My Ongoing Challenge - To live with my means

Lurker1972

First things first - treacle crunchie recipe for Floozie & Mrs GG

225g milk chocolate
1 heaped tbsp black treacle
220g digestive biscuits - apparently thats about 16 biscuits..
100g butter or marg

crumble biscuits into tiny pieces
break chocolate in to squares
resist the urge to eat ingredients as they are;)
melt butter in bowl over saucepan of water
add treacle
add chocolate and stir until its all melted and gooey
mix in broken biscuits

spoon into cake cases and leave to set in fridge for about an hour

in all honesty they taste very much like a choccie digestive....but just a little bit nicer...

Lurker1972

Hump Dayyyyyyy

January flew past & I managed a whopping 19 NSD! Sadly its only been 1 this month so will have to try v hard to keep purse firmly shut. Problem is that if I know it will be a spend day becuase we need fresh bread etc, I tend to have breakfast from the canteen in addidtion to brekkie at home!

Grocery bill is a bit iffy but hopefully 2 visits without Mr Lurker will be enough to bring us in close to target.

I need to phone to Tax Office as they still have my old staff mortgage & private health insurance listed so have stupidly low tax code, despite being told last summer I no longer had them!! Thats a job for tomorrow afternoon as I am having a long weekend, yummm

Did a little experiment earlier and applied for a new credit card to get £20 cashback from quidco - wasn't sure if I would be accepted with only 6 months with employer and was approved on the spot. not at all interested in the credit card, just hope the £20 will track!!

Still need to sort out recycling of old phone....in fact...no more putting it off...gonna do it now.....

savingholmes

well done on the quidco - good luck with the recycling of the phone

You sound like you are doing well spending wise - better than me at any rate

Lurker1972

savingholmes wrote: »

well done on the quidco - good luck with the recycling of the phone

You sound like you are doing well spending wise - better than me at any rate

Thanks - I am a control freak which should help, but hasn't always in the past!
Pre-redundancy I thought I was skint, worked 6 day week every week because I needed the money. I kept a tight rein on cash purchases, just dumped everything on the cc (which was paid off each month) but didn't really know where it was all going

Now I'm £500 a month down on previous pay but I know where every penny goes, have increased the weekly cash spends budget & have weeks when it doesn't get touched - think thats quite a result!

Did the necessary to recycle phone - so just need to package that up & £38 will be winging its way to me, £3.50 has tracked with quidco....& the £20 for cc has also trackes - not bad for an evenings work!

Might have a look and see what we can ebay.....am getting the floggit bug again!

The_Golden_Goose

Nice work LurkerLoo!

Have had a low week. Need kick up butt. Recommend you don't, as you may lose your foot and the shoe that's on it.

Lurker1972

NSD yesterday - had the day off & sepnt the morning making flapjack & cakes & the afternoon nattering

today will not be NSD as I am meeting my friends for lunch - 2 of them haven't seen since September!!!! how times flies!
On the plus side out of last weeks £20 weekly spends allowance, i still have £15:). I'm confident this would still last all of this week, but will take out half of this weeks allowance just in case.

so the plan is to run around house with hoover etc for a couple of hours, then shower & get prettyish, meet the girls & visit Mr T on the way home.

need to do meal plan, really at a loss for ideas this week.....could check out the old sytleee board, but then the morning would disappear....

Intergalactic_Floozie

Can I be nosy and ask what your spends allowance (£20) would be spent on? I'm toying with giving myself pocket money next month

Lurker1972

Intergalactic_Floozie wrote: »

Can I be nosy and ask what your spends allowance (£20) would be spent on? I'm toying with giving myself pocket money next month

pretty much anything - parking, pesky food top-ups, work collections, shoe re-heeling, very occassionally a magazine....

am also trying to use it if I need new clothes or have birthdays to buy for

I never used to carry cash, chuck everything on the credit card & pay it off in full. but that doesnt work on parking meters or if you just want loaf of bread from shop round the corner so i had to build a cash allowance into the budget - had to increase it from £15 to £20 a week as can't get £5 notes out of the cash point! I take the money out on saturday before doing the weekly shop.

seems to be working better now that it did before - I think maybe I was being too strict? if there is such a thing?

maybe I just like having pocket money? reminds me of being a little girly & not having to worry about money!!!

The_Golden_Goose

If it works for you that is great!! In time I would like to do that, though money in my purse never stays in my purse very long.

In some ways having no money at all, means that I can't spend anything which is good for self control but a nightmare when it comes to surviving day to day.

Got enough petrol in the car for tomorrow and maybe Monday, not sure what I will be doing for gas after that. Also need to collect a prescription and again, I have no cash to pay for it and I desperately need the medicine, so I am in a right pickle. Have no access to any spare funds, so will speak to MrGG to see if he has any bright ideas, I know he doesn't have any money. We are a right pair, ain't we?!

savingholmes

hi lurker - like your idea of £20 spend - I would like that - but can't really afford it at the mo.... yet probably spend more than that anyway..... hmmmm

GG - sorry to hear things are so tight.... are you still working?