NST: May the odds be ever in your favour!

apple_muncher

Stewby - you've made me feel very happy and warm inside! Thank you . Now to seek out your new diary and subscribe.

Fmess - congratulations to your OH! Hope this helps him with his general get-up-and-go. And you are soooo kind, helping the VI formers.

tog - roll on 1st June - good luck!

wishus - well done eking out the food. And good luck with cancelling the charity thing.

shyspender - 3 cats? Are you mad????? Enjoy them, if you can find them...

CEW - a weekend of DIY and craft sounds perfect.

And to everyone:

We are now at the numerical mid-point of the month where we start to count down to payday.

So...time to ponder and re-focus (if needed) for the next 15 days. How are your budgets? What extra spends have you had so far? Can you account for where that money has gone? (eg I bought some flowers for other people - not planned, rather spur of the moment, but I reckoned that they NEEDED them, and it only cost me £10. Thank you aldee)

Are you looking after yourself enough? Enough sleep? Enough good food? Enough fun?

Are you keeping moving? I set myself a 12 week transformation challenge and am now at week five and weight-wise am back to square one. But it is 12 weeks long, so I have time to get back on track.

Keep doing things that bring you JOY turtles xx

Bobarella

Fmess -that is great news! Really pleased for you both. Hope the increased travelling is covered by petrol allowance?

Stewby - you sound very happy and focused good for you!

Well today is NSD 11. I managed to save myself £5 in Decathlon today on a bike lock, & water bottle. I should explain that my bike lock key snapped off in the lock during the week. Very inconvenient almost a very bad morning but I was saved by a kind roofer with cutting tools who set me free. So I had to get a new one or risk my bike being stolen. Anyway I had an e voucher for £5 for customer loyalty so I used that. Zero spend.

I also had a late charge on my CC which was caused in part due to the bank holiday and also my husbands pay date being moved. Anyway the man I spoke to was very helpful. Removed the charge of £12 & changed the payment date to avoid future problems.

I found 1p roadkill, & also am adding £7 to my wombling total as I am a member of the Mr T Orchard program, & they've sent me £7 off steak vouchers. If you don't know about the programme the idea is you are part of a research panel for Mr T so get sent things to try for free basically. And then the idea is you spread the word to others about how amazing you find Mr T....but free food!

Have cycled 15 miles in total today so looking forward to dinner which is chicken and potatoes plus salad. Bring it on!

Have a great evening all.

Bob

Calling14

Sorry didn't check now yesterday combination of cold going on my chest and second night of upset friend around.

I spent yesterday treated myself to a Chinese - feed a cold? Anyway didn't work tight chest today and feel lousy.

Today Sfd caught up ironing, bedding washes, cleaning.

Off to sink in bath I am sounding like Bob here and well done on getting under 5k.

Great news Fmess. Woo hoo.

Sorry will read properly when my head is less fuzzy rest challenge and everyone's news x

Samiszel

NSD number 10 yesterday. Was up all of last night vomiting- seems I have caught the norovirus or have food poisoning. Still in bed with stomach cramps, can't even keep water down 24 hours on.

Supposed to be on a hen do tonight. The girls were very understanding that of course I couldn't come. However, I paid £35 in advance for the meal... no mention of getting that back yet. I'm not sure I'll say anything about it, but surely if I'm not there for the meal, that £35 won't be used? We shall see.

Was doing really well with my step count this week, but now it will be totally brought down by the oh, maybe 20, steps I have made today to the bathroom and back. Urgh. I manage to get a stomach bug at least once a year- sometimes ending up in hospital, other times just home. My stomach must be particularly weak or something.

mothernerd

DS3 asked yesterday if he could drop the 'being polite' tactic with the internet people and he shouted at them until they let him speak to a manager who gave him an appointment for the engineer to come today. Manager backed down enough to suggest applying for compensation.

So now have a new router so will not have to pay £55 call out charge and all is well at mothernerd towers (well when I can get my blood pressure down from the energy company's latest attempt at sleight of hand). Had already agreed at least three times to the lengthy terms and conditions required for engineer's visit but he found a fault on the line as well as the router and as their equipment was faulty (could have told them that 3 weeks ago) we don't pay.

Very good news in turtle land. Spendy day today, have managed long enough without mayonnaise and grain mustard (wrote a recipe down somewhere but bought a cheapo jar for now) and splurged £4 on roses (flowers not chocs) for me.

