My Survive the Recession Diary

savingholmes

Hi Sun - hope you manage to do some of the challenges - good luck....

Swinstie73

Hi Sun Addict,

Just thought would pop into your thread to bump it up a bit (I've read other people doing that, don't actually know what happens) LOL.

Hope having a good day x

beanielou

It just means it goes to the top of page 1 !

Sun_Addict

I'm going to try and update my diary more regularly as I think it will help. Thanks for "bumping" my thread Swinstie - don't know what it means either but it's reminded me to update it.

Not doing very well so far this month as OH's only been working 2/3 days a week for the past couple of weeks so not much to go into the pot as yet. However he does have work in the pipeline so it's not that bad. Just wish this recession would hurry up and finish. At the moment we're about £1000 a month worse off than we were a couple of years ago. I know things will pick up eventually but it's just when. It's just a matter of survival at the moment.

I'm also not doing very well with my losing 4lbs by the end of April as I've put on 2lbs:mad:. It's not muscle as Swinstie has very kindly suggested but very likely cheating on my diet so I'm trying to behave myself now :rolleyes:

Things are not all doom and gloom though as I have been sticking to the Weekly Spending Challenge and am also doing well with the April Grocery Challenge.

Didn't have a very exciting Easter weekend. Went to Tesco on Saturday to do a bit of shopping and Asda yesterday so non stop action really :rotfl:I get a bit fed up sometimes when I see something I'd like to buy but can't because of the recession and not knowing how much money we're going to have coming in. It's OH's birthday in two weeks and in normal times we'd have been going away at least for the weekend if not abroad for a week, now we'll be lucky if we can stretch to a meal out but at least we're going to Menorca in July so we're lucky we can still do that. At least we've got an aim and we'd rather save the money towards that than blow it on meals out and trivial stuff that we don't really need.
It's more important that any surplus money goes towards paying off the credit card and the holiday. At least so far this month we've earned enough to cover the bills, food and minimum debt repayment which is what's important really.

I feel so much better now I've had a moan. Hope I haven't depressed anyone! Onwards and upwards!

Sun_Addict

Quick update - had a nice walk in the sunshine alongside the canal towpath to Sainsburys in my lunchbreak. Bought a few more groceries but stuck strictly to my shopping list. To try and keep my grocery bills down I go to different supermarkets in my lunchbreak. I have a strict weekly list which I am currently sticking to very well. This keeps me out of clothes/shoe shops and also gets me some extra exercise at lunchtime. I think people I work with think I am forever food shopping but what the heck I am saving money by doing it this way.

Diet-wise so far so good. I've had porridge for breakfast, home made split pea soup and crispbreads for lunch and snacked on fruit. I've had one little treat of a fun size packet of Milky Bar buttons (very nice!) but this was accounted for so I have only eaten what I should have so far but the danger time for me is when I get home - however I AM going to be good. I will have 2 slices of Nimble toasted (I don't eat butter or marg) when I get home to tide me over until my evening meal at 7.30 which is going to be home made tuna pasta bake and vegetables. No alcohol until Friday. Should have 4 points left to roll over for the weekend excesses Exercise-wise I have walked to work this morning, done my lunchtime walk and will be in my home gym tonight where I will run 2 miles on the treadmill, do 100 squats and 100 sit ups on the stability ball.

Have decided to try and update daily - I will probably bore everyone silly -but I think it will motivate me.:D

Swinstie73

Well done, Sun Addict, just going to update mines too! Have looked at other threads only started a couple of days ago and there are hundreds of posts! Mines must be boring the pants off everyone, but hey it's for me to keep myself in check. Keep up the good work. x

shaggydoo

well done sun addict :T

Sun_Addict

Hi everyone

Not much to report today. Went to Aldi at lunchtime on my never ending hunt for grocery bargains. Only spent £7.51 and have a bag full of stuff so I'm happy with that - more money to put towards the debt. Every little helps as they say. Until I discovered this site I used to think it wasn't worthwhile to save bits and bobs of money but it's made be realise that these little bits and bobs soon add up. When OH picks me up from work every day he always says "not more food". We seem to get through no end of fruit and veg. However, we are attempting to grow our own salad stuff and a few vegetables from seed this year and things are looking good so far, although we're not green fingered by any stretch of the imagination. We bought one of those mini greenhouse things with shelves from Argos so hopefully this will help. We've also filled some seed trays with hanging basket type flower seeds so this should save us a lot of money when it comes to filling the planters and baskets in summer.

Exercise wise as I've walked about 5 miles altogether today I'm not going in the gym tonight. I've got a bit of housework to do so will do that instead. I've just got to stick to the eating plan - not calling it a diet as I'm just trying to stop myself nibbling and hopefully this will be a permanent thing.

OH hasn't got any work now for the rest of the week but he's hoping he will have something for Monday, although he hasn't heard anything yet.:(
He did have a big job to start but it fell through so that has thrown things out somewhat. At least he is still working though and that's the main thing, there are plenty of people out there not working at the moment.

Oh well soon be Friday!

shaggydoo

Good Luck with the planting and well done with all that walking:D

beanielou

Love the smiles shaggydoo