The final countdown... and a newbie in the DFSD house!

debtfreesomeday

Well today I've managed to buy gifts for both birthdays that I mentioned in my last post - thanks to a summer sale in a local store and a £10 Amazon voucher earned from doing surveys, I've bought two great gifts for £14. Usually we would spend about £40 on these two combined so that's a great result.

Chocforever

Well done with the gift shopping - that's a really good price for two nice gifts.

I had a shock when I logged into online banking today. I have never seen my current account balance so low since I was a student . I get paid at the end of the week and have enough money in my purse to last so I think now starts the better spending habits .

It has been a tough few months but I am now turning the corner with the health stuff. I have used this to justify treating myself too many times and, when recuperating from operations, have been online shopping which is an expensive way to pass the time!

Having spent a lot of time sitting around, I have got unfit and also need a kick start to deal with the backlog of paperwork and housework etc. I realise this isn't going to happen overnight, but time to make some headway to stop it seeming so daunting, if you know what I mean.

So today I will write and cancel my gym membership which I been meaning to do for ages. This might seem an odd thing to do when I am complaining about being unfit, but I can't drive now and the gym is just too far away to walk to. I am not sure I can cancel it before September because it was a 12 month contract, but I might as well try and at least I will have started the obligatory notice period. And at some point, that will make me £60 a month better off .

Best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

So sorry to hear you've had a tough few months too Chocs, I hope you are starting to see better results now with your health and you are feeling like you can get your life back on track a little. Don't beat yourself up too hard about the bank balance and the internet shopping, it sounds like you've had a lot of 'sitting' to do lately and I'm sure I'd have done exactly the same!

Maybe if you phone and explain your current situation to the gym they may be able to do something about cancelling the membership early - it's worth a try. The £60 a month is a nice saving too, ad with your determination, I'm sure you will get yourself fit again by other means.

DFSD
x

debtfreesomeday

Today I discovered Aldi! I bought lots of fresh fruit, veg, meat and staples such as rice and baked beans etc. and it only cost me £17.88. I was happily surprised with that total. I shall be shopping there again! :cool:

Other than that, no other monies spent today. I thought it was going to be an expensive day at one point when I found a nail in one of the car tyres. :eek: I took to the local garage and, thankfully, they fixed it for free, for which I was really grateful. I was having a really bad morning with DS's reflux and a few other issues, so that cheered me up a lot!

Chocforever

Hi DFSD

I hope you have had a good week. I've never been to Aldi. There isn't one near me, but I think a Lidl has appeared in the next town; perhaps I need to investigate further. I sometimes go to the local greengrocer and can't believe how cheap the fruit and veg is compared to the supermarket. The quality is more variable, though, and they tend to have the more "traditional" stuff, if you know what I mean.

Well it is the third day of the month and I have spent all of my August wages already except for £30! I must try to keep my spending down this month which, of course, will be going on the CC to be cleared with next month's wages. I can afford to clear it so I don't want to be too dramatic about this, but I really should be saving more money.

I have had a surprisingly cheap day today. The boiler broke at the weekend. I thought it might be terminal but the repair man managed to fix it today. It took him 4 hours - I'm so pleased it was covered on the insurance. I have done a few MSs, mostly telephone and email ones so nice and quick. I did a bit of food shopping and paid for all but £1.20 of it with a voucher from a survey site so that was good. And I kept out of the clothes shops. Just need to have more days like this.

debtfreesomeday

Well done on the cheap day chocs! Great result with the voucher covering most of your shopping. Deals like that are so satisfying aren't they! Good news that the boiler could be repaired too, that's a weight off your mind.

As for the wages, ouch! If it makes you feel any better, we only have around £50 left in our grocery budget for the month! It seems, these days, that one or two big shops and the budget is gone.

I have bought one or two more christmas/birthday gifts in to maxx's 'yellow sticker' final reductions sale. A few bits were £1, the most expensive was £9.

