Sat 20th & Sun 21st July - What small DFW things will you be doing this weekend?

stitching_witch

When we start out on the DFW trail we do loads of "big stuff" that makes quite a difference to our situation. These include having our lightbulb moment, cutting up the credit cards and cancelling Sky and the gym .

But once we have done the bigger stuff, we often feel that we are not making the same amount of progress, when in fact the small steps are helping us form good financial habits and helping us get closer everyday to staying in control and becoming debt free, or staying debt free.

Examples could be hanging washing out instead of using the tumble dryer or leaving your purse/wallet at home to avoid the risk of spending .

So be proud of those small steps, they really are important :money:


Morning DFW peeps! Hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine. I certainly won't moan about the weather, but if it could rain overnight a few times and refill the water butt the allotment would really appreciate it!

I was pleased with myself yesterday. I parked in a free car park near DGD's school and walked the twenty minutes into town. I drank my bottle of (home refilled) water on the way in, but luckily a couple of cafes have signed up as refilling stations so just popped in and they refilled my bottle free of charge. Free car parking, free exercise and free water :j

The weekend list looks like this:

• Checked banking
• Checked for surveys
• Today's breakfast, lunch and dinner from stores
• Update accounts with yesterday's spends
• Rejig my spends spreadsheet so I can extract more information
• Work on a couple of orders
• Visit a friend later but use DH's car therefore his diesel
• Visit DS2 tomorrow and he'll cook dinner
• Drive past KFC on the way home and not be tempted to stop off!

Foxgloves - I've made some samples of the horse bibs and they have gone off to the printer for numbers to be put on them. Then they have to go through some testing for durability and to see if the ink is waterproof and finally I'll be told when to start producing them! It's definitely a long process

Have a great weekend, catch up tomorrow evening
Stitchy x

Determined_diva

The weekend list looks like this:

• Check bank balances
• Get product ready for the next free ebay weekend
• Pick up parcel from post office
• Take stuff in my car down to the skip!
• Load more of the garden cuttings up and take to the skip
• Blow dry hair
• Food shopping ready for pack lunches next week
• Ironing
• Studying
• Cut up my last credit card .. I.CAN.DO.THIS!

allydowd

Morning DFW-Jedis,

Thanks for the starter Stitchy and welcome D Diva.

The list:

:think: Harvest some radishes. Probably need to blanch and freeze some, we've got tonnes!

:think: Read paper online. Find your favourite online paper at the bottom of this page. (Link)

:think: No spend day.

:think: Try my hand at cheese making. I'll let you know how it goes.

:think: Soak stain out of t-shirt and tablecloth straight away to avoid ruination!

:think: Discuss our non-existent tv reception problem with OH.

:think: Harvest onions and garlic from garden for tonight's chilli.

Freebies:

Free yogurt (Link)

Free Amazon £1 credit (Link)

Free Logic oral gel for pets (Link)

Offers:

Free lunchbox with cheese purchase (Link)

Reduced price Daz (Link)

Today's newspaper deals (Link)

Pernicious

Morning all,

Thanks for starting us off Stitchy.

Today's plan:-

• Food from stores
• Dinner from meal plan - HM Curry
• Log calories & exercise on free apps
• Check postcode lottery & birthday bingo
• Heating off
• Check online banking
• Check for new mystery shopping opportunities
• Enter some comps
• Do some surveys
• Declutter & flylady
• DH doing overtime today
• Check fleabay, items ending today!
• Check emails to see if the council have replied.
• Check emails for 0range unlock code - was really unimpressed with them last night as I was told the complete opposite to what I was told last time we rung them, & they will not offer compensation unless it is not here by the 25th. For £20 I'd expect better service.
• Go to second job tonight, drive not drink

Hope everyone is ok & has a great, MSE day x

MinnieMousesMummy

Morning everyone. For a while now I have been saving & earning little bit here and there but I have to admit my lightbulb moment has happened this morning.

I got paid yesterday and had £300 in my account however this morning DH woke me up by telling me the account was empty and he was unable to get the £10 that I had asked him to get me before heading to work. Luckily I have some money in savings account so I am not totally skint but it has given me the shock that I needed.

My initial reaction this morning was fraud but no it was a case of me not being careful enough with my money so things have to change from today. Enough of my ranting its time for me to get a grip on finances and get debt paid off and get my life in order generally.

Today is day 1 on the road to DFW happiness.

1. Run through the budget tool and face the reality of money problemsDone
2. Sort paperwork for MSing work that I currently have and look for more MSing workDone
3. Complete MSing work that is in for todayDone
4. Work out budgets for the rest of 2013Done, but want to double check a couple of things
5. Do a meal plan for AugustDone
6. Look on forum for ideas of increasing online income and make a list of things to doWork in Progress
7. Check ebay in the hope that some items are selling as I currently have some things listedDone, Got a couple of sales
8. Quick showerDone
9. Spend half an hour ironing
10. Read through money makeover guide and make a list of things that I need to doDone
11. Start a spending diary so that I can keep a check on spendingDone
12. Speak to DH regarding the current situation and get him on boardDone, I think he is on board so easier than I thought
13. Do some course work
14. Do a general tidy around the houseDone
15. Look into car insurance as its due 25thDone, despite all the research it worked out cheaper renewing directly with existing company

