No More Spending.net

Menu Plan Monday (Lots of veggies)

2012-05-28T11:22:00.000+01:00

On our menu this week;

Sausages and Roasted Veggies
Chilli Chicken Stir Fry
Chicken Burrito's
(Freezer) Shepherds Pie and Veggies
Quiche & Salad
Chilli Con Carne

What's on your menu this week?

For further menu plan ideas please visit I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Weekly Spending Report May 2012 #4

2012-05-27T19:30:00.001+01:00

Monday:
No spend day

Tuesday:
£31.60 Train fare
£7.65 Coffee & Croissant
£12.90 Lunch & Tip

Wednesday:
£22.19 Grocery
£3.40 Postage

Thursday:
No spend day

Friday:
£16.08 Veggies and Eggs

Saturday:
£8.60 Grocery
£19.96 DIY Store

Sunday:
No spend day

We had to call someone out to remove a huge wasp nest on Saturday, but we haven't paid yet as they're sending a bill - it's going to be about £130 for the weekend emergency call out, but I didn't want to wait 5 working days for the council service. One of those things but the wasps swarmed in on Friday night and I wanted them gone as soon as possible!!

I need to round up the budget numbers for May, but I keep putting it off! Much better to think about the new budget for June - which I'll post on Tuesday.

How's your spending been this week?

PS. I also over at Move to Portugal today

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Grocery spending May 2012 #4

2012-05-24T14:07:00.003+01:00

I seem to be totally ignoring our grocery budget this month. I'd originally set it at £180, but that total was beaten last week ;D. I'm now hoping that I don't exceed £250!!
I went out to get a few bits yesterday and ended up spending £22.19, which took my total spending to £226.02. Yikes. Can I just forget I even set a budget this month...please!?!

In other ''good news'' we appear to have a wet patches on our kitchen floor. I noticed it late last night and I'm waiting on someone to come and investigate it for us as it doesn't appear to be coming from the sink or the washing machine...here's hoping we don't have underground drainage issues!!

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Quick trip to London

2012-05-22T20:51:00.001+01:00

It's hubby's birthday today and we took a quick, unplanned trip into London. It was so spur of the moment that we forget his travel pass (grrr). It was a beautiful day though, so we just walked everywhere. We paid for lunch with vouchers and in all it was an inexpensive, but lovely day out.

London was decked out in flags

Has the weather been good for you today?

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Menu Plan Monday (21st May 2012)

2012-05-21T11:06:00.002+01:00

On our menu this week;

Shepherds Pie & Veggies
BLT's
Sausages and Roasted Veggies
Quiche & Salad
Chicken Curry & Naan
Stir Fry Noodles with Chicken and Broccoli

For further menu plans visit I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Weekly Spending Report May 2012 #3

2012-05-20T08:09:00.003+01:00

Hello! Please forgive my absence this week, life got kinda busy for a while....anyway, my spending report, which contains a lot of spending, most of it planned! :)

Monday:
£2.20 Postage book sale
£27.74 Birthday gifts

Tuesday:
No spend day

Wednesday:
£39.46 Grocery
£12.39 Cards

Thursday:
£1.20 Postage
£25.00 Birthday gift

Friday:
£13.99 Veggie delivery

Saturday:
£33.99 Airport Parking (-13% cash back)
£106.66 Car Hire (-7% cash back)
£65.00 National Insurance payment

Sunday:
No spend day

As you can see we booked the car hire and parking for our Portugal trip in September. We booked both of them through a cash back site and will receive a bit back in a few weeks...money we'll channel to the mortgage.
May is our main birthday month and the gift fund is nearly depleted - our regular monthly deposit should build it back up in time for Christmas though.

Have you been tracking your spending this week?

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Grocery Spending May 2012 #3

2012-05-16T17:22:00.000+01:00

Hello! Here I am again with more grocery shopping......an empty freezer sure takes some re-filling!

Here's a few of the items I purchased...

and a few more...

