NSK; February 28 Days Later!

clippy_girl

morning all....(slinks in quietly)

vvv spendy day yest but was lovely spends yesterday-

£15 wilko- ink cartridge, descaler, bloo block, eye make up remover and cotton pads
£47 hair (go to toni and guy every 9 weeks as get free fringe trims and as i have a thick blunt fringe never found a cheap place that does it as good)
75p bottle of water (was in city a long time and only had little evening bag, really hate buying something that is practically free at home :mad:)
£68 benefit counter :eek: got a wee bit carried away did get a free toiletries bag though which will save me buying one and the stuff will last for ages. need to get my bag next week though as couldnt fit it in my handbag!
£1.99 boots- clear lip gloss. bought one of the tints in benefit for my lips but was not paying their price for clear lip gloss for the top!
£17- dinner- steak and mojitto (had already paid £5 deposit)
£20.80 vodkas and taxi

all of the above came from various budgets so does not affect any debt repayments. the make up has wiped out my clothes/weekend away fund so i will just need to be careful with my weekly spends so i can top it back up again. i def find budget pots work well as i used to just buy what i wanted whenever and it was impossible to keep track.

the rest of feb will be frugal as only other outing to pay for is pub quiz at the end of the month :A

i think the hardest part of this challenge this month will be the food budget. i used to only spend £70 per month but didnt eat much fruit or other healthy snacks. i used to waste loads of money buying junk at the shop at work and near home so whilst my food budget was only £70, in reality i spent more.

i eat well now and have lots of healthy snacks which has pushed the budget up. its been £100 since the summer but tbh i struggle to stick to it. i need to work on this! i upped it to £110 last month and had £15 left but i think £110 is too much so dropped it back to £100. currently have about £15 left of this months and need two more top up shops of yoghurt, milk and fruit/veg for snacks (food budget until 18th but i only shop on fridays so jans budget covers 5 weeks) :eek: i have stocked up on toilet roll, coffee, washing up liquid etc that were on good offers so even if i go slightly over then will be under next month. not sure how to cut down really without giving up snacks as i already batch cook everything for lunch and dinner from scratch and have proper porridge in morning.

am going to reduce by £20 to £80 but slightly cheat by holding onto the £20 in case I really need it. if not it will go to debt!

well done rbr on becoming debt free :beer::j:T

apple_muncher

DH is back from his 2 weeks working in S Af. It is goooood to have him back! And dd is talking to/at him non-stop about stuff! Am going to drag her out for a walk so he can have a bath in peace - he only walked through the door 25 mins ago after a 12 hour flight, and is a little overwhelmed by the chattering whirling dervish!

Hoping for a NSD.

Planning to watch rugby this afternoon whilst knitting.

Also need to make soup for the week ahead.

chickadee

Morning Challengers. No zombies in sight so far today but I haven't ventured out too far so they could be lurking in wait.


I had to laugh at your opening comments NSK. My OH was reading over my shoulder and he read the bit about your colleague having their car window broken by the rogue lacrosse ball. He just said " Blxxdy hell, we'd have to travel a bit to find a lacrosse ball round here!" Made me laugh anyway.


I have worked out me targets for the challenge for February so here they are. I have decided to include another target of meat-free days. I am sure they are healthier and definitely more economical than meat so here goes with my start after day 1.


Spend free days - 0/15
Exercise - 0/12
Groceries - £59.94/£160
Meat free days - 0/14
Decluttering - 0/28
Food Bank £0/£5


Not too good so far but it can only get better. I have listed quite a few things on ebay - clothes and a DS Lite with a few games so hopefully they will sell so I will have less stuff and more money. I'm trying to save a bit to go towards the new boiler I need to get which is planned for this month. I know a few its on ebay won't go too far towards paying for this but every little helps as they say. I also got a £43 bonus from Quidco this month, mainly from my car insurance renewal that I did in September. A nice surprise for me when I got the email.


We are having roast chicken for dinner which will then go into another meal and I will make stock from the bones. DS works in Morrisons and he came home with a crusty loaf on Friday night for free and another one last night. It is a new store and they are testing some new types of bread so they gave them to staff to take for free. Yum. We had the first with some vegetable soup that I made yesterday for lunch, which was thick and delicious.


Happy February all. x

PheoniX

Hi everyone :wave:

:T:THip Hip Hooray! Congratulations to RainbowBridge on your new found debt freedom! :beer:

Am hoping for a lazy SFD afternoon in bed watching some telly while I dose up on hot lemon drinks! Mind you, I managed to crawl from my pit to claim my too good to miss Free £5.95 Chiquito sizzler breakfast this morning and also filled up the car with 126.7p a litre fuel in A$da which happens to be the cheapest in my area :j Even though fuel still counts as a NSD (if I read that correctly!) I have still tarnished my little black book with a splash of colour to mark a real spend Oh well, needs must n all that!

Have a good day folks!

Laters

:wave:

TiptoesDB

Morning slayers! (it's still just about morning right?)

