Queen of cookies

Hello, How has your day been? Ours has been very nice, guess why that is, yes you got it we are on holiday!

Things achieved :-

• Washing done
• Vacuumed whole house
• Shopping
• Cookies made (by my gorgeous baby girl)
• Lots of minced and onion in gravy prepared
• Beds made

It has been another nice day of pottering, a friend was going to pop over this afternoon but as Ben was sent home from work poorly she decided against being subjected to germs.

I popped to the shops this morning and bought three packs of minced beef for £10.00 which this evening I put two packs into the slow cooker with two chopped onions and gravy and tomorrow I am going to make a mixture of shepherds pie, minced beef and onion pies in puff pastry and a portion I am going to freeze as it is to have inside a large Yorkshire pudding with veg and potatoes. So that will be another three meals in the freezer.

The other pack of minced beef will be added to a pack of minced pork (in the fridge) to make a couple of chilli's.

This afternoon my lovely daughter was a little bored, one brother was on the Xbox, another on the PlayStation and the third watching Netflix, so we decided to do a bit of baking an hour later she had made 52 cookies, half chocolate chip and half shortbread. Half of each of these have been put in the freezer to go in the lunches for next week and half are in the cupboard for this week.

We read stories to each other after bath time this evening, my nine year old was a little mortified because he didn't know what to read because he is on the last few scenes of the new Harry Potter book but he knows that I want to read this after him so after lots of tears he accepted that we could read this together and it wouldn't ruin it for me.

I had to pick my son up from cadets tonight so I took the opportunity to go into Aldo on my own and bought a butternut squash for 55p to make butternut squash soup, a joint of beef to make a meal and some sliced beef for sandwiches for £6.50, an extra large chicken for £4.10 which should make a couple of meals, a gammon joint for a meal and the rest to be sliced for sandwiches for 4.50. I might also make some chicken and ham pies using both the chicken and the gammon. I got some pretzel snacks  for £1.00 to be put away for Christmas, a couple of speciality bags of crisps for 89p each and a large pumpkin for 99p. I felt that this was a good shop because it should cover quite a few meals.

I haven't fully worked out how much I have spent on food so far this month but I do feel that I am filling the freezer and making my life easier for when I am back at work and hopefully saving money at the end of the month.

I also bought my son air of trousers in the charity shop that originally came from Next and still had the label on them their original price was  £12.50 I got them for £1.49 and he was thrilled with my purchase and gave me a £1.00 from his pocket money to go and buy myself something tomorrow, so I have secretly put it back in his money box.

Have a nice evening and take care xx

Still loving the holidays

Hello dear friends,

I hope you have had a lovely day. We have.

We spent this morning at the cheap cinema showing of Finding Dory, and I have to admit to having a tear in my eye at one point (emotional wreck that I am) but it was very good and the children thoroughly enjoyed it.

We then came home and had a very brief tidy up and then we headed off to a friend Halloween party which was good fun, the children had pizza and we had a yummy chilli and rice. Being quite a mild October the children played in the garden on the trampoline and cuddled the rabbits while we chatted about our friends forthcoming wedding on Friday. All our friends are heading off to get their nails done together but as we are being quite frugal my daughter and I might do each others nails tomorrow.

Well I hope you have a nice evening.

Take care xx

I just love days with my darlings!

 

 

Things we achieved today:-

• Twenty minutes ironing (I am trying to cut down on what I iron to save time and money - electric)
• Washing put on
• Washing hung on airer
• Apples taken off the tree (by the children), washed and currently in the bowl (see above)
• Beds made
• Sausage rolls made
• Apple sauce made
• Roast pork cooked for dinner (yum)
• Hovered downstairs and staircase

We had a day of pottering and doing bits and bobs. Its been very pleasant. This morning the children did some painting.

Its been a few years since I have let them paint after an incident whereby we were decorating upstairs and they decided to surprise us by painting the lounge for us. (including the ceiling, uh oh!). But today worked out much better, I guess age had something to do with it.

The children then helped me to get some of the apples off our tree, my fourteen year old lifted my nine year and daughter onto his shoulders in turn and they passed the apples they got to their younger brother. We had plenty for eating and some for making apple sauce which we are going to have with tonight dinner and freeze the rest.

We also made sausage rolls. I have put half in the fridge and half have gone into the freezer for another day.

We had half a pork loin left over which is sliced and three bags of apple sauce which have gone into the freezer for another nights dinner. Yay! This turned out to be a bargain as the meat only cost £5.50 in the first place. Bargain!

I have just started a price book with everything we buy, how long it lasts and the amount it costs per item/unit and I will continue this for a month and then high light what we are spending the most on and high lighting in another colour things that are treats to see exactly how many treat items we are having.

We spent this evening playing games together. What fun!

Have a lovely evening and take care
Xx

Nearly... Half Term! Yay!

Hello dear friends,

Its Thursday and my beautiful children have broken up from school today. Sadly, I have one day left. I dislike working on days when the children are off, mainly because I'm a bit of a control freak and like to look after my children myself and don't really feel comfortable with anyone else looking after them.

