NST; January Challenge- The Money Saving Game

apple_muncher

Dd has reached the age where she vetoes which cards I am 'allowed' to cut up! Give it another few years and she'll be on a programme about child hoarders!!!

Lilt - fruit loop you! I do hope you feel better soon. And I'd vote for trundling in to work collect that package! Any way you can check it has actually arrived before setting off?

Exercise #2 done and sweated out. This one left my legs feeling like jelly! Dusted down the wii the other day (and cleaned out the leaked battery acid - oopsie!) and dd asked the difference between the wii andthe wiiU. Lilt? Can you explain? I just said the wiiU was simply an updated version to play other games on...

Synonymous

Here we go...



2. Set ALL of your budgets at the beginning of the month: groceries £50, fuel/travel £40, social/leisure £100. My other goals are physio exercises nightly (31), meditation six times per week (26), formal exercise once per week. (4)
3. Pay money to your debts first- No debts except stoozing CCs, but overpaying mortgage by £200/month plus any left at end of month. My uni scholarship is paid quarterly so £600 already transferred for Jan-Mar.
4. You MUST bring your lunch to work every day Will do, sometimes work from home so can’t set a number for this, will keep updating.
5.Donate £3 from your food budget, Just donated £3 for this month and £5 for last month’s challenge on Trussel Trust.

6. Down shift 3 of your branded food items I don’t have set brands I buy at the moment but I am going to down shift my whole shop by switching from Tesco/Asda to Aldi.

7. Meal Plan!- This is essential for me this month, will be doing lots of research on slow cooker recipes and cooking for 4 people this week and next to put plenty in the freezer (it’s just me here and I don’t want to throw any food away).

8. You will aim to achieve 18 Spend Free Days (SFDs)- Managed 16 NSDs last month but 18 will be a challenge without Christmas holidays spent snuggled indoors – bring it on!

9. Document your spends- Spreadsheets at the ready!
10. Time to get moving – Will walk to work not drive. Want to get a basic pedometer so they give these out free anywhere? Want to try and run to see how my hip reacts and hopefully build this up. I’m tempted by a uni gym offer but can exercise for free and get outside instead. Also going to get my allotment back into shape.

11. Choose your Debt Free Date now or the % of Debt you aim to clear by January 2016. I’m aiming to get my mortgage down to an LTV of less than 60% by the end of current deal in 2016 (Current LTV 65.2% = £6,864 to knock off, including standard monthly payments).
12. Share your 2015 Goals- financial or other. I am using Passion Planner to map these out, if you like pen and paper planning then I recommend it, and there is a free download for 2015, although the main gems for life planning (creating Passion Plans) are in the first 5 pages or so before the planner begins. These are my goals:

Specific targets for progress in my PhD (too boring to go into!).

Mortgage overpayment as above.

Improve my mental and physical health through exercise, being outdoors, eating better, meditation, continue participating in a spiritual community (non-religious) and creative hobbies. Declutter to break away from the past.

Taking part in NOT BUYING IT! 2015 (another thread on the forum started by Slowdown that I know others here are following) to be less of a consumer. Will be turning to OS ways, making do, and repurposing ‘stuff’.

Look into early retirement with a goal of retiring by 45!
13. Check in regularly – Roger that.

My Phd is in using mindfulness meditation to improve mental health and well-being, and I know too well that the research is overwhelmingly positive and I should practice what I preach even more than I currently do. If anyone wants to try it out I would recommend the free trial of Headspace - an app version or online - gives you ten 10-minute meditations to try out.

Will go update my signature now, no spends so far :j

apple_muncher

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

I need pictures ^^

I was just wondering if it was bad for to cut out the 'Brother, Sister etc and use them as tags as we got a lot of 'special' cards this year from people... :rotfl: - would they ever remember their own cards...

Maybe save them for 2 years...?!

