Just Say NOvember 2013!!!

thriftylass

Gooood morning!

Yay for November. However thought I'd stumble on the first hurdle - lunch. We had nothing in the house, I thought. Found some leftover tagine sauce in the freezer, added some peas and sweetcorn and took some bread. Hopefully today can be my first SFD but will see, DS has got no fruit or anything left just cereal, so might have to pull the big shop forward to tonight.

Here’s my plan for my “Batten Down the Hatches and triple lock them (the Anniversary lock down)”

• Shop only at LIDL and the new Aldi unless I have vouchers for other SM (budget £170, down 50 from last month), try only one big shop a week and then 6 SFDs
• Eat the freezer empty to defrost
• No extra spends in HH, just wipes, toiletries (will take stock first, should be under 10), bin bags, loo roll etc (budget £60, down £60 from last month, although I overspend massively due to clothes for DS and a whirly gig), however won’t need to buy nappies for at least a month as I got loads from my boss
• I’ll have a £100 contingency however, just in case I was overambitious, to avoid OD charges, CC or tapping into saving, if I don’t need it it’ll go to the savings at the end
• Buy some treats like cookies and crisps at the start (max. £5) and that’s it for the month
• Buy Christmas presents/or ingredients etc. either with survey Amazon vouchers or out of the separate Christmas account (£250), or make them (count as SFDs then)
• The MOT is due this month but got £300 put aside for that in a separate account, what I don’t need will be kept for next year
• Take lunch every single day and I'll try to still cycle to work every day unless it is really icy and dangerous
• Have 25 !! SFDs, do the charity declutter and make 80 quid (prob mainly through surveys)

We've got three outings (a workshop, Guy Fawkes night and the Christmas light fest) but all should be spend free, we'll also visit friends the third weekend in Aberdeen but that'll come out of the grocery/HH bugdet as if we were at home

OH will be away with the wee man for a weekend to give me a break. I’ll use that time to paint more kitchen cabinets, make stuff for Christmas and have a rake through the house for charity items and things to sell.

Summary:

Food 0/170
HH 0/60
Cont. 0/100
SFD 0/25
Lunches 1/21
Food bank 0/3
Make 1/80 made my first pound through a survey today

luckystarr

NOvember is finally here

Got paid yesterday so did my weekly shop, got to get petrol today so today wont be a SFD but have no plans for anything else till we shop again next week ... need to start looking to find my items to sell and declutter

So here goes GOOD LUCK everyone

katie26

Hey- I know it's already November but can I join please?

I'm off to work out my budgets for the month- will be back to post later.

This challenge is such a good idea- I waste so much money on impulse buying and emotional spending. Like yesterday, went to get petrol and ended up spending an extra £5 on treats because I'd had a long day at work- hoping this thread will keep me on track!!

kerri_dfw

Morning all, I avoided my usual post-MW trip to Gr3ggs and instead came home to eat homemade chocolate fridge cake, OMG it's lush! However, have just spent my £5 emergency lunch money on a donation to movember, hope you don't mind Kat. Not sure if that takes away from today being a NSD or not though :(OH is going to pay for my dinner this evening when we go to a friends birthday
I've already earnt £0.66 in interest today, plus some pennies from fleabay yay a great start to the day wooohooo.

Avogirly

Good morning everyone!

I am so pleased it's 1st November as I was so excited to start this.....I have told everyone what I am doing. It's the first time I have done this, but if I am going to do it properly then I need the support of those close to me.
I worked out my budgets ages ago because I was so excited plus I also sorted out quite a bit of stuff to take to the charity shop.

Budgets are: -
25 SFD's
£180 food
£3 food bank
21 lunches
20 things to charity
£80 extra
£10 beauty items
£80 diesel
1 outing
£5 emergency lunch money

Lets get cracking! :T

PurpleJay

Happy to report that I have just bagged up 21 items to take to the charity shop! Mix of mine and M's clothes, books and a bit of jewellery

his_missus

Happy November, everyone!

