Mid month financial round up

(image from dhs.state.mn.us)

Middle of the month and time to round up the money again and see where we are with the targets!

The first positive point is that I have already added £305 to the savings pot, so that is about 40% of the total for the month achieved.  More will be heading in that direction as it becomes available.

Going through my spreadsheet, I can see the following:

• I have only spent less than half of the allocated money on the chook food - the supplier I get it from is on holiday and I had to get slightly more in December, so I have another order to go in at the end of the month when she comes home, but I still have a good stock and should keep this within budget.
• No spending on cat food necessary this month as we have a good supply of dry food from Lidl's which will keep us going for at least another 6-8 weeks.
• Spending on food, as already reported, has been above what I aimed for it to be specifically in January, but still well within the annual monthly budget.  This will be fine, and I will try to make significant savings in this area for the rest of the month.
• Activities - only one piano lesson so far this month, but a theory exam to be paid for this month that will happen next month.  I didn't know that that was coming as the piano teacher just told me last Thursday, so that is about £20-£25 to pay out [will find out exact amount tomorrow] but there is enough in that "pot" to cover it.
• Only 19p spent on medications this month so far - for one pack of supermarket paracetamol.
• The OH's lunch club has yet to meet this month because of the extended Christmas break that they took and this week's meeting being cancelled because of the weather, but he is going to take the chaps out to a local cafe today for lunch so I am anticipating a spend there of about £6 or so, but sometimes the other chaps pay for this lunch because he is taking them out in the car and they contribute to the petrol expenses in that way, so there isn't always a cost when he goes out to lunch.
• The household/cleaning budget is slightly overspent already this month but the loo roll mountain accounts for that, and the lack of need to spend in that area for some months will consequently bring that back into line.
• There has been some "miscellaneous" spending, including school trousers for the YFG, the second load of logs, a couple of packets of seeds, and a cast iron casserole.  None of these have broken the bank, and they were all necessary!  The cast iron casserole replaced a Le Creuset £50-in-2000 pot I was given as a housewarming gift back then, and I had been constantly looking for a new one since that was was burned to death last year.  I have stock pots, and I have casserole dishes for putting in the oven, but I was lacking the ability to start something off on the hob and then bung it in the oven, and I really missed that, since I have a couple of favourite recipes which do that, and I was fed up of mucking up a saute pan and a casserole dish!  So I found a non-branded £19.50 reduced from quite a lot more pot in Tesco, and I bought it.  It is in a fetching shade of grey which matches nothing, but it is what I needed to make those recipes, and I am so pleased to have got it.  It also means I can have a go at a bread recipe I have seen on Pinterest which makes a free form loaf baked in one in the oven.  A new Le Creuset version was going to be over £80, so I have made a satisfactory choice.

That was the good news.  Now the less positive:

• The grill has completely died.  The OH is muttering about a new cooker, I am shooting for a new element in the grill.  He has a point because the main oven has a tendency to run very hot and burn things on one side, and it may be a false economy to replace the grill and then have to replace the rest later in the year.....we have been talking about a new cooker for a year or so.  I may encourage him to talk for a while longer and manage without the grill...
• My laptop is at the computer man's house up the road.  I am waiting to hear whether it is repairable or terminal........this is the laptop which the YFG uses for homework and to watch DVDs, which may seem low-priority but in a multi-generational household, it has a significant impact on peace-keeping!  I am keeping everything crossed that it can be repaired.
• I still have to pay the tax (£100) and insurance on the Skoda this month.
• I had a letter yesterday to say that my online ISA interest rate is dropping from 2.75% to 1% because the extra was an introductory bonus.  I have looked and can find a new ISA with the same provider which comes in at 2.20%, which whilst not great, is the best I can do without locking the money away for 2 years, which would still only garner 2.30%, and is hardly worth losing the comfort of having access to the money.  I have to organise getting to the branch and managing the transfer before the end of the month when the rate changes.

A warm welcome to new followers and visitors - thank you for kind comments, and it is lovely to have you visiting!  

Keeping warm

This morning in the Fens, we are counting our blessings.  We have the woodstove alight in the sitting room, and we have plenty of this!

(image from justintotimber.co.uk)

The cupboards are full of food, and we will not go hungry!

And the chooks are laying well - 18 eggs on Sunday, 8 yesterday!

(image from bbc.co.uk)

And I knitted myself a scarf in this pattern, although mine is green and pink.  We all have warm clothes to wear, shoes and boots and thick socks for going outside, and hats/scarves/gloves.

And actually, right now, we don't have a lot of this stuff to worry about.  We do have icy roads so we are being very careful.

(image from en.wikipedia.org)

Menu plan for the week

(image from momables.com)

Last week's meal plan really helped to keep me on track, and we only deviated from it on one day, when the FH and I had sweet&sour chicken and the girls had fried chicken pieces with veg - all on Saturday.  The rest of the week went sort of according to plan...soup incidents already reported!

This week looks like this:

Monday - Leek and potato soup and HM bread - all made yesterday and ready to go

Tuesday - Beans on toast - we stocked up on beans when they were on offer before Christmas and we have lots!  I will be out at gym, and the family can easily make this for themselves.

Wednesday - Sticky chicken thighs, with rice and veg

Thursday - Toad in the Hole

Friday - Vegetable curry - made with some of Elaine's Curry in a Hurry building blocks that I have in the freezer

Saturday - Mixed bean soup - a new recipe that the EFG found and would like to try.

Sunday - Chicken casserole with lots of veg

The only thing I need to get is a tin of beans for the mixed bean soup.  If we like it, I will invest in packets of dried beans, but for a one-off trial, I'll be going with a tin.  We don't eat a lot of beans here, apart from green and baked varieties.  It's good to try something new.

