Tuesday 28th 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

7pm

:grinheart Got an email inviting me to test Tesco Finest Cheese as part of the Orchard programme. If you're on Orchard ya might wanna check your email before all the places are snapped up. This will give us £3 of free cheese.

:grinheart Dinner was home-made chicken and mustard kebabs with linguine and ribbons of savoy cabbage from garden. Also homemade tomato sauce.

determined_new_ms

Morning ally thanks for the kick start

small plans for the day:

* [STRIKE]checked banking[/STRIKE]
*[STRIKE] paid CM early as requested[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]spoke to CM and gave notice we will be reducing our days.[/STRIKE] She was so lovely and has said she will help with having dgd when I have interviews and has said once I find a job we'll be able to find a way to fit her back in :j she's so lovely! :A
* all meals from stores
* [STRIKE]breakfast was a smoothy using a frozen over ripe banana and a handful of frozen-before-they-perished blueberries[/STRIKE]
* look into bb suppliers and changehave found one that is £17pm less than we have paid this last month :T
* changed energy tariff when I found out by change my supplier was going to put up my dd by 50% :eek:
* [STRIKE]look through vacancies I've book marked and work out which ones I want to apply for and when I need to start/complete them[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]job search[/STRIKE]
* do some studying
* call recruitment agency and register
* go for a run
* look into volunteering - thinking I might volunteer 1 day a week until I get a job just to keep my hand in! found a couple that might be interesting, not exactly in the area I was thinking of, need to do more searching...
* [STRIKE]NSD[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]water/feed plants[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]sow salad seeds[/STRIKE] - has been on my list for at least a month now!
* [STRIKE]plant mint cuttings I was given last week[/STRIKE]
* checked onepoll and did loads of surveys. Will check back at 4 - thanks for the tip foxgloves!

Think that's all I need to do. Hoping you all have a lovely day x

twiggy86

Morning all

Hope this breeze has blown away the Monday blues for everyone!

Foot is getting there, can nearly walk properly and its more achy than painful now!

Today I have/will:-
* Take mince out of freezer for dinner
* Check banks
* Submit meter readings
* Use crusts for toast
* Take lunch to work
* Earn more on Onepoll - up to £39.90 but can't make that last 10p!!! FINALLT HIT THE £40 MARK! SWIFTLY WITHDRAWN!
* Claim free nivea - thanks ally
* Check FPL
* Pay money into bank whilst running errand for boss as one kind of on route - Bank was shut!
* Update work expenses
* Buy some soap at lunch and free tea cakes - nothing else!
* Add on wombled points whilst at MrT
* Upload receipt to earn cash back - made 19p on teacakes plus 1p from Quidco
* Check TCB to see if cashback has tracked from train tickets I purchased for boss yesterday has tracked - it hasn't :eek:
* Dinner from stores
* Strip bedding to wash tomorrow morning
* More crochet

Would like to try fit in more cleaning but OH's dad staying with us tonight as he's having a hospital procedure and lives on his own, so they weren't going to let him out. Don't want to seem rude not chatting to him, although he may not feel up to much.

Hope you all have a good day.

princess_pea

Morning all,


Well today is pay day and I've updated my signature :j
It's not a NSD as I've ordered the last of my boyfriend's birthday presents. He is a really good cook and one of the presents is a bread maker so hopefully in a round-about way it'll turn out to be moneysaving! It certainly wasn't an expensive one but has good customer reviews.


All meals from stores
See about cancelling my TV licence so it's one less thing to pay next month (we're moving in together and my parents are having my TV in a couple of weeks so I won't need a licence anymore - he pays his)
FPL and surveys to do
Home at lunchtime to walk the pooch who I have staying at the minute
Lots to do at work as ever
Put £10 in the car
If it's not raining tonight hoover the car out


Think that's everything for today. Take care everyone

floella80

Morning everyone, hope you're all doing okay!

im still feeling stuffed up with a cold, now have a lovely sore throat to go with it! Hopefully it's going to do one very soon.

My list for today:
* Midwife appointment - Done. Baby is fine and cooking nicely in there.
* Sort out present for saturday when I'm going to awedding evening do.
* Mortgage appointment this afternoon. Have no choice but to drive to see mortgage advisor.
* check swag bucks and gifthulk. Trade in points?
* Begin to organise shoes and chuck out any/sell/recycle

I feel like my shoes may take a while so that is my big job for today, as well as cleaning the cupboard they are in and tidying it up.