I am still continuing to add any spare change to our sealed pot. It's actually not far off being full, so we may have to bank what's in there and start again soon!

I received our breakdown cover renewal this week and was shocked to see they wanted nearly £150 to renew for a year! After a bit of research on mse, I've managed to get it down to under £40. :-)

Quidco also paid us £80 in cashback this month. I would've liked to stashed it elsewhere, but it'll have to sit in the bank account I think.

My parents also kindly bought us loads of groceries and another tub of ds's formula milk this week which will help us a lot. They also bought lots if clothes for ds for when he is of toddler age. They are wonderful to us, I miss them so much when they go home again.

The challenge for this weekend is to spend nothing more than that needed for essential groceries!

wantabetterlife

Hi DFSD, just noticed you have dropped under 12k...well done! Formula milk has got soooo expensive. I must confess i brought some baby presents back to MrTs that i didnt need and used the money to buy formula. DS is eight months and still on it but the follow on milk seems to be on offer quite a bit. Plus we have two in nappies :eek:. I am on SMP at the minute and it is pretty dire but i am back to work in two weeks so the bank balance should be a bit healthier then. Goodluck with keepig the grocery bill down...that is getting harder to for us aswell. Hope your mum is in better health these days.

debtfreesomeday

Two in nappies must cost you a fortune WABL! Have you seen the buy two get third free offer in mothercare? I just spent over £40 on size 4 nappies but got three giga boxes for this which works out about 7p a nappy with the £5 off code floating around. I also stocked up on wipes and bought 9 boxes of those as it worked out mega cheap with the mothercare codes that are on the codes board.
We shouldn't have to buy either for a very long time!

Thanks for asking about my mum too, she's not doing great at the moment, but has been a lot worse, so fingers crossed it's just a blip.

I know what you mean about SMP, I too am struggling on it! Unfortunately, it won't be a lot better for us when I do go back to work thanks to the cost of childcare!

debtfreesomeday

Not a huge spend today - £3.99 on a small item to finish a BBQ hamper I've made up for a birthday gift.
Yesterday we had to fill the car up with petrol, which took a shocking £55! Also received an email with the unsurprising news that swalec are upping our energy prices - joy.

There is still money in the bank, only around £120 of it though, and there's £55 left in the grocery account which I'm determined we shall not overspend on this month. The good news is that we have two freezers and cupboards full of food and a garden that is providing us with lovely tomatoes, chillis, raspberries and blueberries. Soon we shall have apples, lettuce, onions, garlic and shallots too. The potatoes have already been and gone.

Unfortunately, we have had to put a couple of things on the credit card this past month, we knew we would have to sooner or later. I am not beating myself up about it though, it's inevitable with being on SMP and not earning a lot for a while. Things will soon pass and we'll clear it like we did before. For now it's all we can do.

debtfreesomeday

This week has had its up and downs so far; hubby won £60 in a draw a work which was very welcomed with the state of the accounts. £25 of it went into the grocery pot and the other half is yet to be spent. Hubby desperately needs a new shirt for work though so think it'll go on that. He's very broad and tall, so getting cheap clothes for him is near impossible.

Ds has been struggling really bad with his reflux for the past couple of weeks. Some days, like yesterday, have been extremely difficult to get through. It seems his meds are not working as well now and he's on more than the maximum he can be on. We're still waiting to see the gastro specialist.

Today I have to pick up a few bits and pieces from the supermarket. I really have to just buy what's on the list and nothing else. Yesterday I put ds in the car and drove for a bit to help calm him a bit. We ended up at a local shopping park and I managed to spend nearly £8 in m&s on stuff we didn't really need and wasn't particularly healthy. I need to stop doing that.

I researched some breakdown cover companies last night as the AA want over £150 to renew, that's apparently with a £60 discount! I found some mentioned on this site but one only covered one person and the other has patchy reviews. I shall have another look before it expires, but shan't be paying that amount!