Sat/Sun 3/4 Jan 2015. What small DFW stuff will you do this weekend?

maria3104

When we start out on the DFW trail we do loads of "big stuff" that makes quite a difference to our situation. These include having our lightbulb moment, cutting up the credit cards and cancelling Sky and the gym

But once we have done the bigger stuff, we often feel that we are not making the same amount of progress, when in fact the small steps are helping us form good financial habits and helping us get closer everyday to staying in control and becoming debt free, or staying debt free.

Examples could be hanging washing out instead of using the tumble dryer or leaving your purse/wallet at home to avoid the risk of spending .

So be proud of those small steps, they really are important

maria3104

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would start us off.

Have had a very lazy morning. Just got up and had breakfast. Missed cheap rate.
Have 3 loads of washing to do, tidy house which is unbelievable, really bad and kitchen which is a disaster zone.
But I have already fed birds and planned an outing - much needed.
Have a good day all.

DawnW

Morning Maria, and everyone who comes along later

I love how this thread has got so busy lately :T

For me today:
Builder coming round shortly to quote to replace broken velux window in our loft conversion. Not very MS I know, but I am going to ask him to quote to replace all 4. If someone had been underneath when it randomly shattered, they could have been badly hurt :eek: Impressed. He was very nice, and will do a quote, but advised that he had had a similar occurrence, and recommended we phone Velux to see how they react, given it was potentially very dangerous. In some cases they have replaced free of charge. I will ring them on Monday. Whatever happens I will take a note of his contact details for when we need something else done - he didn't NEED to advise us to contact velux direct!.

I have just popped to Lidls to do a quick shop. Must update Grocery Challenge totals

To do later:
Inventory of freezers Fail
Meal plan!! Not done this yet either
Adapt a chicken curry recipe I want to try to use up some pheasants that one of OH's friends brought round yesterday. Should be fine if I cook it for longer Put it in the slow cooker after the frying pan stage, was very yummy, and healthy too
Go to sales unit later, and continue to review prices, and add some more [STRIKE]carp[/STRIKE] priceless antiques to the reduced pile Done, took some really horrible jugs with me Quite a few things have gone already

DD has just rang to say she is coming round - so I don't know how much of that will get done! See above, gave DD her birthday present for tomorrow, and played with baby GD

Ordered an Ocado delivery to take advantage of free delivery and £5 off a £40 shop. I spent £40.86 and got £5 off I am rather impressed with Ocado - they have good offers, though I don't think that I would abandon Lidl to do all my shopping with them. A useful addition though, and brilliant customer service.

Also unpacked and put away the items I removed from my sales unit yesterday that I didn't want to put in my January sale

OH has put up a shelf above a doorway on the landing passage way. It looks really good (and didn't cost anything as he had taken it down from elsewhere). Some of our stray books can live up there

stiltoncheese

Morning Maria (and all who follow) and thanks for starting the thread.

I haven't posted on the daily thread since Christmas Eve as have been enjoying a few days off with family. Still no sign of baby, but I'm not actually due for another 2 weeks yet. Back to MSEing again now though.

No much planed for this weekend really.

1. NSD for both days
2. Clean the house. It's tidy but want one final deep clean before baby comes
3. Batch cook some meals for the freezer so hubby has something quick to cook when baby arrives
4. Check online bank accounts and update YNAB/spreadsheet
5. Transfer money from main account into various savings pots for the month
6. All meals from meal planner and from stores
7. No fuel used unless I go into labour!
8. One load of washing left to do so needs to be done and dried on airer

Think that's about it.

Have a good day
SC xx

Baileys_Babe

Belated happy New Year to everyone.

This weekend I plan to do the following to help us on our journey to being debt free:

• 2 NSD's
• dry 4 loads of washing on the airer
• meal plan to 12th January
• update spending diary
• transfer money to OH's account to pay cc
• check DD's cancel any we don't need and set up new one
• eat from stores
• check fridge content, to ensure no waste

Wishing you all an enjoyable weekend.

WelshWoofer

Morning all!
Just back from walking he dog in the rain - free exercise I suppose...


Today's efforts....

• All food from stores
• Do at least 4 hours school work (will start as soon as I've finished this list - honest!)
• Put dry washing away
• Dye hair
• Try to have a LSD
• Attempt no booze day no 3
• Hoover upstairs and dust downstairs
• Clean the bathroom
• Spend the evening with OH
• Check the bank balances
• Start working through the mountain of post

That's the day sorted then....


Hope everyone has a good one,

gemnomnom

This weekend I have:
- Calculated how much debt I paid off in 2014!
- Checked bank balances, all in order

And I will:
- Clean the kitchen
- Do a load of laundry
- Hoover upstairs & down
- Clean guinea pig cage
- Jog to Lidl and get a refund on some dodgy meat :S
- Do a grocery shop - max £25 this week
- Pay £60 off fine
- Return ASOS jumper to Post Office and get £20 refund

Money saving things I've done in the past week:
- Only had ONE drink on New Years!
- Used up cupboard supplies and made several portions of stew, curry, tofu and soup
- Bought a monthly train pass
- Chased £200 car insurance refund, plus £10 compensation (should be arriving next week)
- Bought some new t-shirts, as a treat, as I've not bought new t-shirts for several years!
- Chased stat dec application
- Checked if fine could be written off - unfortunately not

ziggy2407

Good Afternoon All

Maria- Thanks for starting the thread

Hi to all of the regulars and a BIG welcome to all the newbies, this is a really FAB thread with so many lovely, caring, considerate and supportive people. Don't forget we also have a small things on Facebook, if anyone wishes to join.