Here are my targets and budgets for November:

SFDs - 0/25
Groceries - £0/ 240
Lunch to work - 1/21
Declutter - 0/20 items
Earn - £0/80
Toiletries - £0/£10
Social - 0/4
Xmas - £0/£150
CC £0/£200

I know we're only supposed to have 1 social event but I have a pre-paid voucher for a meal for 2 to use, mum n dad have given us some money as a thank you to that we're using to go out tonight for a carvery, it's bestie's turn to pay for our carvery night out this month, so only 1 needs budgetting for and tbh I think fireworks night might be rained off tomorrow anyway.

I have also allocated £150 for xmas spends (presents etc.) as I don't want to use December's wage for anything christmassy.
I also have £200 outstanding on my CC to pay off when I get paid on the 15th.

KittyBoo_2

I'm happy to be starting another challenge having been mostly on target with the October one.
It certainly highlighted where I go wrong, that's for sure.
I've updated my signature and today will be a NSD as I've got my Grandson.
Once he's gone home, I'm going to stock take the pantry, fridge freezer and cupboards.
Then I intend using everything up before doing a big shop. Tomorrow I'll sort the charity shop stuff and the food bank donation. I'm buying the goods for our local one from the list they have provided and get it when I do the shopping.
Good luck to you all for this month x

gien

Checking in here for the first time for the challenge - I am feeling slightly anxious I have to say, but I so want to end up at the end of the month with some none left in the account!!

We are a family of 5, (2 Parents, 2 teenage boys and 1 girl) and I will be accounting in euros. We live in a really expensive place, so I need to be canny to get the bills, particularly food down.

For income I am going to sell a few bits and pieces via Facebook, as far as I know we don't have food banks - I have seen them for pet food. There is an appeal at the moment for for winter warmth help which helps people with fuel bills - I was thinking I could put some money their way.

Outings - I have two planned, one will cost me nothing as it's an invite as a guest to somewhere. The other is a pub night.
I have included a clothes budget because DS2 is desperate for trousers and LS tops and I really need 2 LS tops that I can wear in public (everything I own now is very tatty but I haven't wanted to buy anything until I was a bit, ahem, smaller)

I intend to make all spend days trips to the nearest local town where things are much cheaper - focusing more on what we need to get.

Food 0/500
NSD 0/25
Income 0/100
Christmas presents 0/150
Travel cards 0/50
Petrol/Parking 0/50
Declutter 0/50
Clothes 0/200

That's it so far, will check in later

lilian1977

OK, here we go then. Cash is all divided into envelopes and I'm ready to start. Because I have various things going on with DS I'm never quite sure what's going to be spent where and when so instead I have decided to give myself a weekly budget based on what's in the calendar, I think I'm less likely to fail this way. So my budget is:

1/11 - £30
8/11 - £35
15/11 - £30
22/11 - £20
29/11 - £5

I have also put £5 into an envelope to pay for DS entry to playcentre on a Friday morning (£1.50) - we don't always go but this way I'll have the money if it's a rainy day.

His other activities (football and messy play) are both pre-paid.

We have a carvery voucher to use (£6) so will have a treat lunch one weekend and only need to pay the difference which will be about £3 (DS eats free).

ALso have £40 on the Club Individual card offer which we are going to use after we go and see Mr Bloom in Sheffield next weekend (free tickets).

Other events are a toddler disco (£2.50 entry for us all) then the fireworks tomorrow (tickets paid for), a Halloween party for the kids at mine on Sunday (most stuff already bought and paid for, just need the fresh food but will get as part of the food shop tomorrow), a wedding next week (DH won't be drinking as driving and we're taking DS so I can't really drink either), a planned lunch with a friend next Friday, a friend's birthday at the pub followed by DSs friend's party at a playcentre and possibly a cinema trip (Orange Wednesday).

Oh God that's loads. As long as I can keep in budget, that should be fine!