From Fat to Fit by 50 (and debt free!)

Pmo2

Morning,

Happy Friday

DS is loving his new company and they are taking an active interest in his apprenticeship although they are having trouble getting any info out of the college though citing GDPR, so DS had to write an email and copied in the training mentor at the new company giving them permission to part info to them.  DS was also very happy today as he got paid, this new place does weekly instead of monthly and will help him to budget (he also got a slight pay rise moving companies )

Today is treat day, I have brought my lunch with me four days this week so I think Friday's are a good day to buy my breakfast and lunch, I'm aiming to keep it as low spend as possible. 

DH is on holiday next week, he definitely needs the break.

I juggled some of my Pots around and renamed DS's Travel EF one to House Maintenance, DS will be setting up his own Pot so this one won't be needed but we do need to get things done on the house.

Pots so far look like this:

Car Pot - £300.00
Christmas Pot - £453.64
Tesco Christmas Saver - £103.73 + Top up £50.00 (+ £3 Bonus)
Glasses - £700.00
House Maintenance - £200.00
Household - £150.00
DD College - £850.00
Utility - £700.00
Emergency Fund - £400.00

Slowly the Pots are creeping up, but they will get depleted again before the end of the year but they  are still much healthier than they have been for the past few years, all positive in my view.

It's DD's birthday next month so the pots won't get as much in them come pay day.

I need to get back in to using cash again, I like using physical cash but have been really lazy and have just tapped my card...naughty Pmo2! I can't expect my other physical pots to fill up if I don't have any money to go in them

This is the first time in a very long time that I am feeling positive about things and I am happy to be back here.

What does the weekend look like in the Pmo2 household -

Food shop
Clean garage door (if it doesn't rain like it's forecast!)
New dishwasher is being delivered (yay!)
Change our bed and clean room
Meal plan for the week including lunches

Have great day x

Pmo2

Morning,

Happy August!!!! The weather is just awful at the moment

The remainder of last month was spent trying to get back into a routine.

All debts have been paid and totals updated in my signature, the pots have been updated too.

I've pledged to take my lunch to work 18 days this month and so far managed 2.

I did the meal plan for this week, I used to do it monthly but I've found that weekly works better for us.

The budget is ticking along nicely, I've gotten used to checking the account every day and updating my spreadsheet accordingly.

In other news, it is DS's final probation week with the new company, he hasn't heard if they have managed to get any information out of the college for his apprenticeship with the last company he was at, so that hopefully has gone through and he will restart back in September (fingers crossed!) he is still loving the new place and in his words 'They don't stab you in the back and treat me like I know what I am doing' plus he gets paid weekly and they pay his travel.

Things happening this month:

DD's birthday
DD starts driving lessons
Half day holiday on the 23rd and meeting some friends for coffee in the afternoon
DD has to enrol for her second year at college

Things I'm happy about at the moment:

DS is settled (sorry to keep banging on about it)
The debt is reducing

Have a great day.

Pmo2
xx

satchmo1

Your diary sounds really positive, well done. It also sounds like DS has inherited your (new) budgeting skills. Is DD the same?

I find menu planning for a fortnight suits me best, otherwise I just repeat the same menu plan week in week out, which would be too boring. Batch cooking is also very useful. I batch freeze a chicken, chickpea and spinach curry, and also batch freeze savoury mince which gets turned into lasagna, bolognese, chili, or cottage pie. 

When I cook potatoes for mash, I do double and freeze one portion in the lid of the pyrex dish for the cottage pie.

(Note to self: maybe turn the mince into the finished dishes in future, hmmm??)

Pmo2

Hi satchmo1, alas no DS hasn't but he is learning.  DD is more frugal than he is though thankfully.

I did try batch cooking years ago but it didn't work out for various reasons but we seem to have found something that does work with the meal planning, I try to do for one week but often I buy enough for a fortnight.

jwil

Welcome back!