NSK: MAY the Odds Be Ever In Your Favour!!!

Kenyakate

Evening all

Day 2 check in

Busy day at work with a random yummy soup from the freezer (I'm thinking some mixed veg soup- can't remember what Was in it though) and Freezer Chicken curry with end of salad for tea.

Desperately need to do weekly shop as I found the cat lying on her back with her legs in the air waiting for food when I got in from work........just used the last of her biscuits so off shopping tomorrow


1. Food £0/£50 (only the cat and me and a freezer full of home made ready meals)
2. SFD 2/15
3. Petrol £0/£40
4. Birthday Present for friend.......have budgeted £10 just need to buy
5. Social £0/£50....mainly for said friends birthday night out which was planned months ago
6 LTW 2/23
7. Part pay holiday £15.08/£300
8. Lose weight 0/4lb

Off out for a breakfast treat from mother before work tomorrow then nice long walk on Blackpool prom tomorrow evening :j

Enjoy Saturday everyone

NinjaSavingKat

Evening Tributes!

How goes this fair day? Everybody off on Monday I hope.. Ready for a splendiferous non-spendy weekend of frugality and free fun for all the family..?

Can u tell I'm tired when the crazy talk comes out!!

Well I've spent my day wandering around the garden, cutting the grass on Pa's ride on lawn mower (oh yes I did!!!), eating a lot, a wee trip into town then home and nowt much else. Lazy days with Ma.

Siouxsie I went to town specifically to check if they had chargers. Then forgot to go to the store. Forgot Lidls for Mumsy, forgot to pick up my brothers bike from the repair shop and basically wasted a trip into town. Did look at the bunnies at Jollys pet store though....?

Well tomorrow for us will be spent in front of the fire (it's freezing over here), drinking tea in the garden and again... Say it with me..."nowt much else".. Love it!!

Will be reading up in steen intermittent t'interweb which is very annoying! I might start quoting posts as it's hard to multi quote and not lose connection or my spot...Grr to forgotten leads...

Beddington calls right now!!!


Onwards and Upwards!!

mothernerd

Evening Tributes.

Belated congratulations to Stewby (I told you all focus keeps wandering off to watch cartoons).

Spent money today. Started by walking into town but by the time I had done cs drop off, changing library books, collecting rent, going to post office, nipped in a couple of shops and min SM shop (had 82p voucher which I thought had to be used this week) I was exhausted so had to decide whether to pay a £1 to get home or £5 (gone up to £5.20) for anybus ticket. Worked out that by the time I was home and had something to eat, it would be time to go out for the (4 bus hop) physio appointment so paid extra (really resented paying though).

Food budget. Only spent £4.49 less 82p voucher today - actually went in B**ts, specifically to see if they had any 10p reduced treats on the counter, made a show of looking at a few shelves then just bought 2 x 10p crisp.

However last month I went really over- budget and just stopped counting at some stage. This was a combination of being immobile and living out of the freezer for 3 weeks and getting to the stage where there was no fresh/ tinned / frozen fruit or veg in the house then had a list for re-stocking from scratch (+ extra to cover Easter/ DS3's gf visit/ return of stair-repairer). Last week I did 2 SM shops (sorry I am going to have to write supermarket, anything else is simply too 50 sheds of grey).

I had a list, I had vouchers, I knew I had to get a taxi to get home and at one point I just threw everything heavy, bulky and needed in the trolley in the hope that this month I could avoid going near the shops if at all possible (when I get mobile I want to throw myself at the house/ garden jobs). I was given a money gift which covers what I spent and the extra bus/ taxi fares I incurred.

It wouldn't be fair to say just what I spent this month so I have added what I spent in those 2 shops (actually got over £20 off in vouchers and other offers on each of the shops) onto this months budget. I plan to live as much as possible on what I have bought and try a lot of new recipes (various tinned beans were on offer so extend my vegetarian repertoire). I have some N*ct@r points to top up on fresh veg/ any glaring omissions.

Exercise did 2 lots of leg exercises this morning (+ bits on the bus/ waiting for appointment etc), about 1 + 1/2 hours hobbling round and walked round watering all the seedlings this evening. I am watching the Fmess thread from the sidelines but don't want to feel stupid when everyone is running and cycling and doing mad workouts. Then I thought survival of the fittest - the leg exercises I are what I can do at the moment and what I need, so that is what I must do, the rest will follow.

