A new royal start

QueenJess

Having a quiet day at home today as my eye is slightly swollen and sore. Seems to be a combination of tiredness (not sleeping due to heat) and bad hayfever. Hopefully it’ll go away.

Got DD to make some fairy cakes this morning (under heavy supervision) and she will make some buttercream and cover in sprinkles soon. Lunch was cheese and mushroom omelettes with salad for the grown ups and apple for the kids. Dessert will be the fairy cakes.

Dinner is the salmon I was going to do yesterday as we decided to make lamb kebabs instead yesterday. Dessert is strawberry frozen yogurt with raspberries :) I’m just trying out the frozen yogurt recipe in my ice cream maker now.

That cleared down the fridge a bit. It’s extra full as I put all the fruit in there due to the heat.

QueenJess

I can see I've got a £5 off £40 spend in the Lidl app (was £5 off £30 last month). I can see this would be a slippery slope and I'll struggle to buy £40 of goods anyway. I'm already stocked up and I really want to get rid of this grocery deficit. I'm going to leave that one.

I've given myself a target of £25 top up spending in Lidl this week as a bit of a challenge, plus Riverford. Fortnightly big shop already done last Saturday. Already at risk as I am mean to take a bottle in on Friday for a school tombola and alcohol is expensive. Will still give it a stab though as I really do have a lot of stuff in cupboards etc and DH is now away until Sunday, so a lot less needed to feed everyone.

I've budgeted for £40 a week Riverford, £110 a fortnight for WR, £25 a week Lidl, £25 fortnightly for zero waste shop and £50 a month for bulk purchases like flour, hot chocolate, beans, oats etc. This would leave me still with £144 in "debt", so I am looking to shave little bits off all these amounts to see if I can at least get below £100 and clear it next month. I already know I generally spend £30 a week at Riverford, so there's £40 off already there.

QueenJess

Very busy work day today, then kids clubs to contend with. I am going for easy food today, so dinner will be jacket potato with beans and cheese followed by fairy cakes that DD made at the weekend. I stewed up the rest of the rhubarb that I will have with yogurt. Lunch will be feta cheese salad to use up as many bits and pieces in the fridge as I can before my Riverford delivery tomorrow.

Mortgage payment day and my new mortgage payment for the term is 60p less than I expected. It must be to do with the timing of when they calculate the payments as it must have included another month of my over payments. I've rounded down the mortgage for this month to £108,700.

QueenJess

I can't wait for this work week to be over, although I'm not sure next week will be any better.. my eyes hurt as I'm so tired 😴. Didn't make the £25 Lidl target this week because both schools demanded chocolates/wine to be brought in for summer fairs. To be fair, I spent about £10 on the school stuff and £34 in total in Lidl this week, so I would have totally made my budget without it. Still on an expected -£144 for this month, so I will be looking for savings at the big fortnightly shop next week.

I did splash out on a huge chicken for Sunday because DH will be back and I thought the least he could do is cook me a massive roast! Am taking a break from work right now as I have a lunchtime meeting (urgh) and frankly I just need half an hour to regain some sanity. So I am spending it in the kitchen of course. I have a chocolate cake (made with condensed milk - a very old recipe) in the oven and am about to make pesto with the carrot tops from my Riverford delivery.

Lunch today will be more feta and beetroot salad to use up the feta and tons of salad leaves, then dinner will be leftover tomato pasta for the kids or they can share my asparagus, courgette and spinach pesto pasta (with extras of course for my Monday work lunch). Dessert will be the cake. I will treat myself mid afternoon with stewed rhubarb and yogurt.

Looking forward to DH being back tomorrow evening as my fridge is rammed 🤣