Hump day

Almost half way through the week.

I’m working longer days today and tomorrow and whilst it’s not a really long working day my commute means that I’m out of the house for around 13 hours, i left home at 7am this morning and will get back at 8pm ish if all goes well.

I lasted until 11am before I started on my lunch, bah- I could have caved even earlier but managed to stay strong 💪🏻 

Money Talk 💴 

This morning I filled out all the relevant forms to start the mortgage overpayments, I’m feeling quite proud of myself as it gives you an estimated saving and mine said I should pay the mortgage off 8 years early!!! Right now interest rates are quite low so if they rise at any point obviously things will change. 

I checked my credit score too, after I read a blog and they recommend it, I wasn’t expecting it to be this good and after a difficult time with money in the past it’s a relief to see that I’m doing well, even if it has been a struggle at times.

Online Banking 

Last year I opened a Monzo bank account, it was quite random as it’s all online and there are no branches to visit. 

They offered a £5 incentive to join and paid it into your account when you first used your card, so I thought I had nothing to lose.

Whilst it’s not my main bank account, or one that I have direct debits and standing orders coming from, it’s turned out to be a great little resource for saving money and organising spending, you can organise your money into pots and I have quite a few on the go as you can see below.

Each month I transfer a set amount from my current account into Monzo and then divide it into the pots shown, the bus fares pot has a hefty sum in it at the moment as the children haven’t been travelling to school since March and I’ve still been putting it aside so it’s saved me a good sum. 

Christmas (Shhh... I know it’s July 🙂) should also be well covered by the money I’m saving each month, we only buy for our immediate family, and token gifts for a few friends. 

The MOT should also be covered when it’s due at the end of August, any additional work will have to be paid for our of the main account. But at least there will be something to help out.

Our Holiday doesn’t look like it’s going to be happening now - although they’ve only cancelled up until 10th August at the moment, the pot was for spending money so that will just stay where it is for now.

As you can see there’s £19 left in the current account until payday on Friday, that’s what’s left of July’s food budget. Not bad. 

All those little bits in pots all over the place equal a nice little £2247.46 (I have one more pot not pictured with £200 in it that I’m saving for a special occasion 👌) I think I’m doing alright!!! 

Hi there...

So I’ve been missing for a little while, I did have every intention of updating on Friday but I wasn’t very well which stopped me in my tracks.

I’m not sure if I mentioned previously but we’ve been  having some long awaited work done at home, and it’s almost coming to an end after what feels like a very long time.

It’s been difficult, especially over the past few months whilst we’ve at been home and unable to escape, the whole house has been turned upside down and nothing seems to be where it should. We wasn’t able to use the garden for over a year, but That’s sorted now which makes a big difference.

It just doesn’t feel like home, I don’t really like being there, it’s not the sanctuary that it should be and that’s quite sad I think. 

I’ve struggled mostly with the mess and the dust, and also there always seems to be someone in the house carrying out a job. 

Anyway it looks like we can finally see the end and will hopefully have our home back soonish, the clean up job will be immense and I’ll probably need to take a week off to try and tackle it.

So that’s some good news that’s come from a very stressful time I guess, to be honest I’m not quite sure how I feel about the house right now, it’s been a rocky road and far from straightforward and sometimes that taints how you feel about something doesn’t it? The excitement of everything has worn thin and the reality of living on a building site for over a year has well and truly made its mark.

I apologise if this post comes across as feeling sorry for myself.

It’s hard to take a good look at yourself, but sometimes it’s what you need. 

I know I can be very difficult, quite miserable and short tempered, I know I need to let these things go, I need to detach myself from ‘stuff’ and buying to make myself feel better, this is something I do quite a lot and I’m concerned that I’m passing it onto my daughters (in particular- the boys have no interest in buying anything unless it’s food).

Anyway - that was a bit deep! 

Chicken Talk

On a happier note, the chicks are doing well, two are very big now and most of them are starting to fly which is funny, the dog just can’t work out what’s happening! 

They all sleep together in a little huddle and seem to have paired off as they can usually be found in twos.

I’m keen to find out how many hens we have, one of them has really fluffy feet and is like a little puffball.

I really wanted to give them all Pretty old lady names like Marjorie, Rosemary and Winifred, or even maybe Henrietta 🤗 but the tiniest one has inadvertently been named Chickadee. 

