I Wanna See the Light

Mysteek

Looked after my adorable DGD this afternoon so I'm tired but very happy


Had 3 NSD's in a row and a low spend day today as we needed some fruit for my work lunches, tomatoes and cereal for DH. Just over a fiver so not bad so far this week, still got about £10 left of our budget. Its only our first week on this budget, I hope DH can stick to it.


Checked bank accounts and all behaving so far, updated spreadsheets.


Back to work tomorrow not pleasant at the moment as everyone is waiting to find out what's happening with their job. The office is very quiet and everything feels in a state of limbo.


Sky messed up our downgrading to basic package, looks like its been sorted now with a £15 refund on its way next month.:T


Gonna have a shower and try and get an early night as have to be up early in the morning. Night all

Seasidegal58

You're doing really well Mysteek and have made a fab start to your DFW journey!


You really seem to have worked out your meal plans and should save quite a bit there on your new regime.


Liked your list of things to do when debt-free! Treating you and OH to belated honeymoon should be at the top of the list!


Hope it's good news on the job front.

Ali-OK

Definitely echoing Seasidegal, off to a great start and food budgets and meal plans are a really great way to reduce spending in that area.

We're similar with 'plain' food. I've swapped a few fresh things for frozen such as mixed peppers as cheaper and found on the Old Style Board things like grated cheese and chopped carrots can both be frozen. Works great for where I buy a bag and can't use them all up quickly.

Big fan of using chicken thighs rather than fillets, so much cheaper and a gammon joint in Ald! at £2.99 lasts us 3 meals too - we have a roast, then with chips and egg, then in a rather fattening suet dumpling with potato and onion. A tradition for this part of the country.

Love the handmade craft cards - wish I was good at that sort of thing.

Mysteek

Hi Seasidegal58 and Ali, thanks so much for popping in and for such great advice on food, I'll definitely be taking those suggestions on board, that's a great idea about freezing carrots as there's always one or two left in the bag that you throw away. Thing is, talking about all this food makes me hungry lol


Your supports means loads x


We did well last week, had £5 left out of our budget at the end of the week so that went into a pot for any 'emergency' food purchases and hopefully towards a treat if not used. We had to replace a few store cupboard items yesterday so already spent most of this weeks budget, just £3 left for any milk or bread needed during the week, but won't need anything else as its all covered. Two more meals put in the freezer yesterday.


Have to go for my 6 monthly blood tests tomorrow for my thyroid and put in my subscription for gf flour for my bread as I've run out! I've purchased gf flour in the past but none of them have been much good for making bread, but they're ok for baking and pastry so I buy gf flour for these and leave my prescription flour just for making bread. I only get 7 x 500 gm boxes per month so I have to be careful and not waste it.


Sold a card at work on Friday so £2 going into saving pot.


Ali I've been making cards for about 20 years now, its sort of grown into more of an obsession or addition I think now. I've taken over one of the bedrooms and I saved up for ages and had it kitted out with some budget range kitchen units, its brill! I can disappear in there whenever I need to de-stress lol. I must admit that I've spent rather a lot of money over the years on my craft addition and I don't think I will need any materials for quite a while to come so I might as well make good use of them.


I like to sew too (when I get the time) so my craft room is also my sewing room.

-ooOoo-

While I remember, Just want to make a note of things I need to do on a daily basis, so it will be a jog when I come on here:


Check Bank accounts
Update Spreadsheets
Check Mobile Phone Account (to make sure I'm keeping
within my contract)

-ooOoo-

I've got several spreadsheets which I update daily. I like being in control so not really sure why we went so out of control over the last few years. My excuse is that I was abducted my aliens and they altered my personality temporarily. That's now worn off and I'm back to normal now!


My biggest nemesis are my 3 credit cards. I see them being at the end of a path and on this path there are obstacles. To get a good 'run' at these credit cards I have to clear these obstacles. The obstacles are some buy it now purchases which will have to be paid off by the end of the year otherwise huge rates of interest will be applied, this cannot happen! So my plan is to clear these buy it now purchases as they become due. Then we will get the overdraft paid off. Its possible that we won't have enough money to pay for them all before interest is incurred so to prevent this we may have to use the cc's which are lower rates. By January (if plan comes together) the path will become clear for me to really hit those credit cards, starting with the highest rate first and using the 'snowballing' method. I'll keep on paying just above the minimum for the other 2 in the meantime. Sounds good in theory, just hope its as easy in practice.


Put a few more crafty things on Ebay but not going so well at the moment, will keep persevering.


My tummy is growling so going to get a bit of lunch, will try and get back on later.

Mysteek

Plans are in place

so no more fevered brow
over Buy It Now!

so I can

Put in more graft
on the overdraft!

then

Bombard
the Credit Card

ShirePiskie

Hi Mysteek, just caught up with your diary and really impressed with your frugal-without-going-without lifestyle.

Very positive attitude (especially given some of things life has thrown at you recently) and am certain of your success and wish you all the best towards Debt Freeness.

Mysteek

Hi ShirePiskie, many thanks for popping in and for such encouraging words. It helps so much to know that ppl really do want you to succeed.

When I make up my mind to do something I like to do it as good as I can, it sometimes takes over lol but I know if we do what I've planned it will work. I don't have a crystal ball so can't take into consideration anything that might happen to scupper our plans so I just have to remain as positive as I can and forge ahead. I think DH is getting a headache with me going on about it 24/7 but its the only way to keep him motivated as he loses interest with things easily.

Mysteek

I don't have OCD but:

I do like all the tins in the cupboards to be facing to the front

When pegging out the washing, I like each item to have same coloured pegs

I hate it when one paracetomol is taken from the packet, that means I have an odd number

Is it just me that is weird like this

Mysteek

I think I may have turned a corner with DH. Was struggling to make him understand that a few pence DOES matter and encourage him to be 'mean' (if you know what I mean lol). I look at it that its a few pence that I don't have to pay interest on!

Anyway, yesterday we were running out of a few toiletries so I asked him to fetch some whilst I was at work, explaining that we only had £3 left in the budget for this week but there was a £5 saving from last week if he needed to use that.

He bought a pack of 8 toothbrushes, 2 large tubes of Colgate toothpaste and a 500 ml bottle of Palmolive Shower Gel = £3.00 exactly!

RESULT!!

ShirePiskie

Mysteek wrote: »

I don't have OCD but:

I do like all the tins in the cupboards to be facing to the front

When pegging out the washing, I like each item to have same coloured pegs

I hate it when one paracetomol is taken from the packet, that means I have an odd number

Is it just me that is weird like this

Perfectly normal. You should see me try and eat Smarties. They have to be sorted into colours, paired up, odd numbers eaten then made into equal amounts of each colour, then eaten in reverse order of my favourite colours.

If you're crackers then you're in good company!!!!