Spending my dash more wisely while clearing the debt to do so

Nintud

Another sig update. I've added Aspire lengths. I'm doing a sponsored swim 'virtually' across the channel, 22 miles in 12 weeks. I started on Monday and have managed 152 lengths in 4 swim sessions. I have an appalling swimming style (breast stroke with head firmly out of the pool!) so completing this will be no mean feat. I failed to finish last year after a bout of tonsillitis kept me out of the pool. I plan to get ahead on lengths this year to allow for similar potential set backs. I'm currently averaging 40 lengths per 45 minute swim session.

maggiecon

Good luck with the swimming challenge. I couldn't swim one length of the pool never mind 40!

Nintud

sig update after another £13 spent on groceries. Went in for bread and came out with pasta for 6 days lunches, two boxes of cereal, new toothbrushes, other lunch bits and toothpaste. I also bought sugar soap and sponges ready to clean utility wall in preparation for painting pre-refit, but that's DIY not regular groceries!!

No swimming today as I had a meeting after work. Kicking myself as I forgot to get dinner out to defrost so had to produce a hotch potch of meals. fried egg on toast is hardly SW! The kidlets had spaghetti carbonara (half a jar left in the fridge and I padded with bacon and salami. Spaghetti was wholemeal but nobody complained!). dH had cottage pie (has been sitting in the fridge since Friday :eek:). Fingers crossed his stomach of steel does overtime tonight!

Going into the kitchen now to get tomorrow's dinner out of the freezer . Santander CC is creeping up slowly so I'm going to write an overpayment cheque for that this evening.

Start of a new salary month today as it's pay day :j No lunch duties over the summer hols mean my pay is slightly lower than my normal so it's going to be a tight one.

Nintud

Adding another update. Aug/sept grocery budget went over by £62 and I didn't include school snacks or lunches in the count :mad:
Start of a new grocery month today (starts on the 18th as that's when I did first shop after Cyprus) and this month I will be including school food spends. Aldi after swimming today. I filled my trolley for £51. MrT delivery came in at £81 after using money off vouchers and £12 off an £80 spend. I've got the same coupon for MrM but it runs out on the 21st and I've nowhere else left to stock food!

I'm a further 40 lengths into my sponsored swim for Aspire but have to report a SW maintain. I'll need to look carefully at my diet if I'm to shift 21.5lb by Christmas. The Aldi shop was mainly fruit and veg so I think I'll try to have more veggie days this month.

Nintud

Grrr Santander cc is slipping backwards. Interest plus odd Amazon and eBay payments here and there (new phone charger, bin liners, pre loved DVD) all add up to another £86 on the card this month and only £180 payment made. I must try harder to source a zero balance card to transfer this to and work even harder to throw extra money at it.

NSD no.4 for me today. Good job too after yesterday's mammoth shop. As well as grocery shopping I also nipped in to the sports shop above my gym and treated myself to a pair of goggles. I used them this evening for the first time and they make an amazing difference to my swim . Another 44 lengths today. I usually get neck ache because I try and keep my face out of the water, but with new goggles on I was able to swim under the surface and even completed a couple of front crawl lengths (I've never learnt to do this stroke properly so look like I'm drowning!). There is a drawback to my fancy goggles though... I had red circles around my eyes for almost an hour once I'd completed my swim :rotfl:

Weekend plans:

Swim with the kidlets (more fun than length completion I expect)

Gym & swim with dh

Date night with dh (that preloaded DVD and a bottle of red!)

Rearrange conservatory now that ds1 has returned to uni and is no longer sleeping in it.

Catch up with mountainous ironing pile and pair similarly scarey odd sock pile.

Nintud

Aargh! That preloaded DVD was dubbed in French (or Dutch as an alternative!) with no choice of English (the original language of the film!) :mad:

I've contacted the seller who will replace on receipt of the returned DVD. It will cost me almost as much to return it as it cost in the first place and I won't get my return postage refunded :mad:
I'll donate it to a language teacher at school.

Kidlets loved swimming today and we've pledged to take them weekly from now onwards. Not cheap at £10 a go for 5 of us, so it may end up being fortnightly but we'll definitely go more frequently than we've been in the past. We swam for hours everyday whilst in Cyprus and I've really missed having that freedom with the littlies. Racing with ds3 and dd2 also meant I managed another 25 lengths towards my Aspire challenge total

Nipped in to Mr A on the way home for a few ingredients I've not managed to get elsewhere. Ended up with a trolley full of yellow stickered items, including 20 individual pizzas :rotfl:
I've done a mass batch cook this evening and now have 16 portions of soup and 10 portions of chilli crammed into my overstocked Freezer. Not to mention the chilli and soups awaiting consumption in the fridge and chicken tikka marinating overnight for tea tomorrow. After the Chinese pork noodles I made for tea today DH says I'm turning into a domestic goddess!

