A new royal start

QueenJess

Dinner tonight is veggie sausages with mash to use up old pots and any old veg I can find (broccoli, carrots and cabbage). Pudding will be compote from a big bag of frozen mixed fruit, yogurt (out of date but tastes fine) and meringue that needs using up.

Lots more stuff to be used up!

QueenJess

After visiting DS’s friends house yesterday, I realised my house is a bit of a mess and the kitchen especially is a bit out of control. I need to work through a lot of stores and get it back under control. I resisted the urge to go to IKEA and get more storage things and will wait until I know exactly what I need as I probably only need the odd thing.

I cleaned out just the pasta shelf in the cupboard today and it is ridiculous. I gathered up nice jars and now have the pasta and rice we use regularly in the nice jars and extras hidden on one side of the shelf. Everything else we don’t tend to use and needs to be used up and it is a lot 😬. But at least I’ve consolidated it a bit and you can see everything that’s there. Started as I meant to go on and used up some pasta no one was keen on for lunch with red pesto leftover in the fridge, sun dried toms leftover in the fridge, some dodgy looking mushrooms and spinach that also needs to be used up.

I also cleaned out the bottom of the fridge so I could put the Riverford order away and blasted through as much of the old stuff as I could. Half a leek is cut up for tomorrows lunch (leek, pea and cheese orzotto), and I cut up the end of an old cabbage (including the stem), 2 broccoli stems, half a new butternut squash and an older onion. This will be thrown into the slow cooker tomorrow lunchtime for dinner with chicken thighs and I’ll make some veggie suet balls.

I boiled a couple of the old beetroot and made them into 2 huge batches of chocolate brownies (also helps to use up my ridiculous baking stores and some old eggs from the fridge). I left a few out and the rest are happily in the freezer. The rest of the beetroot I chopped up and roasted whilst the brownies were in, along with bendy carrots, old onions, garlic and the rest of the butternut squash. I can turn that into some lunches during the week next week.

I then did some spring cleaning in DS’s room for 2 hours! We’ve done about half the room and it looks so much better already. He’s managed to get rid of a reasonable amount of stuff, which is good as we only did it a few months ago. Sadly the rest of the house still looks awful!

Anyway, DD in bed and now I need to make dinner before I collapse in a chair. It will be burgers with onion, sweetcorn, sweet potato fries and for me pickled beetroot (yep you guessed it, it needs using up from the fridge). Pudding is chocolate brownie for DS, me and DH are having the fruit compote I made yesterday, yogurt and meringue that all needs using up. Better run!

thriftyish

I find the kitchen is the one room that easily gets out of control, with so much happening there each day - you sound like you have the fresh stuff well managed, the beetroot brownies sound delicious! 

QueenJess

Oh yes, kitchen well and truly out of control and I’m the only person that can sort it out (apparently).

I measured up one of my kitchen cupboards today, was relieved it seems to be a standard size, found a spare shelf online, popped into B&Q to buy it and installed it. I now have 1/3 extra space in my cupboard so the cups/glasses can be in with plates/bowls etc. This should be a game changer as I have a large ish kitchen, but very few cupboards and too many drawers. Not sure who thought that one through?! Anyway, my baking stuff is currently rammed in a drawer which is too heavy for it and I am hoping I can move it to a cupboard now. Sadly it requires moving multiple drawers around to get there, but I’ve made a start at least.

I caved today and did my IKEA order online for the bits and pieces I needed for kitchen/fridge storage. I just am not going to have time to go there since it’s like going into a time warp in there and I just decided I will pay the silly postage fees for less stress and to regain some of my time. I have been moving around my shopping basket for a few days to make sure I only have the things I need in there.

To offset that cost, I did some better MSE things this evening. I picked up loads of free stuff locally - some beautiful wooden toys for DD, jigsaw puzzles for me to do, a free bag of bread flour and games for DS/DD. As I had to drive straight past Co-op, I popped in and bought a ys loaf of bread and 12 ys burger buns for 96p that are now in the freezer. I feel like that offset my expenditure!

Not looking forward to work tomorrow. As DD was ill all week before I was on holiday, I didn’t get everything done I needed to and will have to catch up. I’m trying not to think about it too much and try to pace myself with some house stuff. The washing is already in the machine ready to switch on tomorrow morning when I get up (no room to hang up to do it today).

