Keeping up appearances.......

Dolphin1

Welcome aboard basketcase and good luck!




I love YNAB. It's a bit of a pain to set up but very easy to use after that. Five minutes of reconciling a day keeps me in check. If you get stuck there is an advice thread especially for YNAB on the Debt-Free Wannabe board.

basketcase

Morning :hello: and thanks for the warm welcome Dolphin.

As you can see, I’m up early (for a Saturday anyway!) have breakfasted, updated Quicken and am [STRIKE]knackered but going to do things anyway[/STRIKE] raring to go!

I’ve downloaded the instruction manuals for YNAB. Will have to look at it later, because if I start now, the next thing you know it’ll be lunchtime! It does look doable though, and has the same advantage as Quicken – it does the adding up for me! This is not to be sneezed at because I’m dyscalculate. The number of times I’ve transposed figures and ended up overdrawn with charges (which made me more overdrawn, so more charges...) doesn’t bear thinking about. :eek:

I’ve thought of something else I need to add to my list – finish knitting the jumper I started for DD. It was supposed to be a Christmas present BUT at the beginning of December I fell and hurt my wrist. It wasn’t better until the end of January, by which time it wasn't Christmas any more and I’d lost the momentum. She understood, of course, but :embarasse

So. The list for Marvellous March is now:

1. Organise my surplus money into 'pots'. (Set up YNAB)
2. Work on the Week's FLYzone. (1-7 March is the hall and the block stairs and landing for my floor).
3. Eat a minimum of 3 F&V per day.
4. Floss my teeth daily.
5. Bed by 2230h Sunday to Thursday
6. Do at least 4 rows of knitting per day. (Doesn’t sound much, but it’s a REALLY complicated pattern, so slow going...)

I'm sure that's not as much as it sounds. Is it?

Off to start on the FLYzone. _pale_ I may be gone some time...

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) A small pot of rice pudding, some chocolate covered honeycomb and a few wine gums :eek: (not a good day).
2) Just over 10,000 steps :j.
3) Light off at 11.30pm but it was Friday so it doesn't matter :j.
4) No spends on other people :j.
5) Still nothing else to report but I've got the whole month (will probably start another job on Monday).

Honey_Bear

Welcome Basket Case, and here's something to jolly you along:

Ta for the contributions, and now I understand about the virtual fifty-peesers not being coughed up I've got your card marked.

Sorry about the redundancy, bummer, congratulations on getting a new job and paying off the credit card. Happy swears (oh, goodoh, more *kerchings* for me) by YNAB so you're in exceptionally good company.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Update for yesterday...

1) A small pot of rice pudding, some chocolate covered honeycomb and a few wine gums :eek: (not a good day).

I'm still getting cravings but they are, at last, reducing in frequency and intensity. I think the way I cope now is to say to myself, I can if I really want it, but not just yet, maybe later. Can you allow yourself some slack so that you're allowed some treats sometimes? It's the permanance of it that appears to be self-defeating, I think. I also seem to remember once you get started on one of your illicit jags it carries on for a day or three. Just a thought.

2) Just over 10,000 steps :j.
Yay!
3) Light off at 11.30pm but it was Friday so it doesn't matter :j.
Yay!
4) No spends on other people :j.
Yay!
5) Still nothing else to report but I've got the whole month (will probably start another job on Monday).

So, for all the stuff achieved: and, as you say, you've got the whole month to do the kitchen flying.

(I'm an 0v3n M@te addict, myself; good old L@kel@nd.)

Honey_Bear

• Carry on with contacting possible outlets, a county a fortnight should be about right. Carrying on.
• 15 minutes a day flying five days a week. I could pretend doing the laundry counts, but it doesn't. Nuffunk, basically.
• No sugary stuff until Easter Sunday. Nuffink, so I'm v. proud of myself because I can now sometimes taste chocolate I want some so much, but the cravings are diminishing to occcasionally occuring rather than being pretty permanent. I defo will be having some this Sunday.
• No computer after 9.00 pm (except my ipod so that I can choose my night-time listening) and lights out by 11.30 pm. Tick and cross, but it was Friday. *let's self off hook*
• 5 fruit and veg a day. Nope.
• Spring clean the office - dust the shelves first. As Dolphin says, I've got the whole month, so nuffink yet, although I did think about dusting the desk top yesterday. I had to go and lie down for a bit afterwards.
• Electric toothbrush once a day. Tick. I've only put this back in this month so that I can ensure it really is finally conquered.
• No ***ing swearing, fine of £1 a word. Had to add this back in for myself, obvs, as it turns out it's quite a profitable little sideline. *holds out hand for cash* A word last night, which as I was with a bunch of sweary drunken rowdies, resulted in a very colourful long discussion about being sweary v. non-sweary. I could have collected a fortune, enough to pay for my holibobs from just one of the people, but sadly they're not joining me on this quest so they refused to make contributions to the worthy cause of Honey Bear's Hols.

