The October Awakening!

littleskintdragon

Day 1 wasnt a sfd as i always knew! But i do have dd's xnas and birthdays presents and there will be no wasted phone bills or fuel searching for the presents mid dec!

My month runs 25th to 25th as thats pay day, but i count any money used after pay as the following month.

Been a very good wife and made tomato soup yesterday and a cheese and tomato quiche today quiche looks amazing, however i havent tried it yet.... Will definately make some more if it tastes as good as it looks! Dh can take it to work as a change from sarnies.

Oh..... Almost forgot!! I found my spends book that went missing ) it was exactly where i left it despite me looking there about 20 times?? Need to update my food list which is also in this book.

And ive updated my budget, and it looks better than i thought!

angelicious

Hey everyone, really excited and a little bit scared to be starting my first challenge:A

20 SFD - will try my best, off to a good start with my first today and hopefully will have another tomorrow

Pay off debt first - owe £475.64 on cc, want to pay this off this month, also owe £1260 to Simply Be, will have this paid off by the end of teh year

Spend Diary - already in my bag

Food budget - have set this for £40 week, so £160for the month minus £20 makes £140 but will try for less!!!!!!!!

Clear out presses - have gone through these and will use as much as possible before buying more

£3 to food bank - need to research for local food bank

Budgets for outings et, is hubby's birthday at end of month, have already got his pressies bought

No eating out - will ahve to break this rule as hubby's birthday but have a voucher we were gievn so no spends, hope this is ok

Bring luch to work - have a rtock of stuff at work so this should be ok, I hope lol

DFD - 31/12/13, exept for mortgage

Beauty products - have loads at home

Earn extra £100 - have booked a few sessios of overtime to for October but won't be paid for these til the end of November so will try and make another £100 so I can have the money this month

Looking forward to the challenge, bring it on lol :T

lilian1977

Can confirm I had SFD #1 today - hooray! x

thriftylass

Wow, it got busy. Great to see so many familiar names and newbies.

Just spend 2.5 hrs cooking 8 generous lunch portions of various soups (pictures on Facebok tomorrow). Those together with the three i still have in the freezer plus any extra i get from future left over dinners should get me through the month. After cooking all these healthy things I'm having oven chips for tea (oh is out) that i found lurking in the freezer, needed the space

MrsGSR

Hi there!
Well last week I did a big shop of £60 and got £50 cashback, the cashback went in a money tin for top ups. I did budget £150 for 4 of us for the month so £110 is really reining it back! We have £25 in cash left in the tin as DH needed to get stuff from where he works (well known frozen food store)
Withdraw money for DCs activities for the month and put to one side.
Have pre budgeted everything from my account for the month (joint account too but only bills and mortgage come from that) and worked out I should have £100 by payday (25th)
Activities pre budgetted include- and includes petrol
2nd DC need new pjs, socks and undies, cardi for DD and long trousers for both allowed £30 (am also listing clothes on ebay as they grow out of them)
5th DD has a party on Saturday, already have a gift ready.
22nd friends daughters party, need gift,budget £5
25th payday- as i pay for all food and DCs stuff all that will be worked out on that day.
27th outdoor event with DD and friend and her DS. Already paid for.
28th day out with kids for half term, free, packed lunch to go.
A quiet month really!
We do live a very quiet and simple life but we just need to be more aware of unnecessary spending.

strandedinaber

Definitely no SFD for me today! But I knew it wasn't going to be, I had a few essential bits and bobs that I needed to get (toiletries and milk). I did manage to combine errands though and purchased a birthday present at the same time and have just ordered a few things I know I'll need later in the month (saving myself the postage from Amazon as I can now wait for the super slow free delivery). Am a bit shocked at seeing bank balance look so much lower than I'm used to at this point in the month, but am reminding myself that all my big bills went out today and I also paid £200 off the credit card. Suppose it will be good in a way, stops me getting lulled into a false sense of security!

Samjangi

Well not a SFD today but no frittering done!:rotfl:
Spent £18.50 on food. Have food for lunches this week sorted.
None spent on beauty (have a load already stashed!)
Food bank will be sorted at weekend
Although a newbie, I decided to see what I could do to get some more money coming into the house and so put some books on Amazon on Saturday and have sold 5 of them already!! :T(old textbooks of my daughters) Am now thinking what else is lurking around the house that I could sell ) maybe try some stuff on Ebay??
Not sure when our DFD will be, we have just entered into a DMP and are waiting for finalised details. Anyone got hints or tips about overpaying on DMP if possible (am thinking of burgeoning book library in my attic!!! )
Am definitely hoping for a SFD tomorrow!

cottage_retreatist

wow! MrsGSR - tell us all how you got 50 quid cashback on your shop - was it from saved vouchers or do you have a secret?

Can you tell us? Please?

LSD - cheese and tomato quiche sounds lovely - I have a soft spot for a quiche

thriftylass - i want to start making more soups now - we need to loose a bit of weight and i figure in the cold weather soups are healthier than stews!!

angelicious - you can also donate online or via text to trussel trust - I went via the BBCradio4 donations page after they did a post on radio4 - I got to it via their twitter feed if you're on twitter?

xx

determined_new_ms

arrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Just lost my long post - how annoying!

