Missy’s full time working mum juggling act MF adventure

missymoo81

dawnybabes said:

Tbh at this point with the rollercoaster you have bern having with your DH I’d not be inclined to pay it off the mortgage unless he too is paying 35k off. 

Thanks love, I appreciate that, I have a legal agreement that any money I put in is mine. Should anything happen.

missymoo81

Ok so meal plans:

breakfast will be bagels for the children and toast or porridge for me and OH. Lunch is sandwiches fruit, chocolate bars, cake, fruit and yoghurt for the children. Sandwiches choc bar and crisps for OH and choc bar, crisps and toast for me. Dinners are as follows:

week 1

Mon - chilli veggie  mince bulked with carrots 

Tue - chilli veggie  mince bulked with carrots  

Wed - curry hm, freezer chicken

Thur - pizza hm, using bread maker 

Fri - out /mcdonalds or similar cost covered through work 

Sat - light / omelette etc as out for work lunch 

Sun - sausage and mash 

Week 2

Pasta bake, freezer bacon

Hot dogs & wedges, make bread rolls

Sausage and mash

Bolognese, split mince 3 ways

Chilli Burritos

Shep pie

Pizza hm

Chrystal

Glad to hear you've got your head on the right way regarding finances, although I hope it's not needed.

Meal plans sound great.  XX

Idreamofplants

Great work on the meal plan. I’m meal plan obsessed - mainly so I don’t have to think too much after work. I do themes - mon pasta, tues on toast, weds pizza, thur freezer medley, Fri - fresh stuff as shop delivered, sat and sat cooked teas because I have more time. Breakfast is always cereal/porridge and lunch always wraps/ salad. Older kids know anything different they sort themselves. My shopping bill is still extortionate mind you!

missymoo81

Thanks @Chrystal and @Idreamofplants. Yes I’m usually rubbish at meal planning but slowly getting better. I’ve meal planned to a budget but also need to work out what I’m going to do on which days as some days are work from home days and some days we have clubs etc.

I’ve just compared prices from Tesco to Sainsbury’s and most things stack up ok in Sainsbury’s favour, apart from veggie mince, apples and a pasta sauce they’re out of stock on.

missymoo81

Ok so, trying to be sensible and think about looking after me a bit, being more organised whilst looking after the children and bringing budgets down.

I’m going to try and cook from scratch a lot more but have the children help. 

I’m going to get the bread maker out from under the stairs and put it on the worktop. To make pizza dough and bread dough. Oh and maybe jam as have some berries in the freezer.

Whilst cooking dinner I will make lunches for the next day, do a load of washing, think I need to start doing smaller loads every day, as it’s a lot less stressful and I’m more likely to hang it straight away.  And then take the dry stuff off and put away, when just a handful of things, rather than leave the wet washing for a couple of hours then hang it and it always has that foisty sort of smell to it. Im
also guilty of just leaving piles of unsorted
clean clothes on the landing! 

I would really like to spend a little bit of time with the children after dinner if they’re not at clubs, then slope off to have half an hour or so to myself, just to recoup from the day, read etc.

I need to get the children to help more too. I’m rubbish at making them help as it’s just quicker if I do it.

debtfreewannabe321

Morning Missymoo my meal plan is much like yours. If you're staying put in your home now have you thought about going on Pinterest for some inspiration on storage. My last house was around 700sq ft it was tiny and we had three kids in it at the time, a dog and much of it was unusable walk through space. Aside from keeping on top of clutter (which seems to be a full time job) I scoured the Internet looking for storage solutions. If you're handy at DIY there are loads of things to maximize space. I.e my old kitchen was 6ftx6ft smallest I've ever had and a nightmare so I got rid of cupboards and put up shelves instead which made it feel open and airy and bigger and I actually had more useable space. I bought beds with storage too for all the kids and myself and boarded out the loft and got a pull down ladder. I was constantly on Pinterest looking for inspiration to copy or adapt lol.

Anyway hope you have a nice day  😁

fionaandphil

For the washing and putting away, I fold it and stick it on the beds and then they have to put it away before bed time. If they don't it can sit for a day on the chair and after that I tell them to do their own washing and drying - usually does the trick - with OH too!  I also get DS to strip his bed and remake it, he was going on school camp in primary and they asked us to make sure the kids could put on a duvet and its developed from there. Mine are also really good at putting all their clothes in the laundry basket which does help with the washing.  Lots of life skills in there too for when the leave home

missymoo81

Thanks so much @debtfreewannabe321 that’s a really good idea. We’re struggling at the minute with bedding and towels there is simply no where to put them we have under bed boxes but they’re not big enough. I’m wondering if there’s something I can hang on the back of the bathroom door? 