I have to be like the seedlings - they have all had the same amount of care/ neglect and yet in some cases (lamb's lettuce/ pak choi/ green pepper) only 1 seedling has sprouted, some boxes have a few seedlings and some have loads (about 80 tiny tomato plants and courgettes like triffids). I have listed them and noted what stage each is at and drawn up a number of jobs to do. So I need to concentrate on the bits of my life which are flourishing and give other bits time to rest and recuperate, given adequate nourishment and a little sunlight they will also get to blossom.

I am extremely grateful that this month is so much better than the start of last month. Whilst equally challenging moneywise I feel open to so many more possibilities this month, whereas last month an old emotionally draining relationship reared its ugly head and threatened to put an almighty spanner in the money saving works.

So ever onwards tributes, using all the weapons at our disposal (I haven't actually seen any of these films, couldn't stay awake when someone forced me to watch the first of those bl**dy twylyght things).

mothernerd

Sorry, me again.

Physio appointment was awesome.

He spent about 10 minutes massaging my leg to get fresh blood circulating to the poorly bits. Fairly painful but felt wonderful afterwards and he said it was the equivalent of my having done a 20 minute run - now that is definitely my sort of running, could manage that every day.

Fmess

Evening all,

MrsGSR I believe these OHs are sent to try us, I like to believe it makes me a better person learning to deal with him :rotfl:

clippy you definitely need a break if you are feeling low and you have had so much to deal with, you definitely need it

CEW if you don't find your adapter, I found one in a pound shop recently and it's brill

oldest gnome I include everything but DD, savings or extra ccard/loan payments as a spend day

Today was a spend day as had a meal with my lovely year 11 form who are leaving next week. Was very emotional but bless them they bought me a gorgeous gift, flowers and a huge card. I feel very fortunate to have had them as my form.

Hoping for at least 2 SFDs this wknd and 2 gym visits.

Night all

[Deleted User]

Hi folks. I have broken the first of my planned NSDs - er that system works then! Luckily there are a couple of opportunities to recoup it as the next week goes on. Like Clippy it was a break though - very excited to have booked tickets for some lectures at Hay Literature festival! We are passing relatively nearby on our way home from welsh mountains over half term, and I have wanted to go for years and years. DD was keen to see some of her current fave authors so I thought, lets go for it. Battle with the big C is making me a bit 'just do it' but I am trying to balance that with this df journey. Damage was £86 for several sets of lecture tickets over 2 days, so there will be a nights camping to add in too. I'll just have to earn extra this month...ebay and bnb here I come!

Applemuncher - we do a nice butterscotch sauce with c milk, keeps for yonks in the fridge and looks great in a jar for a gift too.I can add recipe 2mrw if your interested.

mothernerd - well done and good luck with the physio. I like the sapling anecdote.

tiny screen so lost the name of person asking about academic books - we tried uni webpages (worked best), but online amazon trade in was good too.

Falling asleep at the screen so will log out now! Wishing you all valour and strength in this battle! x

Moneymash

Phew! Just made it.

SFD 1

Pay your debts off first, uhm slight problem with this. I was going to pay £410.41 (the £10.41 was still in the bank left over from last month) off on my Barclaycard one...however, it was Beauty day on Q*C on Sunday and everything on screen was on 4 easy payments, it was kinda rude not to... Anyhow, I bought two on-screen items and something from their website that was a one-off payment. In total the sum of £49.38 has been deducted from my bank account this month.

Also, my pay was wrong on Wednesday by £66.32, so instead of paying £410.41 off my card I only paid £300, as I deducted the Q*C amount and the missing pay off my debt repayment. However, the £49.38 should have really been deducted from my monthly spends of £100.00, which I have now done, so I still have £44.09 to pay off my Barclaycard one. I was going to wait until the end of the month just in case I go over budget but that’s the point of this challenge isn’t it; pay off the debt first and manage with a budget. I will pay the remaining £44.09 tomorrow and update my signature.

The Q*C treat was before I had decided to take part in this challenge, and is the first and last of the unnecessary spends this month.

