A new royal start

edinburgher

Solidarity with the piles of stuff. Mrs E and I tackled 2 wardrobes and the hall cupboard today, 5 bags of fabric recycling, 3 for the chazza, 2 for the bin! I'm now informed DD1 has "no clothes" 😭

QueenJess

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82127521#Comment_82127521

😬 We also found loads of stuff the kids have grown out of, although I managed to mostly not replace thankfully as I think they have plenty.

I feel like I am leaking money this month. I swear if the kids didn't go to school I would have much more money! It's never loads at a time, but everyday there's something I have to fork out for…. school trips, school uniform that no longer fits, school extra activities, swimming lessons etc etc etc… Anyway, it is what it is. I am doing a little better with food and have been very carefully ordering my Riverford box to ensure I will really use it all up and not overestimating how much we will actually consume. As a result, my fridge is generally under control, although I should re-investigate what's been stuck in the door for ages..

No big shop this week as I don't feel I'm low enough on stuff and so if we need anything I will do a top up shop. I did spend £35 on Riverford this week. Along with some top ups and needed bathroom supplies, it brings me to spend of £366 so far this month (budget £620). I have a feeling my food spend might be higher this month, but let's see. I've juggled the budget a bit to allocate more to kids activities/school trips as I don't think there's enough going into there anymore.

Huge mackerel salad for lunch today which cleared out the fridge quite nicely. Feeling v. tired after a long week and so will treat ourselves to our version of a takeaway, which is buying something nice to put in the oven at home. Looking forward to the start of the weekend!

Edit: As if on cue, just as I posted this I've got an email to say the kids swimming lessons are going up in price..🙄

QueenJess

Still trying to stem the tide of money slipping away… finally some good news, my water bill is going down to £30 a month from November (it's currently £53 a month) as we've used significantly less than they thought we would.

Realised I had run out of an important ingredient (fish) last week and the ones we like are only at WR, so I ended up doing a big shop of sorts on Sunday last week to stock up on the stuff we only buy there. Trying hard not to do another big shop this month now as we've spent quite a bit on food this month - £585 spent out of a budget of £620 (£155 a week), although £5 a week is meant to go to the Xmas shop so it's actually a budget of £600. And my Riverford bill is usually about £30 a week, so we will definitely be going over this month.

I am still wrestling control of my freezer and trying to use up all the random stuff that's fallen to the bottom. It's still not under control (and a bit randomly organised), hence the panic last weekend. On the plus side, I have around £70 of points on our joint credit card and we can spend it on food shops, so I could get myself a free or very cheap food shop next time I go.

Budget has taken a big hit with kids expenses at the moment, partly due to getting DS some extra tuition (he's bright and really bored at school despite us asking a million times to give him something more challenging to do), all clubs increasing in expenses, DD starting Rainbows, an 2 night school trip deposit for DS and DS's school changing their after school club provision to someone way more expensive. So looking to try and rein in spending generally where we can. I had banked on the savings I had been making to pay down the holiday deficit, but the decision for DS to have some extra tuition for this year has blown that out of the water… So it's back to the drawing board to keep things simple and not fritter away money unnecessarily.

My work is still a bit crazy and won't be changing for the forseeable. My contract ends end of Jan 27 and I do feel like I should stay because of the good salary they are paying me, but also because I would absolutely be screwing them over if I left and my contracting role does depend upon having a good reputation. Instead I am looking to not stress too much, simplify my life as much as I can (even down to decluttering physical things, obligations and reducing how many emails I even receive) to eject unnecessary and valueless things in my life. I even spent a couple of lunchtimes this week out for a walk, which did make me feel a lot better. Definitely not got it worked out yet, but trying lots of different things to see what works for me. I've also been spending less time on here as it's just not at the top of my list right now.

Another busy week next week with evenings being taken up with secondary school visits to figure out the lay of the land for DS. He doesn't choose until next year, but we literally don't have a clue and some open evenings are past the deadline for choosing, so we are starting now. We can always revisit the short list next year.

Better go as need to take DS to gymnastics. Massive breakfast for everyone today (mushrooms, kale, toast, scrambled eggs and beans) and I am still too full for lunch. Everyone else will have something tiny (DD had yogurt and fruit). Dinner will be salmon with potatoes, broccoli and green beans. Yogurt and fresh fruit for dessert. All meals planned around what we have leftover or what was in my Riverford box this week! I will also stew up some apples and plums to have with porridge for breakfasts in the week.

Later this week I have planned to make carrot and sweet potato soup to cater for some cheap lunches, along with some hm wholemeal soda bread (to use up some of a bag of plain wholemeal flour I never use for anything). I am also craving a lemon drizzle cake so I can't promise that won't also make an appearance at some point (hm of course)!

