Finishing the race

Thelaughingcat

I was not able to update yesterday - I was in meetings the whole day from 8am to 6pm, with around fifteen minutes off the phone overall.  By 6.05pm, I was done.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even you lovely people or myself.  

I threw together some bbq pulled pork flatbreads with a chilli and lime yoghurt, some little cherry tomatoes and lettuce and put L.A.’s Finest on the telly, just vegged out with no thoughts in my head.  Perfect!

It did mean that yesterday was another NSD though, whoop!  Another 25 quid in the bank.

Unfortunately, out turns out that one of my major triggers for eating crap is spending large amounts of time on the phone, in high-stress calls, with no knowledge of when I’m going to get off them and make some food.  Meh.  So today will not be an NSD.  Effing brunch bars - they’re definitely my Achilles heel.  They’re just so small and moreish!

I also need to get the dried goods part of my weekly shop in today - woo!  New week, new £75 food budget.  Hoping to actually come seriously under it this week too.  

On the plus side, yesterday, it was warm enough to sit out and work in the back garden.  Sunshine all day!  Absolute perfection - a few more days of this and I’ll have some colour back in me so I can stop stalking the local tanning salon website while I try to decide whether UV rays can be classed as a necessity these days...

Hope everyone is happy and healthy and hitting the weekend full force!  I need to head off...straight into another call 😭

WinterWarrior

I feel your pain, yesterday was non stop for me too. However, today I have a wonderful days holiday booked..hoorah!
your pulled pork flatbreads sound amazing!

Splash21

Thelaughingcat said:

Hi @booksandcoffee and @WinterWarrior!  Welcome and I’m glad you’re liking it so far!

Pinch away!  I love the daily win of putting money aside, though it poses a slight issue if I want to indulge myself in something that costs over £25...does that then become a slush fund purchase? 

I would say yes it comes out of the slush fund from what I know about your set up because you used the keyword indulge and that has to have consequences!!

Thelaughingcat

@WinterWarrior - woo!  I hope your long weekend has been the rest you needed 😊

And they were - I slow cooked a 2.5kg pork shoulder back in the depths of winter and made a tangy barbecue sauce to smother it in...and now I have a freezer full of bbq pulled pork.  It’s good in flatbreads but my god, when I make molten beer cheese and turn it into a proper grilled cheese sandwich, that soft pork and tangy sauce with the beery cheese and fried bread....🤤

That might have to go on the menu this week 😂

Thelaughingcat

@Splash21 I have a feeling you may be right...but I’m having trouble deciding when I can access the slush fund and when I can’t. Trying to decide whether I really do want something is something I find quite difficult. I just don’t want to touch the slush fund 😂

I hate consequences.  Can’t we just go back to being teenagers again? 🤣

Thelaughingcat

First off...owwww!  That moment you misjudge the number of arbol chillies your kung pao lunch needs and your mouth is on fire so you end up at the fridge desperately gulping down milk straight from the bottle.

#thiswasme #capsicainhurts

At least I know for the rest of the week not to do the same.  In totally unrelated news, I need to go out for more milk 🙃.

Otherwise, this weekend has been fun!  I spent all of yesterday in a little clearing off the main road out of Skipton, marshalling an ultra.  Got to see a lot of friends and lovely people I haven’t seen in over a year (suitably masked and socially distanced, natch!).  

It was another little move to normalcy again...and very much needed.  I ran around in the sunshine, helped keep people hydrated and chipper after 37 miles, with another 12 still ahead of them.  I even got that tan I was hankering for!  I can’t wait to hit the trails myself.

Off in a minute to go see a work friend who’s up in Skipton for the day, again just to wave and say hi in the park.  We talk most days at work but it is different when you’re doing it remotely.  Going to message another one too, see if they fancy a brew and a wander.  

Filling up my personal interaction meter is good for me, and I should do it more.  I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly before, so lockdown has practically turned me into a recluse.  I am an extrovert though, and get a lot of energy from being around other people even if I don’t necessarily want to interact with them much 😁  I need to remember it’s important.

On the financial front, I’ve had one NSD in the last three days and transferred £68.58 into my slush fund. 

