Friday 24th July - What small DFW things will you do today?

allydowd

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! :money:

allydowd

MONEY MAKING AND SAVING SITES AS OFTEN MENTIONED IN THIS FORUM:

• A Girl Called Jack, cheap recipes ( Link
  
• Benefits check-up ( Link )
• Birthday Bingo, daily free game ( Link )
  
• Coupon Shop Forum list of money-off coupons (Link)
  
• eBid ( Link )
  
• Freecycle ( Link )
• FreeStuff ( Link )
  
• FreeUKStuff ( Link )
• i-Say Surveys (Link)
• List of online newspapers. At bottom of the linked page. ( Link )
• MSE Boost Your Income page. Gateway to lots of money-making links. ( Link )
• MSE Abbreviations Explained ( Link )
• MSE Deals and Vouchers ( Link )
• MSE Wow Offers ( Link )
• NHS Minor Ailment Service article (Link)
  
• My Supermarket ( Link )
• OnePoll ( Link )
• Quidco ( Link )
• Reclaim PPI at no cost to yourself ( Link )
• Resolver tool. Helps you draft a letter, send it, monitor replies and then escalate it to an Ombudsman or key complaint body if it's not sorted. (Link)
  
• SayNoTo0870 cheap phone number finder ( Link )
  
• Survey sites that pay for your opinions ( Link )
• Swagbucks ( Link )
• Swapit ( Link )
• Tesco Orchard product testing (Link)
  
• Tickety Split cheap train tickets (Link)
  
• Toluna ( Link )
  
• TopCashBack ( Link )

If this list helps you today please click "Thanks".

allydowd

Morning DFW-Divas,

I'm up early to go to a routine doctor's appointment this morning. My OH and I have booked appointments at similar times so we an travel together and save on petrol. Then we'll come home and plough through our list and continue making plans for the future.

OH didn't notice the pulverised celery I put in the soup yesterday.


Nillionaire Month Two:

:grinheart Do Royal Mail Surveys.

:grinheart Spend 25p off Tesco ice-cream voucher. (Link)

:grinheart Make free spearmint tea with leaves from the garden.

:grinheart Do iSay surveys.

:grinheart OH will get a couple of items on special offer from the supermarkets.

:grinheart Pick up some claim forms from the council offices.

:grinheart Re-do our August budget to make it fit with our income drop.

:grinheart Eat breakfast before we go out so we don't want to snack in town. Take a flask of coffee with us.

:grinheart Make sure my doctor gives me enough pills to get me through til my next appointment. He has an annoying habit of prescribing me 12 weeks pills and telling me to come back in 13 weeks time.

:grinheart Stop off in Farmfoods and find out whether the gift card we found in a drawer has any credit on it. I suspect not but we're not binning it until we've checked. I was right. £0.

:grinheart Got books from the library including some on managing OH's health condition and a bread-making book as we bought some discounted granary flour.

:grinheart Check Freecycle for anything that could help us.


Good luck with your Devotions, Divas.

determined_new_ms

Morning ally & thanks again for the info re JSA yesterday. Jesus why is it so bloody confusing???? Glad to see you're keeping your spirits up!

dgd's cm is closed today so we are spending the day together :j planning to go to the wildlife park/zoo near us and use my season ticket. will take lunch and drinks so will be a free day out

other small things for today:

* [STRIKE]check banking[/STRIKE]
* do an energy & BB comparison
* all meals from stores - soda bread and cream cheese for lunch mmmm
* do some research for interview when dgd has her nap this afternoon
* friend coming round this evening to do interview prep with me (around multi agency working)
* send off cv and covering letter to position closing today
* [STRIKE]quick tidy round the house before going out[/STRIKE]
* call about an application I requested yesterday but wasn't sent. Deadline is today! Going to ask them to accept a late submission

That's all I can think of right now. If I get that done I will be very happy. Happy Friday guys! X

1HANNAH

Morning all, Thanks for the start Ally, hope you have a good day.
Dnms, enjoy your day at the wildlife park



