Just a quick spending report tonight as I have other blog posts planned for the week. As you may know I'm tracking my spending for a year starting from 1st September 2015. My aims are to spend less on groceries and clothes and to save money for medium term plans. I hope to be a more mindful consumer by the end of the year. Keeping a daily spending diary is crucial to staying on track.
Grocery shopping: £85.15 (budget £92 per week/£400 per month for three to four of us which includes food, household items and toiletries). I'm pleased it was under budget but as there's only been three of us to feed it could have been less. However, there's been more batch cooking this week with plenty of portions going into the freezer which should make future weeks cheaper. My total for this month is £359.24 including a bottle of wine bought tonight for a celebratory glass. I'm quite pleased.
Spending diary: There's been one no spend day which is better than last week. The only unexpected cost this week was a new printer ink cartridge (bought at 10pm due to art homework panic, bless him). Motivation: Recording every spend is becoming a habit, I think.Clothes shopping: The wardrobe edit is looming. I don't need or want any new clothes just tidier rails. It won't take me long to get my small wardrobe sorted so what's stopping me?Treats: Our menu was a treat this week and we enjoyed trying some new recipes. Mum bought me some flowers too.Temptations: I'm planning to plant some bulbs in layers in a tub I've just emptied so spring flowers are this week's obsession. With such lovely autumn weather I'm looking forward to doing some planting in the sunshine.Menu: After last week's dreary menu I endeavoured to put some effort in. The sausages with green lentils from Delia's Frugal Food were delicious. I was surprised that you had to put the drained lentil water back into the pan but it tasted good. I picked this cookbook up in Shrewsbury for £1 from a charity shop. I think it's going to be useful during this challenge and might warrant a blog post of its own at some stage.The coconut chicken curry was a paleo recipe found online. It wasn't spicy enough for us but it was still enjoyable. We also tried Jack Monroe's veggie burgers which were very easy to make and tasty. I need more burger recipes as this is a favorite choice on Saturday nights. Tomorrow we're eating a huge pizza I found heavily reduced from £4.99 (lux supermarket) to just over £1. I'll leave you with some random week 4 photos. How's your spending been?
