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! 

Money saving - want or need?

A bit of background...

When I had my first baby I was very young and very, very poor, I was a single parent almost from the day he was born and money was extremely tight.

Almost everything I had for the baby was either a hand me down from my best friend’s mum or from car boot sales, I remember buying a high chair from a car boot for a fiver, it had a cigarette burn on the tray, and so I cut a plastic placemat out to fit in and cover it up. Seems crazy thinking back that someone would put a cigarette on a babies high chair! Back then I really needed to save money on everything- it wasn’t a choice.

Over the next few years things got worse financially and then a little bit better, things have improved gradually ever since and now we are finally ok, this doesn’t mean that I want to waste money on unnecessary stuff, even though I no longer need to count every penny. I’d much rather save on the boring stuff and spend on holidays and enjoying life.

I believe that some things are worth paying the extra for if they make your life easier and reduce the day to day stresses, it could be a frozen pizza or a cordless vacuum cleaner, it really depends on how much of an impact it makes on life and ultimately if you can afford it. I’m no longer ‘skint’ And there’s money left over after the bills are paid, but I’ll never forget how it feels to worry about paying bills or what you’re going to eat that day.

So that’s partly why I’m always trying to save money, if I’m honest I’m not great at it as I can be a bit of an impulse spender, but I do try and that makes a difference overall, My aim from next month is to start making mortgage over payments as we have a long term left and a relatively large mortgage. I want to save enough this month to pay something extra and then hopefully increase the payments as time goes on.

Here’s yesterday’s spends:  

Boots have a £10 Tuesday - the first I heard of this was yesterday when I walked past a store and there was a display at the front (I’m obviously the target audience) 

I picked up some toothbrush heads - genuinely think £10 was a good deal for these and a Pixi face cleanser, I got a set of these products for Christmas and I really like them, I’ve been using this   

Kate Somerville goat milk cleanser  that I was given as a gift and love but just can’t justify buying with my own money.

I also spent £3.08 in Waitrose on two tins of beans and some baked goods that were yellow sticker bargains. 

I’ll leave it here with a fun photo of one of our tortoises enjoying some watermelon...