Frugal February

I've been keeping a spending diary since the beginning of the year and it's been really enlightening to see written down exactly where the money is going. One of our biggest expenditure areas is groceries, and I would really like to reduce what we spend in that area.  

During January we spent the following. 

On takeaways £76.77
The Prof at work, snacks/lunch/drinks £42.15
Me, weekdays, out and about, snack/lunch/drinks £16.30
Weekends, out and about £29.62
Grocery shopping £364.04

That makes a whopping total of £528.88! This total does include dog food, which is about £25 a month, and household cleaners etc though I buy very few of those. Even if I estimate £50 for dog food plus toiletries/household things, that means we have spent at least £478.28 in one month on food. 

At the same time as I'm spending a lot each week on food, I seem to have overflowing cupboards and freezer so I thought it would be fun to join in with Robyn over at Essex Hebridean for 'Frugal February'. I'll be trying to use up the stores we have already, and to buy only what we really need each week. I'll decide on a budget for the month based on last month and do my best to reduce it. The savings can go into our emergency fund, which I'm trying to build up, so that when there's an emergency I don't have to dip into money we've saved for holidays, bills, or Christmas, which is what usually happens, sending all my well laid plans into chaos. 

We have quite a lot of supplies at the moment. I know we've lots of tinned things as well as rice, pasta, couscous, noodles and the dreaded packet of quinoa that I bought about a year ago to try. It gazes at me reproachfully every time I open the cupboard so maybe this month I'll manage to make something with it. In the fridge I have lots of bottles and jars, and various other things, including a lot of cheese from Christmas. The freezer is overflowing too, some meat (for the Prof) veggie sausages, pies etc for me, and for some reason 3 huge bags of frozen spinach.The next step is to write down a list of meals using things up. I have never managed to menu plan properly, I just can't seem to decide in advance what I'm going to fancy next Tuesday, but I do usually have a rough idea of the meals coming up over the next week or so, just not exactly what we're going to eat each day. Maybe I'll have a go at sticking to a menu plan at some point in the month.

I quite enjoy cooking dinners, but I don't bake. Pastry remains a mystery to me and the last cake I made was for the Young Philosopher's 3rd birthday, a good few years ago as he is now 22!  I believe even that was from a mix I bought at the fancy cake shop where I hired the cake tins. I made it in the shape of an octopus though, so I do get creative points for that. I'd like to try making some snacks for lunchboxes for the Young Philosopher and the Prof. I have little of the relevant equipment to bake anything so may need to buy a couple of things, tins or baking paper or something (can you tell I don't know what I'm talking about?), so there's some extra expense there but will hopefully enable me to make more savings in the future. 

We should have more than enough tinned dog food (may have to get some dry dog food - she has that for breakfast), and toiletries. I have quite a stockpile of toothpaste, shampoo etc that I've bought on offer, and bubble bath/shower gel is always plentiful thanks to Christmas and birthdays. I made 10 litres of laundry liquid last week (at a saving of around £50 for about half an hour's work! Go me) so have plenty of that, too.

We are going away for a weekend later in the month. We're visiting Nottingham for a history lecture on the Friday evening and we decided to stay a couple of nights and make a weekend of it. Breakfasts are included in our hotel stay but we will be needing three lunches and two evening meals while we're away. I have money put by for this weekend so I'm not going to include it in my budget for the month for the purposes of this challenge. 

The YP got a juicer for Christmas and makes his own juices regularly, so this another expense. I don't mind, so long as all the fruit and veg I buy for this gets used, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on waste. 

At the weekends we often have lunch out, or at least a coffee somewhere while we're out and about. I don't necessarily intend to stop doing that, but I plan to have no takeaways at all during February, which should save quite a bit as we've been having one a week recently (blame my curry addiction).

Action plan:
Inventory food supplies
Write a list of meals
Find recipes to use up some random ingredients I have in stock (frozen spinach and quinoa, in particular!). I'd like to have a go at making Robyn's flapjack recipe for lunchboxes.

I'm not including the money we spent on takeaways last month, and making it a round £400 target for the month, not including the weekend away for which I've budgeted already. I think I have enough food in stock to save quite a bit of that £400. Frugal February, here I come! 

Seeing my way clear

My word for this year (having sadly rejected potatoes, which would be a very enjoyable theme I think, but probably wouldn't be a good idea) is CLEAR.

I have been decluttering. I've sorted out several of the drawers in the bedroom. I replaced all the drawer liners, tidied everything up and threw out a lot of old uncomfortable socks now that I have lovely new ones that I was given for Christmas. I put away my huge novelty Christmas sock collection (huge collection, not huge socks!) and several very pretty and slightly too small bras that I am determined will fit me again soon. I decluttered a whole bag of old clothes to the recycling bin at the tip. I have two bags of bits and pieces to take to the charity shop at the weekend.  I have some Christmas and birthday money for new clothes, but will be throwing out more than I buy. The end result I am hoping for is to have far less clothes, but more clothes that I actually like and feel good in. 

I've also been working getting all of our household information together in one folder, and my personal lists, projects, plans etc into another.  I currently have piles of notebooks and lists on the coffee table waiting for me to organise it all. I'm hoping to get to it in the next few days. 

I have many unfinished projects, knitting, embroidery, cross stitch and I am planning to work my way through them this year. I also have  supplies for many projects I have not  started, so those are on the list too, along with some charity knitting to use up some of my yarn stash. Hopefully I'll have some photographs to share with you soon. 