Daily Life and Chit Chat 💭 

Friday is payday and I won’t be having a spending spree, I will hopefully be making my first (of many) mortgage overpayment. I’m strangely excited about it. 

In the past payday would have equalled a takeaway, meal out or date night, a shopping trip plus a few internet orders of some description.

The eating out and takeaways are the ones I’m most pleased to have given up, since March we’ve had one take away which was Fish and Chips, when our kitchen had been ripped out and we had no way of cooking. I’m proud of the fact I’m still resisting the lure of fast food too. Long may it continue.

The ‘diet’ is still going well, we all know that at first you lose loads of weight and they it starts to slow down, I’m a bit of a nightmare for weighing myself too often and then feeling rubbish when the scales don’t show what I’d hoped.

Over the weekend I wasn’t feeling great, I had a bad migraine and it knocked the stuffing right out of me for most of it. I ate what I could manage and then instantly regretted it because my weight is always at the forefront of my mind, and I know that losing it once and having a binge can easily lead to falling off the wagon long term.

Summer 2020

We were supposed to be going on holiday at the end of August, it’s now looking like this won’t be happening as the FCO travel advice has changed, however the company we booked with back in January seem to think it’s fine and that the trip can still go ahead. I don’t want to lose my deposit obviously, but equally I’m not happy to travel against the advice of the FCO, especially as our insurance would then become invalid. 

This leaves me in a very difficult situation and also probably means that we won’t get to go on holiday again this year, last year we didn’t go away, well we did take a trip to see my Grandma but to be honest that was a very difficult and sad visit.

Nothing’s ever simple is it? 

I’ve got two long days at work tomorrow and Thursday, followed by Friday off, so it’s not all bad! 

Here’s a photo I took on my way to work, I pass this everyday and it’s a nice spot to stop for a minute in the mornings.

It’s going to be a long day...

Looking for Advice.

Im enjoying Blogland right now and have found one or two blogs that I’m making my way through, I do find it quite hard to use Bloglovin and quite often the page tells me that the link isn’t working.

So I’m looking for recommendations, preferably UK bloggers, any age, ECO FRIENDLY, FRUGAL, COUNTRY LIVING, SELF SUFFICIENT, maybe a little bit of  FASHION or HOME AND FAMILY LIFE,  I’m open to all suggestions 😊

Daily Life.

I almost always bring lunch to work with me, usually soup (that I buy) or leftovers, since I started to try and overhaul my diet I’ve cut out pasta as much as possible and when I do have it I weigh out 50g, I know that Pasta and carbs are my problem so avoiding them is the best I can do, this does mean that at least once a week I can’t really have leftovers, sometimes my meal plan will include things that at the moment I have to say no to, so I cooked up a tray bake recipe, portioned it up into 5 pots and froze them, this way if I’m stuck I can take one out of the freezer the night before and I have lunch for the following day 😊

Here’s today’s lunch:

I’ll have half of the soup today and finish it off tomorrow, my current addiction is Graze BBQ crunch, but I’ve already eaten that so can’t show it in the pic.

We’ve finished the first meal plan I shared on Friday, so we are now on month two.

We only deviated from Month one once and that was when we had sausages and mash instead of Toad in the hole so not a big difference.

I try to make sure we don’t have red meat too often, pasta and rice once a week, it’s easy to get sucked into having chips for dinner too frequently.

None of the children like fish, Not even fish fingers, my youngest is the only one would have eaten it except she’s been vegetarian since lent began so it’s off the menu for her anyway.

Last nights dinner was really simple and everyone enjoyed it although my fussy 17 year old picked out the spinach. I’ll leave the recipe in case anyone wants to try it! (Youngest daughter had Linda McCarney Sausages with the mash &veg)

Creamy Boursin Chicken with Mashed Potatoes sand Green Vegetables 

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken - any kind, I used 600g of mini fillets for 4 adults

1 Pack of Boursin with Garlic and Herbs

Splash of White Wine or 1 Stock Pot

1 White Onion diced

1 Clove of Garlic - crushed

80g Spinach

1tsp of Cornflour Diluted with a little water to thicken The sauce if needed

A little oil 

You can serve this with anything you fancy, I chose Mashed potatoes and broccoli, but sweet potato mash, rice or pasta would all go well with this dish.

Equipment:

A pan - I like to use a sauté pan as the lid helps to wilt the spinach right at the end

Wooden spoon

Method:

Set the job to around mark 7

Sweat the onion in a little oil (I use fry light)

Add the garlic and continue to cook for a minute or two.

