In May 2012 I had my baby son and started maternity leave for the second time, knocking my family income down by over £800 per month. Surviving on Statutory Maternity Pay taught me to budget, and how to feed a family of four on only £20 a week. Nowadays I'm back to working, but still juggling the demands of two school-aged children against the reality of self-employed income.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I bought a bigger slow cooker to try and frugalise (is that a word?) some of the meals I’m used to making by reducing the fuel cost to cook them. Having made a few ‘easy’ meals with success I spotted some bargain pork this weekend in the Co-op… read full entry »
Bit uninspired this week :P Sun 4th: Roast chicken, mash, veg Mon 5th: Creamy salmon pasta inspired by Jack (adjusted to make it dairy free/suitable for my fusspots) Tue 6th: Chicken soup from carcass Wed 7th: Mince & tatties Thu 8th: Beany mince / salad filled pittas Fri 9th: Pizza night Sat 10th: Curry? probably… read full entry »
Bit more veg this week, except tonight’s “meal” (don’t ask) Sun 14th: Meatballs & mash Mon 15th: Spaghetti hoops on toast (‘oops’ disorganised night) Tue 16th: Slow ‘roast’ veg & crusty homemade bread Wed 17th: Macaroni Peas (adapted from River Cottage Veg Everyday) Thu 18th: Sausage & chips Fri 19th: Pizza night Sat 20th: Wrinkly… read full entry »
Making the most of leftovers and the freezer this week, with short-dated prawns and pork frozen from previous supermarket shops & Tuesday’s pie made from tonights pot roast. Sun 14th: BBQ leftovers & sandwiches/salad Mon 15th: Beef brisket pot roast Tue 16th: Beef & mushroom pie Wed 17th: Prawny pasta bake Thu 18th: Egg, chips… read full entry »
Last year we built a cat run. The original plan was to have one built for us by a guy who specialises in bespoke wooden runs but after 2 visits he went quiet and despite numerous calls and emails we’ve never heard anything back. Anyway, we did some searching and found some metal run panels… read full entry »
I’ve been up and down with my meal plans lately, trying to find a system that works for me. The most productive way I have found seems to be to plan from Sunday through to the following Saturday. That allows me to buy a piece of meat / chicken / whatever for Sunday and incorporate… read full entry »
In my moan about selling on eBay I touched upon something important I’ve discovered about budgeting: the time spent planning and plotting a budget is not always outweighed by money saved. Things have been pretty hectic here lately. You know, the usual stuff: a 1 year old, 3 year old, household chores and trying to… read full entry »
One of the ways I was hoping that we would pay off our mortgage (let’s pretend I’ve updated that page recently) was to sell the mounds of crap I have sitting around the house on ebay. Of course by crap I mean treasure … kids clothes, old PC parts, DVDs, books, that sort of thing…. read full entry »
There’s been a big gap between meal plan posts because discovering Oliver has issues with dairy left me feeling a bit lost and “what do I cook now?!”. I don’t know why, most of the foods I cook are either dairy-free or have ingredients that can be substituted with ‘fake’ milks like oat or almond…. read full entry »
I was thinking the other morning (in the shower, again) about how we save money in so many ways every day… stuff that Karl & I have been doing for that long that we don’t think about it; thus it never makes a budgeting blog entry. So, I’m challenging myself to put together a list… read full entry »