QueenJess

Ahhh…. DS has threadworms and so I have been cleaning the house and washing everything for almost a week now. As soon as the washing machine finishes, a new load goes in. I even set the timer at night so I can pull the first load out first thing in the morning. To add to the fun, the tablet you take has made me feel very unwell, so I've had stomach cramps for days on end. Starting to feel better now, but very much gone off food for now and definitely lost weight (generally not good for me as I am a teeny tiny person).

Trying to tempt myself back to food by cooking simple but tasty things. I just made myself some curried lentil and spinach soup for lunch that was lovely and served with hm soda bread. Got 3 more portions of that cooling on the side and will make more soda bread tomorrow as DD likes it (she's in that picky phase where they won't eat anything) and I still have more wholemeal flour to use up. Dinner later will be pesto pasta (with more of my hm pesto from the freezer), broccoli and green beans. For dessert I made a chocolate and coconut cake yesterday from a vintage recipe that's nice and not too rich.

Not thinking about budgets and money at the moment… getting a deep clean of my house right now to help me out, will be buying a robot vacuum to help us with the downstairs between proper vacuuming (kids are always dropping food and I am sick of having to clear it up) and I absolutely dread to think what my electricity and water usage is…

Merlin's_Beard

Oh no! The tablets made me feel a bit urgh as well (I had to take them because my parents??? Managed to catch them?? Although how they did that I have no idea)

South_coast

It was some horrid purple drink when I had them, but that was (counts fingers) about 35 years ago 😬!

QueenJess

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82152183#Comment_82152183

I'm glad it's not just me. The leaflet said it was "uncommon", which is 1 in 100 people. Predictably everyone else in my household was fine with them. As I cannot trust getting any sense out of DS as to whether he has any symptoms, I am going to do the 2 week follow up tablet as well to make sure they are gone and am dreading that in case I am ill for days again.

Fingers crossed they are gone.

Just made some chocolate cornflake cakes at lunchtime because that is my current mood 😂

QueenJess

Well I think I am finally at the end of the washing and no symptoms here (fingers crossed). My reaction to the medication got worse and worse and I ended up with severe dehydration. I also struggled to eat, so was absolutely starving once I started feeling better and ate so many carbs as that's all my body wanted! Finally I am feeling better although I think I'm getting a cold now sigh.

Spent a fair bit this month on kids clothes as they needed a few bits and pieces that started to mount up. Hopefully shouldn't need much else this year, so the budget has time to recover. I did buy a robot vacuum (just a cheap one), which is getting the kitchen and hallway cleaned up nicely everyday for me. That was within budget :) The food budget I've now amended to be even across every month rather than by how many Saturdays are in the month because I tend to stock up and then rely on top up shops to see how long I can go until the next shop. So my budget is now £670 a month and I've spent £330 on food this month, which would have been worse if I hadn't used my £70 of credit card vouchers! I was very low on lots of boring items though like toilet roll, dishwasher powder etc etc. Next big shop is this weekend, although I'm not planning on buying tons (famous last words..).

I'm also getting back to the cooking now I'm feeling better. Saturday we had a big hm cottage pie followed by apple crumble and custard. That felt like an epic day of food :) Today I went a bit mad and got up early to make ginger biscuits dipped in dark chocolate as well as a spiced Dorset apple cake. Then for lunch I made a huge batch of leek and potato soup and soda bread. For dinner it's macaroni and cauliflower cheese. I have used a lot of things in the kitchen today! Looking forward to sitting down with my apple cake and dollop of yogurt in front of Bake Off later :)

Rounded down the mortgage to the nearest £100 again this month to £106,700. I would love to pay some of it down, but am making myself be sensible and putting it towards my savings goals first. I am also more cautious about paying down as I don't have a constant source of income whilst I'm contracting, so I need a decent fallback position in case I don't find anything for a while. I have my fingers crossed DH might pay a bit down this year, but otherwise I think it'll be 2027 when I finally get down to 5 figures.

Joint account is still looking ok, bar our holiday line. I suspect we'll have to pay for next year's holiday from our own savings pots, but will see how it goes. We spent the extra I was going to use for it for extra tuition for DS as his school is epically useless and DS keeps complaining he's bored. It seems to be working for now as he's never been pushed before and he's starting to realise what things will be like in secondary school and organising himself with homework etc. Not sure how long we will keep it up for (probably not for more than one year), but we will see how he is getting along. It's almost parents evening, so I shall complain again to his new teacher, but I won't hold my breath.