Have a great day!

foxgloves

Happy Tuesday Frugalistas!
Have got off to a good start. The list looks something like this:
*Did overnight laundry on cheap tariff. Banged another load in & got about an extra 10 mins of cheap electricity before the tariff changed to daytime rate. Could have got an extra 40 mins had I not been so keen to get a bucket of coffee down my face & spent ages yakking to mr f. Done.
*Refused to give Cat his dinner at 9.03 a.m....precisely an hour after he'd eaten an entire breakfast & several mouthfuls of biscuits. Done.
*Watered greenhouse veg - spotted the first 2 tomatoes are nearly ripe. A few of the outside cherry tomatoes are also at the orange stage, so I think I'll leave tomatoes off the shopping list for next week. Done.
*Weeded leek bed. How long has that been on the list? Ages. It was very muddy but that meant the weeds slipped out more easily. Done.
*Cut about 6 wimpy lettuces from a bed which doesn't get sufficient light. Have taken off nibbled or floppy leaves & given them a good drink in the kitchen sink. They'll be fine for free salad tonight & tomorrow. Picked a few jalapenos - small ones from the over-wintered plants which aren't going to get any bigger but were lovely & red-ripe so can go in tonight's meal. Then went round all my courgette plants & cut off the little courgettes which you get at first which don't get any bigger because they haven't pollinated properly. They are fine in stir-fries, frittatas, etc. Done.
*Checked ebay listings & replied to a bidder about an item. Haven't sold any more items overnight but total has risen by £7 as 2 items have been bid up. Lots of watchers. Auctions are up on Saturday. One of my auctions is for a pair of brand new shoes my Mum gave me to sell because they pinched her feet. She's never worn them & I have much smaller feet, so no use to me. Had no idea what to list them at, so put £9.99 thinking I might have to reduce it, but these shoes are currently at £21. Think it's a more popular brand than I realised. You can just never tell with ebay bidders, can you? Done.
*Paid another 50p piece into my sealed pot. Done.
*Make tomorrow's packed lunch & work snacks.
*Do a few surveys if I get time. I really need an IPSOS one, as am an infuriating 20 points away from cash-in. Grrr. Got one yesterday but was chucked out as didn't have enough 'Women of a Certain Age' problems for the required demographic!! That's something to be pleased about, at least, lol!!
*Finish knitting project. I am ABSOLUTELY 100% DETERMINED TO FINISH THIS TODAY!
*Rule up new pages in my food tracker journal as I am now back in the mind zone required to shift this bloody ridiculous stone which has very gradually snuck back on around my mid-section over the last year. If any more goes back on & I can no longer fit in size 16s, then I will have nothing to wear as did not keep any of my bigger clothes (sold them on ebay, which was a nice little earner) & refuse to buy any 18s because I am not going backwards. As I've lost 6 stones, I know I can shift this 1 single stone. Am already looking hard at portion size & using my Rosemary Conley Portion Pots again. This saves money because our food lasts longer. Baking will have to be banned for a couple of months, as will nibbling. Can you tell how determined I am this morning?
*Do next week's meal plans. Early, but we need to do an online shop this week to make use of the £8 refund voucher code we got for the overcharged meat.
*Write shopping list.
OK, going to pack all that lettuce away in the fridge, get the kettle on & fetch my food journal & knitting.
Have a good day, all.
f xx

lamarsi

Hi folks been a long time since I posted but I'm still whittling away at my debt... today I will shower at the gym, eat from the cupboards and have another nsd x

foxgloves

Bobarella - Yes, in reply to your comments, £50 does sound like a big reduction in our monthly grocery budget. Our usual budget is £250, which buys all our food, cat food & cleaning stuff. It also buys basic toiletries such as soap, deodorants, bubble bath, hand gel, shampoo, etc. We have a rule that if either of us want a more upmarket brand, then that will come out of our monthly 'Personal Spends'. I think £250 for 2 people is a pretty decent budget. We can easily go above it if we don't plan properly, though. Anyway, the way we work our grocery shopping is that I count up how many 'shopping days' there are in the month (we just shop for groceries once a week) & divide up the money. If there are 4 shopping days (Saturdays), then that gives us £62.50 a week. If there are 5 shopping days, which happens on a few months depending on when pay-day falls in relation to weekends, then we have £50 per shop. We've noticed since we've transferred our main shop to Aldi that we are getting really noticeably more groceries for our budget than previously. Our shopping list usually come in at under £40, & that gives us a bit to buy any more specialist ingredient at Waitrose or visit the market for fruit & veg, or get some meat from the butcher. As we know we can usually manage on £50 a week on those months with more shopping days, we reckoned that if we tried to do this on the 4-week months as well, we could free up a few £50s to transfer to our savings. We do need to save hard for changing our car as I am determined to borrow as little as possible. We do grow some food too, which helps with the grocery budget. For instance, I can't remember when we last bought a lettuce, spring onions, fresh or dried herbs. We're not self-sufficient, but what we grow does make a noticeable difference. So that, my dear, is the story of our £50 budget reduction. We'll do our best!
f x

allydowd

News:

:grinheart How to beat BT's broadband, home phone and tv price rises of 7% due on 20th September. How to make sure you're not automatically opted into paying £60 per year for BT Sport Channel. (Link)

Freebies:

:grinheart Free perfume sample. I use these samples to fragrance wardrobes and cupboards. (Link)

:grinheart Free shower scrub sachet for Superdrug loyalty card holders. (Link)

:grinheart Free hot drink at Cafe Nerro for O2 customers. (Link)

:grinheart Free Sherlock Holmes Collection e-book download for Kindle. (Link) Got this form my OH, she's thrilled. Three novels and 40+ short stories.

Mystery Shopper Opportunity:

:grinheart In the past I did a few mystery shops for GrassRoots. Most of these 'shops' didn't require me to actually make a purchase. I see they are recruiting again. (Link)