A productive day so far, no plans to leave house as its pouring down here (and I am struggling to shake off cough, sore throat and earache):

Check Banks -
Check swapits - Done
De-Christmassed our house - Done
Deep clean lounge & hall - Done
Watch TV or DVD's from cupboard - Done
Read - In progress
Re-list couple of things on FB -
Enter a few comps -
All meals from cupboards/fridge/freezer -
Check https://www.freepostcodelottery.com - Remember there are now 4 chances to win
Check Birthday Bingo -

Love to you all,

C x

Need to decide where to donate boxes of jelly babies and chocolates - hubby and DS would rather they go to strangers than friends

abimonster02

Morning all. I have been lurking for a while but decided to post today :hello:

So far today I have done the following:

Stocktake on the cupboards and freezer
Meal plan
Sorted out clothes that no longer fit me or kids ready for taking pics and putting on selling pages
Written a list for supermarket and browsed on my supermarket for cheapest prices

Will probably add more later feel like am on a roll today!

Bobarella

Hello All
Just back from a shopping trip. Got some excellent bargains. £1 for 454g of Stilton previously at £4. 3 jars of mince meat at 10p for 822g so big jars which will make about 60 mince pies each.
I used a 100 nectar points if £5 spent on cat food voucher. Got a discounted 2 kilo bag and one at around 1 kilo which will give us enough food to feed our cat for 6 weeks. As an added measure I have written when the box is to be opened, tommorow, & how long I except it to last on the pack, then I will know if we are being too generous but as we use a feeding cup it is quite hard unless you are careless.
This afternoon I am making a nectarine/peach cake with fruit frozen from the summer. It was all ones that my son had started to eat and discarded so no value lost from the food. It's only for the immediate family so no grosse out issues on giving visitors used food.
We bought a bag of wild bird food for 99p in pets at home and got a £500 prize draw entry voucher. I am taking notes from you Ziggy.
Also Twiggy if you are in, I am getting 1p per trip on Check Out Smart because you get that despite not using the deals they want you to. Plus £100 shopping trip prize draw entry per trip. If I won food and pet food draws I'd be sorted for months
So earned £0.75 in nectar points today just for using a coupon to buy food I'd buy anyway. Current nectar point value £3.22 when I hit £10 I will use that for food & pay £10 off my credit card.

Hope everyone is well on this rainy Saturday. We were considering using our Royal Palaces membership to go to Hampton Court but this weather means there is no point

Bob

foxgloves

Afternoon Frugal Weekend People,
And here are today's contributions to our continued solvency:
*Back on the Rosemary Conley diet plan, so I've dug out the portion pots, which means our food supplies will be lasting longer.
*Did not have a coffee in town to make our January 'spends' last longer.
*Hopefully will solve the condensation problem in our stair-well as purchased an extra de-humidyfier this morning. My old one was about £260 when I bought it years ago. This one is smaller, but was £30 in Aldi. Better than letting the problem continue & totally wreck the paintwork. Used cash from Household Piggy, so no impact on bank account.
*Bought 4 packs of half price Christmas cards in Oxfam.....while we were in there, mr f found 2 CDs he'd been wanting.
*Bought half price Christmas gift wrap in Card Factory. 6 rolls for £1. I picked out the nicest designs, but there was plenty of choice left.
*Stocked up spice cupboard as yesterday's grocery shop came in under budget.
*Bought new hairdryer. mr f pronounced my old one a "****ing death trap"...... & to be fair, he wasn't wrong! Bought Superdrug own brand one which was only around £13, then remembered to use my 20% off receipt which they were dolling out in December.
*Withdrew £50 to pay into Car Piggy.
*Updated budgets.
*Postie brought me a £10 John Lewis voucher from Ipsos surveys which I'd forgotten about.
*Did a very few surveys.....only one big one, but didn't get the points as mr f was messing around (sorry, doing highly important techy jobs) behind the telly & disconnected the internet. Bah!
*Paid 2 x 50ps into my sealed pot.
*No downstairs heating on yet.
*Continue current knitting project - mittens.
*Finish library book.
Last night, we decided to order take-away pizza. We use a local independent pizza place which does good food for much lower prices than the 2 main big chains. It was kind of a final treat before resuming the healthy diet plan, & we both said how we enjoyed it MUCH more now that we have so few take-aways. We probably used to have a pizza or other take-away once a week, if not twice, but now it's no more than 3 or 4 times a year & we enjoy it much more because it's not so common place.
OK, that's my contribution. Me-time now, I think!
f x