No Spend November Week 1 Update

 

 

So, its been just over a week since my frugal experiment began. So far, so good. Here is what I have spent (apart from rent and standard bills:

 

£2	Groceries	Food Budget
£22	Haircut	Exception Budget
£54.98	Groceries	Food Budget
£22.69	Groceries	Food Budget
£4.10	Country Living	Exception Budget
£5.00	Wine	Pocket Money
£10.00	Bonfire night	Pocket Money

 

I am really pleased that we have managed to eek the grocery shopping out for what will be 11 days between shops - and even then I suspect I will only by fresh veggies, milk and eggs. We still have plenty of tinned stuff, frozen meat and dry ingredients in the store cupboard. By and large we have stuck to the meal plan.

 

I have definitely cooked more from scratch, making soup again to take to work (I worked out that my potato and leek soup cost 45p per portion!). A major win has been making bread again. This is something I used to do a lot. By not 'popping out' for a loaf of bread and facing temptation to buy all the things in the shop, I have avoided wasting money on food.

 

 

After the first beating. I use this recipe when making bread by hand. It is something I taught myself the hard way - many, many inedible loaves. But now I am so glad I did.

Delish for a veggie sausage and egg breakfast sarnie!

 

 

 In all honesty it has been such a busy week that I haven't had a chance to spend anything, so I have found week 1 pretty easy. I could have done much better on the 'pocket money' front though - so far £10 down out of the £20! This was because on Saturday someone very kindly offered to dogsit for us, and we went to the local village bonfire night display. Our dog HATES fireworks with a passion, so I haven't been to a display for five years.

 

 

 

 

The chance was too good to miss, so I bit the bullet and paid the £6 entrance fee, and the rest went on mulled wine and a portion of chips -  which was dinner. Not ideal and I am going to have to really avoid any expenditure this week to make up for it. But compared to a normal month when I would have spent hundreds by now, it's not bad!

 

I am facing another very busy week this week and am away at another conference, so I will be bulk cooking later tonight so I can just come home and heat something up. Here is the plan:

 

Day	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Breakfast	Sausage + egg Sarnie	Porridge	Eggs	Porridge	Eggs	Porridge	Eggs
Lunch	n/a	Noodles	Leftover Risotto	Homemade Soup	Homemade Soup	AJ: Pesto and Pine Nut Pasta BT: Eat at conference	BT: eat at conference AJ: Hoops on toast
Dinner	Pork Chops	Butternut Risotto	Cheesy Fish and Spinach Bake	Pork Chops, mash and veg	AJ: Cottage Pie/Mixed Veg BT: eat at conference	AJ: BT: Eat at Conference	Pre-cooked curry or pizza

Here goes! Thinking about those lovely debt payments and the greenhouse of my dreams to keep me on the straight and narrow.