I've spent £124.68 so far this month, so with a budget of £200 I have £75.32 left.
My menu plan for this week is:
All these meals are simple and easy to get ready after work. The shepherds pie and the curry are made and in the freezer.
This post has nothing to do with paying off the mortgage, but is more a word of warning if you value your sleep!
Do not discover the world of food blogs at 11pm at night, as it leads to staying up almost all of the night and your whole world changing. I now need to learn to cook and I mean really need to.
Further Reading:
Smitten Kitchen in NY
If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I'm pretty focused on achieving our goals, very focused, sometimes I think it borders on obsession. We have constant reminders of our aims and goals all around us, a laminated copy of them near the computer, a handwritten copy in our account book, Algarve reading by the bed, a mortgage overpayment piggy bank on the dresser, and the visual goals board above. Everywhere you go in our house you can't escape the fact that we want to pay off the mortgage and move to Portugal. Some may think this is too much, I think it keeps us motivated to achieve our dreams.
There is no way to save money on this, unless you never want to travel, £72 to change the name on a passport, I thought it was £55 but it appears to have gone up!
Lizzie from Lizzies Homeworld gave me the idea for this week's organising post. Having seen the photos of my house she assumes that I clean a lot, lol, oh if only you new the truth Lizzie :)
I don't clean a lot but I am very tidy. I'm very ruthless about clearing the clutter as soon as it hits the house. I spend about ten minutes in the morning before work, after the kids have finished their morning rituals, and then ten minutes before bed at night. The only cleaning I do mid week is a quick wipe down of the kitchen and bathroom. At the weekend, usually Sunday morning, dh and I both spend an hour cleaning the whole house, he will hoover and dust upstairs while I sweep and dust downstairs, dh will then clean the floors downstairs while I blitz the bathroom.
Once every three months we 'spring clean', this means go behind cupboards and beds, hoover the blinds, clean the windows inside and out, clean out all the kitchen cupboards etc. This takes about 4 hours.
To keep paperwork clutter down I deal with the post delivery daily, I sort it and put it on the dresser for dealing with on a Sunday morning.
This routine works for us and keeps the house reasonably clean. It also never takes priority over doing something else ;)
Another post about grocery costs, meal planning and my constant frustration with it all!
I need to get serious about the amount we are spending on food. I was allowing myself a budget of £200 a month for the five of us and this was proving impossible due to the rising food prices. I've overspent every month this year. Now that my eldest daughter is away until June I should be able to feed the four of us in May for £200, with a little planning.
As well as lowering my spending I'm trying to provide healthier food, I've slipped back into oven chip mode, which is not good. One of my goals this year was to provide healthier food for my family and its got better, however there is still a long way to go.
May goals:
I'd love to do a post about how I use my meal planner without fail every week, always sticking to it, always following the meals, but I'd be lying. I probably stick to it about 60% of the time.
When I do stick to it, it definitely saves me money, when I don't it sometimes saves money, sometimes costs money. Take last night, I went shopping only buying things on offer and have then done a quick menu plan for next week to fit around them.
My meal plan folder contains the following:
I also do the following:
My menu plan took about 3-4 hours to set up, however was time very well spent. If only I could stick to it 100% :)
Further Reading:
Living frugally - saving money on grocery
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The May direct debit payment has gone through and I've sent the overpayment check, so the new balance on our mortgage as of today is £129,438.
The percentage figures now stand at:
Abbey own 69.97% of the house. We own 30.03% of the house.
We've now made £3,116 in over payments this year.
The target date for owning 50% of the house is 31st December 2009
Edited as I forgot the £16 extra from January
I've received an email from a reader asking if I'm looking to retire when I move to Portugal. The answer is no. I would go out of my mind with nothing to do all day apart from cook and sunbathe. That's not to say I want to work like I do now, I'm looking along the lines of part time, with my own small business. I just want a more simpler life. DH is going to be working full time, he's still quite young and isn't ready to quit the rat race yet, that's why he's learning the language so intently.
There is a post on one of my favourite blogs, The Wastrel Show about retiring at fifty. Check out cinzea's post, it's certainly gives you something to think about.
