Smart Mart - Health, wealth and happiness

Smart_Mart

What a quiet day. I genuinely didn't get out of my front door today....:rolleyes:

All that means it was a NSD today, the first of the new year which is encouraging. I think last year's first NSD was sometime in June....:rotfl:

My football match was postponed today and the boys one tomorrow was called off early this afternoon so should be a quiet day again. As far as my job's list goes...

1. Write 1,000 word archive article for programme DONE
2. Do the prep work for the celeb interview on Monday. DONE
3. Source contributors for other articles, emails sent last night. DONE
4. Hoover around house..... erm....
5. Do that elusive second load of washing. DONE

Good day really. Boys were quite well-behaved really considering we were stuck in all day. Might take them out somewhere tomorrow if it's not too cold but the forecast is decidedly dodgy.

Smart_Mart

Boys gone back now, always makes me sad even though they can drive you mad with their "trying to outdo" each other moments. We've stayed in today as it's so cold outside so I said they could have breakfast in bed this morning...:D. Been playing Countdown on DS for most of the day.

Right, going to try to break the habit of a lifetime tonight and set a budget. This coming week I know exactly how much I have coming in as it's the opposite week to the HB and courier money coming in. So here goes..

Cash in hand - £25
Money in bank - £74
Working tax credit -£51
TOTAL - £150

Virgin bill (needs to be paid tomorrow) - £67
Petrol - £30
Gas card - £20
Shopping - £25
TOTAL - £142

The Virgin bill has to be paid otherwise they'll suspend the services. With work, I can't afford to lose my broadband connection even though I have a laptop available. The job is such that a laptop is adequate but makes the job much longer.

Petrol is an estimate, gas card and shopping are estimates too really; it will be interesting to see how close I can stick to it. That leaves me £8 spare money, some of which will go tonight at the pub quiz. Costs £1 to enter but we have four drinks vouchers from last week. Winning or coming second would be a big boost as we'd either get cash or more drinks vouchers.

Smart_Mart

Well tonight was a roaring success, I must say. We came second in the quiz winning eight drinks vouchers, four of which are left for next week...:beer:. The quiz cost me a pound and I got my first pint from last week's winnings and my second pint from this week's winnings...:beer:

Bought a paper tonight along with bread, milk, two small Chicago Town pizzas (reduced to a pound in Tesco) and £10 on the gas card as I was running low!!

Tomorrow offers variety if nothing else. Courier job booked at 7.00am in the morning and 5.30pm in the evening, interviewing an ex-Radio One DJ at lunchtime plus a lot of website housekeeping on the two sites I run. Should also get out and deliver another 235 newspapers too!

Smart_Mart

Did the courier job this morning amid icy roads and now the fog has dropped over my village like a big, grey tablecloth....;)

Just paid the Virgin bill too! :T

Smart_Mart

I'm not sure if it counts as a NSD but the only money that left me today was that Virgin bill. No mini-shops, no sweets and no petrol... though the light did come on tonight on the way home. :rolleyes:

The interview with the ex-Radio One DJ didn't happen today, he's going to call tomorrow instead.

I've got to make a start tomorrow on the languages project for the football club as time is dragging on. It pays well so the sooner I finish the better really. The software takes about 30 minutes to load and once that's done, it's full steam ahead, I think.

Take care tomorrow, the snow is going to be coming down in bucketloads.

Smart_Mart

Today was definitely an in-day as it snowed four times, all of which has left the lightest of dustings on the ground. I think the big fall will come overnight though....:eek:

Didn't go out until 4pm today and even then ust walked down to the shop. It's about half a mile away but was so much hassle getting the car uncovered etc that I decided to walk. Bought £8 of gas plus bread, milk and a Christmas pudding, total spend £12.10.

Interviewed the ex-DJ today, he was charming. Have another interview tomorrow with an ex-footballer from my team but I fancy a lot of this will slightly be in vain as Saturday's game looks set to be postponed. At least we have a head start on the next matchday issue...:D

Didn't get any further with the languages project, must really try harder tomorrow. The boys are coming around in the afternoon and my working tax credit is paid tomorrow.

Smart_Mart

Crumbs, today was a day and a half...:D

Snow came down overnight and woke to a decent dusting of the white stuff. Stayed in this morning and interviewed an ex-player for the programme. No real hurry to do it as the game is inevitably going to be called off but it saves me a job in two weeks time.

Nipped into a strangely deserted Asda to do the week's shop at lunchtime. Should be okay for pretty much everything now until after the weekend unless I've forgotten something. Spent £14.84 in there and another tenner in petrol on the way out.

