NSK; February 28 Days Later!

ikesmummy

Well I have had a lovely first day of the half term with my boys. It wasn't SF it the second budgeted paid outing for them. I made packed lunches and filled the flask and we headed off to a very local to us theme park which we have season tickets for (the tickets are expensive but we can be there from home in ten minutes and worked out that the amount off times we go over the year means it only equates to about £1 a trip). Didn't spend a penny there but headed into town to meet friends at a soft play at 3pm. This was booked into the diary last month, they are friends DS1 made at nursery 7 or so years ago and we try to meet up at least once each school hills. It was nice for me to see the mums also. Entrance fee was hefty enough that I didn't feel guilty breaking the don't bring your own food or drink onto the premises rule.

Back to the local theme park in our wet weather gear again tomorrow so should manage a SFD.

I am very lucky that one of my best friends is a hair dresser so normally just pay for the hair colour and sometimes even get away with looking after her children for a few hours in return for having my hair cut and coloured. I was having my nails done until last month and justifying it to melt with the fact I paid next to nothing on my hair or any other beauty type treatments but took them off myself and am thinking I'll make do with a bit of cheap nail polish at home until the debts are paid at least but do really miss them so will see. Hoping I shouldn't need to spend much at all this week and have a few pounds coming in on my face bay stuff so feeling qui good about this week.

Have my sisters birthday meal on Friday but have managed to convince her Presso's would be a good bet so voucher to print for that and hopefully my parents may buy a bottle or two of wine for the table. They are back from a month in India on Wednesday, so looking forward to seeing them

£ashcow

Evening All
Have been adding up the damage i've done over the spendy weekend and i am hoping to be extra miserly for the rest of the month to compensate.
Food spend was £95 at sm, leaving me £50 for 11 days:eek: hopefully have enough food in cupboards and freezer if not will have to get inventive (my youngest is rather meaty)
Although i didn't calculate petrol for our trip i also forgot that it was half term so no college for DS which is 14 mile round trip daily, so that's a saving.
I am £25 pounds over budget for my outing:mad: and i have just noticed i will not make my LTW target as today was annual leave which leaves me one day short of my prediction:(
Well onward and upward.....Definitely SFD tomorrow!
Night All

SarahB1989_2

Had a target to get all this months spends under a certain amount and now only have £60 left of that with £50 of bills left to pay. There's about £3 left on my supermarket gift card (my way of ringfencing the groceries budget) that will hopefully get me well into next week - just need milk/bread. Three social occasions coming up this fortnight, two budgeted for (have a small fund for fun stuff but it's almost empty, need a plan B if I want to leave the house in March) and one night needs to come out of this months overall spend, so that last £7 needs to cover a bus fare and a drink or two!

Anyone want to take my purse off me until 1st March?? I know I'll feel awesome if I make it to the end of this month with the budget intact, but somehow the next 12 days feel very stressful!

stewby

Shopping yesterday and as a result we have £10 left until the end of the month.
:eek:

this is the first time I have emptied the account and not asked my dad for any more.... so feeling a bit pleased with that.


Still sitting on 11 spend-free days which is not too bad considering it is only the 18th of the month.


Diet also started yesterday. Back on sl-world which helped me lose 2 stone last time. So fingers crossed I am equally successful this time (if not more so) as we have our own engagement in april, a wedding in june and our wedding four years away and I want to be looking good for that. My hope is that if I lose some weight I will feel more comfortable getting my picture taken.
:embarasse

Hope everyone is doing well. Keep up the good work.
Hugs.

thriftylass

luckystarr wrote: »

Really struggling with this frugal life seem to always find something to spend my money on !!! :wall:

I agree with the other suggestions, i.e. have a shopping list and then make do. We don't have a meal plan as such but I have a rough idea for the week what I can cook with the things I have in and always try to have a few options available each day. Towards the end of the week it gets more experimental and I try out new things based on what's left rather than thinking I want dish X but then need to buy ingredients before shopping day.