The cubed chicken was £9.12kg before offers, £7.96kg after and even cheaper with the money off coupon - I buy it like this, in packs of 250g, as it's a perfect 'meal' amount for us. I also bought 3 packs of sausages (3 for £6) and 3 packs of British Bacon (3 for £6) for the freezer, which is now full.

In total I spent £39.46 on food and £12.39 on a gift and birthday cards. I had a £7.50 money off voucher and in all I saved £17.66.

This takes my grocery spending for May (so far), to £189.84, already over budget and it's only the 16th!! I expect it to be around the £250 area by the end of the month, which is okay, as I'm making a lot of changes to my routine.

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Menu Plan Monday (May 14th)

2012-05-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

I'm in the process of menu planning the whole month - just waiting on hubby to finalise his work plans - for now though, here's this weeks menu:

(Salmon Fishcakes)

Monday: Simple Tomato Bruschettas's
Tuesday: Chicken Kiev's & Veggies
Wednesday: Sausages & Veggies
Thursday: Salmon Fishcakes & Salad
Friday: Pasta
Saturday: Chicken Curry & Naan
Sunday: Griddle Chicken & Veggies

Tonight it's just me and my daughter - we have a lot of tomatoes to eat up, so I'm making simple bruschettas: toast, olive oil and seasoned chopped tomatoes. Yum!

What's on your menu plan this week?

For further menu planning ideas visit I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Weekly Spending Report May 2012 #2

2012-05-13T20:15:00.000+01:00

This week was good for spending, just grocery and a couple of cards for the arrival of a new baby and a wedding rsvp...my little sister is getting married in the summer. Yay!

Monday:
£50.57 Grocery

Tuesday:
No spend day

Wednesday:
No spend day

Thursday:
£51.36 Grocery
£2.48 Cards

Friday:
No spend day

Saturday:
No spend day

Sunday:
No spend day

How was your spending this week?

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Sunday Link Love (13th May 2012)

2012-05-13T09:01:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I shared some of my favourite posts.........so here are just a few links that I have saved in my reader;

Looking Forward to the Bank Statement at Making Sense of Cents (Guest Post)
Your Money of Your Life Thoughts at Little House in the Valley
Doing It Again - Renting out a Spare Bedroom at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
Little Dented Apple at How I Got This Far
What Do You Think of No Spend Days? at Making Sense of Cents
How to Have a HUGE Savings Rate at Canadian Dream - Free at 45

Over at Move to Portugal:

Have a great day, back later with a spending report :)

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Grocery Spending and A Food Inventory

2012-05-12T07:41:00.000+01:00

I finally got around to defrosting the freezer, but guess what lol? Restocking it costs money and may well knock your grocery budget off for the month! Oops. But I'm not too unhappy about it as I'm taking steps towards my ideal grocery shopping scenario, which is: once a month store cupboard shopping and a weekly local delivery/shop for fresh products. Eventually I'd like to eliminate the weekly supermarket run from my life. Which sounds a bit dramatic, but over the last few years in my quest to simplify everything, I've got rid of lots of things that don't enhance my life, so why not start working on everything else ;)

So my ideal shopping scenario begins with an organised food inventory of my, for the moment, mini stockpile. Here's a snapshot of what I have so far;

(click picture to enlarge)

Eventually I'd like to be so organised with our food that I'm only shopping one a month for items on offer.

-

Onto my May budget, which at £180 is looking like a tough ask. I've already spent £150.38 so money will need to be moved around.

Okay that's it for now as I have to get ready for work. More to come on my grocery spending another time. Have a great weekend :)

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2012 Financial Goals Report #5

2012-05-09T14:07:00.000+01:00

I'm keeping track of the progress we're making towards our annual financial goals on a monthly basis.

1) Reduce the mortgage to less than ~~£83,000~~ £80,000 by December 31st 2012:
We started with a mortgage balance of £106,322.34 and I'm pleased to report that it now stands at £95,527.36, a debt reduction of £10,794.98. Yay!

2) Contribute/save at least £3,000 to our future financial freedom:
On track. Pension contribution of £201 made in April.

3) Save at least £1,000 for house repairs:
No change this month.

4) Save £900 for gifts:
On track with goal. Budgeted deposit of £75 made to this account in March.

