Lets chat

Hello, dear friends.

I hope you have had a nice day.

I have hit a complete stumbling block on my daughters bedroom, the bed doesn't fit! So I have a choice I either pull the bed out and put my sons divan in her room which he really doesn't want me to do or I pull all the furniture out and see if it fits the other way. So no photos of an update today because there is no update.

I went over to see my darling mum and dad today, I told my mum about my dilemma and she suggested that I measure the room the other way before I move all the furniture about. Good idea!

I am not going to do it today because by the time I got back from my parents, my brother turned up, so we stayed a while. I got back and cooked dinner, it was too late to make a start on it as the children have school tomorrow and I don't want to be banging about when they are in bed. So tomorrow I will be leaving work at lunchtime to carry on with her bedroom.

My mum gave me a whole box of bold two in washing powder. Lucky me!

We had dinner together and watched a film called 'Tomorrowland' which was my kind of movie. I do love a good kids movie, they always have a nice ending.

The only money that I have spent today is £4.49 for screen wash for the car.

I didn't do any walking today.

For everyone who will be watching the superbowl this evening I hope you have lots of fun, unfortunately its too late to watch in the UK.

Have a good evening and take care xx

Saturday catch up

Hello dear friends,

I hope you are having a lovely day.

I had a lovely long lie in this morning.

I got up and did a load of washing and put the dishwasher on. I then had a chat with my daughter about how we need to sort out her bedroom and get rid of her broken bed and put the bed that my thirteen year old currently using into her room and give him the bed that my eldest son sleeps on.

My eldest son is at university and often stays at his dads house as it is closer, he normally stays here two or three nights a week. I have spoken to him about swapping the beds around and he is fine with that. He is happy to sleep on the sofa bed for the time being until I can sort out a new bed.

My daughter was very up for sorting out her room and has spent most of the day going through her toys deciding what she wants to keep and what she wants to get rid of.

 

 

 

I think it will probably take a couple of days to fully sort this out but I am currently very proud that she is putting so much effort into sorting and tidying her stuff.  She is happy for me to sell or throw away anything that she no longer wants.

 

 

I intend to wash her carpet, which is filthy, she really could do with a new one but that won't be happening in the near future.

 

Take all the clothes out of her wardrobe and hoover her wardrobe out. She has a lot of new clothes from Christmas so I will pull out anything that is too small and either sell or throw them depending on there condition.

 

Wash her walls and see if they come up clean, if not, I will at some point in the near future have to paint her room.

  

I will also wash her carpet, lightshade and the outside of the wardrobe and drawers.

 

She is not aware yet, but about a year ago in the sales I bought her some new curtains, duvet cover and throw for her room. They are very pretty and I'm sure when she see's them she will be delighted.

 

 

 



 

 

I also took my eight year old to Costa as I promised for doing very well at school for the second week in a row.

 

He had a Pepsi and a blueberry muffin, I had a chocolate babycino and a chocolate twist. I had enough money on my Costa card so this cost me nothing. A free lunch with my sweet boy, I couldn't think of anything nicer.

 

 

 

My son and I then went to Aldi to do the weekly shop, but we went to get a trolley and I didn't have a £1.00 coin to get one. I hate that!

So my son and I had to get as much shopping as we could manage in a basket and our hands.

 

This is what we managed to get and the cost was £29.70. The more I am shopping at Aldi the more impressed I am becoming with the price and the quality of their products. I will definitely be returning to Aldi this week to finish our shop. We managed to buy our breakfast stuff, drinks, ham for lunches, lots of apples, chicken breasts, rice and lots of Naan bread for curries for today and tomorrows dinner together with weekend treats for the children and a few storecupboard essentials.

Well tomorrow hopefully, I can show you some updated photo's of my daughters bedroom and I should be able to put some items on either Facebook sales, Ebay or both.

Have a lovely evening and take care xx

 

 



Food Waste Friday

Hello, I haven't done a food waste Friday for a while. The waste today really wasn't too bad, we had two apples and a plum. Unfortunately I didn't have time to take a photo of it before the bin men came.

Today I did not work all day I left at 1.30, the first time in a while. So I walked home, cleaned the kitchen, swept the floors, put some washing on, put some dry washing away had a cup of coffee whilst reading a couple of my favourite blogs and then it was time to go back to the school to pick up my little darlings.

As it's Friday it was time to speak to my eight year old sons teacher and see if he had a good week, and for the second week in a row he had a fantastic week with no getting upset or stressed out. In fact his teacher said I had better get a loyalty card for Costa coffee, ha already done that, in fact I think I might be able to treat him with a freebie this week as I have £8.00 on my loyalty card.

 

 

 

Today, I have walked nine miles but I admit to having some of the kids haribo's, they always give me their chewy red and white hearts. I'm so lucky!

 

I would really like to start brightening up the kids bedrooms and getting them more organised but as you know I am on a really tight budget, I need to be very frugal about what I do,  I have a few ideas in mind and at the weekend I think I will show you some before photo's of my daughters bedroom like I did with my sons room a few months ago. Although my daughters bedroom is much tidier than my sons was for those of you that remember.

 

Well I am off to look on pinterest for a bit o inspiration.

 

Take care xx

just a little chat

Hello, I hope you have had a nice day.

Well in my little world, I STILL WANT A CHOCOLATE BAR. But you will be happy to know I am still resisting,

 

 

Yum, but as I was desperate for something sweet after dinner I opened a tin of fruit and had some of that.

 

 

So far today I have had a no spend day but unfortunately when I go to pick my thirteen year old up from cadets I do need to get some lunch stuff for tomorrow otherwise my little angels will starve and we can't have that.