Also maybe make a note of the things that the zombies want you to buy. As you said you seem to always find sth to spend money on. What are those things? Essentials, wants, just necessary things creeping up that you forgot about?

clippy_girl

morning all,

was a spendy day yest £76 for my new fence panels which come tomorrow and £15 on a new surge protection extension lead. my old one was making a weird noise so thought i best replace it

deep cleaned and moved all the furniture around in the living room yest so it looks nice but moving the furniture has set my chest off again

so today im just going to clean and declutter the dining room inc drawer of doom :eek: so should be sfd today.

also going to start organising my laptop and delete unwanted files and organise it a bit better. going to sort through digital photos as well. going to start with my last holiday to new zealand pics and remove rubbish ones and pick the best 140 to go in an album. will aim to do one album a month until all the holiday pics are done. will also look on fb at ppl from the tours pics to see if they have any good group ones i dont have.

decluttering going ok, so far i have two vases, two pic frames, set of storage boxes and a teapot for charity shop and two old heroes tins in the bin. will see what i find today

mooomin

SFD 9/15
Exercise 5/12
Food Bank £5/£5 (£6.25 with gift aid)
Food £101.07/£180.00
Petrol £35.67/£50
Lunch To Work: 2/7
Items decluttered 56+/56 :j

It's payday today I've paid my £5 donation to my local foodbank online and with Gift Aid they will get £6.25. Yesterday I did a huge decluttering, getting rid of a huge box of stuff to landfill and two massive bags of clothes to Oxfam. I joined up with their Nectar scheme, so if the clothes sell I'll get 2 points per £1 of stuff sold, so everyone benefits I suppose

Although today is the 18th, it's only the second time I've managed to take my lunch to work I suspect I won't make my target for that this month. I've only been in the office three times this month though due to illness and working from home, so at least I haven't bought lunches every day this month.

I filled up the car with petrol yesterday and that will definitely do us until the end of this month as we're not planning on going anywhere! As I'm on holiday for the first half of March (pretty much) and won't be in the UK I am hoping I won't need to pay for petrol again until my next payday.

I'm aiming for a SFD today, but we might need milk. Bah!

dolly84

luckystsarr - I find dealing in cash a good way of not overspending, although you do have to apply the 'if you don't have it don't spend it' philosophy creatively as credit sort of cancels that out. It works for me and also forward planning, so I always know if we have more mileage to do and need to allow for more petrol or if a bill is due etc.

A SFD today. Am doing quite well on that front. I have one more grocery shop to do from this months budget (we run our budgets from 26th-25th) we had 5 grocery shops to do this time even though it is a short month. I knocked £25 off my budget then spent another £20 of it on a years delivery saver and I am still expecting to come in significantly under.

catshark88

Hi Zombie battlers!

Had a bit of a speedy weekend as we had to do a long trip in a diesel thirsty car.

We also had a bit of a shock with our electric bill. We pay np by dd, but ended up owing £157 and they are upping our dds by £30 a month. We were surprised as we've been very tight with our use and certainly don't use it more than we did when they worked out our last dd amount. Probably due to tumble drier use, but that will reduce when (if) it ever stops raining...

NSD yesterday and a second one today though. :-)

Living_a_good_life

Afternoon all, back from a fab weekend away at my SIL. The cousins (5 all under 7 years old) got along brilliantly - not one argument or cross word between the two sides if that makes sense. Walked, talked, watched, ate and laughed Stopped in our old town on the way home, walked the kids around our old uni which was weird and had tea with friends - even managed to arrange a camping weekend with the same friends for June.

Anyway quieter day at home today - dd dentist and swimming lesson later. Need to pick up some fresh bits, milk etc but dinners all in the freezer so will try to stay under da budget!

Also need fuel - off for a day out courtesy of Mr Tesc0 vouchers tomorrow. Hopefully if I fill the tank it will do that trip and to the end of the month.

Anyways - check in complete - love to all LAGL xx