5) Save £1,300 for a family holiday:
Goal completed and trip booked*.

6) Save £4,000 for a trip to Washington/NY in 2013:
No change

7) Save £700 for a mini break to Italy.
Goal completed and trip booked*.

*We're currently paying catch up with our travel fund after moving our funds around in March. After paying for the rest of our Rome trip and buying some Euros, the balance is £300. This needs topping up by at least another £1k before we start saving for next years trip.

Are you tracking your annual goals monthly? If so do you find it keeps you on track?

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Menu Plan Monday (Bank Holiday Monday Edition)

2012-05-07T13:29:00.000+01:00

On our menu this week;

Monday: Salmon Fishcakes, New Potatoes and Salad
Tuesday: Baked Salmon and Veggies
Wednesday: Soup & Roll (just me)
Thursday: Stir Fry Veggies and Chilli Noodles
Friday: Pasta Bake & Salad
Saturday: Sausages and Veggies
Sunday: Home made Quiche & Potato Salad

I'm finding it really hard to totally empty our freezer but I'm hopeful that by tomorrow evening I'll be good to go - I refuse to throw anything away and using up everything seemed to take forever! To speed up the process next time I'm going to ask my neighbour to store a few things for me.

I went grocery shopping today, using cash, and spent £50.57 - £21 of that was coffee. It was on offer so I bought 6 large jars. There's a further grocery spending post to come on Wednesday as I've finally started a food inventory/cost sheet...it's only been on my to do list for about 3 years! :)

Okay that's it for today. Have a great day :)

*Further menu plan ideas at I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Weekly Spending Report May 2012 #1

2012-05-06T07:51:00.000+01:00

Monday:
No spend day

Tuesday:
£34.87 Grocery

Wednesday:
£9.00 Window cleaner
£10.00 Donation

Thursday:
No spend day

Friday:
£0.40 Postage (top up)
£13.58 Grocery

Saturday:
No spend day

Sunday:
No spend day....hopefully!

This felt like a good week to me. A back to basics week after our holidays.

My only personal spending this week a donation and some posting - the letter required a 90p stamp, and I already had a 50p one. I've set my personal spending budget at £50 for May, but want to reduce it to less than £40...I'm not quite doing a no spend month, but I'm aiming for something close to it! :)

How's your spending been this week? Have you managed any no spend days? Do you count no spend days?

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Grocery Spending May 2012 #1

2012-05-02T16:29:00.003+01:00

My goal for May is to keep our grocery spending below £180.

I went grocery shopping yesterday and spent a total of £34.87 at Aldi. I went to Aldi because I had very little time and it's the best place to go if you want to be in and out very quickly.

Here's what I bought:

I did a price comparison last night, and choosing Aldi over two other supermarkets I visit regularly saved me at least 20% on the same items - a big difference if you were to do the same over a whole year. I'm not saying that I'll be going there every week but I will think about using it for certain things. I'm so focused in on our mortgage right now and every little bit helps.

How often do you compare prices at supermarkets? Do you even use supermarkets? Let me know in the comments :)

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Budget Round Up: April 2012

2012-05-01T09:12:00.001+01:00

After pretty much ignoring our budget in March, I was determined to stick to the numbers this month, and it worked.......for the most part!

Expenses:

Financial Goals for April:

Contribute £500 to our travel fund - we contributed £412.84
Overpay the mortgage by at least £1457.66 - yes, we made an overpayment of £1,757.66
Make at least £300 above and beyond our regular income - we made £277.53
Keep our grocery spending within budget (£200) - yes, spent £192.84
Keep holiday spending below £1,000 - no, a little over, but it was mainly clothes for hubby which he plans to pay for with his birthday money

I'm looking at ways to channel extra money to our mortgage and so starting in May I'm going to take my monthly iphone cost (£36-£37), out of my personal spending allowance (£80) - this will *save* us at least £432 annually.

How did you do in April?

