My Olympic Challenge

Different_Corner

Lewby
Your posts have me thinking, I'm ashamed to admit last week I went to Morrisons three times and spent £20 each time, aswell as having a Mr T delivery of £80 yesterday. My only justification is I hadn't shopped since New Years week, and was in a very negative frame of mind.

Added to that these sons of mine love their red meat too and yes the expense is ridiculous, I'd be happy with chicken, fish and have in the past thought about being veggie. I get a free lunch at work, but it is very 1980's school dinners style, so sometimes I end up with two hot dinners a day, usually meat based too. That can't be good for cholesteral (sp?) levels at my age either.

I think my new 'done moaning' regime must include some drastic diet changes, financial and otherwise.

Other than that I love your enthusiasm.

retrocircles

Glad you're on the wagon Lewby! Nice positive words!

Have a superb week. x

Lewby

Thank Retro ... it does feel so much better to be back in control of our finances.

Like you DC, I have had to regain control of all aspects of my life .... well most of them that don't involve MIL! (see below) :rolleyes:

Well ..... Sunday Lunch was a total joke! The brother who we'd been summoned to see DIDN'T SHOW UP!!! and even though OH's Mother knew early that morning she still wanted us to go so didn't tell us, otherwise she knew we'd save the money and stay at home. The lunch itself was really nice, although OH constantly commented on his brother not showing. I was impressed as they charged one amount for carvery if you had meat and it was £3.30 cheaper if you had no meat .... and I don't eat red meat (OH usually benefits) so I did the DFW things and had the veggie option! TBF MIL did pay for the meal but we still bought drinks and provided the transport. That's enough being uncharitable (as it's not in my nature) but had to get it of my chest!

A reasonable week so far in DFW land for me. Don't feel that I've done very well with the grocery shopping - still buying things like fresh basil and corriander plants! Old habits die hard ... and I love corriander on my salad so it makes losing weight a bit more palitable. Note to self - Must try to stick to store cupboard and freezer meals this week!

Went into town on Sunday (had an hour to kill before THE SUNDAY LUNCH) and OH was looking at jackets in M&S. He's needed a new jacket for work for ages as his has a hole in the sleeve (which DFW style I have repaired). He has very large shoulders and upper body so jackets rarely fit him but he tried one on and it fitted like a glove.

We'd really made the decision that he should get it before looking at the price just because it fitted .... but when we saw the sale ticket it had been reduced from £99 to £9!!! When I ran with it to the checkout it was reduced further due to VAT down to £8.81. It felt like the bargin of the century! Even with my new resolve on DFW ways I couldn't turn that down. :j

Do have a dilema tonight though.... my son has text me this morning to tell me he's been made a prefect and he's really happy. We took our daughter to 'The Diner' for a special milkshake when she became a prefect so he may be expecting to go .... but the milkshakes are £3.25 each!!!!! 2 milkshakes + the cup of tea I will have to have = a lot of bread and milk! ......... However, most importantly I don't want him to feel like we treat either of them differently ... so we'll probably go and celebrate his achievement.
:beer:

Hope everyone is well and sorry to ramble on.

Lewby xx

postingalwaysposting

Wow well done on the jacket purchase lewby :j Congrats to your Ds too, hope you enjoy the cup of tea

Olderbutnotwiser

Hi Lewby,

Fab buy that Jacket, brilliant when you have already decided to buy then realised it a bargain- now it would still have been a bargain at £19... so pretend it was and use the tenner you just made up to treat your lad:rolleyes:
No idea why I have spending problems
Well done to your son and hope he enjoys the milkshake, and keep on rambling
x

Lewby

Great idea about that £10!! Thinking about it I won £10 on the lottery on Saturday so I'll use that ...... but I do like your thinking!! :rotfl:

Lewby xx

Lewby

Just popped on to ramble .... I mean update my thread. Can't believe we are half way through January already!!

The milkshake was very well received and he is so pleased to be a prefect. His sister was a prefect so we are glad he made it too.

