NSK; February 28 Days Later!

ikesmummy

Think I am starting to feel confident today will be a SFD :T just had home made McDonalds with the kids, we used to "treat" them to a real one most Fridays but this resulted in us having KFC so nearly £20 for the four of us. What we do at home is much cheaper, healthier and I think tastier as well.

Hubby is doing overtime tomorrow, the money will be handy but do wish we got more time all four of us together, even two days a week goes too quickly so one is pants. Not sure what me and the boys will get up to but we have lots of crafty stuff and may have enough space in the cake tons to do a bit more baking if the weather isn't good enough to get out on their bikes.

Think Saturday and Sunday will both be spend days as need more ginger for my tea tomorrow (will try and pick up any other bits we'll be needing for the next few days) and have promised the boys we can swimming on Sunday. Going to try to really rack my brains for anything we need next week so I don't waste lots of SFD's for silly little bits and bobs I have forgotten.

Looks like this challenge should help my memory and planning skills as well as my budgeting ones!!

traveller

Hi everyone! Glad the weekend is upon us :j Ultra stressful day at work and I've had two days off,lol.

Well today is a non spendy day. Off to see a friend later. He's cooking a meal and treating me to a DVD, so that's a night out for free. Well I hope everyone enjoys their evening and keep up the good work :T

luckystarr

hello everyone :wave:

Had a few spendy days not impressed :mad: my next SFD WILL be sunday !! and hoping for a few more next week so planning is needed.

Declined to join fat club so bought the josie gibson book and have started reading it and feeling good about so here we go !!!

Been advised to slow down by gp and family and to look into yoga classes so going to look at that tonight

Anyway onwards and upwards

Keep up the good work everyone :T

mothernerd

Taz the cat died in the middle of the night. She spent most of yesterday sat next to me on the couch. I had managed to stop the noxious emissions by then, she wolfed the sardines and I hand fed her the chicken as she didn't come when I called her. She sat on the middle of the stairs (apparently she sits there crying when I am out of the house) and didn't follow me upstairs when I went to bed. I woke up at 5.30 and then at 6.30 DS1 came in to tell me she had 'gone' - she was still on the same step.

I washed her and wrapped her in a small blanket, parcelled up the leftover food and litter to be donated to Cats protection (sent them an e-mail, asking if they can pick it up from the house sometime as an anybus ticket would have cost £5). Packed the small spade in the rucksack and took her on the bus to the old house (spent £1). Woke DS2 (she's his cat), told him, asked if he wanted to see her, he said she looked peaceful and I dug a hole whilst he had a bath and got dressed and we buried her.

She was old and as I said she gets these upsets from time to time, but I think I have got used to getting her through them (first time it took about 3 weeks, now I can sort it in a couple of days). She has had a long and fairly happy life.

Went in to the library to cadge some of the crates from their skip to assist with DS1 moving stuff out and carried on to mum's for the day (desperately wanted to buy a sandwich as I had my yoghurt and porridge oats at 5.30am but hung on till I got to mum's). Free food, quiet day (intended to do clutter clearing, baking and/or gardening but didn't do much apart from playing with the baby and helping mum make a weird lasagne - she put the ingredients in in the wrong order but it tasted okay). Lift home so no further spending.

Yes Kat you were right about the house buying. I started saving when I got my first part-time job at 15. I was telling DS3 the other week that I used to get £2 and some pennies and he said that wasn't bad, minimum wage for under 18s wasn't much more than that now and I said no that was what I got for working all day Saturday + 3 hours on Thursday evening and 3 hours on Friday evening. I started by buying all the things I would need for a flat, brush and shovel,mop, bedding etc. Left school and ended up working in a factory, was made redundant at 19. Opened a building society account with my redundancy money (£196 including 4 weeks holiday pay). When I had a job 1 weeks pay did for two weeks (alternate week into build soc) and when I was out of work and had one night cleaning glasses in a pub (mum had my unemployment benefit) £4 out of £5 went into the build soc and on Saturday and Sunday night I would go out and have either 3 lemonades (48p) or 3 shandies (51p).