Further Reading at Move to Portugal: Mortgage Freedom: May 2012 Report

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Menu Plan Monday (Empty Freezer Edition)

2012-04-30T18:37:00.003+01:00

I admit this weeks menu plan post is a little on the hop. I haven't even thought about our meals past today - we're having pasta bolognese and garlic bread - because I ~~want~~ need to defrost the freezer while it's so empty....at the moment I can hardly close the top drawer!

Here's what we have that needs using up......and what will form the basis of our meals this week:

Salmon pieces x 2
Chicken breasts x 2
1 portion of chilli
4 mini naan breads
8 bread rolls
1 garlic baguette
Blueberries
Brocolli
Hash Browns
1 bag potato wedges

I'll be back!

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Weekly Spending Report: April 2012 #4

2012-04-29T12:53:00.002+01:00

Monday:
see here

Tuesday:*
$50.00 Metropolitan Museum
$36.00 Lunch
$20.75 Dinner
$10.10 Subway cards top-up

Wednesday:
No spend day

Thursday:
£25.26 Grocery

Friday:
£35.75 iPhone
£5.99 Lovefilm

Saturday:
£3.30 Eggs
£2.58 Grocery
£1.50 Card

Sunday:
No spend day

*Tuesday finishes our NY spending. We spent most of the day at the Met Museum - which is huge! We also topped up our metro cards for the airport trip - we caught the subway** to JFK, which at $2.25 each + $5 for the Air Train to JFK is by far the cheapest way to get to and from the airport. Even better on Wednesday morning, the Air train barriers were broken and we got a free ride - $4.50/£3 to get to the airport for the both of us! Our hotel also packed us off with breakfast in a bag (Hampton Inn), and so travelling home became a no spend day. :)

We had a couple of direct debits go through on Friday, and then the rest of the spending is mainly grocery.

I'm aiming for at least 5 no spend days next week - I might even do a spending fast in May, we'll see.

**E train to Sutphin Boulevard and then onto the Air Train if any one is going to NY - this metro line goes via Penn Station and Times Square, 42nd Street, so you can pretty much get anywhere from it.

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Grocery Spending #2 {April 2012}

2012-04-28T17:12:00.003+01:00

It's time to wrap up our grocery spending for April, which we kept under budget.....probably because we were away for 10 days, but anyway, under budget will do for me!

I've come back from NY determined to improve the food we're eating. I've done this before and we ate very well for a few months, but the bad habits have started to creep back in. I'm buying less fruit, less veggies and too much processed rubbish and it has to stop. I want to eat (and prepare) simple, healthy meals. Shouldn't be too difficult should it?! I also want to reduce my supermarket usage a lot, which may be too much all at once, so for now I'm concentrating on preparing simple meals and halving my supermarket visits.

Today I took the first step and went to the farm shop for eggs. At £3.30 for 20 they're much cheaper than the supermarket....although they have gone up 50p since my last visit.

I also nipped into M&S to get a birthday card and spotted a 3 for 2 offer on pasta, so I bought that, and a packet of British bacon.

Total grocery spending for April is £192.84......a few pounds under my £200 budget which I'm pleased about.

I've set our May grocery budget at £180, which should be doable as we're back to three at home.

How did you do with your grocery spending in April?

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Our Budget: May 2012

2012-04-27T12:28:00.000+01:00

Here we go then another month and another zero based budget :)

May is a 4 week month for us (I get paid weekly), and so I've made adjustments to the budget. We have a few family birthdays in May - May is our most expensive month - and I have to make a national insurance payment of £65 (included in Misc. Expenses), which is extra to our normal expenses.

I can't see where any extra income is going to come from, so I'm going to reduce the mortgage payment back to £2k once the May 1st payment has been made.

Financial Goals for May:

Keep our grocery spending below £180
Reduce my personal spending below £50 (budget set at £80)
Increase travel saving by £30+ - see above goal
Overpay the mortgage by at least £1,457.66

After our spend fest in April I'm concentrating on the small savings this month.

Have you made your budget for May yet?

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Catching up!

2012-04-26T07:28:00.000+01:00

We're home! I'm a little tired from the travelling (and eating!), but I want to try and get caught up (with everything) today.