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Can you allow yourself some slack so that you're allowed some treats sometimes? It's the permanance of it that appears to be self-defeating, I think. I also seem to remember once you get started on one of your illicit jags it carries on for a day or three. Just a thought.

Well, the way I look at is that it's like No Cr*p Days (NCDs) as opposed to No Spend Days (NSDs) and the idea is to have as many as possible in a month. So, in February, I think I had 11 NCDs which is not that great out of 29 days but I had a bit of a setback when I had my delivery from the online bakery. However, I probably wouldn't have had any NCDs had I not set the target in the first place.

Maybe it would be better for me to set a target of NCDs for the month so I am going to change my first target to 15 NCDs out of the 31 days of March.

So my targets for Marvellous March are now...

1) 15 NCDs.
2) To walk at least 10,000 steps a day 5 times a week. (I have increased the number of steps but given myself a couple of 'rest' days so that I don't overdo it.)
3) Light off by 10.30pm every night except Friday and Saturday nights.
4) No unnecessary spends on gifts for other people. For March, I have set a maximum budget of £0. (There are some birthdays and anniversaries in March but they only warrant a card.)
5) To completely spring clean the kitchen. (I'm going to try and do a couple of jobs a week until it's done.)

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) None eaten :j (making 2 NCDs so far).
2) Just over 10,000 steps :j.
3) Light off at 11.45pm but it was Saturday so it doesn't matter :j.
4) No spends on other people :j.
5) I actually cleaned behind the radiator in the kitchen :j (and all of the other radiators too as it was long overdue - wow, there was a lot of dust :eek:).

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

5) I actually cleaned behind the radiator in the kitchen :j (and all of the other radiators too as it was long overdue - wow, there was a lot of dust :eek:).

Jolly well done on the progress, and Wow! on tackling behind a radiator. They're always hideous here and there are several that I simply can't get at because of overhanging windowsill-type things. Flyladies recommend using a duster on a stick but in my case that just resulted in a duster semi-permanently wedged so far down I had to find a wire coathanger, bend it out of shape and a lot of prodding. The whole caper spread the vintage dust everywhere. Not recommended.

After Lent I think I'll set myself an NCD target if you don't mind me nicking your utterly brilliant idea.

Honey_Bear

• Carry on with contacting possible outlets, a county a fortnight should be about right. Carrying on but not on the weekend. My hit rate for County 1 was about 11%; apparently the normal cold-calling hit rate is 0.5% according to someone who knows about these things. Rather chuffed.
• 15 minutes a day flying five days a week. It's the weekend. More nuffunk.
• No sugary stuff until Easter Sunday. Supplies purchased for today - yippee!
• No computer after 9.00 pm (except my ipod so that I can choose my night-time listening) and lights out by 11.30 pm. Tick and cross, but it was Saturday. *let's self off hook again*
• 5 fruit and veg a day. Nope.
• Spring clean the office - dust the shelves first. Nuffink - it's the weekend.
• Electric toothbrush once a day. Tick, even though I left it until bedtime.
  
• No ***ing swearing, fine of £1 a word. Had to add this back in for myself, obvs, as it turns out it's quite a profitable little sideline. *holds out hand for cash* A word or two yesterday. Creeping bad habits already which is a bit of a disappointment. I thought I'd got out of the habit but apparently not, and my purse is already empty. I owe the swear tin at least £3. Bummer.
  

Four about 10 years I haven't really changed my daily routine very much most weekends, feeling the need to go into my office and sit down at my desk, regardless of how little I wanted to, or ever achieved. I think this year is the year to break that habit once and for all, so the lack of sticking to daily targetty things like Flying and working at paid stuff, it's progress.