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

Bluegreen143

Hello all. 

Health update

Been intermittently feeling a bit down/not my best/not very productive - think it’s an end of winter thing! 

Feeling more energy today as I’ve started looking after my diet again, walking more and going to bed slightly earlier. Looking after your body = looking after your mind! 

Last night I dug out some knitting while watching TV and again that’s made me feel better, to be doing something creative and working with my hands. 

As well as continuing slimming world, I’m more motivated again to cut down UPFs (ultra processed food) - this doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand as many seem to use their syns for UPFs and I’ve been doing this. Also keen to keep an eye on the kids’ diets/sugar intake. 

Today’s food plan:

Breakfast:

Me - Loaded scrambled egg with feta, chives and served with some tomato/coriander dressed with lemon and salt. 

Kids - Porridge with sliced banana and a little sugar. 

Lunch:

Me - Haven’t decided yet! Thinking some wholegrain couscous with salad and chicken as I’m WFH and can make something. If I make double I can take it to the office tomorrow. 

Kids - Packed lunch thermos of pepperonata pasta, tub of apple/grapes, tub of cucumber/cherry toms, tub of Greek yoghurt with maple syrup. 

After school:

Plate of fruit/veg when the kids get home.

Dinner:

Tomato & lentil soup with chicken salad sandwiches/pittas (bread and stock pots are UPF but still a healthy and SW friendly meal). 

Money update

Squeaking into the last week of the month. 

- All savings accounts (Emergency Fund, New Kitchen, Holiday, December, Bills) have what they should have in them ✔️🥳

- Joint account has £92 left - we need a grocery shop on Thursday so we really are squeaking by but I think we’ll make it OK. If we need petrol that comes from the bills account and there’s cash in there. 

- Personal account has £117 (to do me until mid-March). Less than I’d like but it’s only fun spends which come from this account so easy enough to tighten the belt. 

Will sit down this week and work out what we’ve spend this month on groceries and wants and update these on here. 

Bluegreen143

Stayed on plan today. Meals as listed above, I had chicken couscous salad for lunch. 

Also walked the morning school run. Definitely feeling better for being active and healthy!

Took some time this afternoon to sort out the pantry which was in massive disarray. I often wish I only worked four days a week as I find it so tricky to fit in doing tasks like this! 

MissRikkiC

I work 4 days a week and still can’t manage those kind of tasks. I do have my 2.5 year old to satisfy so not exactly the same but a 6 hour school day isn’t long enough to squeeze everything in! 

Bluegreen143

There’s just so much to do always, isn’t there! 

Working in the office today. I’ve made food so no need to spend money at work. I will park in the Lidl car park at school so will pop in and buy some bread to qualify for the free parking, as we need that anyway. No other spending planned. Roll on Red’s payday on Friday! 

Booked spa entry and treatment for my weekend away with my mum and sister as we all agreed this is what we will do on one of the days, but you don’t pay til the time. It’ll come from my personal pot (and luckily I get paid again before we go!). It will be £25 for the spa entry and £85 for the massage so quite a lot really. I’ve not had a massage since I had Bambi though so I will make sure to enjoy it! 

Not sure I will make the step target today as it’s quite tricky when working in the office unless I make the time to go for a lunchtime walk, which depends on my workload. I usually only do so if someone else is going as well as it’s not a nice/attractive area for walking (run down industrial park) so feels like you need company or it’s pretty dull. So also depends on colleagues’ workloads. 

Meal plan today:

B - overnight oats with strawberries and banana - kids had toast, peanut butter and banana as in my sleepy haze I forgot I had made oats! They can have theirs tomorrow instead though! 

L - feta couscous salad and a sliced apple for me / tomato & lentil soup with a hummus sandwich for the kids, with some sliced fruit & veg 

D - meatball spaghetti and salad 

zcrat41

Your loaded eggs sounds delicious. 

Spa sounds lovely. I do think that massages in hotels and spas have got extortionate. I paid £110 at the hydro earlier in the year. Have since found a local lad who does a whole body hour long experience for £42. Admittedly she rents a room in an office block so it isn’t quite the ambience of a spa but I said to DH last time I’d rather have a massage for £42 before we go and just enjoy the spa ambience next time rather than feeling disgruntled at spending nearly two quid a minute on a massage!! 

MissRikkiC

We’ve booked a holiday over Easter in Greece and I checked out the spa prices. 190euro for a 60 minute experience.  I could not believe it. 

fionaandphil

Oh wow that is huge! I'm assuming you're giving that a miss?!

Bluegreen143

Zcrat, that is where we are going 😅.

Yes, spas are now super expensive though really not something I do often so I’m not going to stress about the cost too much. 

Today’s mealplan:

B - fat free Greek yog with fruit & maple syrup

L - beans on wholemeal toast with some kind of fruit or veg on the side 

D - beef chunky chilli and rice, probably with broccoli

Need to do some school lunch batch cooking today. I don’t think I’ll make enough of the chunky chilli to be more than 1/2 lunches leftover but I think there is a small amount of mince in the freezer so I may dig that out and do a normal chilli this evening. And do some mac & cheese with broccoli. 

Need to do weekend Tesco order too so will have a think about meals. 

Bluegreen143

Meals worked out as posted. The kids had overnight oats for breakfast and tubs of pasta from the freezer for lunch (mac & cheese for one, bolognaise for the other). 

Made a really nice chunky chilli for dinner with two leftover lunch portions. Going to take one to the office tomorrow and have added the other to the freezer lunches stash. Probably for Monkey as he LOVED the chilli for dinner.

Also made some mac & cheese to top up the freezer but got the quantities wrong and only made 3 portions. Not a disaster, just if I’m going to make the effort and have to wash up etc, would have rather had a few extra portions to make it worth it! 

Red has informed me that the joint account owes him £130 as he paid for the dinner out for his birthday. Which is right, but annoying as it’ll take us over budget for the month by about £100, he hadn’t mentioned it before so I just hadn’t factored it in. He gets paid Friday so I’m going to take it from next month’s budget instead of taking it out of savings. Means we need to be quite frugal next month but it should be easier now that Red’s birthday is out of the way!

MissRikkiC

I absolutely hate it when that happens. My husband often does it and tells me weeks after I’ve even reconciled and started a new month. Since we’ve switched from pots to YNAB it’s better I will say but it could still happen the same way. 

Chili sounds so good