Low spend food shop

 I am trying to keep my spending as low as possible so that I can pay as much as I can onto my debt. One way I do this is by buying as little food as possible. I don't mean by starving any of us either! Haha

Throughout the week as inspiration arrives from many places I jot down idea of food/meals we can eat. This inspriation could be from spotting food in the the fridge or freezer that needs using, or I could see a picture of someone else's food on social media etc and think I have ingredients to make that.

This is our current menu plan. 

This week's shopping list. 

I then create a shopping list of the extras I will need. That's my water bottle next to the list. It's warm out so I know I'll get thirsty on the drive into town and then with the walk around the shop so I fill it with cold water and take it with me. It saves buying a drink out, and the plastic waste from buying a drink.

I headed off to aldi as it is cheap and stocks what I needed. I had a target of £20 in mind for this week's shop. Here's what I got:

All of this came to £20.90. There is a lot of food there for the low price, including done treats that weren't on the list. £7.30 worth of treats to be exact. I'm a work in progress, I'm not great at saving money but I save more than I have in a while.

How do you keep your food shop low? 

Debt repayment and side hustling

 I've been busy over the last 9 months or so since I posted. I've been working flat out, trying to keep up with the ever changing government guidance to ensure we are being as safe as possible at work.

At home I have been working hard at overpaying my debts to clear the credit cards. I have one completely paid off,just 2 more to go. I started my journey to clearing them with over 15k in debt, I am now under 10k. I'm so

proud of that milestone and can't wait to bring it down further.

I was accepted by my bank to transfer just over half of one of my remaining cards onto a 0% for 26 month card. This will save me masses as I'm currently paying around 23% interest. I will clear the remaining credit on the High interest card, then will clear the 0% card. This will leave me with one more high interest paying card (I'm currently paying off 2 cards) which I'm hoping to secure another 0% for when I get a bit further along with this one. It's all go!

By the end of this year I will have cleared my second credit card. That is the end goal. Lots of steps I am taking to make this happen including:

* reducing my food shop bills

* making money via surveys

*making money via receipt apps

*saving money by eating at home

 

Example of a survey I will get £10 shopping voucher for completing. 

These are all current things I am doing. Next up, I am going to start selling all the excess belongings we have in our house. This will also clear the clutter which I want to do for several reasons including making the hoen easier to clean, making it a calm space, eventually when I get a mortgage in a couple of years I will be moving and I do not want to move the old clutter with me. So I may as well make it work for me now by helping to make a little extra cash.

Where do you sell things you no longer need? I have books, dvds, clothes and toys. I'm sure a lot more once I start digging deeply! I used to sell on ebay but know there are many other choices now. What are your favourite places, and why?

Batch Cooking

 

I try to find recipes that I like in order to batch cook and freeze. This saves me so much time and money, especially when I am in work full-time. I go back in full-time next week so I am trying to get prepared ready for the onslaught that September brings to teaching. It has also provided me with an opportunity to use up odds and ends in the fridge. I still have plenty to use up but I am determined not to waste the food we have. Some is being used for snacking- for example Teengirl has just came down and asked for the corn on the cob we needed to use, she has sat quite happily munching on that. I had a left over bit of chicken from last night's tea as my lunch with some of the wilting salad. 

My freezer is now stocked with 21 ready meals. I will use these either as quick after work dinners, or lunches. I shall be adding to these as the week progresses. So far I have made;

Lentil curry- there are 9 portions of this leftover in the freezer.

Lentil bolognese- I have 8 pots of this in the freezer.

Veggie chilli- I have 4 portions of this in the freezer.

I also found some mushrooms languishing at the back of the fridge so I made creamy mushroom turnovers- I have eaten 2 of these and have a further 2 in the freezer for a quick lunch at some point.

I love that I have so much prepped already. I have planned out my menu for the week, and will prepare next week's menu over the weekend. 

This was created with the food I needed to use in mind, so the fish fingers and chicken wraps are served with salads to use up the lettuces etc in the fridge.

The pesto will use up the bargain packet of fresh basil I got in the supermarket at the end of the day- recued to 5p! I bought 3, 2 went in the freezer for later in the term as I recently discovered how quick and easy it is to make your own pesto. I had been buying the free-from jars for around £1.50 a pot. I can make it for pennies!

What are your favourite batch cook meals? Bonus points if they are meat-free/ use store cupboard foods. We aren't veggie (see the plan above!) but I am reducing our meat consumption in an effort to save on food costs. Post your favourite meals below.