Grocery spends stand at £190 and I have at least 18 days worth of meals either cooked and frozen, or awaiting cooking but with full ingredients in the house. I'm going to crack this grocery budget!

cwtchingpennies_2

Great diary, your have your hands full by the sounds of it. Fingers crossed you smash your swim challenge! The reduction of thefood budget is my goal as well, just tried Lidl and I like it there so will see how that helps. I have Subscribed and will be following along

Nintud

Hello cwtchingpennies :j Welcome to my mad house!

Too tired to swim today. Chatting to a colleague meant I left work too late to get to the gym before peak time started. I have an off-peak membership to force me to go straight after work and to make sure I get finished in time to collect kidlets from after school club. I watched TV too late last night and I was, if I'm honest, completely ecstatic that chatting with colleague meant I missed the pool! Training after work tomorrow so no swimming again and hoping to sort utility out on Wednesday (day off) so unlikely to go then either. Definitely hitting the water Thurs - Sunday though so I won't lapse on the laps :rotfl:

Hoping to nip in to B&Q on Weds. We (finally!) got married last year and were given several gift cards as wedding presents. I'm going to see if there are any tiles I like for the utility refit, check prices and then call in my favourite tiler for a quote. I also want to tile the downstairs loo so (as always) killing two birds with one stone would be good too. I want rectangle tiles, preferably in plain white, but I'm not sure if white tiles will sit well with 'yellow' (read as ivory!) gloss cupboards. Also, would painting all the walls in my house white be a really stupid idea with so many children living here?!! I dream of clean white walls but wonder if the upkeep would be a nightmare or whether I could just so splodge a bit more white paint over the inevitable hand/snot/chocolate paw prints? (Yes, I have a small child that paints with his own snot. Foul beast).

On the debt front, i've had an NSD today and I've sent an overpayment to Santander this evening (second class post so that it doesn't hurt as much. I used an old Christmas themed stamp that was lurking in a drawer!) but I'll be adding to that cc as oh has now sorted his annual leave for next year and will be joining us in Cyprus for a fortnight (300 days until we fly out!) so I now need to book his flight.

Off to do a survey now to add to my points for an Amazon voucher. Then I need to re watch the episode of 24 that I fell asleep watching last night :rotfl: OH and I work our way through box sets nightly for weeks. In the past few months we've watched all of Breaking Bad and Lost and now we're I series 4 of 24. Quite a few more hours of 24 to get through before we're up-to-date with the most recent series! Proof that we have no social life :rotfl:

Nintud

Still no swimming done this week as it's been a heavy week at work and I've been shattered every night.

I've managed a couple of mystery shops though and have another 3 booked in for early October. Not massive payers but the two this week were at places I would have shopped anyway.

Ten days into my grocery month and I've spent £300 of the £500 budget. Cupboards, fridge and freezer are full so we'll be eating from stores for the next 3 weeks with only occasionally top ups for fresh produce. I need to run the freezer down now so it can be moved when the utility is fitted at the end of next month. Speaking of which, I started prepping the walls and ceiling to paint and the ceiling has virtually come away from the walls. Under the paint the plasterwork is damp, black with mould and sodden. The shower in the en suite above has leaked through the ceiling . Worse still, this is beside the fuse box :eek:

I'm going to call a plasterer on Monday to take a look. I expect this refit is going to get a whole lot more expensive.

On a positive note, the weight loss is showing. I've lost almost 3st since the end of April. I nipped in to M&S (fatal!) for some double chocolate popcorn to munch on during movie night tonight and stumbled on the clothes sale. I only looked at the rails to find something for my Mum's birthday (November) but ended up in the changing rooms with an armful of clothes for me. I knew my clothes were too big so took clothes in in 3 different sizes, all smaller than I was wearing when I last bought clothes from M&S (for a job interview) pre-slimming world in April. I am absolutely ecstatic because the smallest item was the only one that fitted and I am now 4 dress sizes smaller than I was in April :j

So, I now have one item of clothing that fits me, and the rest of my wardrobe swamps me to varying degrees!! It will have to stay like that for a while though because plasterer comes before new clothes, as does new fridge-freezer (mine is 15 years old) and electrician to fix en suite light fitting. I should also get a plumber in to look at the leaking shower. Who ever said home ownership was better than renting??!!

Nintud

Just a quick sig update. Another £33 off Mr T and £99 off Santander.
Groceries creeping up but I've got it in hand.

One plasterer contacted so far. So much needs doing but I'm shattered so getting an early night. Bedding changed today and I always want to leap into fresh sheets

Must find the time to write a list prioritising the house repair jobs I need to get done.