Tag Archives: Challenges

Our Grocery Spending And Eating From The Cupboards

I’ve set the grocery budget at £180 for May, but as a little challenge to myself I’m going to try and spend less than I did in April (£170.58). Now I’m aiming to stay under £180!

I sort of abandoned my menu plan this week (Don’t blog a menu plan + Don’t stick to a menu plan!), and ended up buying a total treat dinner at the local supermarket! I also bought a few groceries (+extras) at my Mum’s and tipped my grocery spending very close to my May target. It’s not a big deal really, my grocery budget is my own personal challenge, and if I can stay within a few pounds of it I’m happy.

*MAY GROCERY SPENDING
- £85.64 2nd May
- £3.30 6th May
- £4.65 7th May
- £7.43 9th May
- £8.94 15th May
- £34.66 16th May
- £8.75 20th May
- £22.17 23rd May

Total spent: £175.54/£170.58 

Fridge contents

In order to keep our spending down over the next 8 days I need to avoid the supermarket as much as possible.  I did a quick food inventory update this morning and made a new menu plan. The pantry cupboards are quite full, we have a few bits in the fridge (see photo), and we also have the following in the freezer.

        • Chicken Portions x 2
        • Bean Burger x 1 +  Leftover Meat Sauce x 1 portion
        • Beef Portions (Stewing Cubes) x 5
        • One RM Pizza + 3 RM Quiche
        • Sausages x 1
        • Quarter bag peppers
        • Half bag stir fry veg
        • Pastry/ Milk x 2 pints
        • Bread x 1.5 Loaves/Naan x 2/Tortilla Wraps x 6

 

*MENU PLAN

  • Friday: New Potatoes, Veggies, Sausages and Gravy
  • Saturday: Stir Fry Chili Chicken Noodles
  • Sunday: Pizza + Huge Salad (need to buy salad)
  • Monday: Beef in Ale Pie and Veggies
  • Tuesday: Chicken Curry and Naan
  • Wednesday: Leftover Meat Sauce with Tagliatelle (M)  Bean Burger (Me)
  • Thursday: Quiche with Potatoes
  • Friday: BLT’s

 

We have a lot of food in, and if I buy anything apart from salad, milk or bread, it’ll just be me giving into temptation lol! ;)

Mortgage Reduction in 2013 (Part 2)

In January I posted a spreadsheet showing how we are approximately £6,933 short of making our 2013 £60k mortgage goal, even after making our planned over payments! We were already £2k short prior to me leaving my old job, so after that, the goal got even harder.

Visualizing progress on a spreadsheet always helps me to stay focused, so I did a little tinkering and added a few columns.

ORIGINAL SPREADSHEET:

mortgage numbers

UPDATED SPREADSHEET (SHOWING PROGRESS TOWARDS GOAL SHORTFALL)

Mortgage progress

As you can see we’re ahead of the game so far…….but it’s gonna get a lot harder to stay ahead!

Our plan for the next few months has always been to make regular payments of £1,850. So to achieve our £60k goal we now need to find/make an extra £6,425.78 on top of that! I’m pretty sure I can find/make another £1-£2k, but making £6k+ seems pretty impossible.

Or does it?

Just writing ‘seems pretty impossible’ in this post, makes me feel like I’m throwing down the gauntlet to myself. I mean it’s not impossible is it? It might be a challenge, but it’s definitely not impossible! ;)

Now I just need to come up with a way to make it happen!

Freezer Inventory

I’ve totally blew our grocery budget for the last two months but, inspired by Sue, I’m going to try NOT to blow it in March!

To start the month off on the right foot I’ve done a full inventory of our freezer (fridge freezer with 3 drawers) and cupboards, before I make a month long menu plan.

The freezer is quite empty and will need re-stocking early next week (after I’ve cleaned it out), but for now I want to use up the random food we have in it.

This is all we have:

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- 3 Bean Burgers
- 500g Organic Minced Beef
- 3 Cooked Bacon rashers
- Shortcrust Pastry
- Small Portion cooked bolognese sauce

freezer

- 10 Pitta Breads
- 1 Naan
- 1/2 Fruit Loaf
- 2 Individual Puddings
- 1/2 Tub ice Cream

and not pictured

- 1/2 Bag Peppers
- 1/2 Bag of Broccoli
- 1/2 Bag of Casserole Veg
- 4 Individual Yorkshire Puddings

We also had a few sausage rolls left over from Christmas and they’re in the oven right now ready to serve up at lunch time – in laws visiting and bringing the rest of lunch ;)

Right I’m off to start on my menu plan before our guests arrive! Have a great weekend!

January No/Low Spend & Decluttering Challenge (Final Update)

I’m taking part in Carla’s January No/Low Spend @ Decluttering Challenge, find all the details here 

No/Low Spend Challenge

My personal goals for the challenge:

*DE-CLUTTERING GOAL

My de-cluttering goal is to clear our tiny box room. I’ve kept quite a bit of stuff in there for when my youngest daughter sets up a home, and/or to donate, and next month it’s happening (sniff): My ‘baby’ is moving into a flat with her boyfriend and anything not passed on will be donated. I also hope to have a de-cluttered spare bedroom…which I can then decorate in February.

This part of the challenge has been very successful, yay! Not only have I de-cluttered the box room, but I’ve also cleared our (now) spare bedroom. Having the room cleared also inspired me to start the decorating.

It looked like this:

floor after

Now it’s empty apart from what you can see in the picture….

spare room

We still need to paint the skirting, get the carpet laid and buy a bed, but progress has been made.

This part of the challenge has been a success, the other part not so much! ;)

*MY NO/LOW SPEND GOAL

For the finance part of the challenge my goal will be: No Personal Spending. At all. No books, no coffee’s, no exceptions. I will only ‘spend’ on budgeted expenses. We don’t have any birthdays coming up, or any outings planned (I hibernate in January), so it’s a great month to do it. I will be spending some money helping K out with her move, but that will be in the budget.

My personal spending has not been too bad, but we’ve spent far too much money this month to even consider this a success. We went out on Saturday night (with friends x 14) and the split bill came to £62 a couple! I only had a spinach and potato curry with a bottle of water. I would never say anything, or even offer to pay just for my food, but it’s something to keep in mind next time we go out with a lot of people. :)

Okay. So I’m very happy with how the de-cluttering went this month – it’s good to start the New Year with a clear out and although I totally failed the finance part of the challenge it did stop me from some spending….just not all!

A big thank you to Carla for hosting!

If you took part, how did you do?