Collected the boys and had a snowball fight outside their house. Came back to mine and built a snowman in my back garden. I'll try to upload a picture in a minute if I can.

They had a hot tea and I took them back at 8pm all tired and happy. Spending the rest of the evening surfing this and might have an early night if possible.

Smart_Mart

Sitting at the PC absolutely shattered now....:eek:

Had an email from the newspaper company yesterday warning that papers might not get out until today. Received all 700 of my papers during the day today so went out and did about a third of them in total. Got back to find an email saying that there is no deadline to deliver them this week (normally Friday) which helps me immensely as I can leave them till Tuesday if needs be.

After saying yesterday that I had done all the shopping for the week, felt the need to top-up the cupboards today so nipped into Sainsbury's and spent £9.51 on ensuring no more trips out this weekend. Also stuck another £12 on the gas card.

I've been a little fortunate in that the snow has saved my budget this week. I'd already made the decision not to go to the club today to save £15 in petrol but the news today that Saturday's game is off saves another £15 too....:T. I've used the savings to either buy extra shopping or a warmer house but I should still have cash left on Sunday night which is better than I hoped for.:D

Smart_Mart

Woke up this morning and found out the boys school was open. Tripped along to their house, took them to school then took their mum to do some shopping as her car is on a steep drive outside her house and she risks skidding on to a busy road if she tries moving it.

Got back home and worked on the website and my paperwork until school run time this afternoon. Boys and I have an inside weekend together as the weather will be so cold.:eek:

It's been another NSD today which is great!

Been having a good think tonight and need to make some serious changes to life to make it more comfortable. I reckon I have a good 25-30 things I can do in the short-medium term to make life not so stressful and have weeks like this week where I have less than a tenner for the rest of the weekend, a petrol light on in the car, barely enough gas to make Monday and all of which with two kids staying here and freezing conditions outside.

Will make the list over the next day or two but will set a deadline to have it all done by as this might kick me up the a**e to do it. Some of it is small stuff like getting curtains for my bedroom ( don't laugh, I'm not overlooked and there's net ones up already) but there are curtains needed for the patio doors in the front room and the spare bedroom plus blinds for the bathroom and kitchen. Still not 100% happy with the front room, need another bedside table in my bedroom for symmetrical reasons and really would like a different headboard.

I've decided that if I spend money on these items, I must re-generate those funds from E-Baying items I already have. Most of it will come free from Gumtree but the rest I'll have to sell to buy.

Smart_Mart

Another no-spend day. I think that's the fourth one already in 2010 though some of those have been forced becuse of the weather. Today I'd have spent money going to the football had it not been postponed earlier in the week.

Walked down to the post office and withdrew my last fiver from my bank account - this means I didn't have to go into town today and use up vital petrol fumes...:D

Been inside chilling with the boys and managed to get the first thing done on my to-do list and boy am I glad I did..here's the list anyway.

MY BEDROOM
Get two sets of currtains for the windows (only nets up at present)
Get a Ikea Malm birch 2 drawer chest for bedside symmetry.
Get new birch wardrobes x 2 and dispose of old ones.
Move exercise bike into front room
Get new bed headboard
Get a new rug.

TWINS ROOM
Sort out the built in cupboard

SPARE BEDROOM
Dispose of old wardrobe
Get set of curtains (only net up at present)

BATHROOM
Roller blind / curtains (not overlooked, just trees behind)
New shower curtain

KITCHEN
Sort out all cupboards and clear worktop space.
Roller blind / curtains (not overlooked)

FRONT ROOM
Get an office tidy for desk
Get an office chair
Fix the gas fire
Buy 2 x lampshades
Get curtains for patio doors (nets up but need proper curtains)

HALL/LANDING
Buy lampshade

FRONT GARDEN
Weed and tidy the border
Paint gate

BACK GARDEN
Mow the lawn
Tidy and weed the borders
Weed the patio
Get a padlock for the shed (nothing in there worth anything)

FRONT PORCH
Sweep out and recycle everything to tip.
Get unit in there for leaflets and papers

GENERAL
Finish the languages project
Apply for a DRO
Sort out all paperwork on the desk.

There's 31 jobs there and I've set myself a target of doing them all by March 1st which leaves me fifty days to do them. I managed to fix the fire earlier and it's belting out heat now albeit a little musty as it's the first time I've switched it on in ten months of living here.

In truth, I may go three or four days without doing any of them then do more than one at a time IYSWIM. Just be interesting to see how far I get by then.

Off to bed now to dream of painting gates and weeding borders - not that I can see either at present.:eek: