Next week I will make:

- five bean chilli with rice
- mozzarella pasta bake
- minced beef with cheesy tortillas

I'm expecting to have leftover chilli and mince.

This weekend I am making minute steak pasta in a tomato sauce.

I've budgeted £100 for food shopping and £20 for household items.

I've spent just over half of my food budget for this pay period.

Tomorrow is payday so I'm currently writing my shopping list while meal planning. I've already decided that I want to use my slow cooker a few times over the next four weeks. Just need to find a few recipes.

I will also start tracking how much we spend on household items over this pay period. I think this will be interesting since I've never done it before.

Lastly, I will start snowflaking again. I already have a few coupons which I am going to use for items which we need.

Today I was thinking about my grocery budget. I include all things household in this. Now I'm thinking it's time to budget specifically for household items, rather than including it in my food shop? I'm thinking maybe £20 or so for household items would be reasonable. I'll add it to my budget next month and see. Of course, now I will actually be paying attention to what I'm spending on these items whereas normally I would just count them as "food". Hope this makes sense.

I've had a chance to think about our meals for the week too. I'll make sausage casserole, pork with potatoes and veg and baked potatoes with beans. I'm expecting leftovers.

The grocery budget that is. I budgeted £100, which is more than normal, only to find that we have spent more.

I think things are so bad this month after this overspending that I am considering not snowflaking towards debt for the next three weeks. I will pay more than the minimum payment for CC1, which is £74.xx. I will pay £90. I know, how am I ever going to get rid of it if I don't put as much as I can towards it?

On the plus side, there is plenty of food in the house. The only things I will need to buy are perishable items. I just need to decide what I will be making for the next three weeks.

I promised hubby a steak for Father's Day but we will have to postpone it.

I've been watching Extreme Couponing these past few weeks. Wish I could go shopping and save 90% or pay nothing for it. I guess you need to devote 20 hours plus a week to get those kind of savings, and have plenty of storage space (or not, in some cases, but continue to build up your stockpile)