Many people I know on this here internet choose a word as a focus
for their year. I like this idea and have done it in the past, with varying degrees of success (mainly due to wandering off in search of the next shiny thing and forgetting my word altogether), so this year I am choosing a word again, with renewed determination.  

My word for this year is CLEAR. 

Clear the clutter, clear the huge and never ending to do list, clear the unfinished projects and the yarn stash, clear my mind. See my way clear.

By the end of 2014 everything should be a lot clearer. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy New Year!

.....and Happy Birthday to me!

I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours was lovely. We had dinner at home just the three of us, then visited my parents for a family get together in the evening. We've had a pretty lazy week, including a couple of pyjama days, which I love. It's been really nice to have the Prof home from work over the holidays and I'm sad to say he goes back to work tomorrow. All over again for another year. 

I'm pleased to say I managed to finish my Christmas hat in time for Christmas Day. Here I am in a very silly pic with my lovely boy. 

Now that Christmas is past, I can reveal what I've been knitting. I forgot to take photos so I need to do that still and write up my Ravelry notes, but I can tell you that I made the Purl Ridge cowl for the Young Philosopher,  a hot water bottle cover for my Mum, a scarf for my Dad and a scarf for the Prof only he got left until last, poor thing, and I'm still working on it! Fortunately I had bought him several other presents to open, so he wasn't too hard done by. 

I've just finished reading Knitting for Good by Betsy Greer, as I did some charity knitting in 2013 and would like to do more this year. I've been looking into some projects I'd like to get involved in. 

I am quite excited about the prospect of a  brand new year, and in the next day or two I'll be working through some goals and plans for the months ahead, and deciding on my word for 2014. This is my third or fourth year of choosing one word as my focus for the year. Some years I've been more successful with it than others, I'm drawing a veil over last year's word as I can't even remember it.  

I will leave you with this photograph. One gift that was under my parents' tree this Christmas inspired much intrigue in the days before Christmas as it was rather large and addressed to me, the Prof, my brother and the Young Philosopher.......

Joining Ginny for Yarn Along

Christmas knitting and reading

I'm knitting myself a Christmas hat. It's not going to be finished in time for most of the Christmas events I'm going to - I've already had my book club Christmas meal (in November, so a bit early for Christmas hats anyway!) and the WI party is this evening - not much hope of completing it in four hours. It should be ready by Christmas Day though, and possibly for the craft group Christmas meal, if I am brave enough to wear it in a restaurant! The yarn doesn't show up well in the picture, it's very sparkly and Christmassy.I can't find the link to the pattern online anymore, but for fans of the Big Bang Theory, you will have seen Penny wearing something similar. 

I've gathered together all my Christmas themed books and I'm going to read at least some of them during December. I also have a novel called Comfort and Joy by India Knight, which didn't make it into the photograph, and I have to reread the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for book club. 

I'm already making plans for next year's knitting/sewing - a friend and I have decided to work our way through our yarn/project stash. The rule is one project finished for every new one started, and minimum new purchases. I have an array of unfinished projects as well as numerous unstarted ones, I'm sure I have plenty to keep me busy all year.... 

Joining Ginny for Yarn Along 

that was the weekend

I had fine plans for this weekend, for getting the tree and decorations down out of the loft and decking the halls. Just one time it would have been nice to actually do it on the 1st December, the date I usually aim for and I don't think have ever achieved. It usually ends up getting done around the 12th, and one time a few years ago it didn't get done at all! Life always seems to get in the way. 

The Prof had a sore throat on Saturday morning, but felt alright otherwise, so we ran some errands (including some Father Christmas stuff which the Prof went off to do and wouldn't tell me about, ooh exciting). In the evening we drove over to Kent for dinner with friends. By the time we came home his sore throat had developed into a full blown nasty cold, so today consisted of a lie in and then a quiet and lazy day. 

We had boiled eggs and toast soldiers for lunch, there's nothing like nursery food when you're feeling poorly. We ordered in Indian for dinner this evening, with enough leftovers for tomorrow's lunches. I did some laundry, watched some television and worked on a Christmassy hat I am knitting for myself. 

Fingers crossed that I don't catch the cold, and for getting the tree up next weekend! 

weekending with Amanda

grey days

Waiting for my bus outside the Tower of London one day last week, it occurred to me to take a photo of myself to show you my progress with growing out my grey hair. (Apparently 'selfie' is the word of the year, don'tcha know). I coloured my hair for the last time in mid August, so this is just over three month's growth. The first few weeks were the hardest, actually - I had a  very definite white line along my parting, which I have always hated and is my reason for going natural now. In the last couple of years, I've had a really noticeable stripe within 10 days of colouring, and I figure if I'm going to spend several weeks of every month looking like a badger, I'm fooling no one and I might as well be grey and honest. 

At first I wore a wide headband a lot to cover the stripe, but I have been surprised to find that as the grey has grown out more, it is bothering me less. I think because it's not just along my parting, but showing here and there through my hair in different places.  If I put my hair up in a kind of messy piled up do, it doesn't look too bad at all. I do wonder sometimes, though, if people are looking at me and thinking I've let myself go. I have to admit to feeling a bit unkempt, as I would if I had chipped nail polish, or had visitors turn up during the day and find me in my pyjamas.   

I like the colour of the hair that is coming through, I also think it feels softer than my coloured hair, which definitely has a coarser feel. I've been colouring it to cover my grey since my mid twenties, so I really have no idea what colour my hair will actually be when it grows out. I'm rather looking forward to it. 

11.11.11. - lest we forget