My budgets are quite straightforward. My food budget is £115.00, plus the £3.05 I had left in my purse at the end of the month, so total of £118.05. My personal spends budget was £100 (but minus the Q*C purchase of £49.38) it is now £50.62.

I spent £9.71 on food and drink on Wednesday which comes out of this month’s food budget. So had £108.34 left. I haven’t been shopping in T*sco’s lately, as A*da has been cheaper, anyhow T*sco sent me some money off vouchers for a minimum £30 spend.
Today I went to Tesco and spent £45.97, I had a £4 off voucher, but also found two 50p off vouchers in my bag, taking the final total down to £40.97. I got 49 clubcard points because the shopping was originally £45.97 and I got 4 green points for using my own bags. I also got a voucher for £1.11 off my next shop as my comparable shopping elsewhere would have been cheaper by this amount.

The thing is I thought my shopping total was quite high so checked my receipt. I had bought some Vaseline body butter that was £5.50 reduced to £3.66, the thing is it scanned as £5.50, the difference being £1.84. Customer services refunded me not just the difference but double the difference which was £3.68, so adding together the refund of £3.68 and the £1.11 money off voucher (which I wouldn't have got had the body butter scanned correctly.) totals £4.79, considering I paid £5.50 for the Body butter it only really cost me 71p, result!

My next money off T*sco voucher isn’t valid until the 12 May so I will have to make my shopping last 10 days.

lotti379

oldest gnome I include everything as a a"spend" apart from DDs and work expenses. I think most people exclude DDs!

Well no SFD for me as expected, I was grocery shopping (2kg bag of lentils, anyone? Think that'll sort me out for a bit) and bought my Ma a kool-pak for her injured knee. Must warn her it is arriving and is actually for her...

Grocery-wise, £16.55 in Aldini so on target, then went to Tescimo for the few bits I couldn't get (those lentils, brocolli, british lardons [I do have some standards], nothing desperately extravagant I thought) and spend £8.75 on my food and £3.01 on food bank stuff.

Total £28.31/£50. Good thing I'm away a week and doing lots of batch cooking with this haul!

I was actually quite shocked at how disorganised my local Tesco is - I was searching the value tins of soup and vegetables and half of the value shelves have no price labels on. Surely if you are buying value tinned chicken soup/baked beans/new potatoes that implies you are keeping to a budget and not prone to lobbing things in the basket without knowing how much they are?! :cool:

I also thought it was a bit cheeky that I got a bag of reduced broccoli - 946g for 19p - that I opened to find an extra, broken-off stalk in! Seemed purely to bulk out an extra couple of pence, which is canny but seems rather petty... Well on the other hand, 19p for almost a kilo of broccoli is quite good really, and I'm sure I can do something with it rather than it end up in a tescimo skip! :rotfl:

EDIT - budgets

£28.31/£50 groceries
£2.95/£50 fun money
£0/£150 petrol
1/15 SFDs
2/31 check ins.

Off to sleep now, have a no-spend-weekend planned (church collection coming from spare change jar). I have my walking boots and an OS map if the weather is good, and my xbox and a stack of games I haven't finished is it isn't!

Siouxsie32

Evening everyone . I'm typing as I sit on the train home after a spend free night out-yay! Technically the car park will cost £7 but since that'll not be til about 1am, I'm declaring today SFD number two, and tomorrow will be a spendy one! Also need a supermarket trip so I shall get all my spends in from midnight Friday to midnight Saturday then I can get back to spending nothing!

So, since it's still Friday (sort of), I have nothing new to report!

I'll see you all again tomorrow to declare my minimal spends!

Enjoy your weekend tributes

traveller

Hi everyone! Just realised I didn't post yesterday as I was knackered! Crap day at work also However tomorrow is my little hero's birthday and we are off to a hotel in bracknell today, then legoland on sunday.I feel quite tired and not at all in the mood for it, but I think it's work depressing the h3ll out of me and I need to take it easy and enjoy life and not being so damned miserable, as I'd probably be a lot more miserable, if I couldn't pay the bills

I probably will not be able to post till monday as will have no access. I had a NSD yesterday, but will for the next two days. Have a great weekend everyone