Back from our weekend away at Nephew's Christening, which was very lovely. Was going to steal some holy water from the font but then I remembered that stops vampires not zombies... durr. We managed to only spend £13 on a big slap up brekkie at the hotel as we had a car picnic on the way down and filled up at the christening buffet to last us the day!

So, rearing to go with February, and I will post later with my totals planner and aims and all that. We are off into town now to spend some xmas vouchers as DH needs a new belt (can't flee from the un-dead with your trousers round your ankles can you?) It's also food shop day so will not be a SFD, but aiming to stop at the gym on the way home as I FINALLY FEEL HUMAN AGAIN! yes, the month long cold is finally on it's way out! Sing hosanna. And I need to get back to the gym, because as Colombus says: "The first rule of Zombieland: Cardio. When the zombie outbreak first hit, the first to go, for obvious reasons... were the fatties."

Lovely to be at the start of a shiny new challenge and we are also paying off money tonight on the cc so I get to update my sig tonight which makes me feel gooooood.

PurpleJay

Hello

Am I to late to join in?

I don't know where time goes and have been a bit rubbish at posting towards the end of the January

I am not sure how February will play out as we are on holiday from 16th to 23rd February (that's the holiday pot empty), but will join in the rest of the time and will take a planned budget with us. We are off to portugal self catering and as it is out of season, lots of attractions will probably be shut and save us money! :rotfl: Should be nicer weather than here though and really looking forward to it. Not far from the beach so as long as the weather is fine we will be doing lots of walking and playing outdoors which will be lovely and free Will probably budget one meal a day out either lunch or dinner and the rest will be picnics (weather permitting) or in the apartment.

I had an approved food order come the other day which came to £36.28 including delivery and included some great buys. This comes out of my Feb budget. I was really careful this time to buy only things we will want to eat! Will let you know how that goes The cat is impressed with the french cat food (£2.99 for 24 small tins) which was lucky as it was a bit of a risk! So that's £2.99 pets and £33.29 groceries.

I also had an Asda delivery yesterday which came to £60.92. This breaks down as £9 for mum, £2.60 toiletries, £15 alcohol, £34.32 groceries.

Flipping car broke this week and cost me a grand total of £397.67
:mad: I had some money in the car pot but only about £100 so the rest I have had to rob from elsewhere. My house/vets pot and misc savings pots are now also empty. This is what happens though, I never seem to have chance to get properly in front before something happens. If I hadn't already booked the holiday, I probably wouldn't have done so in the circumstances. Ah well.

Onto debts, you may recall I signed up for a new credit card with Nationwide last month and have finally sorted out my balance transfer. I checked my tesco card balance on line and it was £1,874.95 :eek: including the holiday. Sooo I have done a balance transfer for £1200 to the new card which has 0% until Jan 2015 and then used the spare cash from my direct debit account and paid off £274.73 and paid off £350 from the holiday pot which with my monthly minimum payment should leave a balance on the card of less than £50 which I will settle after the next statement.

Husband needs to pay me his half of the holiday which will be my spending money when we go. My debt will be just the £1200 which I will pay off over the year. Ideally to be gone by the time the 0% runs out. I will not use my card unless I have the cash to pay off in full when the bill comes (which I will put aside) unless there is an emergency. My new debt free date is 25th January 2015.

My budgets for Feb are as follows:-

Grocery £67.61/130
Toiletries £2.60/10
Alcohol at home £15/30
Night out £0/30
Pets £2.99/30
Fuel £0/100
Food Bank £0/3
SFD 0/15

Today will not be a SFD as I have to buy shoes for the boy (they are leaking water). Luckily I do have enough in the 'hair and clothes' pot!

I an going to print out one of those hundred square sheets and cross off each time I pay 1/100th off my debt. This should also act as an incentive to make money to make it happen. Is anyone else doing this?

My other mission for today is to meal plan up to the day we go on holiday. In fact I should need to spend very little before we go as we are well stocked. It will just be fruit, veg, milk and anything we run out of. I do need some rat supplies but the cat is well stocked for food and should last the month. For her I have 24 big tins, a box of biscuits and 24 pouches in the overspill cupboard and there is part of a box of pouches, part of a box of biscuits and the rest of the french tins too.

Right that's enough from me. Off to re-read the rules and make sure I haven't missed anything. Happy February folks :-)

lubava

Can I join please. Im a bit late but only found this today.Pretty please. I had planned spend yesterday and today should NSD. I will post my budgets later today.

PurpleJay

Just spent £18.26 on food for the ratties. I have enough bedding already to last the month Should come in under budget on that one. Have ordered from Pet Supermarket, cheaper than pets at home and much lower minimum spend for free delivery - oh and 5% cashback with quidco!

dolly84

A SFD today for me. I am a bit under the weather with a cold so have no plans to go anywhere.

MrsGSR

Productive morning here, put 6 items on ebay and have a few more to go on. Vaccumed everywhere, made some dough for bread rolls for lunches, done 30 minutes of pilates and about to hang out my towels for a bit.
Now off to check dough and do some prep for dinner.
Ohand it' a NSD again woohoo!