The children have advised me that I need to go off to work tomorrow and get my course on autism (which I admit will be interesting) done and they will clean the house while I'm gone and when I come home we can play board games together. Bless them, I have the best children ever!

Today, I have spent £10.00 on food mainly on stuff for tomorrows lunch, this is another control freak moment, as I'm not here to make the lunch I want to make sure that anything they may want for lunch is in the cupboards otherwise I know I will panic.

I'm starting to feel very excited about our week off together, maybe more so than normal. We have a few plans we are going to have a baking day where the children are going to make various goodies.

We are also going go to the cinemas one morning to see Finding Dory at the cheap holiday club showing. Yay Exciting.

On the Friday my daughter and I are going to one of her best friends evening wedding receptions, the boys don't really want to come but I know we will have fun together.

Well have a lovely Friday,

Take care xx

Forgetfulness causes spending fail

Hello, I hope you are having a nice day.

I have to admit to having a bit of a ditzy day today. I forget to get the soup out of the freezer for dinner and then heading off to school checked that all the children had their lunch only to find when I got to the school fridge that I had forgotten mine! Doh!

As I had no change with me I couldn't book a school dinner which would have been cheaper than going to the shop, so sadly I went to the shop and spent £4.00 at lunch time. I then went to the shop again after work to buy some food for dinner argh disaster, I spent £20.00 but I did buy other items to go with dinner for the rest of the week and more packed lunch items.

On a positive note, we did get my daughters drama club for free this week amounting to a saving of £3.50, and then at Guides the lovely lady that runs it gave us a guides fleece jacket that was given to them from a little girl who recently gave up.

So pluses and minuses to our day.

Take care xx

How much did I spend and what are we going to eat?

Hello,

Autumn is here. I have mixed feelings about this season, I love the beautiful colours and carpet of leaves that lie for us to kick as we walk along the road however, I dislike the rain and being cold and wet all day after getting either soaked on our way to school or on our way home. But for today a pretty rain free day I am happy that it is Autumn!

We are quite low on food in our cupboards and freezer at the moment so after school today I had to pop to the shop to get some lunch items for the next few days.

I spent £16.00 in ASDA and £4.05 on chips at the chip shop to go with the rest yesterdays chilli for tonights tea.

Total spent £20.05

Tuesday - soup and bread (clubs night)

Wednesday - shepherds pie and sweetcorn

Thursday - Chicken salad sandwiches (clubs night)

Friday - Omelettes

I am not adding a weekend eating plan to this menu as it invariably gets changed because someone doesn't fancy what we have.

Have a nice evening

Take care xx

An update of the last couple of weeks

Hello,

It has been a busy couple of weeks in our neck of the woods, nothing exciting happening for me I'm afraid other than the usual mountain of cleaning and ironing but much busyness for the children.

The last time I posted my darling daughter was heading off on a week long residential trip, well thankfully the week is over and she is back. She had an amazing time and achieved things she never dreamed that, not being an outdoorsy sort of girl, she would.

She pulled herself through dirty tunnels, played volleyball whilst on trampolines, went on zipwires and her favourite thing was a giant swing that was really high, where her best friend and her sang 'I believe I can fly' at the tops of their voices. But my favourite story that she told me was about the raft that they made and then put on the river, she said "One of the boys in our group mum seemed really left out and I felt really sorry for him so I decided to push him into the river so that he felt part of the group". I'm not sure how the poor young man felt about this but it certainly made me laugh.

It was great to have her home and I knew I was going to miss her but I didn't realise quite how much!

Last week, was another busy week with my daughter and nine year old son being invited to the local senior school for a day of music, and the following day my daughter was invited to the high school for a maths and science day. They enjoyed their days and felt they got a lot out of it but came home very tired.

On Friday my fourteen year old went off to camp for the weekend and my youngest three went to the Halloween disco at school. This was quite a big deal, as my daughter announced it was her final Halloween disco at school and she wanted to go out with a bang! The decision was made that she was not planning on going as a witch or anything like that she would go as her favourite super villain Harley Quinn! So then the boys jumped on the band wagon and my youngest son decided he would go as the Joker and my nine year old randomly decided to go as a character from Yu-gi-oh!

Needless to say they had me painting trainers, spray painting tutu's, making medallions, chokers and drawing tattoos on their arms, legs, face and stomachs!

Here are the results, what do you think?

Thankfully I think this week might be slightly quieter although I know I have a super busy week ahead of me at work.

I am starting to log our spending again, so today I spent £10.80 on groceries at ASDA.

This was a bit of a desperate shop as we had completely run out of loo roll and butter.

I also popped into the local charity shop and treated myself to a brand new pair of black jeans with the labels still on for £1.49, I have noticed that people wear black jeans to work quite often, I normally wear black trousers but this means ironing five pairs a week just for me but if I wear jeans I can get away with wearing them for a couple of days therefore reducing some ironing.

Today for dinner we had chilli and rice.

 

 

There were plenty of leftovers to go into the freezer for another day.

 

I hope you have had a lovely weekend, it has certainly flown by in this house.

 

Take care xx