Of the £75 groceries budget, I’ve spent £18.43 so far, leaving me £56.57 until the end of Wednesday.  I do still have a couple of top up shops to go though.  

So, not too shabby!  I’m happy with that.  I also have to remind myself that this is an ultramarathon too.  If I pace myself and neither restrict nor splurge, I’ll get there.


An accurate depiction of what this race feels like

That’s it from me!  Hope your weekends have been full of happiness, friends and family, sunshine and maybe even beer 😊

WinterWarrior

Oh all those meet ups, I’m very jealous! We can kind of do limited things in Scotland, but my nearest and dearest are all in England, so I’m well and truly a recluse. I took the dog for a drive and we looked at the grey sea through the windscreen 🤣
excellent spending news, well done.
I hope your mouth has calmed down now 🤣 the food sounds delicious as always x 

Thelaughingcat

@WinterWarrior - that vignette you painted sounds so perfectly dour and...Scottish?  Quintessentially so.  I loved it. 😁  It must be so difficult for you with most of your loved ones stuck over that pesky border though so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Sturgeon lets you out soon!

PS: my mouth is now cool and calm once more. I learned my lesson 😂

WinterWarrior

I think sturgeon would like to let us out, but not let us back in 🤣 
its a lovely part of the world, but dour and bleak fits it well...then the sun shines and we all get eaten to death by midges...hoorah. The one or two sunny yet breezy days are the very best!
I’m glad you survived your chilly overdose (chilly just sounds cold, that’s so wrong, but you know what I mean), have you been having extra bland meals to compensate? 

Thelaughingcat

Ohhhh...today has not been an NSD.  At.  All.  

My team at work has two new bosses directly senior to myself.  I realised yesterday that one has her birthday this Friday and one had his, erm, yesterday.

I’m the unofficial present buyer of the office. Birthday?  Baby?  New home?  Escaping, I mean, new job? I’ll get your group greeting card sorted and put out that email, the overly perky ‘it’s XXX’s birthday in two weeks!!!’, then chivvy people gently to sign in time.  I’ll set up a Teams chat for all your other colleagues and present them with choices for potential presents, keeping them up to date until the day.  I’ll find a perfect gift based on what I know about you, with some lovely personal touches that say ‘someone thought about this because they care’.  

Yeah, I’m one of those co-workers.  You groan because you just know we’re going to hit you up for cash, enthusiastically babbling about Donna-from-accounting’s new, precious, little parcel of dribbling joy.  And you’ll give it us to make us stop because you know we’re super persistent and will just relentlessly keep on at you until we wear you down.  

We also know exactly what belongs to every person in the office in the kitchenette area, whose cardigan it is abandoned in the sixth floor meeting room and the ins and outs of every single colleague’s relationship (though we never tell).  We’re the huggers, the whoopers and the ‘c’mon lass, chin-up’ers.  We’d also be a damn sight more productive if we did less of the above and more of the actual job 😂   

I love it but a double birthday whammy, last minute, just when I’m trying to save money?  Erk.  

I managed to do everything, including card and delivery for £83.47.  If everyone in our small team gives me a fiver for each, I should only be left with a bill of £18.47.  I normally budget a tenner a head, so I can live with that.  

But it all depends whether people actually pay me - it massively eats into my remaining bank balance.  I’m going to assume they will and act as though the £18.47 came out of today’s £25 personal budget.  If they don’t, I’ll take a view in a week and see whether the remainder needs to come out of a further budget.

In addition, when seeing a friend earlier, they asked me to bring brews and snacks, and the only thing open was a bloody expensive Morrison’s Costa machine in the garage - another £6.10.

So, today, I’ve spent £24.57 of my £25 personal budget.  I genuinely transferred 43p into my slush fund...it all counts 🤣

In better news, my first top-up shop of the week went well, and I only spent £2.08 of my remaining £56.57 groceries budget, so I still have a whopping £54.49 to buy two bags of salad, some feta and some tortellini.    Hopefully, a good wodge of that will be left on Wednesday to go in my slush fund to make up for today’s birthday bonanza.  

Also...I stuck to today’s meal plan!  Finally!  I am in right on the calorie count, with decent macros and not having eaten anything outside of my planned food. 

One day is a good start.  Now to go for two.