Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Baileys_Babe

The salads will be even cheaper later in the year if you can grow any of the ingredients (says she who hasn't planted a seed in years).
I forgot to buy lettuce this week but I do have cabbage, carrots, onions, spring onions, cucumber, tomatoes, oranges, apples, pears, tinned sweet corn, tinned and dried beans and chickpeas, tinned tuna and mackerel. All of which I can use to make salads. Thank you for reminding me of some of the ingredients I can prepare in advance which will mean I am more likely to make salads.

Bluegreen143

Definitely! I have plenty of garden failures each year but lettuce and radishes at least are generally a winner and they are so good fresh too.

I also chop up things like carrot/pepper/cucumber sticks and keep them in the fridge and it means when I’m eg making snacks for the kids I don’t need to stand there chopping, I can just pull the tub out.

This week I also tried out taking an evening to chop up the cauliflower, broccoli and swede in the fridge ready for cooking and that made life easier when those dinners came round. I can’t do all the veg as ran out of tubs 😂 but I will try to have a couple of evening sessions a week where I get loads of salad and veg chopped up.

Bluegreen143

It’s Friday which is my day with the kids home and no nursery run. So a nice chilled out morning so far - got the kitchen all cleaned up, a washing on, set out some duplo, drawing stuff, a box of books with some cushions and a tub of kinetic sand. After spending half an hour fighting over who got the Duplo “people” they are now playing nicely with the kinetic sand.

Finances 
All up to date on YNAB - I’ve done well updating it the last few weeks. Got child benefit due on Monday but with my bank (Monzo) you can claim that payment at 4 on Friday so I will, not because I want to spend it but because I want to update YNAB 😂

The CB I am now allocating totally to the kids category and it can pay for their clothes and pocket money for now. It will build up as those things don’t cost that much but thinking that means when activities, outings and school trips eventually become possible we will then have a pot of money for them. If the pools ever open again I’d like to try to get Monkey in swimming lessons (if not both kids) as I’d have liked him to be much more comfortable in the water by this age. He was nervous of the water anyway, though getting better, but we haven’t been swimming in a year as our local pool didn’t reopen in the summer.

My account is also showing a pending payment of £60 from social security Scotland for the Scottish child payment which is very annoying - I had already phoned them to retract my application as we aren’t eligible now we’re not on UC anymore. So will need to call up again today to sort that out.

Weight loss
Lost 2lb this week as have basically eaten 90% salad. I’ve noticed that if I keep it mainly white carb-free during the day (say yog + fruit in the morning, salad with tinned fish for lunch, a piece of fruit after) with a normal dinner I don’t get hungry enough to need to snack. When I ate cereal and toast and pasta constantly through the day I also felt the need for endless biscuits and chocolate. So it’s not been that hard this week so far. 

Meals for today...
Kids had a banana, toast + peanut butter and some strawberries/blueberries. I had Greek yog, berries and a bit of maple syrup. 

Lunch - I may pop some stuff in the pressure cooker to make soup or else defrost some chickpeas and make hummus.

Dinner - pizza night tonight (not so diet friendly). Hopefully Red gets home in time to make this- he’s at work just now but so far only one job scheduled in so should be back by lunch 🤞🏼

Today 
Main plan today is to get the kids out for a proper walk! Thinking of the botanic gardens and along the river maybe. It’s a bit busy there, but so are all the green spaces near us (slightly regret living in the middle of a city this year). At least if we go today it will be less busy than going tomorrow. 

Bluegreen143

Just naughtily spent £12.30 of the CB before it’s come in, on 2x Julia Donaldson audiobook collections for the kids. I was browsing to spend audible credits but as the collections were £6.15 each it’s not worthwhile using a £7.99 credit on them. I did use a credit on the first Wishing Chair book by Enid Blyton for Monkey though. 

Think I’m going to keep the audible subscription going but pay for it from the CB because at least 75% of the time I’m using the credits on kids’ books for Monkey anyway - I prefer actually reading rather than listening and so the only time I occasionally get an adult book is when I want Red to listen to a book (usually on parenting/marriage) as he’s not a reader but will listen to stuff when driving his van.

Bluegreen143

Called SSS about the child payment & they advised they do know I’m not meant to get it, a letter was issued yesterday to advise it’s stopped now, there may be a stop on the payment before Monday but if not and it hits my bank account I don’t need to pay it back. So fingers crossed there is no stop on the payment as thats £60 extra for the E fund. I’ve claimed it anyway using Monzo’s “get paid a day early” feature but just budgeted in E fund so if it gets pulled back I’ll delete that line in the budget. 

