I'm in a bit of a state. A year ago, my lovely husband took what seemed to be the perfect job. And it was, on paper. A year later, he could no longer bear to work there, for reasons I won't go into here, and handed in his notice. He finished on 31 December, and has not been able to find more work. Anyone looking for a good Finance Director anywhere in the UK, please feel free to shout out!
So... we have roughly £60 a week coming in until he gets another job, or six months passes, whichever comes first. This has happened before, so we know how to handle it, but I thought I would record my attempts to save money, make do and mend and all those lovely things that we promise ourselves we will do when it's not strictly necessary, and immediately start to do when it is.
I've started by cooking up a storm; this has halved our food bill. I think this is probably the most straightforward contribution I can make to our joint finances. No convenience food of any kind, less meat, more veg, and home made cake and biscuits (this week, it's banana bread). Strictly speaking, the cake etc is not necessary, but everybody has to have a little sweetness in their lives... And the challenge is to use everything up... no throwing out. At the moment, there's not all that much in my fridge, but I made fish pie yesterday, and made enough for two meals. The tomato sauce I made to mix the fish into, I made a double amount of, and that is waiting in a container for me to make pizza. There's some pork mince, some of which will be cooked with doughballs, and some as a chilli.
Not throwing anything out means using the disasters, too. I made some flapjacks with maple syrup,which didn't work too well, and crumbled as I took them out of the pan (note to self, leave overnight before removing from pan...the ones I had abandoned came out beautifully this morning, sigh.) So, I made too much custard yesterday (that was to go with the remains of a chocolate and maple syrup sponge which I'd made from stuff in the storecupboard). I've mixed that with a little creme fraiche and the remains of the lemon curd I made at Christmas (no more of that, it's an indulgence...) Then I stirred the flapjack crumbs into the mix. It tastes very nice...very rich, certainly, so small portions are on the cards, which means it will go further...hurrah.
I've applied for a couple of jobs, though given that I've been out of the job market for some time, it seems unlikely I'll get anything. So, just in case things get out of hand, and we have to sell the house, I'll be doing the other half of my domestic diva impression, and finishing off all the jobs that I should probably have done years ago...and hopefully get rid of my son's possessions...which would give me a lot more room to play with! So watch this space for more wittering about downsizing, repairing and generally tarting up...
