The end is in sight

Porridgecat

Been good on the using up food front, took a big pork loin joint out the freezer and cut it into three, had one third roasted last night and cooked another third in a casserole dish at the same time, in a BBQ type sauce to make pulled pork which we'll have tomorrow and ate the final piece tonight made into kebabs,  cut it up last night and eft it in a marinade. Used up half of the 19p red cabbage we still had by making a big dish of coleslaw, we had half tonight and will have the rest tomorrow night on batches with the pulled pork. All less money so more pennies for the savings.

Porridgecat

Been good all week about spending, OH made Mac and cheese on Thursday as I was running late and we had Korean chicken wings on Friday - my new favourite food after a teacher friend came and taught me and the intervention group how to make them on Thursday. Saturday I used up a pack of 90p mini breast fillets on wraps and tonight we'll have roast chicken. I'll try and save half for a meal tomorrow but OH may claim it for his lunch. 
Did some shopping yesterday, about £30 in total but this included two 30% off free range chickens at l1dl. We went to the market for fruit and veg and its really obvious how much prices have gone up again since the start of this year. We will keep supporting them though as we need all the independent traders that we can get.

Porridgecat

We're still sticking pretty much to the no spending. I had spent enough (for school) at lidl for the £10 off voucher so we bought two marked down extra thick rump steaks, some rice, mustard, pepper sauce mixes and expensive branded toothpaste (I've been told to use this by the dentist as as I paid £900 for two tooth repairs last year I'm listening!) for a total of 30p. 
We were massively suffering from cabin fever so had a trip outdoor fish and chips in the Peak District - it wasn't bad at £16 for the two of us and they were lovely. While there MrP bought two pairs of shorts and a tie die shirt for holidays but this has come out of his bonus money so hasn't affected the overall budget at all. 
In good news MrP has had an increase, all of it will go straight into savings, he's also finally getting his £10 a week extra for a additional work duty so £40 a month and he has been back paid for five months. How much it'll add up to after tax and pension etc I'll be able to see when he gets paid tomorrow. He also hasn't used much of his petrol budget as he. has been wfh most of January so that'll go into savings and I forgot and still budgeted the council tax in YNAB so that can go in as well. 

Porridgecat

Been missing for a while but rl was taking up all my time and attention. We paid £1000 into savings at the start of this month, £900 to long term and £100 to emergency fund. I've already done the budget for next month, I'm still not sure exactly what MrP's take-home pay will be as he had lots of extras paid last payday and our gas / electric bill is going up as coming off the fixed rate. 
I'm trying for 20% of our income into long term savings each month but am also throwing lots into holiday savings and house improvements. We've got four windows that still need replacing and I'm thinking around £2500 for those as one is huge and I want some coloured lead work on another, I'm also saving to get new garden furniture, we know exactly what we want and it'll be around £1000. 
Holiday wise we've booked and paid for Cypress in April (MIL with us on that one) which is all inclusive so not much spending money needed. We're planning on going to Scotland again in May, a few days with friends and then some more exploring the coast and we have our usual corfu holiday booked for July / August so need around £4500 in the hols pot.
We're still eating mainly from the freezer with just market fresh stuff and a few other bits to buy.