All the little things

A few ideas to share tonight about the little things I am trying to do which add up to contribute to bigger things.  You might do some of them already, you may think that you don't want to do some of them - that's fine - they are just ideas....

• I do surveys on YouGov - sometimes several in a week, other times none come along for a while!  I've got about £30 in the "bank" there and when it gets to £50, I will request a payout.
• I do the Shop&Scan survey each time I go shopping - I zap everything when I get home and download the barcodes onto their website, and send them scans of my receipts to get 1600 points a week.  I currently have 32500 points, and when I get to somewhere in the region of 50000 points, I will request £50 of vouchers - probably Amazon ones for presents and books/DVDs.
• I take my re-usable bags with me when I go to the shops so that I can collect points on the various loyalty schemes for re-using my bags.  
• I do use the loyalty schemes and make the most of the vouchers and points as much as I can.  I find that Clubcard vouchers are more versatile than Nectar for us as a family and what we do, but perhaps others find Nectar more useful - it's a personal thing.
• I do surveys and occasionally get sent free products to try through BzzAgent - we have tried shampoo, J2O juice drink and Knorr Gravy pots so far.  If I write a review or post an opinion on my Facebook page, and they accept my witterings, they "pay" me in Clubcard points.  We get the product to try for nothing, and get some points into the bargain, just for saying what we think.

What tips and tricks could you add, or share?

A plain Ann

This woman introduces herself as 'a plain Ann, without even the fanciful "e"' but, oh my, is she an amazing woman.  This is a website for my Christian readers, and it will have the tears pouring down your face, as mine are each time I read there.  

She is a pig farmer's wife from Canada, who does inspirational things.  Ann Voskamp just came into my world last week, and she has transformed my thoughts on a number of things already.  Her website is here - A Holy Experience.  Truly.  It is.

[There's a button on her blog which I will be adding to my sidebar as soon as I get it to work...]

Trying hard but weary

Having an afternoon nap twice this week may indicate that I am not getting enough sleep, I think!  On Wednesday afternoon, it was cold and I lit the fire so that I could do my work at the table without developing icicles, and then I got suddenly so tired that I couldn't read straight so I had a nap in the chair by the fire - a whole hour!  This afternoon, the YFG must have thought I looked sleepy when I was sitting again near the fire, just having had a cup of tea on our return from gym, so she covered me up, took off my shoes, and told me to have a sleep - so I did!

The busy-ness of the week since Wednesday has been reflected in the lack of blogging here - I haven't had time to think about my posts, let alone actually type them out.  I spent Thursday out and about until 6pm, and then the evening was spent typing the F&W Unit assessment up so that I could email it to the tutor.  The FH spent the day in bed with his gouty ankle, so there was a certain amount of nursemaiding to do there as well!

Yesterday was the Knit & Natter at church, come home to make the tea, have a sit down and a chat, then go out to gym, and come home at 8pm to eat the said tea, and then have a bath and relax.  Fridays are always a bit hectic.  Today has been gym again, some errands in town and then the second snooze of the week.  I have just cooked the tea and have a sponge in the oven for church in the morning, so I thought I would take the opportunity to say Hello here whilst it is cooking.

I've been thinking about "saving" and how people think of what the word means.  Seems to me that there are several different concepts in particular when we think of saving money.

I have been buying this this week:

  

(image from loorolls.com)

I have bought ten packs of it, because it is on offer at the supermarkets at the moment.  I had been buying it at AF when I had a delivery and wanted to make up the weight of a parcel, and it cost £2.60 there, which for 9 recycled rolls, is good value.  But AF seem to have run out, and other loo roll available locally is more expensive, and I do prefer the recycled stuff.  The Co-op are selling it at £2.55 and Tesco at £2.50.  Tesco claims that it is half the RRP, but I wouldn't buy it at £5 a pack - I'd look for something cheaper.  It is going down the pan, after all!  So I have spent £25 of my "household" section of my budget on a good few month's worth of loo roll.  I haven't "saved" £25 because I wouldn't have bought it at £50 for the 10 packs.  I may have saved £1 + delivery on the AF price, but they haven't got it available, so I might have saved more than that, given that I would have had to have bought another brand.  It is really hard to quantify exactly how much I have saved, but one thing is clear - I haven't got to look for loo roll bargains for several months!

To me, money "saved" most clearly is money in the bank, safely put away for whatever reason we are saving.  Claims on advertisements and websites like MSE about "Saving £1000 in a day" seem unrealistic to me, because the measures that they recommend would likely not result in £1000 being added to my bank account that day.  We are all looking for best value these days, I hope - and I imagine that if you come here to read my ramblings often, you probably are.  I know that there are people out there who cannot imagine dropping a brand at the supermarket, who are trying to bring up children on the lowest levels of income and still insist that only Walkers' crisps will do, for example.

Our "low-spend" January is progressing and we are almost at the middle of the month.  I have spent more than I would like on the groceries, and part of that is the difference in the meals that we are eating this year, compared to this time last year, and the even higher use of fruit and veg, but it is also down to the overall increases in prices, I am sure.  I do have last year's receipts somewhere, but lack the energy to find them tonight!  Cutting back drastically on the grocery budget for the year is the overall goal, as we overspend in the category every year, although I believe I set it at a reasonable level.  This year I am more determined to get this area under control.  Some areas are doing well - no books [I keep deleting emails from The Book People], magazines, stationery, toiletries [other than feminine essentials] have been required, for example, and we are staying away from the shops in general as much as possible.  Now we have our 2013 loo roll mountain, we won't need to buy any more of that for a while, either!  

Are you having a "Low Spend" January, and if so, how is it going?