~Frugal Feb~ week one

For week one of Frugal Feb, I wanted to try to spend less money when I'm at work. I'm a sucker for snacks, and terrible at remembering to take my own lunch in with me, which at £5 a day adds up! 

I have always had a separate account for 'daily spends' which lunch at work would fall in to. I transfer over £50 at the start of each month, which is meant to be for little luxuries at work, or lunch if I forget / haven't had time to make it the night before. I will report on my balance each week! 

~SO~ the nitty gritty of it. At the start of Frugal Feb, I had £50 in my 'daily spends' account and £555.50 in my current account. I don't have a target, and this isn't a 'spending ban' but I just want to be more conscious of what I'm spending money on. 

~Week One~ 

Food plan: 

Monday: Lunch ~ pasta (veggies and a sausage left over from Sunday's dinner). Dinner ~ spag bol from the freezer as I have a gym class at 6.15. 

Tuesday: Lunch ~ more pasta. Dinner ~ out for dinner for my Mum's birthday. 

Wednesday: Lunch ~ Moroccan cous cous. Dinner ~ Freezer dinner (have a piece of chicken in there that needs using) 

Thursday: Lunch ~ Cous cous / Pasta if there's some left. Dinner ~ Madeiran style fish (recipe here)

Friday: Lunch ~ beans on toast (I work from home on a Friday, woo!). Dinner ~ Beef Stifado from the slow cooker. 

I have a few bits of meat in the freezer to use, so will be using those this week, so my shop was mainly veggies. I spent £19.99 in Aldi. 

~Snacks~ 

I am awful at snacking, especially when I'm in the office. I constantly want to eat. I'm no where near as bad when I'm working from home, but in a bid to try and make that £50 last a bit longer, I have prepared some snacks for work. I would usually buy a daily bag of popcorn at 79p each, a few bananas at 19p each and some cans of pop at 80p. I'm going to try and cut this down, so I have prepared some houmous and crudites (total cost of £2, I might need to buy another pot of houmous (55p) but the crudites will last the week), a pack of bananas which cuts the cost down to 14.4p each, two snack packs of grapes at 49p each, a large 200g bag of popcorn at 79p, which I will split in to smaller bags each day, and made some little Pinch of Nom banana loaf cakes to snack on too. Whilst I'm not 'on' slimming world, I do try to follow the healthier approach to cooking and I have a terrible sweet tooth, so anything that means I can cut calories slightly whilst still enjoying something sweet is a winner! 

I'll report back on how well I've done each week!

Let me know if you have any frugal tips :)

Ems xx