I have spent the evening balancing the books & looking at my budget. I haven't quite worked out what my misc spends for the month are. We go on holiday next week. I have saved & have £300 put aside for this week. I'll aim to not spend all of it, but have saved all year so not going to not have a great time! I also have planned a day out at the weekend with my friend for our birthday's, a cinema trip and a date with oh. I'll work out what I can afford.

we are renovating our bathroom at the moment - currently have no bath/shower or toilet :( (both bath & toilet will be in situ tomorrow!) I won't be including odd bits needed in my budget because again this comes out of a house renovation fund both oh & I put into

Efforts so far:

SFD 1/20 - i did pay for parking today but will get that back next week.
Lunches to work 0/17 - today had free lunch at work as we put on an event and there was catering
Food bank 0/£3
Groceries 0/£130
Make £100 /£82 -
£9 to be claimed for mileage today - this is the amount I will receive above what I put in on Sunday
£73 - received an email saying I had been paid £73 expenses for a claim at the start of last month. I don't think I am owed anything but can't log in to see. Not sure whether I should flag it up to payroll but also don't want to have it taken away!
DFD Dec 2014
Debt repayments this month £2000 - we have been saving for a year & have saved up this and will pay oh's mum at the end of the month
Petrol 0/£60 - petrol is weird for me as I do a lot of mileage for work, so spend a lot but get good mileage rates for expenses so that covers all work expenses, usually pays for my personal petrol & often gives me a bit more back :T

We are in debt because we borrowed £5000 off of oh's mum last year to help us with your deposit for our house. We were in debt, cleared our debts and stayed debt free for 2 years but then last year decided to buy and oh's parent's were able to help. It feels very different to being in debt previously. There's no timescale to pay it off but we want to clear it. We have now renovated the kitchen, spare room & bathroom - well almost. The big money rooms have been done now so we can ease up on funding the house fund. We have been putting between £400-500pm into this fund so will be good to have a break!

Anyway waffle waffle waffle! Will try really hard to stick to this challenge - I have a tendency to join and then blow my budget

Good luck everyone will pop in tomorrow. Aiming for a SFD

TiptoesDB

Well, here we go! It's my first challenge, one month on from LBM and OH is on board too.. ah, us newly weds do everything together!

*You will aim for 20 SFD (Spend Free Days).
I think I can do this! OH is opting out of this bit as he likes to buy cheap breakfast snacks at work which are budgeted for in our food budget because he leaves so early in the morning and wants something hot when he’s at work…

* Pay off debt first.
We’ve just moved what we want to pay off debts from OH’s wages (£800) into our savings ready to shift that when I get paid on the 15th, and we’ll do the same with mine when he gets paid again on the 30th– we are moving the absolute maximum we can, so we don’t want to chuck it all at the CC’s now and get stung with OD charges if we mess up, or something unexpected happens. We are novices to this and our budget is a bit guesswork!

* You will create a spreadsheet and budget EVERYTHING.
Spent a romantic evening last night putting together our whizzy spreadsheet – super excited! OH is even more excited and is taking it to work tomorrow to ‘tidy up’ and add more formulas.

* Get a small spend diary.
We’ll use the spreadsheet every day

* Set your food budget now then reduce it by £20.
We budgeted £200, so it’s now £180. This includes some home entertaining too.

* Clear out your cupboards of food before buying more.
Will do – we’ll be eating a lot of tinned lentils!

* £3 of food will be donated to the local food bank.
Will do.

* Budget for outings, birthdays, Halloween parties, trick-or-treater treats and meals with friends.
We’ve set aside money for some of the events we have planned in for this month, and I will be cancelling two other commitments as we really can’t afford to do them, as this month is busy for reasons beyond our control.

* No eating out.
We stopped this as soon as we had the LBM. I’ve not missed it yet.

*Bring your lunch to work everyday.
I’ve been taking in leftovers every day last month and am enjoying it far more than soggy supermarket sarnies! OH takes home made sarnies and I make him a cake a week
to take in for snacks, although I think his work mates benefit from this more than he does!

* Choose a DFD.
Eek, we need to work on this one. When I am feeling brave, or have has a glass of wine. I think we are looking at two years of hardcore repayment, so we’ll guesstimate Oct 2015 for now. That sounds awful. Where’s that wine?

* Use up all your beauty products BEFORE getting any more.
Yup, started on this last month. It’s really liberating.

* Try to make £100
I sold some stuff last month on EB and made £60, so will have a root around for more this month. Think we have old textbooks etc we will try this month. We are owed £80 for overpayment on a closed cc so I phoned them and got that back last night. OH is owed £80 road tax for SORN car and £80 RAC – he has been prevaricating on this for months so I will start to notch up the nagging. I am owed about £90 for chiropractor bills which I can claim back from work, I will set a good example and get this back this month! I am not sure this is classed as ‘making money’ but we are newbies so go easy on us NS Kat, please!