I'm becoming motivated!...Here's part 1 of my audit - the cupboards.

Hi everyone!

Just recently I have completely lacked motivation to do anything. Obviously I have fed my family and cared for Daisy-May as well as I always do, but the house is a mess and I'm getting by just doing what I have to. Daisy has been teething and normally she is fine, but the last two teeth have caused her a lot of distress and sleepless nights. She has eight teeth now and I think there may be more on the way. She wakes every two hours throughout the night and then wants to be fed. We are all tired and struggling to function. She is grumpy in the day and just wants me to spend time with her playing. This would be lovely, but the jobs still need doing. She will only have three twenty minute sleeps during the day unless I cuddle her to sleep - then she will easily sleep for an hour at a time.

I have just managed to audit my cupboards so far, and hope to do the two fridges and freezers by the end of the day.

My Approved Food order arrived yesterday. I had a saving of £71.50!!! I basically use AF to buy treats that we wouldn't normally buy in the supermarket, cooking sauces to give me a back-up if I have a bad day and can't cook from scratch, anything that we normally buy but is well discounted and cake and bread mixes so I can batch bake while saving money on ingredients. We are not a family that enjoys processed food, but it's all about saving money now where we can (Daisy only has fresh ingredients and quite often I cook separately for her).

This bit is boring so you can skip it, but I need to record on my blog to keep me motivated!

Store Cupboard Audit

Packets

3 x onion bhjai mixes

5 x mugshots

7 x simmer soups

1 x beef in ale mix

1 x parsley sauce mix

3 x dumpling mixes

1 x box of suet

4 x stuffing

2 x chicken noodles

2 x instant potato

3 x savoury chinese rice

12 x sachets of carrot and coriander cup-a-soups

5 x cartons of pasatta

1 x bag polenta

1 x bag rice

8 x boil-in-the-bag rice

1 x bag pasta quills

1 x lasagne sheets

2 x spaghetti

Tins

8 x beans

4 x soup

2 x spaghetti

1 x spaghetti and sausages

2 x ravioli

4 x beans and sausages

3 x chopped tomatoes

3 x plum tomatoes

3 x sweetcorn

1 x chicken in white sauce

1 x minced beef

Jars

2 x stout and mushroom sauce

2 x chicken chasseur sauce

2 x hoi sin sauce

1 x tomato and sweet chilli sauce

Treats

1 x lemon madeira cake

1 x angel cake

2 x walnut cake

1 x malt loaf

crisps

biscuits

chocolate bars

Puddings

1 x cheesecake mix

2 x sponge cake mixes

1 x lemon meringue pie mix

24 trifle sponges

3 x blancmange sachets

2 x dream topping

3 x instant custard

1 x large bag instant custard mix

1 x tub custard powder

1 x box semolina

1 x box ground rice

6 x chocolate rice pudding

2 x strawberry dessert

1 x chocolate dessert

2 x packs of shortbread fingers

Baking

3 x hovis granary mix

22 x yeast sachets

1 x bread flour

6 x self-raising flour

2 x plain flour

4 x caster sugar

3 x soft brown sugar

2 x icing sugar

4 x tubs of cocoa

1 x bicarb

1 x baking powder

1 x camp coffee

1 x bag mixed fruit

1 x marshmallows

2 x peanuts

3 x jelly tots

3 x orange and lemon slices

1 x choc chips

3 x dark choc

3 x milk choc

2 x white choc

1 x 3kg bag choc drops

4 x choc chip cookie mixes

1 x oat biscuit mix

8 x madeira cake mixes

3 x triple choc muffin kits

2 x fairy cake mixes

1 x cadburys choc brownie mix

Other

There are various sauces and condiments open.

There are herbs and spices open.

There are oils and vinegars open.

There are gravy granules and stock cubes.

2 x UHT milk cartons

We have enough tea, coffee, water, squash.

We have enough cereal for breakfast.

1 x dozen eggs plus what our own hens lay.

We have spreads like jam, lemon curd, marmite, syrup, honey, marmalade.

We have pickled onions and beetroot.

I just have the fridges and freezers to check.

Breakfasts will be cereal, toast or eggs.

Lovely husband and daughter take a packed lunch of sandwiches, crisps, cake and fruit.

Daisy has a cooked lunch and I have a sandwich and cake or a tin of something.

I will erase what we have used and record what evening meals we have eaten.

Yesterday we had pork chops (Charlotte had sausaqges), baby baked potatoes, carrots and broccoli, stuffing and gravy. None of this meal came out of the audit here.

I have a lot of food, but it needs to last as long as possible!

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with my fresh and frozen audits.

Forgot to say - yesterday I planted out my living lettuces (40p yellow sticker) and some coriander seeds on the windowsill.

Thanks for reading

Mandy x

Finding the time to blog in May...

I thought I'd better make time to blog before May is over!

I'm always busy (like everyone else is), but May seems to be flying by. Daisy is teething with teeth numbers 5 and 6 and struggling with them this time. 1-4 just popped out of her gums with no fuss, but she is suffering at the moment and needs lots of cuddles and something hard to bite!

We've seen the Health Visitor and Daisy is growing! She weighs 15lb 3oz and still under the 9th centile (which is small), but consistent, so everything is fine, thank God. Weaning is progressing and she had her first taste of scrambled egg for tea yesterday. She wasn't sure about the texture, so next time I will serve it with some blitzed tomatoes to make it more exciting for her. She now has weetabix for breakfast too. We are managing more and more family food and she will have an adjusted version with no salty gravy or dairy. She loves her soya yogurt and cream and has even got soya vanilla ice-cream!

We've been to a couple of carboot sales (will blog about all my purchases later) and we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. I've managed to get on top of the housework now and have an ever growing pile of things, stuff to get rid of. Most of these will be taken to a carboot (when I've got time) as I haven't bothered ebaying for a while. Having less stuff around the house has made it easier to clean, so when I do buy something, I think about it more - I don't want to fill the house up again! My daughter sold at a carboot this month, so I have four more things to add to my declutter challenge:

46.   green jacket

47.   book

48.   top

49.   child's book

There is still a lot of work to be done here and I'm waiting for a charity bag to come through the door, hopefully from the air ambulance because they take everything including bric-a-brac.

I've been keeping up with my home cooking a lot better (which is good news for Daisy), using my meat stash in the chest freezer. This is what I've used so far:

• chicken - curry and Chinese (none left)
• mince - spag bol x 3, cottage pie and lasagne (5 left)
• sausages - with new potatoes, bangers and mash and a fry up (none left)
• pork - not used yet (2 left)
• beef - casserole (3 left)
• lamb - not used yet (2 left)
• bacon - fry up, quiche, pasta, sandwiches x 3 (2 left)

Other meals have been meat-free or made using meat that was already in the freezer and not part of my challenge. So far, I have made 16 meals from my meat stash and there are plenty more to come.

An area where I felt I was failing was my cake tins. I love having them full and on display (they are Emma Bridgewater hearts), but lately they've been tucked away in the cupboard. On Sunday Grampy took Daisy for a walk in her pram around the village and I managed to bake (I love it) some cakes. I made chocolate chip brownies, chocolate chip cookies, oat cookies, a victoria sandwich and two dozen fairy cakes. We have lacked in the homemade cake variety so much, that we have already made quite a dent in them! They are taken in packed lunches and I have some with my lunch. We also had chocolate brownies and ice-cream for pudding on Sunday.

That's it for now, hopefully be back soon...???

Mandy x