Spendy Wendy to Saver Savvy

joedenise

What recipe did you use for the slow cooker doner kebab?  Would be very interested in that.  The recipe I use is quite expensive as it uses 5% fat lamb mince which last time cost £7 and only made enough for 4 portions!

Spendywendywoo

@joedenise, of course, I used this recipe; https://www.tamingtwins.com/slow-cooker-doner-kebab/#wprm-recipe-container-16590 

I only used 500g 5% mince but I used the same amount of spices to get a really flavourful meal. We had an extra portion left so it made 4 portions (8 small wraps with salad and sauce) but I don’t make enough for too much leftovers as I find it goes dry and brittle when frozen so we use up in a couple of days. DH had leftovers for his dinner last night 😀

Spendywendywoo

Very busy week with office days and long to do lists. A very quiet day tomorrow so going to plough ahead with both work and personal to dos today so I can relax this evening. 

All good on the finances front. The last weekend before pay day next Saturday. All money tracked up to Wednesday so need to update the last couple of days today, bit of spend on grocery to top up lunch items but all meals have been homemade 😀. Tyres came up as advisory on the MOT last year so have been monitoring them, two will need replacing this weekend so that’s a Saturday morning job 

Have a great Friday, everyone 
Wendy x 

joedenise

Spendywendywoo said:

@joedenise, of course, I used this recipe; https://www.tamingtwins.com/slow-cooker-doner-kebab/#wprm-recipe-container-16590 

I only used 500g 5% mince but I used the same amount of spices to get a really flavourful meal. We had an extra portion left so it made 4 portions (8 small wraps with salad and sauce) but I don’t make enough for too much leftovers as I find it goes dry and brittle when frozen so we use up in a couple of days. DH had leftovers for his dinner last night 😀

Thanks.  I'll have a look.

Baldybear

Delurking to say hi and good luck on your journey, sounds like you are on a great track already 😊  also love your name, fellow wendy here too, there doesnt seem to be a lot of us.

Spendywendywoo

@Baldybear, welcome and thanks for commenting 😀. No there isn’t many of us around, I think I was the only one at school and I’ve only ever known one other Wendy in the area I live in. 

I’m looking forward to having the final first month figures next weekend to report, then the hard work and focus will be evident. 

Good luck on your journey also 😀 x

Sun_Addict

I have two cousins called Wendy 😆

Suffolk_lass

You've gone a bit quiet @Spendywendywoo. I hope all is OK. I find I need to keep updating (not all in my diary, obv) or I lose my momentum. It's that danger point in the month for me with "the dead zone" with no bills to monitor, and no shopping to curtail. I find myself browsing FB marketplace for things to buy!

Spendywendywoo

Hi @Suffolk_lass, thank you for stopping by, commenting and your concern, it's much appreciated FB marketplace can be very dangerous, thankfully I'm not on social media any longer so cannot see this anymore. Amaz0n is that for us... though zero spend at Amaz0n this month - very big win there!

Wow, it's been a very busy few weeks both personally and professionally with work travel to various locations, birthdays and just general day to day 'stuff'. 

I was holding out updating my diary as I didn't really have any updates BUT I got paid at the end of last week and I was able to update my Jan budget this weekend. 

So summary update;
- In November and December we spent £800-£1000 on groceries... this month I set a budget of £450 and we spent just shy of £500 (£497.94 to be exact). I can only imagine what it would have been if we hadn't budgeted and tracked spend. We've eaten far more home cooked meals than I think we ever have.
- We usually end up in our overdraft each month but this month we had £416.26 left....and I'd already put more than double the amount away into 'annual expenditure' than I normally do.  We needed 2 new tyres so bought them (as still building a maintenance pot, though have the full amount for an EF now) and transferred the final £125.47 over to the annual expenditure account also. 

- We overspent in some budget categories;
* Takeaway £136.10/£100 (but usually this would be hundreds so a definite win)
* Cleaning £61.07/£30 (I paid our window cleaning bill (overdue from Xmas) and hadn't accounted for this in the budget, plus we needed a new mop as ours broke, along with other cleaning products)
* Gifts £74.16/£50 (I wanted to spend no more than £50 on gifts but hadn't checked the birthdays we had this last month and therefore we went over, but again this would normally be much higher). 

- We did underspend in some categories, the most notable;
* Eating out £79.85/£100
* Petrol £129.01/£200 (We have spent less as we have had less travelling with work and no events to attend)
* Entertainment £58.20/£200 (We didn't have date day as we only had one just before the last pay day, and we also only had one family day out as we had a 'at home' family day too)
* Dog groom £0/£35 (Doggo wasn't due a cut this month)
* Coffee £12.60/£20 (this is a habit we are trying to break)

Lessons learnt:
* I thought Id done well budgeting but I'd budgeted just using the amounts I wanted to spend a maximum amount on, and not by looking at what we had planned for the month or what was needed. Originally I'd planned to carry over any surplus amounts but now I have decided not to do that and allocate it to 'Annual expenditure' which covers one additional mortgage payment per calendar year, all annual costs such as insurances, holiday and holiday spends, ground rent, boiler service, MOT, service, car tax and Christmas.  This month I will be allocating based on our plans, birthdays known, nights out (budgeted for) and half term holidays, with a desired savings amount at the end (this is in addition to monthly savings and investments that we make as soon as we are paid)
* Make time to run through the budget in more detail with DH (though he is very much involved and on board I want to continue this through the year so a planned budget review each month will help this)
* Update my tracker more regularly as trying to match the bank account with receipts or notes on my phone is far harder after a few days have passed!

Overall: I am incredibly happy with the progress we have made, the amount in our annual expenditure, the way that DH, and even DS, have embraced the new way of working and most importantly, I'm so relieved that we can now go out for days out as a family without worrying about the money side of things as I know exactly how much we have at all times, and knowing that days out are budgeted for. 

I have loosely budgeted for this month with the little time I had yesterday but as we are only spending on groceries so far this month (following a meal plan), I am going to set time aside tomorrow whilst DS is out to allocate spends to the relevant categories. 

Never felt so productive and positive where money is concerned!

Here's to another great month (no council tax payment for one... that's going straight into annual expenditure!!),
Wendy x

Suffolk_lass

Well done! I guess you have half term to tic, I'm sure  you can hit those savings again. For me, I have to keep tracking or the old "smug filter" kicks in (I don't need to budget,  we can afford to...) you get the picture.