I would have simply thanked you all for welcoming me at the end of my first post, however as that was back on December 6, that was too long ago to simply add a comment on the end. Very much appreciated the warm welcome.
Had a really busy month, what with Christmas craziness, but now that that lovely time has passed (it really was lovely) it is time to recover and move forward without spending too much for New Year's.
We managed to not spend too much- we are still on 1 steady income & 1 unsteady income, so money is scarce right now- my husband goes back to work on January 5, there is pretty much a 95% guarantee of that.
We only bought presents for nieces and nephews and managed to get our in-laws something small with the money left over from the kids presents we bought, so did well there.
We couldn't afford to go away to our friend's place 3hrs away (which we usually do) so they are coming to us. So it turns out as of yesterday, that we are having a small party, which I'm really looking forward to.
I had a look at our groceries required and found that we actually don't need very much food this week so we can afford to use that money on food for our little party. We have told our friends to bring their own meat (this is usual custom, we all do this) and we will provide the rest. It looks like we can do a lot of home-made food with some careful planning.
Thinking of making oven-baked arancini balls for an entrée and may buy some cocktail franks if we end up having a few extra kids, home-made burgers for us with green salad and curried potato salad to serve everyone for mains with buttered bread, and saw some awesome recipes for icecream cakes which would be much cheaper than buying sweets and would probably produce a lot more.
Have to say that we have learnt so much about saving money during this time- our usual grocery spend was $170 per week for 2 people & 2 animals which we have sliced down to $100 per week ($110-$120 on an occasional week where we would need to buy a few extra bulk items).