Financial progress

Despite the non-spending plan for the month, we do have a £100 or so allowance that we are giving ourselves for groceries, and of course, the animals need things too, so there will be a bit of spending there. I thought I would round things up for the end of the week and record how we are doing with it all.

No one is going hungry! That is the major thing, so we can have a tick in that box. I am eating plums from the freezer for my breakfast with honey, and the FH is also eating them on his cereal. We are lowering the freezer stocks of plums - and there are a LOT in there.

To date, I have spent £28.65 in the first 10 days of the month. We are a third of the way through and that is less than a third of the budget, so we are going well. Most of that has been on fresh fruit and vegetables - we get through a lot of clementines at this time of year, and I have had to spend £6 on a sack of potatoes, as well as £1 on a big bag of parsnips and carrots. I am going to make it through the week to Saturday before I plan to buy any more fresh fruit or vegetables - we have loads of frozen stuff if we run out of fresh, and we do have some tinned peaches and pineapple that the FGs could eat in their lunchboxes if I packed them in little eatertight (whoops - that meant to say "watertight"!!! - I don't think that eatertight would be a good plan!) plastic boxes and gave them a spoon.

We are eating good evening meals from the storecupboard - things like pasta dishes, chicken casseroles, corned beef hash, homemade pizza (tonight), roasted chicken (tomorrow), homemade meatballs in tomato sauce with spaghetti, for example. I will need to make more bread this week, and I may make French sticks or rolls as well as just bread for slicing. Variety helps.

I also sold half a dozen eggs yesterday for 70p so that is a little more to add to the "change" savings pot. And money coming in has been amazing. Just when I had £50 in my wallet last weekend that was left from Christmas time, and I said that I wanted that to last half the month at least, I found £24 in a little plastic money bag hidden deep in the depths of the rubbish in the bottom of my handbag (it was way down there!) and then just yesterday, I found an envelope that I had been given before Christmas, in another bag, and that had £10 in it! Doesn't God work in wonderful ways - I am sure that it is His way of saying, "You look after what you have got, and I will give you more," as I am always conscious that we should be good stewards of His blessings. Amen.