Its a very wet, grey morning in South Wales this morning. Didn't get round to posting yesterday as we were out with the kids most of the day, it was a NSD too which was great Breakfast with my parents, popped to the library, lunch with my parents, out onto the beach to play quick cricket for an hour before heading to swimming lessons

My list for today
:heart: Check bank/update spreadsheet - done
:heart: Do spelling practice with Ds2 done
:heart: Do maths practice with Ds1 done
:heart: Reading with Ds2
:heart: Clean kitchen using stardrops
:heart: Ironing(switch off before last item)
:heart: All meals from stores -done
:heart: Clean and tidy fridge look for anything to use up done, made savoury American pancakes for breakfast to use up an egg that had got smashed with some strong cheese & sweetcorn yummy
:heart: Swagbucks Claimed a £5 agc voucher, need to keep going
:heart: Look for more items to go in use up box - done, added a tin of pineapple to the box
:heart: Check fpl done
:heart: Check luckyphone done - its like Freepostcode lottery, but also earning points towards a gift voucher
:heart: Unsubscribe from junk emails - done
:heart: Look for surveys - done a couple
:heart: 5 searches on inbox pounds done
Read one of my library books as I couldn't renew it so only got a few days to read it
:heart: Play just dance or similar on the xbox with kids to keep them moving done
:heart: Make date cake done
:heart: Make swiss shortcakes again as they went down very well earlier in the week done
Prep a full roast dinner for our lunch today and mine/dh's tea tonight as lots of veg to use up done
sure there'll be more to follow.......

:heart: Yay, a letter came from Rmail surveys with freebie stamps in
:heart: Paid talktalk bill as soon as bill arrived to get 10% speedy payment discount
:heart: Managed a NSD
I'm sure I'll add more but that's all I can think of so far! Have a good day all

DawnW

Morning all
Thanks for the start Ally

Hmm it is pouring with rain here today, so no gardening STILL raining.... still, it is good for the garden, as we haven't had prolonged rain for ages
List for today:

Ironing (no, I still haven't done it, and there is no excuse, so please kick me up the behind if I mention it again!) Done :T There wasn't even very much of it

Any surveys that are available Several on onepoll

Stick to diet after lapses with chocolate cake, wine and too large a helping of curry yesterday :eek: Done well today, and I even have enough points left for ONE treat

HM meals from stores - I have salmon burgers that I bought on offer recently (not tried these before, and I rarely buy this kind of thing, but they were cheap, and sounded quite nice) so we will have those for supper with salad - OH can have his in a bread roll I will need to buy spring onions, as I used the last of them in last night's Thai chicken curry. Done, didn't bother going out for spring onions, used chives instead, so a NSD

As it is wet, it is probably an idea to do an inventory of my larder and freezers. I have a lot in at the moment, but struggle to think what to have for meals (does anyone else have this problem?) A meal plan is probably the solution. I don't think I will need to do another big shop for a while! Done, and definitely no big shop for a while :eek:

Apart from that, OH and I struggled in the rain to take DD's old mattress to the tip - OH and SiL missed the opening time yesterday. We have a pick up truck and family and friends always want us to take their junk to the tip

Right, without further ado I am going to get on with the ironing :eek:

Hope you all have a good day

floella80

Morning everyone, sorry for not being on in a few days, I'm just really busy trying to do lots of things (sort baby things out, look for houses, go to bank etc) so I haven't had much time to write on here.

Thanks for the start Ally, great job hiding the celery! I'll have to learn to be more veggie savvy with my OH!
Determined - have a great day at the wildlife park.
Hannah - great on your busy NSD yesterday! I've got to get into the np habit more of not buying little things and just getting what I need.

It's raining here as well so it looks like it will be an indoor type of day, which is good as I still have a million and one things to do.