After a busy weekend away I’ve come back with more energy to get things sorted, so I sorted out 2 of the cupboards. One is a mug one, we don’t have too many mugs, we use the ones we have, there’s just not enough space for those and jars of coffee and tea bags. I could do with an extra shelf. I’m sure you can buy cupboard shelves. The under sink cupboard is just a nightmare. And my wardrobe is currently a chest of drawers in the airing cupboard. I need to reduce my stuff down a little which would help. Thank you for the ideas.

@fionaandphil thank you. Good lessons there. They can do their duvets, I just don’t make them. I need to though. And they can start packing their own lunches. It’s  hard because I had to do everything from a very early age through lack of anyone else doing it.  I feel bad when I make my children do it. But I need to.

ok so up early today. Someone’s dog was yapping away noisily at 7am. And I woke up at 5.30 again for no reason. I wonder if it’s the light as we’re down a blind in the bedroom. I have an eye mask but it squishes all of my hair with it, but might be worth it.

So today I have the shopping coming between 8-9. I’m also working from home today 8.15-5.15. 

I managed to get the shopping to under £45 I think, I’ll see when the total shows up. Hopefully that should keep us going. I’m sure OH will moan there are no yoghurts but he will have to buy his own at £1.25 a go. I went through the food cupboard and don’t actually have very many staples at all. I do have lots of baking ingredients and some yeast so that should help. I’m hoping to enjoy the cooking process this week. It is a busy week with work but I’m hoping if I plan enough it should work out ok.

I even pushed the boat out and bought some frozen spinach as I have 2 packets of frozen fruit in the freezer so I can get my 5 a day in. As usually it stops at 1 or 2. So that’s me trying to look after myself a bit more. I need to see if Mays cake is still edible. It’s from about 10 days ago. But is in the fridge. Could I freeze it I wonder? 

Things I have changed shopping wise are: I have been buying expensive crisps and protein bars and biscuits for me, to help with calorie counting. We already had the protein bars but they’ve gone now. So I was spending about £5 extra on lunch things and another £5 on protein yoghurt and blueberries, of which I would rarely actually get around to eating. So instead I have got a packet of digestives, and some cheese puff crisps, and some fake mars bars.  Very much the same in calorie content as the other things but a whole lot cheaper.

I’m going to try and walk 10000 steps today, which is hard when I work from home. But I have a meeting at 1-1.30 so I think I will go for a wander to the shops after that, to break up the afternoon and I love walking. I won’t buy anything from the shop of course, but just as a reference point. And I’m going to try and drink 2 litres of water, and stay under my calories. I would love to say I will work out today but I don’t think I have capacity. 

Ive got 2-3 more loads of washing to do from the weekend until the basket is empty. I would very much like to get those done today, I would also like to wash the children’s bedding, as it’s been a couple of weeks. It looks set to rain though which is always a problem, I already have a load drying upstairs and it already smells a bit funky… I think I’ll do the bedding tomorrow and see what the weather does this afternoon. I’m definitely going to wash the light clothing today and hang it up in Mays room as they’re not back until tomorrow. 

Really can’t be bothered to work today! I just want to get on with house sorting, and I’m super busy, so think I’m going to have to put my do not disturb on for a bit. 

Going to put Chilli in the slow cooker today to have later. I find this always works well with veggie mince as there’s no fat and I can just bung it all in without having to fry anything off first. 

Ooh just realised I need to pick Mays uniform up. I managed to get trousers and shirts whilst they were in the 25% off sale. So I was happy with that. But OH needs to pick some bits up from the shop too so I need to remember to give him the code.

Sorry for the huge long post, more of a brain dump really! 

I’m sure I’ll post more later. Have a great day. 

redofromstart

Is the business sale money after tax? 

I put our savings to earn interest because the mortgage rate was lower than the interest (even allowing for tax on the interest) and then paid it off once the fixed rate ended. The tricky bit is not dipping into it just because it is there.

does Roo still like cooking? (Blood oranges years ago...)