Lots of meal planning needed to use up what I have in. I have been reading through some very old, MSE old style threads for inspiration and have already made a ton of notes. I’m sure some of the recipes I’ve discovered will make an appearance at some point! I was considering if I could set a limit of £25 a week in food shops (excludes fruit/veg, eggs, milk and laundry detergent that are all delivered to my house regularly), but I’m really not sure if I would be able to do that even with my current stores… Maybe I will have it as a loose target to see how far out I am. At least it’ll make me more aware of expenditure without the stress of having to keep to a target. Will think about that one.

Heating still not on, but I’m starting to find the mild weather slightly disconcerting and I don’t like it even if my skin does.

thriftyish

Nice work on the extra shelf - we did this a few months ago and it made such a big difference I wish I had done it sooner. If you are anything like me, ordering online probably saved you a fortune, I can’t seem to walk around IKEA without convincing myself I need something! 

I am looking forward to see what recipes you found. For your grocery target, have you heard of hyperjar? It’s basically a debit card you add money to and you can organise things into ‘jars’ on the app. It’s free, and you can use in most shops. We started using it as the kids can have their own debit card (from age 6) and both myself and DH can monitor their spends. But actually we found it useful to have a ‘jar’ for shopping and DH and I just use our HJ cards for groceries (adds to Apple /Android pay too) Different things work for different people but before we would just use our joint account but I find it much easier to keep track with groceries completely separate (as long as we remember to use the right card 🤣)

Hope your week goes smoothly and you get caught up quickly 

QueenJess

@thriftyish you are right, I am sure I would have spent much more if I had gone there in person!

Back to work today, although I’m in denial so although I am working, my brain is still on holiday mode. It’s a bit like being in a dream. Slightly shattered by paying the nursery bill of £1,600 for next month 😭 It’s almost double my mortgage!

Anyway, the less said about that the better. In the meantime I am reheating the roasted veg I made on Friday for lunch with harrisa paste and half a tin of chickpeas. Adding couscous to it. DH doesn’t like chickpeas, couscous or beetroot, so he’s going to be very happy when he sees it 😂. Need to use up the couscous though that’s best before today.

Other random pantry items that need using up include OOD desiccated coconut, OOD self raising flour and too much pasta. So I currently have blackberry and coconut squares cooking in the oven for pudding later. Smoked haddock is defrosting in the fridge to be combined with leeks, crème fraiche, peas and pasta for dinner. Go me! Sadly the oven is on just for the pudding but you can’t have everything and I am meant to be working… 

Oh - we did decide to keep DD in her current nursery for now, but will reassess when her actual place comes up in Sep 23. Better run and dish up lunch.

Bluegreen143

£1,600! Is that just for one child? 

QueenJess

Bluegreen143 said:

£1,600! Is that just for one child? 

Yes 😭. London prices but we aren’t in London (although we can commute to it). Don’t know whether it is still true, but I remember 10 ish years ago there being a report talking about how where I live was the most expensive childcare in the country outside of London.

This is a nursery attached to an expensive private school, but we looked at lots round here that are small places etc and they all charge the same thing give or take £100 a year.

Most people rely at least one day a week (if not much more) on grandparents to do the childcare. Not an option for us. I would be slightly less annoyed about it if they had actually got our bill correct in any of the last year or so. I have to reconcile and pay the amount I think is due and not the bill amount 🤦‍♀️

badmemory

How often is your bill less than you calculate it to be?

Bluegreen143

That really is expensive, I hadn’t realised nursery prices varied so much. 

Here (Glasgow) when my daughter attended a private nursery it was £800 a month for four days a week, but you get a 10% discount if you go five days so it’s almost the same price for full time. That’s one of the most expensive nurseries in the area - I had to go with it as it was during peak covid and I had few options at the time. 

I am part time but I only earn £1,600 a month so it would have been pointless me working when I had private nursery fees if I’d lived down your way! Given I still need four days childcare. 

My MIL was supposed to do a day’s childcare so DD could just go to nursery 3x a week but she let us down literally 75% of the time in the first two months so we had to increase the days at nursery instead 😡

So pleased she’s 3 now 😂 she uses 28 hours a week of her 30 free (now attending a council preschool) so we don’t need to pay at all anymore. Bet you’ll be jumping for joy when you get your DD’s preschool hours!