When the first account got up to £1000 (the amount a couple were expected to put down as a deposit then ) I opened another account and started to pay into that one. When I had nearly £2000 I started to look at houses. The one I got had been bought by our next door neighbour who was going to do it up for her grandmother. A change in her circumstances meant she no longer needed the house and as she knew we had been looking she offered it to my mother for £5000. My mother said I/we couldn't afford that much and offered £3000. She then shouted up to me to confirm the offer and the neighbour agreed.

My savings plus a bit my mother had and then my dad borrowed £1000 from the bank (we were both customers, but the bank preferred to lend to him) which covered the cost of buying the house plus legal expenses). He promptly gave me the book to pay back the loan over two years which I did (even though one week my shopping was one cabbage, one onion, one lemon) .

The house had been boarded up for 11 years. I had a kettle but no cooker. The floor had been pulled up by vandals (my brother got the slabs down but they were never quite even). The sink had been used to mix cement in. My first bathroom cost £25 (£10 for the bath and £15 for the sink and toilet, from people we knew who were having new ones installed - the bath was so heavy I had to help the plumber and his mate get it up the stairs - plumber said I wasn't a normal girl). I spent many weeks nitromorsing layer after layer of purple, black, shocking pink, turquoise and dark green paint off the woodwork and when I moved in on cold days I would sit by the open grate feeding broken wooden strips into the fire (local club changed the bar shutters - the old ones were 12 foot long but in 1inch strips held together with ribbons of brass fittings).

This wasn't the worst house I had looked at - one we went to look at could only be viewed from the front door, there were no treads on the stairs but upstairs was visible as there were no upstairs floorboards either. I bought a shell, but it was a very solid little shell.

I quite envy you for your travelling bug but I never really had the urge to go anywhere, I just thought I might have got a little further away from the place I was born. Thank you all for the kind things you have said. I tend to accept my son's verdict which is generally that I haven't done much with my life - although DS3's friends think I am awesome (for a mother).

TiptoesDB

Not much to report here folks, SFD and a swim, now just enjoying Friday night snacky tea and a glass of vino…. I can feel I am heading into the ‘slump’ middle third of the month, but am fighting it off with positive thinking and exercise. My fave positive thoughts at the moment are imagining being DF, planning all my spends for the month, and carefully thinking through a 'grown up woman's capsule wardrobe and good hair' for when I do spend money. And when that fails, returning to stare for hours at my spreadsheets wishing the totals down!

"Here you come with a whole new set of charts and graphs and records. What you gonna do? Bury them down here with all the other relics of what once was?"
- John, Day of the Dead (1985)

• 4/15 SFD’s
• £49/£180 food budget
• 3/20 exercise
• 0/3 planned outings

TiptoesDB

Oh, Mothernerd your post came up after I posted - I am so sorry.. xxx

apple_muncher

mothernerd, you are truly awesome! You have done things I could never have dreamed of doing, or even being capable of doing. Please don't believe your son. You are one amazing, inspirational cookie!

thriftylass

mothernerd sorry to hear about your cat.

You are definitely a woman with determination. Your story how you got your first house is inspiring. Where is a will there is a way (not sure if that proverb is the same in English as in German).

Spend 43 quid in Tesco today, mainly on food but that should my purse shut now till next Friday (my birthday and a cheap maternity leaving lunch for another girl in work).

CEW

Hi All,

Very quick log in tonight.

A spendy day today, albeit only around £10 in total. Needed a birthday card and also wanted some mushrooms for homemade pizza and 'treated' myself to a pack of 8 cans of diet coke. First lot I've bought this year and as I don't drink alcohol or smoke I thought I could justify this small extravagance. Also I will need something to keep me going over the weekend during my big declutter

LTW today so on target at 5/20. :T

Early night now so that I can be up nice and early to start the sorting of the house and major decluttering weekend :eek:

Nite nite and hope you all have a great weekend whatever you have planned.

Chez x

stewby

Good evening.

Today was a spend day but that is because OH came home nad wanted fajitas... so we decided to make today our shopping day.

Went to Morries (as after Tescimos last bill for food, we have decided to boycott them for a while) and spent £13.67 on food. We are doing a lot better with our shopping this time.
We bought a ready-cooked chicken (yellow label) and there is enough to strip it down and make something else with it. I have no idea what yet, hopefully something edible.


Have the first of four extra shifts tomorrow... Saturday = unsociable hours so extra pay. That ought to shock those zombies.


Hope everyone is having a good evening.
Hugs.