I drove to London!!

Well on Thursday I did something I swore I would NEVER do......I drove to London!! OK it was Twickenham so it was the outskirts and not Central London but even so! Very proud of myself. :) As the travel was for work I got mileage allowance and they paid for lunch....win, win!! I went to my favourite coffee shop Harris & Hoole for lunch. Got home late and had cous-cous and goats cheese stuffed pepper (all from stores) for dinner so notched up a No Spend Day (NSD).

Friday a work colleague brought me in a Latte and a Cinnamon bun as a treat - the bun was so big I didn't want any lunch, I had a bag of crisps (70p from vending machine) mid afternoon instead. Picked up OH from station for the weekend. Dinner was Chicken with Goats Cheese and Tarragon, home-made potato wedges and salad as had all the ingredients except tomatoes already. Took out new £50 grocery budget for the coming week and promptly spent £37.90 of it, bought things like loo rolls (enough for the next 2 months) as well as food for the weekend/week though. I got some really good bargains too like 2 packs lychee's, reduced from £1.99 a pack to 19p!! They were lovely a juicy too.

Today we had a lovely lie-in, I made cooked breakfast and then ran into town just in time to pay in my £145 before the bank closed. I couldn't do the MS because I had stupidly forgot to print off the briefing notes when I printed off the questionnaire earlier in the week....doh!! We went to Westbury Manor Museum for an hour or so and also had tea and cake (£7.20 from remaining grocery budget), they are a small free museum, they also have changing main exhibits and currently it was bikes through the ages. This is a Spacelander... originals from the 50's are apparently worth around £27k now!!! This is a reproduction from the 80's.

OH had an afternoon nap whilst I pottered around the house catching up on jobs. Tonight's dinner will be ginger & garlic chicken in a chilli tomato sauce with rice picked from my massive pile of recipes ripped out of magazines. Hmmm, might have a nap myself now....

Over the Hump

Trying to stick to the no spends still - I had totally forgotten I had to buy my Fakefest ticket to make sure I got the earlybird discount for my next visit up to to my friends, sadly the 10% extra discount code on top of the earlybird price didn't work - still it was only £16.50, we went last year and it was really good fun. I also charged my phone at work both days and printed off my MS paperwork ready for Saturday.

Tuesday

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work
L: Baked beans & toasted cheese muffin (stores)
Snacks: cake left over from meeting and tea/coffee
D: Treated to chicken dinner out by OH as stayed at his :)

Wednesday - Hump Day

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work
L: Baked beans & toasted cheese muffin (stores)
Snacks: apple & crisps left over from meeting, jam doughnut brought in by Recruitment Agency and tea/coffee
D: homemade potato wedges & crustless broccoli quiche with goats cheese stuffed portobello mushroom (all from stores).

Back home tonight, spent the evening chilling in front of the TV. Off to Twickenham for work tomorrow, I am driving myself up for the first time.....still I get paid mileage and the journey is fairly straight forward so fingers crossed the traffic is OK!!

Working Monday

It was a beautiful sunny day today, shame I was in an air-conditioned office that seemed to want to pretend it was still winter .....wish I'd worn my tights!!

Food for the day:

B: Took in cereal so I could use milk from work but didn't eat it in the end
L: Chicken fajita kebab wrap (left over from Sat dinner)
Snacks: kitkat (from works biscuit tin) and tea/coffee
D: 3 x Turkey rashers, potato pattacakes, tomato, fried egg (all from stores)

When I got home I planted the stocks and yellow daisies Mum gave me yesterday, more flowers to make my garden look beautiful :) Off to pack an overnight bag, visiting OH tomorrow - haven't done that since Sep when Sakuma became ill - he's off the antibiotics now :)

Getting back on track

So, now I have a regular monthly wage coming in again (well at least till the end of October) it's time to get my money back on track.

First on the list is to get my £500 "buffer" back on my current account for either emergencies or overpayments on the mortgage. It looks like I will be about £200 short for normal bill payments this month (I was £500 short last month) so I can't spend on anything that's not budgeted for :(

I have already spent my £50 weekly grocery allowance this week so I have to make all meals from food already in the house.

Today:
Breakfast: 3 Turkey Rasher Sandwich
Lunch: Lidl version of Twix (provided by The Olds)
Dinner: Mashed potato pattacakes, portobello mushroom, 2 turkey rashers & fried egg

All washed down with fresh decaf coffee (sachet from hotel) and tea (the Olds/home)

I have re-listed some stuff that didn't sell on Ebay and have a mystery shop scheduled for next Sat (must find log-in and get paperwork). I have also gathered all notes in my various piggy banks (from underspent groceries/roadkill etc from the last year) and have £145 to pay in at the bank...just need to be able to get there during opening hours sometime soon....

Let the games commence!

On a rather cool note...I have a blackbird nesting on my bathroom windowsill!!