cash flow

One of the disadvantages of being self employed is a little thing called 'cash flow'. You can't rely on the regular salary payment appearing in your account, and it can make for some pretty lean weeks. Like this one.

I've had to pay a big utilities bill (not unexpected, but we made the decision not to be cold through winter) and a tax bill (a little unexpected, but it means the business is doing well - I just wasn't thinking ahead) this week, and it means there's not much left for anything else. I do have the travel account, which I can access with a couple of days' notice if I really have to, but I want to leave that for an emergency (or preferably for travel!), so it's not like we're destitute. And we're in the fortunate position of no longer having a mortgage or any regular payments due.

But it has meant getting a bit creative in the kitchen. Anyone who knows me knows the kitchen is not my preferred place to be, but a friend challenged me to plan a few meals in advance by looking at what was already available in the pantry. That pantry list I made a few weeks back came in very handy!

Tonight we had homemade baked beans, which used up 3 of the 5 tins of cannellini beans, the little bit of Worcestershire sauce left in the bottle, some Dijon mustard which has been in the fridge for a while and needed to be used up, a little of the golden syrup (it was supposed to be maple syrup, but was ok as a substitute), a tin of tomatoes, an onion and a little garlic, and a few rashers of bacon. Pretty easy (even for me) and delicious - even the children agreed after protesting about the tomato and onion, and quizzing me to make sure there was no mushroom. And it took under an hour from start to table (including letting it simmer for 20 minutes, and taking into account that everything takes me longer to cook than it's supposed to - can I blame the stove?).

For the rest of the week we're going Italian - fettucine carbonara, lasagne (including some of the silverbeet from the garden, which I'll hide in the sauce with the help of the Thermomix), Caesar salad, and homemade pizza. I will need to buy some beef mince for the lasagne, but I think we're right for pretty much everything else.

And by then, the cash should be flowing again, just in time for more weekend visitors :)