Traveller - :j:jWELL DONE YOU!! :j:j

liltdiddylilt

Traveller well done!!! :j under 4k is fabulous!! what a great start to the year

Apple - The WiiU is a complex bit of kit compared to the Wii. You can use most of the Wii games on the Wii U but there are a lot of games made purely for it. You have a similar sort of machine to put the discs into etc, but that links up to a big control pad, like a Nintendo DS with bells on. It has two analog sticks to control, top left and right, as well as up, down, left, right on the left of the screen and X, O, Y & triangle on the right. It has other buttons at the top and bottom similar to the button on the back of a wii controller. You can either play hooked up to the TV, or on the big controller pad on your own if you are single player and don't want the TV on. You can only move it X number of feet away from the box by the TV so it isn't as moveable as a DS. You can use Wii controllers with it, but you can also get controllers similar to xbox/ps4 controllers which when you are playing 2 player you can use instead of the gamepad. The gamepad is touch screen so some games (Rayman) will actually make you use your finger on the pad to control what is happening to your character on screen. I was a HUGE fan of the playstation 1, and also the gameboy... and this is the closest a console has gotten to giving me the same experience, fun and ease of use ever since.

The games I have got are Rayman, Lego Marvel, Smash Brothers, Donkey Kong, Super Mario & Mariokarts...

HTH with DD, and doesn't make her want one.. we paid £155 for ours, and it came with 3 games. The games are between £20-40 each and very hard to buy instore, mostly online as it isn't very popular!

x

stewby

Well... today has been a spend day but also a revelation...

£8.80 spent in tescimos on toiletry stuff and some fruit (healthy eating starts on the 5th).


The good stuff... decided to try and bluff with my phone company and have won. Explained that I was unimpressed as my OH is getting exactly the same deal as me for almost half the cost of mine.
£45 a month for me, unlimited everything and 2GB of data... (however 1GB of that was free). OH gets 1GB of data and unlimited everything for £25!!
:eek:

So, explained that I was thinking of leaving due to this... and the woman on the phone was lovely, brilliantly knowledgable and helpful.
I have now got unlimited everything, got to keep my internet allowance (it is actually 2.5GB apparently) for £25... but then she gave me a discount so I am now just paying £22.49 a month.
:j

See.... I can be taught!!!!!
:rotfl:

speakingofart

SFD number 2 today - off to the panto in a bit, but as I'm going with Guides it's free. Didn't spend anything today and don't really seem to have accomplished very much, here's hoping for better things from tomorrow and sunday before I go back to work. Have an exam in less than a week which I feel I've done nothing for. Must get self back in gear!

Groceries until 15th January £0/£31.16
Groceries 15th Jan - 15th Feb £0/150
Fuel until 15th January £0/£20
Fuel 15th January - 15th February £0/£60
Spending Money: £0/27.65 until Jan 15th.
Lunch to work: 0/20
Food bank 0/£3
SFDs: 2/18

LINKYPIE2009

So update on Day 2:

Didn't take my lunch to work but that was because I had a mystery shop to do...so free chicken noodle soup!

That's been my only spend today and I'll get all of that back and a fee...so not really sure if I'm spent or not in terms of a NSD?:o

Steps - currently on 6388/10000 so good but not quite there yet!

On my way home to chill before picking DH up off the last train.

Back later xx

millionaire_in_training

Couple of spends today. £37 on petrol and £10 on groceries. Got great bargains on Christmassy wrapping paper/cards etc in ASDAprice so I am organised for next year already

Fmess

LINKYPIE2009 I would say that is a SFDS as you will get that money back.

CEW

Hi All,

Budgets for January are as follows

Groceries - £4/£100
Hoping to keep under this but do need a few items to ensure we have some variety in our meals. Lots of leftover Christmas food cooked down and frozen. Had to buy milk and shaving gel for OH today hence the £4 spend.

Pets - £0/£50
Need food for dogs but hopefully have enough for the chickens and the parrot.

Social/Birthdays - £0/£50
One birthday and possibly a couple of social events for myself and OH.

SFD's - 1/18
Lost a SFD to milk and shaving gel today but hopefully nothing needed now until at least Monday.

I will have some costs relating to selling the renovation project, advance to solicitors for searches etc and EPC (energy performance certificate). As these are unavoidable and not coming out of my normal budgets I am not counting these on here and will not lose a SFD when I pay them.

I have been doing a little decluttering every day for the last few days and am hoping to do much more in the next few weeks. I really don't want to move lots of junk when we move later this year.

Hope everyone is having a great start to the new year and that 2015 is a good year for you all.

Chez x