £116 sm, £3 milk top up, £25 Aldi bulk buying porridge/wheat bisks and £14 zero waste shop. But I may have got myself another ys rack of organic lamb (£18 reduced from £48) and a few packs of ys fish cakes. Freezer is rammed out still (and looks like it's lamb for all of the spring!) and the plan is to try and eat down the freezer as much as possible in April with the aim to ultimately defrost the freezer (will likely extend into May). Hoping that means a cheap April for food. No Riverford this week as only need a few bits and trying to run down all fresh stuff before holiday.

Better go as my brain needs a rest today and it's DD's party to prep for tomorrow. Spag bol for tonight (portions for the freezer as well for an easy meal post holiday) with the rest of the apple and blackberry crumble.

QueenJess

Well my experiment of doing 1 less wash a day from 1 Jan 2026 has yielded a decrease in our water usage from 289L a day to 271L a day (for comparable period), although it is September to March, so will have only included part of my reduction.

Sadly my bill is still going up 23% (£43 to £53) which I am outraged by considering the water company is awful…. Anyway, it was good to know my reduction made quite a bit of difference. I'm thinking of a new water reduction challenge for the next period to see if that makes a difference too, although I expect it's all about the washing and dishwasher really.

QueenJess

Back from holiday and back to work yesterday. It was so great to get away and the kids got so much out of a foreign holiday (France), although DS did attempt to eat his body weight in croissants and pain au chocolat 😂. I haven’t left the UK in a decade and it was really interesting to note differences - lots more people smoke in France, the vegetarian dinner options are pretty non-existent, but the roads are in a great condition and less congested, it is way cleaner and less littered and the food out and in supermarkets is far superior quality. So sad to be back!

We did try to be sensible with money whilst we were there - stocking up on included breakfasts and grabbing fruit and a roll/cheese for lunch to save us the cost later etc. But still so much spent and we were discussing how to reduce costs and be even more savvy next time. Now we are back I am trying hard to buy as little as possible this month and we are surviving on what we already had (plus fresh fruit/milk top ups) until I do the food shop on Saturday. We will try to eat through the food stocks and freezer so I can defrost it, so fingers crossed for a cheap month this month.

On the work front I have decided I will not be working silly hours anymore as that doesn’t help things change given it gets done in the end. I value my evenings with the kids, so am putting my foot down. If the work doesn’t get done then it will highlight the issue and maybe something will get done.

I did a little bit of research to roughly estimate my water usage and actually most of my water usage is likely to be toilet flushing which I found a bit shocking. I have decided on a couple of new habits for this month - 1. I am reading the guide to my washing machine as I believe I can use a less water and energy intensive cycle and 2. I will make sure I make use of the dual flush (the design is bad and you end up pressing both of them together ) and just not flushing every single time when it isn’t necessary. I figured if I made a new habits every month then we can slowly dwindle water/energy use which should feed into my bills.

I am in work today, so lunch is leftover tomato pasta from last night followed by a Madeline (courtesy of France). I have fruit for snacks and have taken breakfast with me (frozen fruit, yogurt and hm granola). Dinner will be a quick eggs, soldiers and beans as the kids are off to swimming later and so there is no time to cook. Dessert is the hm chocolate Easter eggs I made for the kids, whilst the adults have some amazing macarons we brought back.

daisy_1571

On the work front I have decided I will not be working silly hours anymore as that doesn’t help things change given it gets done in the end. I value my evenings with the kids, so am putting my foot down. If the work doesn’t get done then it will highlight the issue and maybe something will get done

Definitely! I only worked this out after 5 years of knocking my pan in (as say around these parts), (1) job got done, (2) I nearly had a breakdown, (3) work didn't care about point 2 just point 1 therefore nothing changed. Good luck sticking to it, its definitely worth while

Dxx

South_coast

Seconded! If you can't get it done in the time allowed and you know you're not slacking, then there is too much to do!

Also agree on there being loads more smokers on the continent, plus better roads. I always think there's more graffiti as well 🤔?

QueenJess

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81954638#Comment_81954638

Yes, I remember Paris having lots more graffiti, but I barely saw any this time. Maybe they cleaned it up for the Olympics?