Add the chicken and cook until browned.

Add the Boursin and stir, keep stirring until it melts and turns into the consistency of single cream.

Add the wine or stock pot

Put the lid on the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes this should thicken the sauce up, do stir occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom.

Empty the spinach on top of the mixture replace the lid and leave it until you see that the spinach has wilted.

At this point you can add the cornflour mixture if you are using one, give the pan a stir and it’s ready to serve! 

I had every intention of taking a quick photo but I was so hungry I forgot.

Chicken Talk.

Our little chicks are getting bigger, have you ever seen a Transylvanian Naked Neck Chick? We have two and they are really quite funny, beautiful in their own unique way, to me they look like a baby vulture - the ones with the red head.

Look at the size difference! 

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A brand new week!

The weekend went by pretty quickly, I think I always feel like that, the weeks are long and the weekends short. I’ve been having Fridays off since my workplace reopened and I feel like I’ve been putting to good use and getting stuff done that I’d otherwise do on a Saturday.  

My weekend wasn’t too busy, Saturday mostly involved running errands, which mainly involved visiting DIY stores trying to get all the things we needed for a new floor that’s being laid this week and finally getting a long awaited hair appointment 🙌🏼  It felt so nice to leave the salon with a swishy blow dry. 

Yesterday was spent at home, it was an ‘all hands on deck’ kind of day, although my 17 year old had been out with friends and so he wasn’t around to help out, my girls were both excellent and really helped me with the housework, I’m so grateful that they generally don’t mind getting stuck in, it makes my weekends a little more enjoyable.

After dinner I mowed the lawn, at the moment I seem to be doing this every week, 

Top tip - don’t mow the lawn in Birkenstock’s! 

Its a newly laid lawn and it’s full of these:

Mushrooms 🍄 we’ve never had these before and they come back so quickly, I’m going to have to google search and see what comes up.

I use public transport to get to work each day and in the beginning this worried me a little bit because I wasn’t sure what to expect, then the government implemented the wearing of face masks and I was even more unsure, there was actually no need to worry, below is a photo of my carriage on the Central

Line this morning! 

Admittedly it is busier in the afternoons, but I think that people in general are keeping away.

Lastly I wanted to share this...

After eating everything I laid my eyes on through April I decided to try and lose some weight, I was so miserable and felt terrible, so I gave it a shot on my own and lost around 3lbs, then on 7 May I started using My Fitness Pal to track my daily eating habits, here I am now two stone (28lbs) lighter than I was 10 weeks ago.

I’m feeling quite proud of this achievement as I’ve spent most of my adult life on and off of various diets and eating plans. I still have a little way to go, I’m still on my journey.

Final photo - a friendly Warning ⚠️ I passed on my dog walk 🐝 

Frugal Fridays and other stuff!

I did wonder if I would struggle to compile a list of 5 things I’ve done this week to try and save money, here’s my efforts 😀

1. I’ve stuck to the meal plan everyday.

This worked mainly because I was organised enough to get everything I needed ready in advance, I’m notoriously bad for freezing food that’s getting close to its use by date and then forgetting to get it out in time to use it for a meal I’ve planned later on. 

 This Meal plan is stuck on the fridge so everyone can see what’s going on and also so I can check in advance to see if I need to get anything out to defrost.

I used a free printable and laminated it so we can write on it with dry wipe pens if we need to.

2. I switched supermarkets

Since mid March when everything changed with how we shop I’ve been doing a weekly grocery shop at Asda and spending a fortune, I need to buy enough food to feed 6 people Monday-Friday and an extra adult on the weekends, I was using the scan and go service at Asda so I could see how much I was spending as I went round, my bills were always around £135-£155 each  week, my budget previous to this was £400 each month, so I’d upped it by quite a lot, this morning I went to Aldi, took a list and lowered my budget back down to £100, I do usually have quite a bit in already, pasta, rice and store cupboard stuff. 

Here’s this week’s receipts

As Aldi didn’t have a few things I needed I popped into Lidl on the way back, the bill here was increased slightly as I had both of my Daughters with me and they were tempted by the in store bakery.

I also popped into Sainsbury’s for dog food as our spaniel has a grain free diet and is also very fussy, so we stick to the same food for him, whilst there I also picked up a few offers, a cheese grater and an oven dish which I won’t count in my total as it’s obviously not food. 