Can't believe my eyes

Now before anyone thinks this is a single girls rant against Valentines day I can promise you that it is not, I have never liked the pressure when in a relationship to buy the best present/have the best evening etc all because of the date.

I popped to the shop this afternoon for our weekly shop once the boiler engineer had been and made my house toasty again. While in the supermarket I noticed that they had 3 apples packaged into a heart shape for you to have a healthy treat with you valentine- for £2!! It was 3 apples.

On the way out I noticed the reduced price Valentines flowers- originally at £15-£20 on half price. I like to have flowers in the house but these weren't anything special just bulk standard bouquets that you would usually see in the supermarket for  fraction of the cost- they just had a red/pink cellophane.

I wasn't going to post all of this until I just signed into my email and found this:

Get a grip! It's a car I would NOT buy a valentines present for a car. If you want to try and sell me things for my car DO NOT package it up as a valentines gift.

It surely can't only be me that things are going way too far??

What a boring grump I must come across today- sorry. Sunshiny post tomorrow?

Money Matters

I have been monitoring money a lot this year, and cutting back where I can. Very few impulse buys happening now. I am not perfect I occasionally buy things just because. But never things costing very much.

I have been earning money where I can, I have had payouts from quidco and topcashback as well as inboxpounds. I have sold several things on ebay. I have been keeping stock of what we have. We have been eating out of the freezer since February we are getting down to the last few dregs now but will keep going until it is empty without buying anything.

I have also cancelled our gym membership. I have been paying £28.00 per month. Yet adding up the cost of visits we have only used £33.10 worth of visits since January so I shall be going pay-as-you-go from now on!

Even the children are getting used to me counting the pennies, Dylan can understand the price labels in the supermarket and work out which item is the most cost effective based around price per kilo etc. Stephanie reads the money side of the labels and will tell me which is cheapest. They will both usually choose something to ask for because 'this one costs less'. I think these are fantastic skills for them to build on which will hopefully pay off well for them when they are running their own homes. Even if Stephanie is adamant that she will be living with me forever. I am under no illusions this opinion will change a lot over the coming years.

I like to have something to look forward to and for us it is the coming May half term. We are planning on shaking out the tent from it's winter storage and heading off to somewhere like Devon. Usually we will decide as a family. The last couple of time we have been away we have surprised
Stephanie by not telling her where we are going. She has requested that this time we don't tell Dylan and surprise him.

If the site we are looking at has availability it will cost us about £13 per night. We will take most of the food from our cupboards with us meaning that this little holiday will be very inexpensive. The area we are looking at has lots of walks, beaches etc nearby so will be very much in our price range.

Looking forward to some lovely quiet time. Oh yes campsite says no signal on site for mobiles. It really will be peaceful :-)

Photo taken from internet, not my tent :-)

Side Hustles.

I have been very busy with work this last week or so. I have managed to make a little money through side hustles.

I have sold a pair of football boots and a pair of plimsolls on ebay making an extra £22.13. I have also had my first payout from inbox pounds of £20.07.

I just need to get the cheque to the bank1 I received a reimbursement from work £11.00., which as I have already paid that out and not missed it I sent that over to the savings.

This means that this month the total sent to the bank account is currently £271.13, I have not counted the inboxpounds money in this. I will add that to the total once the cheque has cleared. Which means I need to find an extra £109.80 to put into the savings by the end of the month. I need to get some more things organised for selling. I have another pair of plimsolls currently on ebay. I will organise some more things to list tomorrow. I think I have a sack of clothes which can go to the clothing recycling over the weekend as well.

I have a couple of makes that I need to get organised this week as well. Stephanie has 3 birthday parties over the next 3 weekends to attend. I am going to make the presents for these so need to get organised, I will speak to her tomorrow about what she would like to make them. I also have a dressing up day for world maths day at school on Wednesday, I need to organise myself a costume. I am thinking of perhaps some sort of math superhero and then having lots of math problems for the chn to solve throughout the day.

Shh I have a confession!

I've been a little but naughty this month. :-(

I confess I dipped into my savings, you know the ones that I was saving to repay the car off early.

