Pork joint

Very well pleased with the pork tonight - got it from Morrisons as I had never seen a pork shank before and seemed very cheap (only £1.68) and it was very tasty with enough meat to satisfy the 3 of us - did it in the slow cooker with remoska roast potatoes.....mmmmm. Will buy that cut of meat again.

Parcels..

I think part of my wanting to spend is I love getting parcels!! So today my cup runneth over - my sale stuff came from Debenhams and Lakeland. Bit disappointed that 5 things were missing from my Lakeland order as they were no longer available but pleased with the bargains none the less.

I have been a good girl and NOT looked at Ebay at all since before Xmas - one of my weaknesses - yes its cheap but I really do not need anymore stuff at all. Browsing for me turns into buying.

Not going out today as its tooo icey so unless OH can get some salt for the path it will be another no spend day.

Tea tonight from the freezer is a pork joint done in the slow cooker.

January grocery spend - £9.49

Teeny tiny spend

Been to my grandsons 5th birthday - the roads are lethal out there and our path is covered in black ice so popped into Asda to see if we could get any salt - none left but did buy diluting juice as we had run out and bird food on special for £1 - I class this as a need as I love watching the birds on the table outside my window.

January grocery spend - £9.49

Cooking and freezing

Well yesterdays meal was really good - never use one of those mixes before (this one was Leek and Mustard) but will use it again. The rostis took forever to prepare - there was 6 left over so I cooked them and put them in greaseproof paper and into the freezer. Will heat them up in the Remoska the next time. Will definitely make them again but next time do a whole batch and just freeze them for when we need them (and will drag out my Magimix to grate them as it took ages to do by hand!)

The chocolate mousse - despite beating the egg whites for over 30 minutes (my dd was exhausted!) they simply wouldnt whip - dont know if it was the eggs or if there was any yolk in them or what - in the end she gave up, whipped up cream and put the melted chocolate straight into that - it was yum!

So now I have a jug with 4 eggs and sugar in sitting in the fridge. So today I am going to batch cook a whole lot of pancakes (adding 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of milk per egg) and do the same thing with greaseproof paper and freeze them for when we want them (one of our favourite breakies - with maple syrup and bacon......)

So hopefully another no spend day today!

January grocery spend - £4.74

Back to meal planning

Well I have braved the sleet to go out to our shed where the big freezer is kept and made an inventory - have come up with 7 meals without having to go major shopping this week - however, I need fresh veg so that will be a small spend this week.

Normally I have been budgeting £300 per month for 2 "traditionally built" adults and a bottomless pit of a teenage dd. This is quite a lot but I find if I have nice things to eat then we dont feel deprived and go out for meals. My target this month is £250 and I eventually want to get down to £200 - this would mean I could be putting £100 in my holiday fund every month. OH is a definite meat eater but he has to go into hospital on the 12th for an operation for reflux and cant eat solid food for 4 weeks so that will slice the food bill considerably! I will have to get my thinking cap on for nice creamy soups.

Lunches all week tend to be sandwiches, left overs, baked pots, ravioli, beans on toast etc.

So tonights main meal is...

Sausage and leek bake (using frozen chipolatas and a mix I found nearly out of date)
Turnip & Cabbage
H/M Chocolate mousse (my dd was supposed to make this as an Xmas pud but ran out of time so shes going to make it today)

January grocery spend - £4.74

Xmas sales.....

Well as usual I have been to the Xmas sales (both online and real life!) so I have been putting all my purchases onto my spreadsheet (sad I know but I do it every year to keep a track of spending) They started really early this year but I wasnt going to spend my Xmas day thinking of next Christmas!

I have put my budget up this year as there are 2 new grandchildren arriving so this years its up to £540 which I divided by 12 and put away each month. I know a lot of you will think this is really mean but I have great fun hunting for sale items or special offers to make the presents look a lot more.

So far this year I have spent £114 but saved £177 as everything was bought in the sales - well pleased with that as its a start. It includes some specific birthday presents as well as some bits for my gift box.

Luckily I went to the sales with my own Christmas present money and bought lots of nice things for me before I decided to be the Queen of mean again!

And tonight I ordered quite a bit online from Marks and Spencers (all in the above total) except for a skirt from my granddaughter for school (bless her, she's only at nursery now!) reduced from £8 down to a £1 - well, you cant miss a bargain like that! would have got a couple but there was only 1 in stock.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I crawled to my bed at 5am and am feeling rather fragile!

Bought a new phone today for my daughter (with her Christmas money - her "want" but as she paid for it thats ok!) and didnt even look at the rest of the site so quite happy - got it from Tesco direct with free delivery and an offer of 1000 extra club card points - also used my Tesco credit cards to get a few more points too. I always convert my Tesco points into deals and will this year use them on our holidays for visits or perhaps meals out.

We are having a lamb dinner tonight so no grocery spending either - another Frugal day! (although as the shops are actually closed it would have been frugal anyway!)