£98.42 in total - which is pretty close! 

3. Checked the offers on my Boots Advantage Card.

I don’t usually bother with the offers on my Boots Advantage care as they are usually for things I would never buy, but a good one appeared this week so I took them up on it! 

We all take multi-vitamins and supplements, I always buy the Energy gummies from Boots and they were offering 50% off plus 3 for 2 so £30 for 9 tubs (6 for me, 3 for My oldest daughter) Just not too happy about the amount of plastic!!!

4. Using up what’s in the cupboards

Whilst clearing out the cupboards I found this tub of Special K hiding at the back, I can’t face eating much in the mornings as I leave for work quite early, I decided to use this up before buying anything else for Breakfast.

5. I’m most proud of...

Somehow I’ve managed to walk past H&M Home every day this week on my way home from work, I’ve been so tempted to go in ‘just for a Look’ which would almost certainly end in a purchase of something I don’t need but really love.

3 Eco Friendly Things

I don’t know if this is a thing or not, but in addition to my 5 Frugal things I’d like to also try and ‘do’ some environmentally friendly things each week, again I’m not sure if I’ll struggle with this but I’m going to try! 

1. I was a bit disappointed this week, I’d ordered some cleaning products from the brand Miniml and was very excited to try them, when they arrived they were all in plastic bottles which I’ve been making an effort to avoid, plus one had leaked all over the others. The photos on the website showed all the bottles as glass and my plan had been to refill these and eventually recycle them.

Can you guess which one leaked? 

I did contact the company I purchased them from, 

The Cleaning Cabinet who were great and offered to send me a different product without plastic - the ocean saver pictured here, to replace the leaked one and also apologised for the plastic as they’d simply used the images provided from the manufacturer. 

2. My workplace have taken away all the crockery and cutlery in the offices due to Covid-19, they have provided disposable stuff for us but it’s not something I like to do, I took my own in and keep them in my drawer so I don’t have to use the disposable ones.

       

KeepCup make some really nice reusable coffee cups and as my one is glass I can use it for both hot and cold drinks! 

The spork is from Light My Fire Spork and I bought this about five years ago when we visited The centre for alternative Technology  in Machynlleth.

Lastly I finally got hold of an ecoegg Laundry Egg, it was £7.99 and I’ve wanted to try one of these for a

Long time and I haven’t been disappointed, so far I’ve only used it on a white wash, it’s supposed to last for 70 washes so I’ll try and make a note and see if it does.

Sheep 😀

Home

I love where I live, I’m lucky enough to live in the English Countryside within commuting distance to London, I walk our Spaniel early every morning and again in the early evening, I step out of the front gate into these fields. 

I’m generally quite a lazy person, which isn’t a great attribute, some days when I’ve had a long day at work or the London Underground is doing it’s best to bring the city to a standstill, I don’t want to walk the dog, I feel like there are a thousand things I could be doing, but as soon as we are into the fields my mindset changes and I enjoy the wander, the fresh air and the peace & quiet.

I didn’t grow up here, my childhood was spent in a flat with a small balcony on a sprawling council estate in North London, within walking distance from London Zoo and Regents Park, which is where we’d spend most of the summer holidays. My Grandad would take us to the Rose Garden and tell us the story of how his Grandfather had helped to build the gates. I’d usually go back and visit in the summer but this year that’s not been possible so far.

With this in mind it’s no surprise that I’m not much of a gardener, my Mum on the other hand who also grew up without a garden and only had a window box until she was in her late 30’s an left London, Is Really green fingered,  she’s had an allotment at the back of her house for almost 30 years and grows all sorts really successfully. 

We used to have a few things growing in the garden until we had some work done and it became a building site, I now have a blank canvas, just a lawn, couple of sheds and what will soon be a pond, last weekend I picked up some reduced to clear lavender in B&Q and a couple of Acers, along with some Cosmos which my mum kindly planted for us.

I have an old Belfast sink that my eldest daughter is keen to turn into a herb garden, this would be really useful as we use lots of fresh herbs in cooking, I’m going to see if I can pick up some Basil, Chives, Rosemary and Thyme In Aldi.

As I have ended this blog with Animal photos so far I feel like I should carry on - until I run out at least, so here’s a photo of a little fella we found in the fields a few weeks Ago, We think he had fallen out of a tree when the branch snapped, so picked him up and took him to the local Hawk and Owl Sanctuary.