And now we go again...

lucielle

You’ve reminded me I need to read the leccy meter and send the reading off. Annoying about the kettle

waves to pippi 
L

pippilongstocking123

EssexHebridean said:

SSG - it did look rather lovely, I confess! 

Pippi it is truly gorgeous to have you back on here again - and you know it with the meal planning, tedious it is, but effective too! Please do join me in the reducing grocery spends challenge too - there more people get on board with this the more accountable we all are to each other, after all! 

Hey love thank you and the xmas tree did look rather bonnie.

We managed a fridge leftovers/freezer/stores tea of chinese chicken curry with chips and rice. A full tea portion to spare for the freezer too. 

Our budget for food/household/pets etc is £365 a month which DH puts in the bank, for one mutt, one GD (age 3) who stays one or two nights a week and two hungry adults who are outdoors a lot. Its generous but I do try and buy local, reduced and seasonal. 

If I can get it down to £200 I'll be happy, that's always what it use to be for the two of us.

Bravo on the encouragement. x

pippilongstocking123

lucielle said:

You’ve reminded me I need to read the leccy meter and send the reading off. Annoying about the kettle

waves to pippi 
L

Waves Back. xx

LadyWithAPlan

On proper DF chocolate the bouja bouja truffles are amazing (not cheap) or the Nomo bars are nice 

joining you all on cutting down in January the food budget.. I have strictly given up sweets choc cake and  crisps as NY resolution so it’s amazing  how I am not needing to constantly snack so that and a largely Dry Jan will help the budget as well 

@Cheery_Daff yes to have alcohol in a separate pot is a good idea - Xmas, celebrations and then summer in the sun can really make that budget go high 
I am determined to have a full YNAB year of essential spending data so I am also categorising spends in a detailed way  - drinks in the house and also drinks out .. 

PennysIntoPounds

Shame you're not nearer EH, we have not one but two spare kettles! That is fabulous work on how much you've saved on mortgage interest already, blimmin well done you

Baileys_Babe

LadyWithAPlan said:

On proper DF chocolate the bouja bouja truffles are amazing (not cheap) or the Nomo bars are nice 

Bouja bouja truffles are wonderful, very luxurious.

themadvix

Baileys_Babe said:

LadyWithAPlan said:

On proper DF chocolate the bouja bouja truffles are amazing (not cheap) or the Nomo bars are nice 

Bouja bouja truffles are wonderful, very luxurious.

Also score well for ethics 😊

EssexHebridean

Thank you all for choccy recommendations - will keep our eyes out. 

The kettle - MrEH tells me the spring that makes the lid pop up has broken - indeed he found half of it in the bottom of the kettle so that seems likely. PiP I actually thought we had a spare kettle ourselves - our old one pre new-kitchen-at-the-flat - but I think it must have been a victim of “well we’ve not used it in the last 6 years so…” when we moved! I’ve a bit of a hankering after one of those with the glass sides though, and the blue light - a holiday cottage we have stayed in regularly has one and I love it! So that may be what we replace with (clearly a great idea in a place with stupidly hard water, mind!) 

Pippi & LaPlan - all joiners to this mad grocery challenge are really SO gratefully received - I really need the accountability as almost always whenI say I will do this something happens along and derails me part way through. Cheery - the separating alcohol out seems like a good plan although when I come to think about it generally speaking our spends in that area are not heavily supermarket based - and I’d like for that to continue so far as beer is concerned anyway - as I would far rather we mainly ordered that from local or at least local-ish breweries. 

So I have a meal plan - right through to halfway through the month, in fact. And as a result I also have a shopping list. Shopping plan is Lil’s this morning - while I still have my car, then we will do T’s one day or the other over the weekend. Of COURSE T’s have just sent me various tempting coupons to entice me over there, so I need to give some thought to those and whether I ought to use them: £1.50 off an £8 spend on laundry and dishwashing could be handy if it can be teamed up with any decent offers - this is one area where because of our aforementioned stupidly hard water I do buy branded. £1.25 off a £6 car care spend will be used easily in screen wash - and of course is not from the grocery budget so hurrah for that. 75p off a spend on frozen veg - I have some on my list, so yep, absolutely. £1.75 off £9 on loo roll/tissues is more of a quandary as I was going to buy the Little 🦆 brand to try it out…and I suspect that will be far cheaper even than anything bought using T’s offer. There is also a £4 off £30 spend which may come in handy for next week’s main shop if I combine with some of those other offers. I’ll check the Trolley app for offers. 

Right - no call from the garage to tell me they are on their way, so to Lil’s I go! 

savingholmes

Well done on the OP - and relating savings. £1500 already saved in interest is fab.

Good luck with frugal Jan.

Hope you are both fully recovered from illness now.

EssexHebridean

Right - I am back, and having just had the call to say the car will be collected in 40 minutes or so it’s time for a list of stuff to do in the meantime!

- put shopping away
- read electric meter
- swish bathroom
- tidy kitchen island
- take treaty chocolate stuff upstairs and stash in the goodie bag with other Christmas treaty stuff
- Jaws! (Upstairs, at least)