It's been a strange week at Lewbyville. My OH is getting a little fed up I think of the 'debt busting' and when I have said no to him buying things he has said several times over the last couple of weeks that 'maybe he should have his own bank account' (we have a joint account now) ...... so yesterday I went through all of our finances and split it all up - him paying his cc's and me paying the ones in my name. It was very evenly balance, half each. I then worked out the day-to-day stuff and we needed to pay £700 each into the joint account to cover that and we'd be left with about £300 each at the end of the month (we earn about the same) for whatever we want - mine would pay off my cc's! I presented him with the information (really nicely and positively) and said I could sort it out by the end of the week if he wanted, he looked at it, looked at me and then asked me if I wanted us to split up!!!!!!

I thought he wanted control over his own money and I'm fed up of taking the blame for when he can't have what he wants ..... but he says he likes it that way really! Confused.com!

So back to DFW living for him today. It has been useful for him to see all of the figures as he can now see where the money goes and is now determined to get to 2012 and be 'rich!!!' (I wish). It will be great just to have our income to ourselves!

Had a lovely DFW stew tonight cooked in the slow cooker. Used up lots of veg that was looking a bit tired. OH had a text message from Virgin Credit Card today thanking him for taking out their card! He forgot that I'd applied for it a few weeks ago and thought it was a fraud thing. It will be great when it comes as it's 0% til April 2010 which will allow us to concentrate on the other cards.

Well that's all for now. Glad to have got half way through the month and still be posting! :j

Lewby xx

Olderbutnotwiser

Aww Lewbs how funny, is OH being really really nice now, was he very worried ...Bless.
Keep rambling we are now offically in the second half of Jan and it's all down hill till Feb:D

MissOptimistic

Hi Lewby - Nice to catch up with your diary - like you, I have 'fallen off the wagon' a couple of times, but I am really trying my hardest not to pay for anything using the credit cards anymore.
I am just waiting for my Tesco shop to arrive it will be about the £85 mark, which may seem dear, but I usually manange to stretch that out to about 10 days if Im lucky - I usually still end up doing a £10-£15 little shop inbetween though. Like yours, my OH also likes proper meals with lots of meat, a pasta bake or something simply wouldn't do for him, so I usually have to buy loads of chicken and lamb - which aren't cheap!
Keep on posting!

Lewby

Well .... How impressed am I!!!! It's past mid Jan and I'm still on the DFW trail. I'm starting to believe that 2012 isn't that far away now! :rotfl:

Got up early and opened the credit card statements with enthusiasm so I could enter the balances onto my spreadsheets and had a nasty shock when I saw that my Lloyds TSB card min payment was £78 and the interest is £72!!! They have lowered the min payment to only just cover the interest and the interest rate is my highest. I was spurred into action, studied my spreadsheet carefully and spotted enough space on my Amazon card to fit the Lloyds balance onto. Remembering Martin's words of wisdom I phoned them to ask if I could have a balance trasfer on a LOB rate and they said yes straight away. I managed to move the whole nasty balance to a rate of 5.9% for the LOB (more than 10% less that Lloyds). How chuffed am I!!!:T

When I get OH to transfer two of his balances to Barclaycard 6.9% LOB then its all on LOB rates of 5.9% - 6.9%. On £60k that makes a huge difference. Can't wait to put that into my snowball later.

Isn't it funny how excited you can get when you get a deal that is what you want..... nearly as good as the £99 reduced to £8.81 M & S Jacket!!

Mrs Porridge - The £10 deals are back!!!!! OH was looking online at M & S last night (I let him look) and he was reading out a lovely list of what's included. Luckily we are out to supper tonight (friends cooking so free) so won't be tempted but we have agreed that once per month we could have a treat so maybe next weekend if we are good!

Another cold snap coming next week so ordered more wood from our local farmer. £50 for a huge load which will do us now til next Autumn. The kids love cosying down with the fire lit and we can turn the heating down or off as the wood burner heats the whole house if we leave the main doors open.

OH is off wandering up some hills today so have the house to myself. Must get some cleaning done ..... but maybe 10 more mins on here .

Just want to say well done Miss Optomistic on getting the job! Hope you have a great weekend with your sister and that she convinces you that you have done the right thing. You can always help OH in the shop when you get time off work.

OBNW - Hope you are aboard the wagon today ... I've bought Philedelphia Light sandwiches and a spare apple (must stick to the losing lbs as well as £'s). :A

Have a great weekend.

Lewby xx