NSK;The Tortoise and The Mad MARCH Hare!!!

CEW

NinjaSavingKat wrote: »

Good Day one and all....


Great to see the chitter chatter on here today! Thank you for all the kind words or encouragement and "Whooping"..(MrsGSR).. and I must say I am really looking forward to the course. It's a 0900-1700 day so it's packed. I have online stuff to do for it before I attend so I want to get on top of that asap....

Not sure I would be any good in politics. I am far too honest...:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:... however I am not sure where I would start. Credit will always be offered, loans, CC and such like will always be around. I think education is the issue! Travellor you are right. When youngsters are offered CC they are never educated about what happens if you don't pay back, % APR and most don't care.

Great news on the course. You will need to tell us all about it afterwards.

I know exactly what you mean about being too honest...I used to belong to a political party and was asked to stand for local council, which I agreed to do. In preparation they wanted to send out a newsletter with me as the editor. Not a problem until they wanted to quote me on something, won't go into the details here, which I did not agree with. I was told it didn't matter whether I agreed with it or not it was just to get my name out there. Needless to say I then declined to stand for election and left the party. My principles are important to me

Back to the challenge. Today has been a good day for me.

SFD and LTW so on target. I also managed to pay £450 to clear one of my 2 overdrafts today so one less debt and an extra £13 odd to pay towards debt every month from now on :T:j:T

Hope all Torties are plodding on in the right direction.

Chez x

traveller

One of the founding mothers of the child poverty action group, was one of my uni lecturers I went to their headquarters to do some research. Definitely a link between the two. I must admit, friday is my lazy day and I do a home made spag bol, other than that it home made hearty meals all the way. Now my kids understand more about food, they realise why the freezer is not full of spam fritters and the like,lol.

I feel very revitalised after simply resting. I haven't taking anything-as I didn't want to dip in to my meagre funds for the month I will kick start my exercise again this evening too.

I don't know if anyone remembers my moan about my brother towards the end of last year? Well, he came into some PPI money and has now basically cleared all but 1k of his debt! Not quite debt free, but 9k down :T

shyspender

Good Evening Folks

My twopenneth on part of the debate...my mum cooked for me until I was about seven or eight but then I was so 'selective' she started getting me to cook what I wanted. I've always been a fussy eater, or selective eater, which doesn't sound so harsh, and so she started teaching me how to cook for myself. It worked, I love cooking, I will cook pretty much anything...it's just eating it that I have problems with.

Due to being selective, I find it hard to eat junk food. Ok, sweets, I can generally find some sweets that I will eat, but processed foods, not so much. That's partly to do with one of my foibles being that I need to know what is in it and how it was cooked, unless it's one of my standard staples that it's ahrd to mess with.

Back to the challenge front, SFD number 3 today. Am hoping to go another good few days without spending. The only change to that will be if I need to go house hunting because I'm going to need some diesel sooner or later.

Summer holiday? nothing planned yet and to be honest with hopefully buying a new house it's probably not on the cards. May get a week or so down in Devon with the OH or may be up to my eyes in paint and stuff.

Had basic mix pancakes for supper, obviously! Didn't actually need the mix because I'm more than capable of knocking up a batter. It was kind of an impulse buy last week, but as it was a basic mix (as in cost) I'm not too ashamed of it.

MrsGSR

Back again,

Sorry I feel a bit stupid and naive now. I always thought of poverty as not being able to afford food at all but of course it does go hand in hand as many who don't know how to cook are more likely to go and get 4 ready meals for a family of 4 than a pack of value mince and a tin of value tomatoes.

My parents had very little money and my mum stretched everything out as much as she could, we were that hippy family who were vegetarian in the 80s when people still considered it weird still haha! But that was due to cost more than anything, everything was bulked out with beans.

Pleased to report SFD 2 today. Therefore I don't have much to tell. I tried to explain the concept of a SFD to my friends today and they all looked puzzled, one said that it can't be cos I used my car and we went swimming, I explained that things that are paid for don't count, like children's activities, petrol, prescriptions.

