Time to 'grow up' - the slippery slope to 30.

cat4772

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Not sure if I've mentioned, but with my food shop I've gone back to meal planning which is DEFINITELY helping keep the food budget down. It's easily reduced my shop by £20-£30 a week combined with doing an Aldi/Asda combo.

This week we're having..
Cheese and tomato pasta (nom)
toad in the hole
cottage pie
Fish fingers in parsley sauce with chips/peas
Cheesy Ham omelettes
tuna mayo sweetcorn pasta (because my girls are OBSESSED by it.)

I've forgotten what the 7th day's meal was, as my girls have destroyed the bit of paper I wrote it on :rotfl:


and for those that know me from way back in the old days, yes, the sausage casserole is still a staple

glad to hear it

ZTD

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Not bad for half an hours work that! There was another trade in site call fatbrain.co.uk but you had to have at least £25 worth (which I didn't) so couldn't do it through them. Might be handy for others to check out though?

Is there a list of these somewhere?

immoral_angeluk

ZTD wrote: »

Is there a list of these somewhere?

Not sure, I had a look at Martin's 'boost your income' guide and it only mentioned greenmetropolis so I googled 'book trade in' and found fatbrain. No idea if it's any good though as never heard of it before!

immoral_angeluk

This morning I have FINALLY gotten round to reading a good I was given 6 months ago called 'defeating procrastination'. (I'm fully aware of the irony in that, as well as being on here writing about it :P )

I'm fed up with feeling like I've always got millions of things to do, and rarely achieve any of them, so I've written down the main points in the book and am going to start abiding by them religiously in an effort to feel like I'm on top of my work-work, housework etc, and also feel like when I do have time to myself I'm not wasting time and should be getting on with other things!

So, my plan of action:
Each day I'm going to write a to do list of the things I want to achieve that day (other than stuff I have to do, like dinner, getting kids ready for school etc. Only stuff I have control over whether I have to do it or not..).
I also need to write a list of general things that I've been putting off and allocate a day to do them/prioritise them.

So each morning, along with the money/debt updates, I'm planning on doing a general 'to do list' and check it off at the end of the day. That way someone can shout at me if I don't do it. :rotfl::rotfl:

vandanfc

Some of the other threads talk about doing things in 15 minute bursts. Might be a useful tool for you - the job doesn't seem as bad or as big if it is only 15 minutes at a time.

immoral_angeluk

In true MSE nerd style, I have made spreadsheets for my to do lists for each day. :rotfl: Part of the 'tips' were to make a list for each day, allocate an amount of time to each task and rate it high/low priority. Hence the spreadsheet

So here we go, the to do list for Monday!

Task Priority Est time

Washing up/clean kitchen low 20m
Tidy up low 20m
Home reading books high 10m
Pay money into bank high 5m
Book eye test for feb low 5m
Get box for amazon books high 5m
Print labels for amazon books high 5m
Update spending diary high 5m
Update budgets high 5m
Book nurse appointment at docs high 5m
Street practice low 20m

Will have to find a way to edit it so it's a bit neater. Let's see how well day 1 goes :rotfl:


Edit: Also nothing to add to the spending diary today. Hurrah!

immoral_angeluk

I had a thought today, I'm pretty sure my 0% finance payment on my SLR camera is due to end in the next few months, which will free up an extra £51.50 every month. It was over 6 months I *think* starting in October? I'm going to have to look through my bank statements or dig the agreement out to find out for certain. It'll definitely be an added bonus anyway, I didn't even realise how quickly that time had gone!

I've been very good with the stopping-procrastination stuff today. I've got loads done! Need to keep it up to change my mindset for good and I'll be laughing. It definitely feels better to have achieved loads and then be able to relax guilt free anyway!

Roll on tomorrow and a brand new week, new budgets, more to pay off the card and being productive It's payday a week on tuesday too so I should get my unrsery/holiday club invoices and other bills this week so I can properly do my monthly budgets. Hurrah!

immoral_angeluk

Evening all!

Time for updates and budgets

First of all I've had an email from CeX saying my payment has been sent and will hit my bank within 3 days. Woohoo! So close to another £18 off the credit card!
Nothing to add to the spending diary today, I've been a good girl

Have updated my budgets:

Food £60.00
Petrol £25.00
Social £10.00
School dinners £21.00
K's pres £25.00 (put the money left over from my dad's birthday money for k in the bank)
Dance £20.00
Bills £51.50

total out £212.50
total £304.85

surplus to CC £92.35 + the £18 from CeX = £110.35 WOOP! :j:j
It's really coming down now!

Here's the updated to do list too. I've been good with my anti-procrastination today!
[STRIKE]
Washing up/clean kitchen low 20m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Tidy up low 20m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Home reading books high 10m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Pay money into bank high 5m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Book eye test for feb low 5m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Get box for amazon books high 5m[/STRIKE]
Print labels for amazon books high 5m - couldn't do today as wouldn't work in the office. Will redo and try again tomorrow.
[STRIKE]Update spending diary high 5m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Update budgets high 5m [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Book nurse appointment at docs high 5m [/STRIKE]
Street practice low 20m

I have another thing to add to the to-do list though, this morning before work I took my camera up a local forest/power station for the sunrise, so a chunk of my evening will be spent sorting out the photos from it. Might post some up here if you guys are interested

vandanfc

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Evening all!


I have another thing to add to the to-do list though, this morning before work I took my camera up a local forest/power station for the sunrise, so a chunk of my evening will be spent sorting out the photos from it. Might post some up here if you guys are interested

Yes please.

beanielou

Look forward to seeing the pictures
Did you check when payments for the camera finish?