Buying a little piece of Middle England; Manifesting my way to mortgage free.

skint_spice

Well done! I have been reminded of a delicious chickpea dish or tapas type snack I used to get somewhere and looking for a recipe but I can’t remember enough to search for it🙄 it was very yellow/orange in colour and fairly dry but the rest is lost to me… Italian or Indian? 😂😂😂

debtfreewannabe321

skint_spice said:

Well done! I have been reminded of a delicious chickpea dish or tapas type snack I used to get somewhere and looking for a recipe but I can’t remember enough to search for it🙄 it was very yellow/orange in colour and fairly dry but the rest is lost to me… Italian or Indian? 😂😂😂

Falafels are very yellow before cooking...can't think what else it could be. Hmmm.... 

We eat falafels 🥙 in lunch most days in a wrap with salad as a quick easy nutritious lunch so this will save us a small fortune. 
Last week alone I spent £5 of the budget just on falafels! 😭

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, well I have walked the dog, and he's now on a diet after I just picked up after him.....he's so fussy he was refusing his dried food and we were giving in giving him lots of wet food which has resulted in not nice dog walks, to put it mildly.... So fussy dog is on a diet. He will have to eat the dried food when he is hungry enough.
I bought some paint whilst in town, we ran out half way through the job yesterday. So that is £22 gone and annoyingly we only need probably a quarter of the tin. Never mind, I am sure I will find a use for it for something else.

I have also booked a chiropractor appointment and as I hadn't been in so long I have to pay nearly 70 quid instead of 47. argh.... It has to be done though, I think it will help my neck and shoulders and the movement (or lack of) in that area and possibly help my foot because the pain originates from my hip I believe. That is for Thursday and I don't quite have enough in my health fund so I will borrow from other funds to pay. I am going to cancel my hairdresser appointment and put that money over towards it so that is half found already. My hair has barely grown (is this is side effect of menopause? Mine used to grow SO quickly!) so seems silly to keep the appointment for a cm or so and my hair is in good condition with no breakage.

I am putting off the food shop if I can day by day, I know I have enough food today and tomorrow I will reassess and see where we are at, stretching is as far as we can. If I can put it off until Thursday that would be great as I am already driving into the city for the chiropractor appointment....I will see though. Also....If I can put it off for a few days though I've figured out I can skip one week's shopping and bring it down to only two more shops this month meaning I can do some damage limitation with the food budget. I am still within budget, at the moment, I have just less than £100 left though so I'm not sure how far it will go. I do need lots of spices and herbs, I went through my jars yesterday and most were empty or hardly anything left and as I cook from scratch usually I do need them. I got rid of all the empty ones and made a list of what I need. If anyone knows of cheapish places to re-stock lots of herbs and spices I would love to hear it. Otherwise I am planning a trip to A1di to see what I can get there and then the rest from usual SM shop elsewhere. 

Not sure what is on my meal plan today I will go and see, the pie yesterday and the mashed butternut squash mixed with mashed potatoes was good and went down well. Even DD ate the mash and she would never touch butternut squash usually! So that is a good way of using one I think especially when it had no plans for a meal. 

I am working on next month's meal plan already, adding a few new recipes in as well as favourites from months gone by. 

My Pr0l1fic finally had over £6 in it's account, I still have around £5 more pending but it is taking so long I just requested what was in there anyway! Will send to the MOP once it arrives in my account

That's all for now, I am going to come back and update signatures in a bit though as I have got a bit lapse with my budget notes, I will reconcile all spends and earnings and see where I am at for the month

debtfreewannabe321

MOP GOAL for April £206.88
MOP in April so far £277.55 
plus £300 to MOP high rate savings fund =£577.55

I've surpassed my target by £70 which I am really happy about as that makes up for other months where I haven't reached my goal. The only money that will be sent over now is dribs and drabs from surveys and maybe any more v1nted sales. I don't have an awful lot on there for sale though so won't be much from there. 

Edited to add I have done some calculations and I just need to pay off £2,641.19 and I will own 50% off my home I am pretty sure if we get it valued the value has risen so we probably already own 50% but based on what we bought it for I own nearly 50%!!!

slm6002

Well done on the overpayments - soon be at the 50% mark if not already.

If you have a refill shop anywhere nearby have a try in there for spices etc.  Fish those empty jars out of the recycling and give them a rinse, then refill.  Our one is about a third of the price if not less, as you are not paying for the container that they are sold in.  Also it means that if you don't use a certain spice very often, or if only trying a recipe out / school cookery session, you can buy as much as you need, rather than filling up the container.  That would make it so much cheaper.

~FlowerPot~

often and asian SM are the cheapest. We tend to get (for convenience) the larger packets from the asian section in Sainos

Well done on you MOPs x

debtfreewannabe321

slm6002 said:

Well done on the overpayments - soon be at the 50% mark if not already.

If you have a refill shop anywhere nearby have a try in there for spices etc.  Fish those empty jars out of the recycling and give them a rinse, then refill.  Our one is about a third of the price if not less, as you are not paying for the container that they are sold in.  Also it means that if you don't use a certain spice very often, or if only trying a recipe out / school cookery session, you can buy as much as you need, rather than filling up the container.  That would make it so much cheaper.

We actually have one of these in our tiny town! I didn't think of there. I will go and see what prices they are if they stock what I need .... I have lots of empty jars in the cupboard so will get them out to fill up. I was saving them cos I thought they were cute 🤣

~FlowerPot~ said:

often and asian SM are the cheapest. We tend to get (for convenience) the larger packets from the asian section in Sainos

Well done on you MOPs x

My sister has just said the supermarket in town which is Asian ...and most of the spices I want are curry type herbs and spices so I will try there too thanks 😁

debtfreewannabe321

I'm sat down finally after being on my feet all day. DP tried his best to do the small bathroom yesterday but he's not really a decorator. He's the builder. So I walked the dog and came back and got changed and picked up the paint brushes again. The patio doors are done. I also caulked and wood filled all round the bathroom as DP had started painting BEFORE doing it urgh. He's a bit of a cowboy when it comes to painting as he hates it. He will build stuff properly then bodge the end result 🤣 so anyway I've saved it. Re-painted the woodwork after caulk and wood filler dried and were sanded. Re-painted the ceiling and skirting and also the window frame in there and the sill ...I will do another coat after dinner.
I've also ripped up old floor and scrubbed it clean. 
I took the door off to do the job too it was much easier that way, no wonder DP was getting annoyed with it yesterday.

For dinner, I've just made a cottage pie literally thrown together with tinned toms, sweet corn, peas and soaked lentils. Along with some carrots and courgette and anything else in the fridge that needed eating. Threw some herbs in tomato paste, mustard and marmite and stock and gravy (and whatever else came to hand haha) It actually tastes really nice considering it took me half hour to throw together 🤣 typical. Probably won't be able to recreate it. I used left over butternut squash/ potato mix and also cooked up the last of the sweet potato and mashed that and mixed it all together as the topper with a sprinkle of sea salt on top. That's in the oven with some broccoli roasting as well ..... I'm starving...once I start a DIY job I become Uber focused and refuse to stop till it is done I think that's why I didn't want to start 🤣 I'm hungry and thirsty now and haven't sat down all day. Still have to finish the wallpapering too 🙈 but at least all the other jobs are done now. 😁

HotDog2020

It sounds like you were very busy and that dinner sounds delightful, enjoy and well done for a hard days work, saving yourself getting someone else to do it bravo.

~FlowerPot~

Sounds like dinner is very well deserved! 
You do have a lot of energy, i felt tired just reading what's you've done!! Lol