Today I am grateful for lovely engineer (so helpful), for de-cluttering over 200 items (mostly small) this week and for finding the invoice to return the equipment I was lent for post-op use (and for the equipment and the lovely people who supply it).

Doris17

Good evening turtles,
Hope everyone is well, hugs to those who need them. Very stressful few days and nights in work,just got home from another shift.Going to have a catch up on here and then an early night.
Doris.x

p.s 2 more NSD for me.

MessyMare

Well hello turtles! I'm back from honeymoon and am going to adjust my posting goal - 10 days without Internet and limited phone reception has been lovely! Well, we got back today, I've seen my sister, and my mum, avoided my dad (still a bit upset with him for complaining his way through my wedding) and done what feels like six million loads of laundry. Oh and had an NSD! Hurrah!

It's taken me a little while to catch up with the thread, so hugs to all that need them and high fives to everyone for doing so well! I overspent by about £30 so I'm a little annoyed at myself as now I'm not going to be able to stretch my food budget until the first of June but I can certainly stretch my spends budget to the end of May, so will work on making the food budget last for six weeks instead of four next month I need to remember that not everything needs to be in place all at once! Mr me is without a job still- the promising interview didn't come through but at least he's getting interviews, that's really good Mr Me was a bit naughty on holiday and disappeared into an art gallery in The Lakes emerging with a lovely painting of a couple in front of Lake Windermere called 'A Toast to the Future' - I cried like a baby when we got back to the camper and he showed me!

My naughty mother also had my car (which she borrowed for the ten days) fully valeted and a new part on the exhaust. She really is a diamond!

Anyway, I did realise that I didn't finish the questions from the first post so - Arm Yourself - I'm quite lucky in that my whole family is very much in the lifestyle of not spending money. I don't really have any friends and find it quite easy to turn down the work nights out - social anxiety has it's place, even if only in the money saving world!

Much love turtles

Bobarella

Blimey Samizel please take care of yourself. The illness sounds really awful. Hope your friends are able to refund you.

Calling - Well did you enjoy the take out? If yes then once in a while is good for us

MessyMare - welcome back! Hope you enjoy getting used to married life now you are home.

Mothernerd - it goes to show doesn't it, sometimes it is time to drop the nice. I hate shouting at people. It upsets me far more than them I find. But occasionally you have to fight for your rights etc. Dare I ask what the energy dofuses have done now? Takes 10 steps back just in case...

shyspender

apple_muncher wrote: »

shyspender - 3 cats? Are you mad????? Enjoy them, if you can find them...

Apple They are not my cats, they are the OH's, well, the SD's cats. They don't live with me so I just visit. Then they all come for cuddles and talk to em on skype, lol

mothernerd

Bobarella wrote: »

Mothernerd - it goes to show doesn't it, sometimes it is time to drop the nice. I hate shouting at people. It upsets me far more than them I find. But occasionally you have to fight for your rights etc. Dare I ask what the energy dofuses have done now? Takes 10 steps back just in case...

I had complained that I was still waiting for the result of the 'fix' - the calculation of just how much they have overcharged me for gas I never used (by substituting their estimates for my legitimate readings).

So the other day when I had internet for an hour or so, noticed a new bill. Opened it - they have managed a calculation that ends up with me owing them money for the gas they have overcharged me for. I am only looking at the bill for five minutes at a time but have so far worked out that the credited back amounts are not the same as they originally charged me (they have added in figures for the electric use and standing charges for gas and electric - none of which were being queried so just added in to obfuscate) and tonight backtracking to the previous bill, they credited me back £161 (well the account not me personally, have to send a few more e-mails to actually get it) and then added a further £214 of fictional gas usage. I refuted this amount at the time but have now discovered they have carried the false amount forward. So that alone is an error of £214 whatever pence.

Think I need to go to the ombudsman (will plead that they are driving me to the brink of suicide because I despair every time I get one of these things) because lots of people would just go blank at the figures and give in and accept that 'it must be right'.

Just so happens I am good with figures and faced with a nonsensical situation carry on investigating until I work out what they have done. This is fraudulent and false accounting. The system is corrupt - they cannot be making enough checks to ensure this does not happen, it has to be a computer only system without proper accounting staff checking a sample of customer accounts, which makes it harder to explain to the people just doing data entry without any understanding of what the figures actually mean.

Sorry didn't mean to go on so much