My laptop died. it has been on the off for a while, very slow working on occasional days. I have been sharing Dylan's pc with him, but when he is writing essays and things for his exams its not easy to share, so I spotted an offer on a desktop computer and went for it. I have dipped into the savings and I'm not proud. now I need to find ways to earn back that money. I loaded some items into my Etsy shop the other day. As yet no buyers, but hopefully I will. I need to get more made so that there is a range in the shop to take peoples interest and then hopefully I will get  a small side hustle as Team Collier call it going.
So how much have I dipped out of my savings? £452.00. not all of that went on the computer some of it went on our trip to the cinema the other day, a little on a Chinese last week. So how am I going to pay this back and keep up the current rate of savings? Honest answer is not sure yet but I am determined to do it. I think it is feasible to set myself a target of making my current rate of savings each month which is £342.11 plus a little more. I am setting the target of £400.00 to make it a nice round figure. Which means in the next 8 months that will be paid back. How am I going to do that?

Well I will take any opportunity I can to save money. So last night it was girls night. I went to  a tribute Bon Jovi act (love Bon Jovi but the real thing is far too many £££'s for me to get there) This one cost £7.50. I had put away £30 for this night thinking I'd have a few drinks and let my hair down so after paying entrance fees that left £22.50 for me. What's left in my purse will go towards this months savings. This is what I had left when I came home last night;

I hear you what kind of pub is this that you only spend 50p? Well seeing as I know I have wayyyy over spent this month and I am off out for my sister's hen party next week so I will be spending again. I offered to be designated driver last night. So I paid my entrance fee; one of the girls had pre-booked the tickets so I needed to give her my money neither of us had a 50p so I paid £8.00 and said no worries. Then as reward for being designated driver my lemonades were bought for me. Did I have a worse night for not drinking? Not at all. I loved it I was jumping up and down shout/singing with everyone else. I also know without having spoken to the girls I definitely feel better than they do this morning ;-)

So that there £22.00 is going to wing its way straight back into the savings leaving £278.00 to find the rest of the month.

So I am going to keep a close eye on Elaine's blog as yesterday her and the children have set themselves an eye wateringly high savings target and are planning on several side hustles to  achieve this. I'm going to be watching closely to see if there are some ideas I might be able to magpie in order to achieve our, albeit smaller, target this month.

Weekly round up of goals

I have been shopping today for the bits and pieces we need for the next week. I have bought what was on the list, although I shopped at 3 different stores today- normally I don't do this.

It came about because Stephanie had a one off (free!) diving lesson at the sports centre where my gym is. As they have a whole weekend of different water based activities there is no charge for parking. Although if you park and use the leisure centre parking is refunded usually anyway. I digress.

After Stephanie's lesson she went to her dad's for the weekend, I took the opportunity of the free parking space to walk to the town and pay in a cheque at the bank. The lesson had been an hour long, I thought it was only half hour so was very peckish walking up to the high street so I decided to go into Wilkinsons and buy the cheapest sandwich/lunch snack I could as I was popping in there for some toothpaste. There were no sandwiches there which I like so I bought a drink as they were on offer, as was the toothpaste. So I popped in the coop and get my sandwich., £1.10 I didn't buy anything else in here. I ate it as I went back to the leisure  centre. Then I went in and spent an hour in the gym making myself hot and sweaty.

Then headed to my supermarket of choice. I was very good walking around only buying from the list. My shopping in there only came to £7.21 as I had these

yup that's £4.15 in price match vouchers. Thank you to my sister shopping, deciding its too expensive and donating the voucher to me (she brand shops, I don't so have no issue with the pricing). I really needed some cooking oil and their shelves were almost empty, except for the expensive £4 a bottle ones. Sorry I'd rather do without than pay that.
So I popped into the little aldi on the way home. I don't usually shop in there as it's a mess in there and I hate the tiny awkward carpark. However I need to get over this looking at some of the prices as I wandered around! I think I may need to build in a visit in there for bits and then decide if I need to go to the other supermarket afterwards!

So this weeks total shop came to £16.80, including lunch 'out'. So £3.20 to add to the savings account. Taking my emergency funds to 15% of its target total.

I also filled the car, last Sunday's outing ate into my petrol reserve so the full budgeted for £30 went in this week.

My no spend days currently stand at 12/240 so far. I am finding this easier as the month goes on, I even went to the shop at lunchtime with a colleague and didn't buy anything for myself. That is a big step for me, I usually can't resist getting a little chocolate bar/bag of crisps. I think that we still have so much of that left at home from Christmas I have been putting it in my lunch so I don't feel the need to buy. I don't eat it most days, just get comfort from knowing if want to I can! LOL

So far so good with the aims for this year. I hope yours are going well too.

luck?!