foxgloves

Hi Everyone,
Positive money-saving activity today:
*Watered all the veg before the temperature heats up again.
*Fed beets, courgettes & peas with home-made comfrey & nettle fertilizer.....possibly the stinkiest job in the world? (Tho to be fair have never been at the business end of a nappy.....)
*Meals as per July meal plans.
*Posted competition entry.
*Entered a prize draw.
*Did surveys.
*Claimed another £30 Debenhams giftcard from Toluna Surveys. (That will make a total of £120's worth for some new warm winter clothes, as everything I have is now too big).
*Big postal survey arrived for mr f from Kantar media. He's getting £5 for the initial phone survey & will get £10 for completing this one.
*Continue with setting up piggy-banking system to help with those areas which don't appear officially on our budget. Spoke to mr f last night & we both think it will be a good idea. We tweaked the figures & decided the categories we need are 1)Car maintenance 2)Clothes 3)Holidays
4)Entertainment/Leisure 5)Presents 6)Household maintenance. So today, I'll have another run through the proposed figures & if it all adds up, I'll create some piggy envelopes. I've got some nice bright pink shiny paper so might actually make piggies to stick on the front.....then I can't ignore them.
*Knit! Because I need to get my cushion finished asap so that I can make a start on knitting for gifts for December C-word (1 jumper, 2 pairs of socks, 2 bags).
Have a good weekend, everyone.
@stitchy - It does sound complicated with those bibs, but hope it works out & you get the commission. I sold quite a few pairs of hand knitted men's socks (nice hippyfied colours!) last year towards December time, but haven't made any to sell this year. I do get a reasonable price for them, but it doesn't really compensate for the knitting time. At least socks are easy & I can knit & watch tv at the same time!
@Minnie - That sounds like it was quite a shock this morning. You sound like you're already getting a plan together. It always amazes me how big a list you get through in a day, & your new baby can't be all that far away now. Don't beat yourself up, everyone's accounting gets away from them sometimes. Just learn from it, & move on, that's all you can do. From personal experience, I can say that it is a lot easier once partner is on board too......it took a little while here, at first, but it did happen.
Cheers everyone,
foxgloves x

ellesbellesxxx

Hello all!!! We didn't have internet for a month so am only just catching up on everything. Not been a great MSE month due to not being able to rent out OH's house (or sell it) and obv. lots of extra costs due to moving!!! However, now we are in, we have all the important things so it's a case of saving and paying off. I have the school hols so already have 2 extra jobs lined up in order to make a big dent in debts.

This weekend:
-Two loads of washing air drying outside
-Clean/tidy/declutter for ebay
-make meal plan based on what we have in cupboards
-check accounts
-any surveys that come up
-pay in cheques for OH
-Just done a mystery shop over phone
-Awaiting first elec bill, once that's sorted we can switch via Q-Co!
-Wedmin
-Chase estate agents

Think that's it, eek!
Have a fab day y'all xx

ShootForTheMoon

Hey everyone!!

So, my weekend looks something like this:

1. Check online banking - skimmed a little into savings!
2. Pop into bank and pay in cheques to OH's account
3. Make fruit & marshmallow kebabs for D-MIL's birthday instead of buying cake!
4. Stash supplies bought by Paps at Home Bargains yesterday! Hooray for grandparents!! :j
5. 2x NSD's
6. OH competing in a triathalon in Cheltenham this pm - free entertainment!!
7. Ironing, tidying and generally clean the house.
8. Clean car, treat leather seats and check tyre pressures at work tomorrow (as long as it stays quiet!!)
9. Still trying to find a HSBC with coin machine so I don't have to pay Coinstar fee - may have to give up on this!!
10. Read another chapter of my Sri Lanka guidebook bought by OH to clue up on what we want to see on trip of a lifetime!!
11. Oh, and do some more adpoints!

That'll do... Rest of today will be spent enjoying the sunshine before another long set of shifts in work start tomorrow!! Boo!

Hope everyone is ok! Have a great MSE'ing weekend!!

MinnieMousesMummy

foxgloves wrote: »

@Minnie - That sounds like it was quite a shock this morning. You sound like you're already getting a plan together. It always amazes me how big a list you get through in a day, & your new baby can't be all that far away now. Don't beat yourself up, everyone's accounting gets away from them sometimes. Just learn from it, & move on, that's all you can do. From personal experience, I can say that it is a lot easier once partner is on board too......it took a little while here, at first, but it did happen.
Cheers everyone,
foxgloves x

Thanks Foxgloves, It did come as a major shock this morning but it has hopefully given me the kick up the rear that I needed as well. It is only about 2 weeks till baby is due (4th August). I'm hoping DH will be easy enough to get onside as he seen how shocked I was earlier.

crawley_girl

Afternoon people.

Today I:
* have checked bank balance... still horrific and counting days until pay day (Thursday)
* will be going to the supermarket late in the evening and will be sticking to the small list
* will be going to the gym and using their showering facilities afterwards
* will be trying to use the steamer again today (in order for bathroom to be sparkly clean for when I show potential lodgers around). Tried it last night and I didn't have it set up properly... the fitting flew off the end of the machine thing and scared me half to death with the sound!!)
* will be trying to complete the application form

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls

foxgloves

Still at it.....have now got 6 piggy banking envelopes ready, all with shiny pink piggies on the front! Also decided to confront a silly fear.....online bank transfers!! Last year, I made a horrendous error doing an online transfer & ended up putting £3,000 into a complete stranger's bank account. I didn't realise till the next day. Thankfully it was quickly sorted out (the member of staff at Co-op Bank customer services was fantastic) but it was down to a really stupid basic error on my part & I haven't used transfers since, despite the fact that it would be helpful to do them. This afternoon, I set up our savings account as a beneficiary & paid in an experimental......£1. Ha!! Success! £1 transferred! Fear gone! Car fund an entire massive £1 richer, lol x