Thought I’d do a wee budget update as my YNAB is looking all tidy 😆 I’m due to get paid on the 15th too so will be filling a lot of the savings goals then.

Mid-month budget update 
BILLS
- all bills budgeted in for this month (inc annual bills and 2x annual subscriptions due in March) except next nursery fees which will come from my pay

FAMILY SPENDING
If the amounts look weird, I siphoned £1 off everything to move to April’s budget to make a tiny start on the one month buffer. And I did nick £40 of the £140 child benefit as, while I want to start leaving this to build up for the kids, I wanted to add some to a savings pot today 
Food £193/£259 left 
Household £54/£79 left 
Petrol: £19/59 left (but over half a tank in the car)
Misc: £9/£9 left 
Kids: £87.76/£100 left

MY SPENDING 
Nothing left in here right now(!) but it’ll get filled up on my payday & will include things like my phone bill and LISA too.

FUTURE FUNDS 
Holiday - £336.19 - will top this up to £400 on payday 
Gifts & celebrations - £222.81 (no more to put in this month)
Car - £72.63 (will put £125 in on payday)
Home - £0 (will put £30 in on payday)
Health - £0 (should probably put something in there...)

SAVINGS
Help to save - will pay this in after payday 
Emergencies - £298.50
Conservatory - £8
Bed for Monkey - £0

Bluegreen143

Finally update of today - I do seem to have been chatty!

Gave Monkey his £4 pocket money. He wanted to order a collection of 9 Noddy books (sounds random but he loves this one Noddy book we have & I keep an eye online for stuff he may be interested in and ask him if he wants to save up for it or put it on his wishlist; he almost never encounters advertising and we rarely take him to the shops at the moment, so he’s yet to develop really strong opinions on the likes of buying branded things). 

It was £22.99 on eBay and I offered to pay 1/2 if he paid the other half - I don’t ever do this for toys or tat or impulse buys in the shop, but for a book I’m ok with it. So that was £22.99 on my PayPal but I’ve taken £11.50 back again in cash, which means now I’ve got the cash for next week’s pocket money without having to withdraw any 😆

Bluegreen143

Nice Sunday morning today - it’s my lie in day so I slept in til 9 then 9-10 lay in bed and watched youtube vids/caught up on MSE. Then was just getting up when Red came up the stairs with a cooked breakfast for me (smoked salmon on toast along with garlic baked mushrooms, random combo but I love both!).

Then it was cleaning hour this morning - every Sunday now we take an hour & I do the upstairs/both bathrooms and Red does the downstairs - hoovering/mopping floors, deep scrubbing bathrooms & kitchen, changing bedsheets, full cleaning out the cat tray & chicken bedding, getting any baskets of clean washing put away etc (though I do try to keep up with this during the week).

Was going to go a walk for a friend today but her baby has a cold so she’s cancelled, may take the kids for a walk to Tesco instead as Bambi needs some more pants, we keep running out and I can’t send her to nursery commando 😆 we need garlic too anyway.

Other plans are to make chicken pie for dinner and sow some tomato and chilli seeds.

Baileys_Babe

Last week I finally bought my ds more pants, he would be horrified at the thought of going commando, unlike his much younger cousin who does their best to not wear pants regardless of the occasion 😂 The difference between dn and Bambi is childcare setting, in dn case mainly at home with a parent or much older sibling or with me.

Breakfast in bed, you are very lucky and lots of your favourite things 🤗

Bluegreen143

@Baileys_Babe agreed, Bambi is quite happy to go commando or indeed naked at home but I do draw the line at sending her to nursery sans pants 😆 that said she was equally delighted to get new pants today and is amusing herself right now taking them in and out of the packaging and putting them on over her leggings... aren’t little kids funny!

joedenise

Reminds me of a incident when my DD1 was coming up 3.  I was pregnant with DD2 and we'd walked to the bus stop about half mile away and waited about 20 minutes for a bus (one had been cut out typically!) and just as it was coming she decided to tell me she hadn't got any pants on!  I said I'd buy her some when we got to the High Street but no she refused point blank to get on the bus and had a temper tantrumso ended up having to take her home.  Ended up not going shopping that day!