 

It does go to show that I did slightly underestimate what we would need for lunches this week either that or little fingers have been helping themselves (which is probably more likely).

 

Sweet man is away for one night next week on business but probably won't be home for dinner for two nights by the time he gets back so I might just have leftovers out of the freezer on those two days. But I need to make sure I have leftovers to have first.

 

It has been another full on day at work today where by I was due to leave at lunch time but ended up staying the whole day.

I guess I will be cleaning at the weekend again although I've been doing a bit every day when I get in from work.

 

I walked six miles today and spent £14.00 at the shop but I did buy some nice coffee that was half price that I was going to buy at the weekend.

 

Have a nice evening and take care xxx

Wednesday Update

Hello dear friends,

One of my favourite things to do in the world is to visit beautiful places. I haven't been to many places since having the children mainly because wow does it add to the cost. But I still like to look online at the places I would like to visit one day when the children are older. The picture above is Washington State and definitely somewhere I would love to see (isn't it stunning, although I do wonder if there is a bear lurking somewhere amongst those trees).

Whilst travelling and experiencing different cultures is still high on my list of things to do, the longer I am blogging and catching up with the wonderful people that are frugal and save, the more it makes me want to make cut backs and have savings in our accounts.

I would love to have enough savings in our account so that if either of us are made redundant or became ill we would be able to manage for at least a couple of months. We are not in that position at the moment, in fact over the last four to five months we have only just managed to pay our bills. This month I set up two spreadsheets one for our groceries and one for our budget. Doing this has already started to make a small difference as I have noticed an insurance policy for a computer that my son sold a couple of months ago so I cancelled that direct debit. Also I have changed a direct debit to our pay day that previously came out two days before payday, now it won't get forgotten.

Also for the first time ever I have put things into our budget like birthdays and Christmas, a clothing fund and a haircut budget so that we never get caught out in the future. Once we are starting to see money go into the birthdays/Christmas fund I will add an emergency fund so that we can start building up a cushion for our future. Won't that be nice!

Today has been another no spend day. (That's two in a row)

I walked six miles

I haven't weighed myself this week but I did avoid eating chocolate today even though I had the biggest craving for it I had a kiwi instead! Yay me!

Well I still have that awful chocolate craving so now I am going to have a coffee and head off to bed.

Have a good evening and take care xx

Proud Mum day

Hello, I hope you have had a good day.

My plan for today was to work a half day and then come home and do some cleaning but things didn't go to plan and although I could have left but there was thing to be done so I stayed. This seems to be happening more frequently these days, so I went and had a coffee in the staff room.  whilst drinking my coffee I received a message from my eldest son asking if I could talk, there were several other people in the staff room so I replied what's up, in case something was wrong, he told me he had received his university results for the first term. He hadn't told me he was getting the results today and I was a little concerned because he had only sent his twelve essays in eleven minutes before they were due and he had repeatedly told me he didn't think he had done very well. Well he rang and told me he got a first. I am so proud of him.

We had the water company come in at school today to talk to the children, he was explaining the ways that people can save money on their water bills and it made me realise whilst I am trying to save money on food and what we spend I really haven't looked at the ways we could save money on things like water or electricity.

This is an area of our spending that I need to look at more closely especially as our monthly bill has just increased by about £6.00 per month. The ways that I can definitely save money without really trying is to:-

• Make sure the dishwasher is full before its turned on
• The same with the washing machine
• Make the children turn the tap off when they brush their teeth
• Use the bathwater to flush the toilet after the children bath
• Get water butt and use rain water to water the garden or clean dirty boots

These are just some of the ways that anyone can save money and whilst our water is not expensive it is accumulative and just saving 10p a day is still a saving of £36.50 over a year.

On a personal note I walked six and a half miles today and we have stuck to our food menu.

We have also had a no spend day. Yippee!

Have a good day, take care!

Menu Plan Monday

Hi, how on earth are we back at Monday again?

This weeks breakfast choices consist of:-

1. Bagels (Bought reduced now in the freezer)
2. Pop Tarts (bought on offer 2 for £2.00 at Farmfoods)
3. Krave (I bought the Aldi equivalent for £2.00 cheaper than the original Krave)
4. Honey nut (Also bought the Aldi cheaper version for £1.75 less)

Lunches consist of:-

• Sandwich (cheese, cream cheese, chocolate spread, peanut butter and jam)
• Crisps (box of 40 bought for £4.00 at ASDA)
• Biscuit bar (bought at Aldi for 25p cheaper a pack than normal)
• Apples (65p a bag of 5/6 braeburns at Aldi)
• Drinks (Capri sun £2.00 box of 10)

Dinners

Monday - sausage, bacon, egg, hash browns, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes

Tuesday - Pie, mash, veg and gravy

Wednesday -Spaghetti Bolognese with Parmesan and garlic bread

Thursday - Cheese and Beans on toast/Egg on toast

Friday - Gammon steak, chips, egg, pineapple

Saturday - Curry with Naan bread and Rice

Sunday - Leftovers from yesterday

The drinks for the children's lunches I wouldn't normally buy but recently we have had a lot of drinks bottles leak and ruin the children lunches so I have decided to buy them drinks that are on offer for the near future.

On Saturday we will make a variety of curries, probably a chicken curry, a lentil Dahl and I have bought quite a few potatoes recently for 10p a bag so we will probably make a Bombay potatoes dish too. This will cover two days worth of meals and give me Sunday off from cooking.

I hope you have had a good day today. 

Take care xx