End of month celebrations

Yes - we made it to the end of the month and stayed within our budget! It has proved to me that I can stay away from the shops and really stick to my aims when I get organised but it helps enormously that I have this blog and I know that people are reading it and I am trying to be accountable to you - and be honest!

I did spend a little money today but only £5.92 on an ox tongue and that was an accidental spend: my neighbour's father wanted an oxtail from the butcher who comes to the market in the nearby town but they don't carry them and he had to order one to collect this week. When M was telling me, I said I wondered whether they had tongues and she said she would find out for me - well, I was absolutely delighted when she actually brought me one home! Sliced tongue is horrendously expensive in the supermarket and I have stopped buying it, but home cooked and pressed tongue is delicious. It is a while since we have had one - a couple of years probably - but I am really looking forward to cooking this tomorrow afternoon and then pressing it overnight. The £5.92 is well within the £11 odd that I had left, so we have achieved our aim.

So what shall we do for February? More of the same, I think. I have restocked the cupboards, at a cost of about £92 from Asda, and so I am giving myself the same £100 again for the weekly shopping over the month. That will mean that we are spending no more than £200 for the month - about £50 a week, or £12.50 per week per person. This will need me to continue baking bread, using fruit and veg from the freezer - we have loads left - and keeping a sharp eye on snacking foods; Oh for the days when the children were preschoolers and had three meals, two snacks and a biscuit at bedtime - some days when we are in and out, we seem to be eating at some strange times of the day, and I am sure that people are eating the wrong kinds of things - snacks will have to be more basic because I am not going to start buying rubbish and crisps again: the month has proved that they can do without, and so they will. I am also not buying things like ice cream when the temperature is only 2 degrees outside - we are going to be eating more in tune with the seasons so we'll save the ice cream for summer!

My menu plan for the month ends tomorrow so I will plan the next two weeks' worth of meals tomorrow, based around the foods we have and the plans we have for the various days. I will share that with you soon. Tomorrow is also family weigh-day so we will see whether the FH and I have lost any weight.....