One said what about direct debits? I said that don't count as they are already allocated. They find it most odd! I explained that tomorrow will be a Spend day as I need to get some more eggs and they said but does that count if you have already budgeted for food? I tried to explain that it helps you to carefully plan your spending so you don't spend unnecessarily but they still think I'm odd haha!

apple_muncher

Tortoise 15 here, plodding on. March is super busy for me with sch commitments plus dd's rehearsals + show and her hospital appointments. Bizarrely, even the thought of being a hare causes me stress ! Being a tortoise is actually relaxing and keeps my head in a good place.

By having the month mapped out, plus my personal goals, I at least feel in control a bit.

I agree with comments such as 'money management/ home economics skills need to be taught in schools'. Tho schools are required to teach so many subjects - especially at primary (I think)- on the National Curriculum, that there truly isn't much space for creativity, let alone extras, however vital they may be for life. Life skills are not measurable during the time spent at school, and if you can't measure it, OFSTED can't grade you on it. And we can't have that now! Gosh, I'm not even sure that makes sense to me!

Food shopping, baking, exercise, parents evening all achieved. Chill out time is finally here! :j

thriftylass

Loving the topics today.

Firstly, cant find that food bank programme, what's it called. Only saw a bit but want to watch it n full.

Re food and home cooking. I grew up in eastern Germany before the wall came down. So there was no convenience/prepackaged food as such. Both my parents worked full time and we had dinner together every night. My mum had batch cooking days a few times a month and I was tought early as I made my own snack/tea after school till my patents came home from the age of 9 or 10. I alway ate school dinners (heavily subsidised, and you just ate it, no choice, if it was kidneys, tough) in primary school and then had a packed lunch of rye bread and fruit, no snack. Crisps were reserved for special occasions. Also I helped my mum and gran baking and doing other jobs in the kitchen as part of my chores. Oh and I'm only 35, despite this sounding like half a century ago, lol

lotti379

SFD number 1!!! :j :j :j

Now off to nom my supper - haggis and mash - I for one am definitely an omnivore! Except bananas. Yeuch!

luckystarr

Hello

Hope everyone is well.

Loving catching up on the thread and the topics raised .... i have found my local food bank as will be donating next week as i am a little behind on my donations.:o

Checking in with my 2nd SFD keeping within budgets and on top of finances so very happy with that .:j

I am going to give up bad foods for lent i.e chocolate etc .. have contemplated going veggie but wouldn't know where to start.

Hoping tomorrow will be another SFD,:D dreading Thursday as our car goes in for the MOT and not to hopeful it will pass :eek:

Keep up the good work look forward to catching up with you all tomorrow

SarahB1989_2

I don't recall getting any teaching on finances at school, aside from the difference between simple and compound interest in maths. Would really appreciate having had some teaching now, I have no idea how I've made it through five years of uni without a clue how to budget aside from having very supportive parents and the occasional part time job!

Cooking (or Food Technology as it was called!) at school was rubbish - I remember my mum being furious that we were making pizza using a packaged bread mix for the base! Otherwise I don't recall cooking very much, but they did teach us how to cost a recipe on a spreadsheet, which is something I still use. My mum taught me to cook a bit as a teenager, though when I went off to uni most of my meals for the first year were based around pasta. I'd like to think I've improved a bit in the past five years, can roast a chicken now and make soup/chilli/shepherds pie etc from scratch.

Little spendy day here, went and bought pasta (haha, back to my freshers days!) for my trip away. This trip is going to be the biggest test of my tortoisy ways, have never made it through an airport without spending money! Need to pay for B&B, dinner with my sister, and bus to/from airport, but otherwise should be minimal spends on one breakfast and one lunch from now til Sunday.

thriftylass

For some reason I'm not sure why you would need to teach financial matters in school. There's nothing that's not already covered in maths. You know your income, your rent and other bills and the rest needs to cover food, savings etc. It's not rocket science. It's like people saying don't know why my kid is fat. Sorry if that sounds harsh but sometimes wish there would be more common sense and taking responsibility for ones own actions. I guess it would make more sense to teach patience (save and buy later), will power and thinking ahead. Sorry rant over.