badgerseattadpoles

Ewan McGregor's brother is a pilot in the RAF. His call-sign is Obi-Two 😎

I have a friend who used to live downwind of a maggot farm. Fuck me, the stench visiting his place.

Because MS Project...

It's pretty damned cool too - they went up together in a Tornado, his bro as pilot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2ZLBxXJCY0

There's a video of part of the flight and them at the RAF base with the other RAF guys somewhere - it was on TV here in the UK because it was a charity thing, but I can't remember the program I saw it on. Maybe 10 years ago now though :-)

This is such sound advice - when younger my wife and I had a spreadsheet with all monthly incomings and known outgoings listed on one initial worksheet, then a new worksheet for every month. One new sheet for each month, which we would add each month, depending on whether it was a four or five week month.

We had extra cells at the top of each monthly worksheet for expected (best guess) additional monthly big spend - like the car needing a service, a dentist visit, or whatever.

The spreadsheet could then show us, by week, how much we could spend. There were variable things to consider, like food bills or going out, to account for. So we kept receipts for absolutely everything and added them to the spreadsheet each week - which automatically subtracted the spend from our total pot of money.

Every week, we knew absolutely how much money we had - whether we could afford to go out for a meal, etc, or whether we needed to cut back for a couple of weeks to get back into the black.

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It also got us into the habit of planning meals and buying accordingly, rather than going to the supermarket and buying whatever. Whilst we are old enough now to not need the financial tracking spreadsheet any more, I still plan a weekly menu and the ingredients needed to build a weekly shopping list of meals.

Sometimes we veer off it, often we switch what we are eating each day rather than sticking to the menu, but rarely do we waste money on thrown away 'gone off' food.

This is a cracking way to save money, and the planet. It requires a degree of self-discipline, and ideally a partner/friend who is willing to do the cooking when you need a break - and a freezer helps to save stuff you decide last minute not to use.

But this approach will save you a ridiculous amount of money, and the spreadsheet above would identify that massive saving.