Stopping the backsliding… a family of four no longer living beyond their means

Bluegreen143

That's very kind of you FootyFanDan. I do enjoy playing with the budget... the tricky bit is sticking to it!

We ordered a new fridge freezer yesterday. It was £378 so I took the £100 in the Home Maintenance pot and the rest from the Emergency Fund. A working fridge freezer is an absolute necessity so I don't feel bad about this spending, and am thankful we had some money in the pots so it didn't go on the credit card (which I'd like to never use again!).

I also ordered Bambi some clothes from H&M. She's growing like a weed and is now wearing age 6-7 despite still only being 5. She's very slim, just very tall, which makes fit an extra challenge. She often wears dresses and all her dresses are now completely indecent and turning into tops (and I fight with her about how she needs to wear leggings with them cos they are too short for tights!).

I used the employee discount portal at my work for 8% off and spent £80, but have £3.50 or so left on the e-voucher I bought which I can use next time. For that I got one of those three pack mix and match tops, the matching three pack of leggings, two matching jumpers, and four dresses (including a denim dungaree dress, which was more expensive than the others, but is her favourite style). This will be enough clothing for her now all winter now she's mainly in school uniform.

The only thing she may still need is more tights, but I want to weed through what she has and remove the too-small ones first as I'm wondering if she does have enough but just keeps reaching for the small ones!

I only had £64 in the Kids' Clothing pot so I took the excess from Misc (things I forgot about) - already that pot is showing it's value!

Monkey doesn't need any clothes, except I bought him some socks yesterday at the supermarket. Unlike Bambi he has not grown at all in over a year, poor boy (he's still wearing age 7-8, much to his disgust), and his winter clothes last year were from Next and still look decent. If he has a growth spurt I will obviously buy him new clothes but I don't think it'll happen in the next month or two, so that pot has time to fill up again.

It's just occurred to me that I haven't booked Thursday's Tesco delivery so I better get that done today in case all the slots go...

wannabedebtfreemum95

Sounds like you got a great mix from H&M! We love their kids clothes - they seem to fit well for skinny mini kids. Did you see that you can take bags of rags, old towels, sheets etc to be recycled and get £5 voucher back? The cynic in me says they may bin the stuff… but rather have £5 and them bin it than me bin it for £0! 

debtfreewannabe321

I needed a new tyre over the weekend too! We've only had our car a couple of weeks. So annoying!!

Bluegreen143

Thanks both, and I didn't know that about the H&M voucher!

Meant to post about the lovely dinner I made last night since it was both healthy and frugal. 

ITALIAN CHICKPEA AND LENTIL SOUP

Onion, celery, carrots (could add red pepper too), finely chopped. I used 1 onion, 2 big carrots and about 1/3 celery bunch

Other veg - I used 1/2 punnet mushrooms, sliced, and a couple of big handfuls of frozen butternut squash

Chopped tomatoes and good-quality stock (I used a can of chicken stock, use veggie stock if preferred)

Italian seasoning, black pepper, salt, olive oil, juice of a lemon, several garlic cloves

4-5 cubes of frozen spinach (could use fresh)

Can each of chickpeas and brown lentils

Optional - chopped parsley and parmesan for serving

Gently saute the onion/carrot/celery, then add any other veg and garlic. Add the tomatoes, stock, herbs, pepper etc (but not the lemon, canned pulses or spinach).

Cook until everything is lovely and soft (I cooked in my instant pot for 20 mins under pressure, obviously give it much longer on the cooker). Add the canned pulses, spinach and lemon juice and cook until the spinach isn't frozen any more.

Serve with a drizzle of EV olive oil, chopped parsley and/or grated parmesan (I used all three).

Don't miss out the lemon, it actually really made it!

Went down well with the kids despite the mushrooms - Monkey complained about the chickpeas but still ate them. Red raved about it and reckons it was a keeper of a recipe.

tiddles

I’m looking forward to trying this recipe - thanks!

Floss

At the end of the day, a new F/F is what your emergency fund is for. Mine had to buy a new washer within a few months of being set up.

Sarahwithlove

Could you buy bambi some denim shorts or something to wear under the dress with her tights? 

Bluegreen143

@Sarahwithlove Thanks for the idea - if it was one specific dress that she wanted to keep maybe, but ALL her dresses and leggings are a size too small. I did buy most of them this time last year so they’ve had a good run. She’ll have enough with the new clothes I bought her anyway that we won’t need to keep the old dresses and try to make them work. 

Meals today: 

B - Greek yoghurt, banana, nuts etc

L - leftover Italian chickpea & lentil soup

D - spaghetti bolognaise 

No spending today, except I got charged for one of the workbooks I ordered for the kids the other week (I ordered from Waterstones and they are weirdly charging for each one as it ships rather than charging for the whole order in one go 🤷‍♀️). 

I’m pleased with these workbooks - I’ve ordered both English and Maths in each child’s current stages. Most workbooks I see are based on English schools but these are the official ones tied in with the Scottish curriculum. They are also really chunky in comparison with other workbooks I’ve used as each one is designed to cover the full curriculum for whole academic year so hopefully will save money in the long run as we get through the slim little workbooks you can buy on Amazon quite quickly! 

I will be spending tomorrow as I’m taking the kids to the cinema - think it’s £28 for an adult and two child tickets to go to our local independent cinema. 

Not something we do frequently (I think they’ve only been to the cinema three times in their lives before!). But it’s my one day off with them this half term and it’s forecast for heavy rain so I figured the cinema is an indoor option we’ll all enjoy, rather than me suffering through half term softplay(!). Hoping the movie (The Wild Robot) isn’t too grown up for Bambi but it’s a U and she’s quite good with movies, I let her watch the first Harry Potter recently and she did fine 🤞🏼. 

Speaking of Bambi, she had a little crying meltdown before bed because she was so worried about growing up and having to move out one day! And worried about me getting old (I think this is a fear of me dying). Bless her, we had lots of cuddles and reassurance and I think she had recovered by the time she went to bed. It’s so sweet that she thinks she will always want to live with me 😆. It’s a nice reassurance she does love me really, as she presents as a daddy’s girl nowadays (but it’s a little more complex and she reaches for me when sad/hurt). 

Honeysucklelou2

The soup sounds delicious, thank you for sharing the recipe!

debtfreewannabe321

Aww I remember my DS2 crying about the same thing, I tried to say I was only 33 and not going to die just yet and he burst into more tears at that thinking I was ancient (It was pretty funny after I had calmed him down.)
I think cinema is a great idea on a miserable day, I used to take mine all the time to kids showings which were cheaper and also they don't care so much if the little ones aren't sat so quietly. Have fun