List for today:
*check emails for housing association to get back to me regarding a house we viewed yesterday and really liked
* if all okay, get OH to ring back the bank we are getting the mortgage from to arrange another appointment
* get chicken out of the freezer (straight away!) for dinner tonight
* check swag bucks (how do people earn so many points in a short space of time? I always struggle)
*check gift hulk
* check lucky phone and postcode lottery
* clean the bathroom day
* continue preparing money spreadsheet for next month
* surveys to do

I think that's about it on my list for today. Have a super day everyone!

xxxJOJOxxx

Good Morning Everyone


Gloomy but dry here. Fell asleep at 7ish last night to be wide awake at 12pm. I was then awake til 4am! However I finished decluttering the kitchen and hallway completely. So im back on track where I want to be. Not sure what room to tackle next...


Daily Dfw's
Check online banking
Check emails & unsubscribe
Check Budget & transfer any remaining money into spends account
Sort out bag & purse


Home & Decluttering
Washing, drying & Ironing
Do one more room
One more bag ready for charity shop


All things Old School
Walk all journeys
Lift home tonight
Turn everything off when I leave for work
Make use of free drinks at work
Few bits from town, whilst walking through


Entertainment & Leisure
Games night with little ones
Netflicks for me later


Upping my Income
Smile & get some tips, if I get some customers :-D
Put some item on facebook pages
Ebay bundle of baby girl jeans


That's all I can think of at present, mad add on as the day goes along


Have a good day all

twiggy86

Afternoon all!!

I had a NSD yesterday! Can't remember the last time I had one of those!

Bob - foot is slowly getting better, but I keep thinking its better than it is and doing too much!

Today I have/will:-
* Check banks - 67p from TCB gone in
* Take lunch to work
* Payday today so do a money shuffle off to relevant pots
* Update signature, spreadsheet and snowball
* Earn more on OnePoll
* Check FPL
* Sort money out to pay into the bank tomorrow
* Dinner from stores
* Wash hair and let dry naturally
* NSD?

Hope you all have a great day and it isn't as wet and miserable where you are as it is here! Annoying when you have to go at a snail's pace!

allydowd

:mad: Just bit into a peanut and broke a tooth. :mad: Rang the dentist straight away for an appointment and while I'm on hold my OH says "Can you get me an appointment too? My bridgework is coming loose!"

This we could do without. My mouth is 'complicated' and so is my OH's. On the positive side the damaged tooth is at the back of my mouth so, if it can be saved, you won't see it. And all this after our doctor told us this morning how we were both making good progress to returning to health!

<Look a bit like my avatar at the moment.

Making another flippin' plan...

FatVonD

Ally, on the bright side, if you are both claiming JSA presumably you won't have to pay for the dentist so as well for it to happen now as when you've found a new job!

Dawn, thanks for the reassurance that I'm not going to be escorted from Mr T by security for adding wombled CC points paid for with someone else's debit card! I have to pick up the tent I ordered from a store that isn't the one I usually go to this weekend so I will add them there as I think my usual store are onto me :cool:

Following on from yesterday's conversation about freezing leftovers, I came home to find DS staring at a white lump in a bowl saying 'what IS this??' He'd defrosted some leftover coconut milk!

Having just three of us in the house we get a lot of leftover bits if things come in packs of four. When all the kids were younger and we'd have film nights I'd cook up all the odd bits, slice into small pieces and call it a buffet :rotfl:

I have just taken some burgers from the deli counter out of the freezer to go with some YS burger buns and YS Diane sauce I picked up last night. I splurged full price for four big mushrooms to go on the side and I'm going to do home made chips. DH hates home made chips as he thinks they're too oily but I can't afford another Actifry (Actify chips are the BEST!) so I'll just blot them with kitchen towel.

I'm off work today as I too was awake in the wee small hours with the beginnings of a migraine-type headache which I have managed to sleep off this morning. There's zilch chance of me going out so I'm grazing on the leftovers in DS's fridge (we have two, one he can help himself to anything from, the other is ingredients for meals) and we've run out of milk so I'm reusing tea bags to drink weak tea so today is looking like a no spend day!

Happy Friday everyone!