My washing machine broke back in November when it was still in its 5 year guarantee. It was a fairly big replacement apparently and other problems being flagged. Since new year the machine has been making some very dodgy noises including a very loud spin cycle, knocking/ rasping sounds. This evening it is no longer spinning. Oh-oh!

I could panic about this but I don't need to. Not because I'm suddenly flushed with a massively larger income, but because I have savings!
Nothing massive but enough to cover the cost of a new machine. I also have the means to replace those savings already sat in my purse. what a stroke of luck, it couldn't have worked out better.

Several years ago I privately rented a house for me and the children. My dad had been guarantor for me on this home. It turns out after I moved out a cheque had been sent to me which I never received/knew anything about. A fortnight ago my Dad phoned me to say the letting agent had phoned him to ask if he had contact details for me, as they had found a cheque they had sent to me after I moved out was never cashed. So they sent cheque to Dad, who has forwarded it onto me. That's £197.41 I didn't have. What amazing timing! I can't believe my luck.

I have just ordered a new washing machine using some of my savings. It will go straight back as soon as the cheque clears. I have ordered my machine from appliances online. I am very impressed as I will have my machine delivered on Sunday for no extra charge- a company that can deliver around my work and for free BONUS. They were recommended to me by a friend when I said my machine is sounding ropey. Let's hope I am as impressed as my friend was. I am after a new freezer later in the year.



Oh and an added extra- I get cash back from quidco for this purchase too.

Freebies

Who doesn't love a freebie?
I have been looking at different ways of earning extra cash, I joined inboxpounds last year to earn a little more. It is not great earnings it has taken me a year to get to todays earnings £11.71. You get a payout when you reach £20.00. I have built this amount up by taking part in some of the surveys they send me, by clicking email links, and using the search engine on their website. The other day I noticed  a banner on their website where you get a graze box for free.
As well as keeping my finances healthy this year I would like to make a healthy me so this offer appealed to me as a way of getting ideas for healthy snacks I can take to work with me. I won't be keeping the subscription and there is no minimum order cancellation fee. This is my freebie box

Each of the four packets are the length of my hand to give you a rough idea of the size. in one box I have a healthy popping corn which is lightly salted.
the dark rocky road has dark chocolate buttons, cranberries and pecan nuts.
Super berry detox- blueberries, cranberries, goji berries and green raisins.
Shangri-La has lingonberries, pineapple, almond slices and pumpkin seeds.

This box would normally cost £3.99!! that's £1 per packet. loads of money. I could build up a stash of dried berries from the supermarket which would make many more than 4 boxes so costing a fraction of the cost of these.

I look forward to trying these and discovering which of the dried fruit I like so I know what to put on my shopping list and hunt out when I go shopping to see if they can fit into my budget sometime soon.

I have been putting items on my newly organised kitchen lists so that I don't spend on items I don't need when I go shopping.

My calendar with lots of sections so we can have a school column and then a column each. There is a shopping list for me to add items to. The picture next to it I use as a meal planner. it has a picture of Dylan and Stephanie on a day out, I write on it in a whiteboard pen so that I can rub it out weekly and re-write. It being a picture of a fun day out helps me to maintain focus on planning and sticking to the plans. If I stick to the plan I can afford to have more fun days out like the one in the picture. :-)

Savings

I have saved the overpayment for the car for the January already see here for my plans with this, so I have turned my focus to save an emergency fund as prompted by Elaine over at mortgage free in 3.
I had already began to think about setting up one, using an old passbook savings account
I have at the building society. Reading through Elaine's January challenge has prompted me to pull on my big girl knickers and get on with it!
I have my notebook sorted;

that little grid has 100 squares on it- £5.00 per square every time I send money across I colour in the corresponding amount of squares- I like to see how quickly they are filling up- I'm already on my second row!I can't wait until they are full, I like to meet a challenge.
I have also been recording in my little diary what I spend each day;

and any no spend days- I have already completed 5 no spend days this year. Only 235 no spend days to go to reach my target for 2014!

How are you goals for 2014 coming along?

Insurance

This month my car insurance is due. This means that I spend a while on various comparison websites trying to get the cheapest deal possible.

