NSK; February 28 Days Later!

stewby

Spoke too soon.


Still on spend-free day 14. We went shopping to get meal deals for lunch and I ended up buying some yellow labels.
:embarasse

Oh well... still have another 7 days to get the last one.

TiptoesDB

No spends, no exercise. Horrible tummy pains today, so plans to swim are off. Already worrying about March and all the costs and spends accumulating beyond my control. To be DF by Nov, we need to clear a certain amount of debt each month and we will be nowhere near the target in March – the oil tank needs filling (about £700), along with a quarterly water bill, annual house insurance and other big costs. I am starting to get a bit twitchy about it. DH’s attitude is probably right- just pay what we can, do our best and re-coup in cheaper months, but I can see my OCD / control-ly side not liking this at all… I was thinking of having a rest and sitting out of March’s challenge, but on reflection, it’s months like these that I should watch all the pennies even harder.

• 9/15 SFD’s
• £130/£180 food budget
• 11/20 exercise
• 2/3 planned outings

Living_a_good_life

Evening all - lovely day with friends in the forest (courtesy of the forestry commission) small spend of £4 for parking, picnic lunch, then swimming in the pool that came with their holiday cottage. Tea, chocolate brownies and then home for dinner from stores with DH. Work to do now - but the sofa is calling.

Tiptoes, the easiest way to eat an elephant is in bite size chunks - keep at it - you will get there and insurance, heating oil are not optional extras and its always a cheaper rate if you fill the tank and dont just order 500litres - at least it is for us. Sure you will claw it back in the 8 months that follow March!!

Love to all, LAGL xx

CEW

Very quick post tonight just to claim a SFD.

Off to bed now to try to clear the remnants of my migraine.

See you all tomorrow

Chez x

Part_Mouse

his_missus wrote: »

12/22 SFD’s.
£80/£180
£0/£5 local food bank.
Aiming to put £500 into savings account.
6/12 fitness sessions
1/2 Outing

A couple of SFDs to add to my total but not for today. PATs trip for cat litter, food and some metal bowls (may help Harley's acne as apparently plastic can harbour bacteria)
Weekly shop planned for tomorrow and hair cut (£3)

Just wanted to say we changed bowls and cleared our cats lip.

Siouxsie32

Evening everyone:) What a nice sunny day here in London - hope it's been a good day where you are!

Reporting another SFD, making a total so far of 8 So many small food shops rather than one or two large ones have scuppered this part of the challenge! Still, it may be possible to get another 6 SFDs by the end of the month which gets me fairly close to the target.

I'll keep plodding on. It's been such a long month!

Fmess

Evening all,

Can't believe that I managed so many SFDs at the start of the month and now I'm wondering if I am going to get to 15 Today was not a SFD as I bought a car (anyone beat that for a spendy day today? ). The funniest part was that last night we decided to look for a replacement car for OH next month and buy in April, then the exhaust fell off today and the car is not worth the cost of replacing it and the MOT is due in April too. Fingers crossed we got a decent car this time (plus it has 12 months MOT on I have put it on my ccard, although OH is paying for it, so I'm not adding it to my debt total, but think it'd be wrong to count it as a SFD.

Went to the gym this morning and did another 5km, then walked the dogs this afternoon.

Hope you are all having a good day, how lovely it was to see the sunshine today

mothernerd

Another 9 items de-cluttered, total 111.

All cooked meat divided into single portions(salad/sandwich) and frozen.
6portions Bacon soup - other 2/3 packet chopped and frozen for later.
3 Broccoli and lamb Curry
3 Pork curry
6 Turkey Mince Chilli
1 Liver curry (liver cost 29p,people were discussing liver on another thread and I remembered someone making .this a longtime ago.Needed to check it was okay. You still know its liver,but it's palatable).
2 Gammon steaks (large piece halved)
4servings Red Cabbage
3 Bean Pie (attempt at re-creating a veggie flan -without using pastry good but not how it was intended to be)
5 Quiches
6 AppleTarts
All except the last two labelled and frozen.

Okay feeling calmer now, less worried about the SM madness -I knew when I was in there that my trolley load was totally out of control.Nearly left the trolley and walked out but knew we needed some of it and as I was getting hungry thought it was better to finish,pay and get it all home rather than trying to reduce it and put things back.

Have decided that any overspends from this month will be taken off March budget as soon as it is set,as most of it will be for March.

Notice yesterday about a £12 credit card charge.Knew about it as soon as I received the last statement. Before Christmas mum asked me to order something for her from a catalogue. Her partner used to write a cheque for her (she doesn't have a cheque account) and she would give him the cash. However he now has dementia and it is taking him1/2 an hour to write a cheque. I said I would see if I could do it on-line and after that it was something different every week. I lost track somewhere (I think something we returned was charged last month and the credit is on this month) but I went £3 over my limit. Just annoying.

I'm feeling unsettled. Trying to keep on track with so many different things and not feeling I have achieved much, at the end of the week -just see all the jobs that need to be done.

DS3's lovely gf coming this weekend - she is now working full-time so they have only seen each other one day this year. must think positive, hopeful thoughts. DS1 is happy and settled and has permanent full-time work (don't ask about bonus targets though).DS2's exercises are helping and he made a little extra money this week. Daffodils I planted in Autumn are coming out.We had sunshine this afternoon (forget about the hail and the gale blowing whilst I was walking into town). Sorry spent money today (another NSD yesterday). Bought 3 dressmaking patterns from the cs (lovely losing weight but now have imminent wardrobe crisis-
donated one of the better skirts to cs as was too good for painting) and needed to take bus from town to mum's (only£1-50,would have been £5 daysaver a few weeks ago). Spring's only round the corner -feel free to chip in with more cheerful thoughts.:)

MrsGSR

Hello all,
As it's been half term and DH has been off work we have been out and about. Good old orange Wednesdays meant 2 for 1 film and then pizza for lunch, then today we went to the coast and apart from obligitory chips we spent nothing, the children loved just running along the beach and playing, something so simple and so cheap yet so much fun, cobwebs all blown through now!
Tomorrow as I mentioned earlier in the week is a spend day. I have also seen a coat for DD for next year heavily reduced so I shall get that tomorrow if it's still there. Then DH and I are off out for dinner (with a voucher bought for us for Christmas) so it's train fare to pay, also have to pick up a few bits for DDs lunches this week.

Think i might just about make the required no spends for the month, march is looking more optimistic as I will get a work bonus which will go towards the debt, hopefully pay it off! Yay!

Have forecast for the month, once twice and now need to revisit due to buying coat for DD oh and we all need socks! I really need to add a buffer in for stuff like that cos at the moment my aim is to have at least £100 in my personal account after everything has gone out, including my car savings. I have an MOT in April and i am bricking it already so am saving up for it! Maybe Ishould ease up on the other savings for now?

XSpender

We have managed another SFD this week which brings us up to 4:o today will be a spend day as we both need work clothes and are using some of the march budget for a mcd breakfast as our monthly treat. I find it easier to work the monthly money budgets from payday but the other challenges calendar monthly.

I have also started my march food budget and have enough food for the next 2 weeks but will need toiletries and a couple of gf bits from mr t. I also have something to take back there which will be a refund of £10 which is going straight to the secured off set isa:). I also counted up £27.50 out of the change pig which will get paid to the same account today:). In lauding my end of month sweep I have paid over £50 already not including the normal DDs.

Today the plan, before we go shopping, is to take 2 big car loads to the tip. DS is going to grandmas for the day so we should get a lot in dh's big car. I am also going to tip everything in my boot as it is a lot of out of date work stuff. We have already sorted DS room so this will be my decluttering target achieved