Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

I did indeed :j but that was last year and i'm trying to keep track of whether it saves me anything this year - so far this month that 11p is balanced against, er, the £50 i spent on planters, compost, and another water butt today :rotfl: i'd best start growing asparagus or something if i'm going to make all that up by the end of the year!! :rotfl:

so nearly a NSD today! but ended up going to a meeting to cover for someone else so £2 donation - pah! i'm never going to make it to ten at this rate!!

Cheery_Daff

Goodness me, i am SO bad at no spend days!! :eek: maybe they're just not the tool for me?? (or, er, maybe they're EXACTLY the right tool for me... :rotfl: )

out on fieldwork again - brought lunch buy we needed a break so ended up in a cafe anyway... hoping that kind of behaviour will get better when it's warm enough to sit outside!!

£4 lunch
£3.30 tea at station

:eek:

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Goodness me, i am SO bad at no spend days!! :eek: maybe they're just not the tool for me?? (or, er, maybe they're EXACTLY the right tool for me... :rotfl: )
:eek:

Only you can tell if they're right for you, Cheery :rotfl: but its fascinating, truly :beer:

Actually, seriously, I'd love to hear you write (erm .... you know what I mean!) about NSDs :cool:

Cheery_Daff

Thanks kc i shall ponder a blog post

More to declare from yesterday

£6 slimming world cereal bars and raffle (lost 3lbs - so close now! :j :j )

and today, actually walked to station this morning so saved 1.50 from work travel :j

but then spent the whole day feeling unsatisfied and lkke i was missing something so ended up spending

£3.22

on yogurt and fruit and snacks at station

oh dear!

working at home tomorrow so WILL aim for NSD! :j :j

Cheery_Daff

And i claimed £70 expenses today - thought the bank account was looking a bit low! :eek:

going to try to go to gym tomorrow and swimming - last chance to get the most out of my £80 :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Right, I am up and have painted a second coat of bright red undercoat round the back door surround :j :j Looking very jolly :j :j

That was the last of the undercoat too, so that's a tin that can go out of the house :j

Just off to do a bit of shuffling and updating of signatures before starting work.

Nearly did something daft yesterday - I'm a member of a professional organisation and work used to pay, but they don't any more. My membership was up for renewal, and I was dithering over paying it myself (it's £84 for the year), but I want to still be a member and have got involved with setting up a new journal, so it's a bit cheeky to do that without membership :rotfl:

Anyway, finally got round to paying yesterday, all the time thinking 'I'm SURE I didn't pay for this myself last year...'

Two minutes later bumped into a colleague in the corridor - and she said she'd just booked a conference (that I'm presenting at as well) - and had got work to pay for the membership because it gave a discount off the conference fee that was bigger than the membership fee. Of course! That's exactly what we did last year! Conference fee without membership is £410 :eek: for members it's £290 (still :eek: ) and membership is £84.

I was afraid if I admitted to work that I'd already paid it they'd say it was tough So I called and grovelled to the organisation themselves, who very nicely gave me a refund :j

Anyway, off to put that refund back in the right bank account! :j

Cheery_Daff

Right - shufflings done, and I see the refund for the old car insurance has come through (to MY bank account, as suspected :rotfl: ) That £50.34 has now been added to the savings account, bringing the total added in March to £520.84, and the total so far this year to £828.34 :j :j

Which seems a ludicrous amount :eek: But I should point out that in here I'm only counting what I've *added* not what the total actually is :rotfl: Because so far this year it's paid for new car and associated garage nonsense and insurance, Mr Cheery a new laptop etc - which together was FAR more than £828 :eek:

But I'm finding it VERY motivating to keep a total of what's added

Yesterday we got the council tax bill statement for the coming year - I've swapped it to 12 monthly rather than 10 months (no idea if it was wise or not but hey ho) meaning that instead of £116 a month, it's now £94.31 for April, then £97 for the rest of the year. I've got a column on my spreadsheet to keep track of savings on monthly bills so I remember to add them to savings account each month - so for April I've now got:

normal savings amount £50
Reduction in energy bill £27
Extra from council tax £21.69
= £98.69 :j :j

Obviously I won't be scrapping another car in April (hopefully!! :eek: :eee: :eek: ) so the overall total will be substantially less, but maybe I'll finally get round to sorting out the phone bill...

Tis making me make sure that those little monthly savings on bills don't just get squandered or seep into general spends :j :j

Cheery_Daff

Oh darn it, I was hoping I'd recorded the date I last updated the fun spends figure in my signature but I didn't so I'm going to have to go and do it all over again

Cheery_Daff

Goodness me

-£32.34

:eek:

And it's still only the 19th!! :eek:

Hmm. A good kick up the backside is required I think! What's left this week?

Today - working at home, might pop to gym - NSD! :j
Thurs - fieldwork, out all day. Will take lunch but inevitably have a couple of cups of tea on trains. Might take one with me in the morning and do as KC suggested and take teabags and milk in the afternoon
Friday - off work :j No plans yet (Fridays often end up my spendiest days though - could I aim for a NSD or is that completely unrealistic??)
Saturday - travelling to sister's, so train fare (£35 ish) and maybe cake or something
Sunday - half marathon :eek: Train to race (about £3) then probably lunch afterwards (£5 maybe).

Monday - going on holiday so all spends will come from joint treats fund Might count the whole of the rest of the week as NSDs from my personal account :rotfl:

After that I'll take a good look at what I've been spending on and see what I can do about it... if only switching budgets - I'm pretty sure I've paid for taxis that even if I can't claim on expenses, I could probably justify coming out of my own 'work travel' budget... We'll see.

Right, must crack on!

starnac

I think you could definitely claim the week as a NSD