This year I was pleasantly surprised. The quote I have received from the insurers I have been with previously increased every year, despite me not having any accidents/ speeding points or other offences which may affect my premiums. This means that I never stay with the same insurer, I change yearly. The worst has to be the year an insurer wanted to double my premium!

So once I received the renewal letter I started to search all those sites we know the adverts for, then I looked on quidco and topcashback to see what their searches all say. Even taking into account the cash back available from these sites. My current insurer are the cheapest this year- my premium has even gone down! I am so pleased. As I pay monthly it works out at  around £4.00 a month cheaper this year. I am a happy bunny.

Making the most of it!

As a family we hold several membership cards;
1.national trust, costs me £55.50 per year
 2.English heritage, £37.00 per year
3.gym membership 18.00 for me £10.00 for Dylan per month so yearly costs- £336!
4. zoo membership. £23 for me £19.95 per child (although Dylan's dad paid for his) so cost me £31.95 per year.

So for memberships I am spending a whopping £460.45! Put like that it is a massive amount, now these are all due at different times of the year so I am able to spread them out, but still as a yearly cost that is a lot. I need to know I am getting my moneys worth from each of these.
This year I am planning on tracking our use of each of these to make sure that they are worthwhile for our family. I am adding a page on the blog here so that I can track their use, each time we use one of these cards I will track the visit and the cost had we not got our membership. They need to at least balance with the cost of the membership- although preferably I want them to be saving me money.

Focus

I am determined to maintain focus on being frugal. I do want to still have fun days out though. Back in September I went on a day out to the zoo with family, the entrance fee gives you a year long pass to the zoo so today we went to the zoo. Stephanie wasn't with me when we went before so I had to pay for her today. However when we went to Disneyland we didn't spend all of the money I had saved. I changed up the 75 Euros we had left- it came out at around £55.00- not bad! So I used some of this to pay for Stephanie's entrance fee.

We saved money by taking a pack up. No money spent on food/drink.

We got to see lots of animals very closely. We were following one of the rangers around as he was feeding the big cats. Stephanie was fascinated that they eat horse!

As the zoo was not very busy we were able to get close to all signs/ animals. Stephanie really enjoyed reading all the information boards.

 

We warmed up in the car afterwards with a hot chocolate from the flask I had made.

 

On the way home we popped in Tesco. I got some fruit, milk, yoghurt, bread. I also got a large box of Maryland cookies for £1.50. They have been put away for when we go camping later in the year.

I spent £17.48. So less than the £20.00 I had budgeted for this weeks shopping. I am aiming to spend no more than £20.00 each week. Which means I am going to transfer £2.52 into my 'squirrel account'. For more information on this hop on over to Elaine's blog she explains it here. I am following Elaine's "30 days of thrift" throughout January in order to help build up an emergency fund. I am 9% of the way towards my goal already.

I then filled the car- I have budgeted for £30.00 of fuel per week. I filled up the tank completely the other day to get me started. I plan on keeping the tank full by topping up weekly. So then if I have a week when money really does get tight I shall be able to get to work without worry as I know there is enough in the tank already. I filled it up on the 31st December completely. Today I topped up to have a full tank again I put in 17.98. As it is under the 30.00 level I have sent over the change to my savings- another £12.02 to add to the emergency pot. bringing the total in their up to £58.69! So I am 11% towards my target. Looking at it this week makes it seem so much easier to get to the £500 target. Shifting small amounts of money as and when it's available.

 

 

off to a flying start

Yesterday I set out my goals for savings for 2014. It may be classed as a  slight cheat, but already in the savings account where the car repayments are going was almost enough money to make January's saving target- it was £50.00 short. So I log into my bank this morning and there is a £24.00 from quidco for switching my energy supplier. So that money was swiftly transferred. Then I thought as I know I have enough food in the freezer/cupboards to have our dinners for the next month I only need to buy perishables as and when needed I transferred the rest of the money to make up to the £50.00. So I have already made January's target.

That doesn't mean I won't be saving at all in January, it just means the extra money I save will go into the other savings account I hold to build up an emergency fund. Currently I don't have one but it's time I built one. Tightwad year here I come!!



 

I am looking forward to this challenging year.

 

making money

Today I have spent a large portion of the day looking into ways for me to save/make money. I have seen lots of other bloggers saying that they have used quidco to earn extra cash. So today I have signed up, I did some Christmas shopping and have earned around £3.00 cash back. I then switched my gas and electricity supplier- something that has been on my to do list for a little while. This has earned me £25.00 cash back. Not bad for a little while spent browsing the net.
I also used my nectar/clubcard where appropriate which means I have more points to save up for our trips out when there are enough there.

