Peonie's journey to smart money management

Peonie

The spreadsheet keeps me motivated and shifts my focus from the financial one and that can only be good.

I read you've already done a few miles; that's fantastic. :j We'll both get the bikini body we want. I went onto the exercise section of the forum a week or so back and was surprised to see there weren't any free or low cost exercise challenges.

Financially we've not been as good as you. We spent £83 in Mr T a week ago and £75 in 3 shops yesterday including L1dl. But yesterday we did walk 8kms.

Yesterday I shopped the house for more kitchen decorations; and need to go into the attic and find bits from Mr P's mum house. It will be lovely to use them. Everytime I use something of hers I think of her and say thanks.

I also spent a bit of time on R1ghtm0ve. I found a fantastic house for £650,000. It could be split into 3 and made into holiday lets. I can dream can't I?

Today I'll be making something exciting with minced meat but now it's time for a mini fry-up to use the bits of eggs and bacon we have left over.

Jobs for today:

1. Wash 2, maybe 3, loads of washing.
2. Get 5+ loads of washing to dry. Why didn't I do the washing when it was sunny yesterday?
3. Fill the garden recycling bin.
4. Make a list of house jobs to be completed this month.

Peonie

Stop me. I want to eat more food when I only had dinner an hour ago.

It's a bit chilly tonight to I've gone on the exercise bike. Over 5 miles completed already and I hope to do another 10.

NSD.

Beckyy

I know that feeling wayyy too well! Having a glass of water before snacking helps stop me eating everything that isn't nailed down, a little bit less.

Peonie

Thanks Beckyy. I had a drink and an apple but was still hungry.

Today we're eating the last of the burgers that I bought last year. And tomorrow I'm having friends round. So I nipped into Mr Ts and bought a few sell-by items including desert.

I really want to hit my sunny day target but it will be hard as I've upped the amount I pay off the mortgage each month. I've looked at the budget and I've stripped it right down to the bare essentials - bills and eating. No new clothes, no saving for presents and the food/household budget was stripped back.

Hopefully I'll have enough in the annual bills budget to cover next month's car MOT & road tax. Please let the car be OK. I know it needs a new battery; surely it can't fail on that.

A few weeks ago I told Mr P if he needs some extra cash to cover bills he should tell me. When he needs the money I will send back some or all of the funds he transfers to the joint account. So instead he cancels the transfer altogether. Because I told him to. :wall:

newgirly

Hi Peonie, I am so impressed with your running have you always done it or is it a new challenge? I think it's a good idea to try and have another focus rather than just getting bogged down with the financial stuff, I need to do the same myself

Peonie

Hi Newgirly,

It's a new thing. Everyone else posted their annual aims in late December/early January but I did not have anything firm in my mind. It was only in February that I started to naturally lose my Xmas weight, a shock as it's never happened before, so it got my head in the right place and I decided that I really wanted to do it. To lose weight this year and not just wish it would happen.

As the target unit is distance I'm including any exercise above and beyond what I normally do. I have an exercise bike so I try to use it every other night. I also including walking and stairs if it's above what I would normally do. Cleaning I don't include but gardening is. I've not done any running yet. I'm WAS naturally a sprinter but don't enjoy pounding the pavements.

If I had not decided on a distance over a realistic time-frame I would have dropped the challenge before now. And, as we are on this forum I'm trying to only do free exercise.

Please, join me and Shala if you want to.

newgirly

Hi Peonie, thanks for the reply I like the idea of setting some targets to work towards with exercise , running is Definatly not for me though, I did try with the evil personal trainer last year and it was awful when I first started training and still awful a few months later

Do exercise classes and dog walking count ?

shala_moo

Personal trainers :eek: they scare the be-jesus out of me..

I've managed to do over 25 miles in the 7 days I've actually been doing this - it's really motivating to have a target for the month, even though I know i'm going to be under target as I only started last week... like Peonie, I would have given up (again!) if the target didn't exist.

Good luck, exercise classes and dog walking would definitely count in my book!

newgirly

25miles :eek::eek: er, not sure this is my type of a challenge :rotfl:

shala_moo

newgirly wrote: »

25miles :eek::eek: er, not sure this is my type of a challenge :rotfl:

:rotfl:didn't mean to scare you!

I have a fitbit so it monitors my movement all day, I only actually do about an hour exercise on the treadmill (3 miles ish) the rest is my normal moving, although i'm trying to do a lot more now I know it's being 'watched'!