First things first: grocery. There's a few days left in April and so far we've spent £161.70 (we left an extra £25 for the 'kids' which seems to have been spent on chocolate milk!). I set the budget at £200 so we have £38.30 left until May. I want to defrost the freezer this weekend if I can, so this morning the first thing to do is menu plan (from the freezer). The extra money in our budget is going on healthy food as I feel like I've over eaten these last ten days, although so far the scale only shows a 2.5lb weight gain (urgh!!). I'm hoping this doesn't increase by the weekend when it all catches us with me!!

I also have a lot of cleaning, washing, account checking, blog reading, photo organising, to do so I'm expecting a busy, but fun, day :)

I hope you're all well and thank you for reading along on my spending marathon! :)

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Holiday Spending NY: Day 8 & 9

2012-04-24T02:51:00.002+01:00

Hello! I lost track of our spending a little over the last two days, so I hope that I haven't missed anything. Also we've put a few things (hubby clothing purchases mainly that I've not listed below), on our credit card - the exchange rate is very favourable (£1 = $1.60) and it's worked out to be a good way to buy things.....as long as you have a transaction fee free credit card! Exchanging pounds for dollars before we left the UK the rate was approx 1.50.

(Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn)

Day 8:
$21.50 Chipotle
$35.00 Brunch
$6.42 Crate & Barrel
Total: $62.92

Day 9:
$20.00 Subway
$9.05 Starbucks
$14.10 Mug
$10.56 Pizza and Water
$7.61 Nail Polish
$10.00 Gap T-shirt
$55.00 Dinner
Total: $126.32

Okay that's nearly it for this holiday as we only have one full day to go. We think (I'll work it out properly when we get home), that we're going to be about on target with our spending as we budgeted for clothing. I hope so anyway!!
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Holiday Spending NY: Day 7

2012-04-22T13:06:00.000+01:00

It's safe to say that for the first few days of our holidays we went a little over board with our spending, but for the last few days we've been far more conscious with our money.

Yesterday morning we headed out to walk the Brooklyn Bridge - if you ever get to do this I recommend starting on the Brooklyn side (if you only want to walk the one way). This way you're walking towards the Manhattan skyline and it seems a lot less crowded - and then walked around Soho for what seemed like hours. Walking in NY is very cheap entertainment!

Day 7:
$7.81 Bagels and Drinks
$10.97 Fruit, Nuts and Snakcs
$30.00 Abercrombie (Gift)
$14.00 Pizza
Total: $62.78

We still have three days and one trip to the airport to pay for so I need to work out what money we have left and make a budget.

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Holiday Spending NY: Day 6

2012-04-21T12:48:00.001+01:00

Even when I'm here in NY I struggle to switch off to our budget, and so first thing this morning before we went out for the day, I sat working out our budget for May - I love my personal finance......probably too much lol.

Okay Day 6. Today we took a little wander around 5th Avenue (very busy) and then went up to Columbus Circle. We remembered our water bottle today and so all we bought was a sandwich. Later in the day we had dinner at Chipotle in Soho.

Day 6:
$11.45 Food
$19.25 Chipotle
$2.50 NY Times
$16.54 Dean & Deluca (Gifts)
Total: $49.74

We both came to NY with a purchase wish list - mainly clothes - and today Hubby bought a couple of items from his list. I'm hoping to finish getting the items on my list (Gap T-Shirts and make up) this weekend, if it's not raining too much.

Have a great weekend!

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Holiday Spending NY: Day 5

2012-04-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

We deliberately set out to have a much cheaper day today (and it worked!)

We used our (7 day) subway tickets to take us down town to the Stanton Island Ferry (free), took in the views (free), came back on the same ferry, grabbed a sandwich ($15.73) and then jumped back on the subway back to the hotel.

A quick rest then back on the subway to browse the shops at Union Square before walking to Washington Square Park. At the park we sat in the sunshine watching the street performers for a short time before walking to Greenwich Village. Another hour of walking around before buying takeaway pizza from Joe's ($9) which we ate in out hotel room.

Day 5:
$15.73 Lunch
$9.00 Pizza
Total: $24.73

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