I have some more money making schemes I want to organise this week; I have some items to list on eBay and some clothes I want to take to the 'cash for clothes' outlet near my current supermarket of choice.

winteryifying the house.

As we have all heard the energy companies are putting their prices up -AGAIN!
I have enough trouble paying for our heating as it is and always try not to put the heating on until November and turn it off as close to March as I can. To help reduce the time our heating is on for I have upgraded all of our curtains to lined curtains earlier in the year. Today I have put a curtain up in front of our drafty front door.

A small change but I am hoping it will make a big difference to us. I am also getting better at closing doors around the house, I hate closing the doors as it makes me feel closed in which I hate. But slowly I am getting myself trained at this as it does make a big difference to keeping a room warm.

Do you have any other tips for saving money on the heating bill that could help me and others?

Money saving and good friends!

I have had 2 things mended today, and neither would have happened if not for good friends!
My car has been playing up a little, I messaged my handy car friend yesterday to explain what had been happening. Oh that sounds quite simple to fix. Told me the part I needed and where to buy it. I went after work today the part cost me the grand total of £10.04. Popped over after dinner to have it fitted by lovely friend. I gave him £10 for doing it for me.
We also got to play with his snake

He's a beauty! I do like snakes. Stephanie has suddenly got scared of them, she had always been fascinated I don't know where this change has come from. We need to visit more and brig her round again!

The other mend didn't cost as it was a leaky boiler, which is my landlords responsibility. The pain was getting the specified worker out to do it. They came out last Thursday, despite me saying which boiler I had I was sent an engineer unqualified to fix it. I do not like the company who the landlord uses, I always have issues with them. Their customer service is very poor. I phoned to complain and was given an appointment for yesterday morning. I was at work so my lovely neighbour who is off sick at the moment offered to be around to let the engineer in. They never showed up! I phoned to complain after work to be told I could have an appointment at the beginning of next week. I don't think so! After some assertive speaking on my part I settled for an appointment this afternoon. Again with lovely neighbour house sitting to let them in. Finally, it is all done!


I bought my neighbour a bunch of flowers to say thank you. As she had been put out so much and it saved me taking unpaid time off to get it fixed.

I don't know where I would be without my friends, they really do help me out in so many ways.

Still mending

After work today Dylan fixed Stephanie's bike for her, she needed a new inner tube on the back wheel and the front brake needed adjusting.

 

 

I have also had one of the toys I listed for sale collected this evening. It went for £5 extra money for the pot. We are putting the old toys money towards a holiday in the summer.

Aim update

At the beginning of this year I set myself some aims for the year. I haven't looked at them for a little while so I want to see how we are getting on.

The aims set were

to finish decorating/ making our home our own

to save for the future

to enjoy more family fitness

frugal- I want to make what we have go further

to fix things- I have lots of things around the house that need mending/ altering that I haven't got around to doing.

to finish things, I have several craft projects started 2013 is the year to finish things

1. I haven't done anymore decorating since finishing the kitchen. I need to do the upstairs bathroom and my bedroom. I am going to get on with this soon. I know what I want to do in each room it's just time to do it.

2. I am saving hard for the future. I have an end of year treat I am saving for in the short term. I have approx. half the money required for this. I am also saving to buy our first home I have £700 so far, a long way to go but it will happen. I want to save a bit more and then get some financial advise as to which method of buying is best suited to me.

3. We have been getting much more active as a family, especially since the weather has got nicer. I have been going out each morning before work to have a run and then after school I have been taking the children out on their bikes. Today we were accompanied by a neighbours 2 children as well.

4. I have been trying hard, had a few slips, at being more frugal. I am definitely spending less and saving more. So something is working!

5. I have got better at fixing things and not letting them pile up. I have not had many items sitting around for months waiting to be mended. I did catch up on the items from last year which needed mending.

6. finish things. This one is not so easy. I start new projects for various reasons and old ones get pushed back. I did finish the jumper I made Stephanie. I have also finished several other projects I began this year. I still have not finished the cross stitch I started before Stephanie was born. I am needing to do this in the holidays more as I am too tired to concentrate on it properly after work. It will be finished before 2014!

 

Today's bike ride, I didn't get a picture of Dylan as he was riding too fast! LOL