Wednesday 29th July - What small DFW things will you do today?

determined_new_ms

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:

Morning happy Wednesday and it looks like it's going to be a lovely sunny day here in the south :T

FatVonD hope everything got sorted out with your ds last night x

Plans for the including stop moping around and wasting my life online. Need to be positive, we have food in our cupboards, a roof over our head, clothes to wear and people that we love - riches beyond compare! Need to remind myself that things will be ok, I will get another job and after everything I have been through over the last 2 years it's ok to have a bit of time out from work.

Ok pep talk over with!

* [STRIKE]check banking[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]read martin's email[/STRIKE]
* see if I can save the seedlings that I dropped when moving the tray this morning
* water plants
* [STRIKE]load of washing in machine & line dry[/STRIKE]
*[STRIKE] rubber chicken out of freezer to make enchilladas mmmmmm[/STRIKE]
* make dgd's packed lunch for tomorrow
* all meals from stores - need to use up humus. How can you possibly eat a pot within 2 days????
* [STRIKE]change bb supplier[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]do some studying - really must start this today![/STRIKE]
* job search
*[STRIKE] onepoll[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]polish house[/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]look through what we have in stores as going on a picnic tomorrow so need to decide if I need to get anything. Am thinking a nice loaf of tiger bread will probably be enough (and maybe some olives - dgd's fave!)[/STRIKE]
* go for a run

Ok that's enough! looking at the weather it looks like it's going to be sunny until lunchtime so think I will go in the garden for a bit have a lovely y'all! x

1HANNAH

Good Morning Determined & thanks for the start

Hello to all that follow
:heart: Switched mobile off over night done
:heart: Heating off (get fleece blankets out if needed) done
:heart: At least 1/2hr exercise at the gym
:heart: Fill water bottle at gym
:heart: Shower at the gym (make use of their hot water, electricity to wash/dry hair)
:heart: Check FPL
:heart: Use nectar search
:heart: Do 5 searches on inbox pounds done
:heart: Check Banking/update spreadsheets done
:heart: Unsubscribe from junk emails done
:heart: Make dh lunch for work tomorrow
:heart: Check http://ashleighmoneysaver.co.uk/ for daily chance of winning £50 done
:heart: Check https://www.luckyphone.co.uk/ - like FPL done
:heart: Apply make up/perfume
:heart: Drink warm water rather than tea/coffee save the cost & less calories too done
:heart: All meals from stores - plan & prep -
:heart: Try to use something out of the use up food box Using up a pasta bake sauce with kids for lunch
:heart: Use something out of pamper box
:heart: Read a few pages of a book
:heart: Wash a load at 30 degrees - Load 2 of 3 in but had to stop it as had to switch stop c0ck off
:heart: Hang washing on the line load 2 out
:heart: Check out flylady email and complete todays task
:heart: Clean & tidy fridge - if I keep on top of this daily, we don't seem to waste any food. done
:heart: Clean & tidy freezer (update freezer list) done
:heart: Add items to charity bag - a ben 10 tshirt added done also a few toys
:heart: Ironing - switch off before last item to use residual heat
:heart: Do some Swagbucks - running apps now
:heart: Check email survey opportunities none yet will look again later
:heart: Check checkoutsmart done & my sis is popping to shops for us (I'll stay home looking after my two + my niece)
:heart: Check shopitize done as above
:heart: Check TCB/Snap Save - done as above
:heart: Check Quidco/clicksnap done as above
:heart: Check 02 priority
:heart: Strip the spare bed & wash ready for visitors next week.
more to follow.....
:heart: Reading with ds2
:heart: Maths with ds1 & ds2 done
:heart: Spellings with ds2 done


Just had breakfast, American pancakes with summer berries & chocolate chunks in them Lovely way to start the day


My niece came running through to tell me there was water running down the playroom wall The toilet is leaking around a bolt that holds the flush Super dad is on his way over to fix it for us!! As we are going to have to move a big cupboard in the playroom to see if the carpet is also wet I've just spent the last hour with the kids tidying their toys and sorting a few things out to go to the charity shop also -
Dad came & he conquered! Luckily we had a washer that would fit in the garage & he's taken up the laminate flooring behind the toilet for me, luckily it hasn't blown so just putting it in the conservatory where its warm to take a couple of days to dry out hopefully. Once the wall/ceiling in the playroom has dried out, we'll have to re paint but we have the right colour in the garage so hopefully just a touch up job.

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-Jedis,

I was so comfy I did not want to crawl out of bed this morning. Thanks for the starter DNM.

I am due at the dentist this morning. I don't mind dentists it's their bills that weaken my knees. OH is going to come with me for a couple of groceries. Will drop a bag off kitchen bric-a-brac a the charity shop while we're there.

And the rest of the day will be spent continuing our Summer de-clutter and clean. We usually do a deep clean every three months but Spring got left out this year.

Nillionaire Month Two:

:grinheart Do Royal Mail Surveys.

:grinheart Finish deep cleaning the kitchen and then move onto the Pantry where the deep freeze and the canned and packet food storage shelving is. I need to pull everything out as it hasn't been properly cleaned for 6 months! If yesterday's Darth Larder is anything to go by it'll be grim in there, but there may also be treasure among the tins and packets. :T

:grinheart Do iSay surveys.

:grinheart Finish financial plan for August once I've seen the dentist.

:grinheart Breakfast is crepes the batter mix for which was prepared last night as we have a zillion eggs.

:grinheart Lunch is a cheeseburger using venison burgers bought on offer last week. We have taken to having lunches half prepared on days when we are out in the morning so that when we return from out trips out the food is nearly ready to eat. This way we aren't tempted to order fast food or buy sausage rolls on the way home.

:grinheart OH harvested more strawberries from the garden s'morning. We'll have them later.

:grinheart Hoping an eBay item might sells today. Only £1 profit but it's been listed for ages.

:grinheart Checked Quidco ClickSnap for grocery offers. Nothing suitable. (Link)

:grinheart Read Martin Lewis' latest tips email. (Link)

:grinheart Consider switching to TSB for £100. (Link) It's a bit of a faff to change accounts but the £200 would come in very handy if we both switched...

News:

:grinheart New Tesco Clubcard points double-up. (Link)

:grinheart Don't forget to renew your Tax Credits by Friday.

Offer:

:grinheart Buy The Sun today for 40p get a bottle of Carling Cider which retails at £1.75. Not sure if this is available in all UK regions. (Link)

Back later...

Good luck with your Devotions, Jedis.

Ratison

Hello all, thanks Determined for starting us off.

Hannah, your breakfast sounds lovely, did you make the pancakes yourself?

Ally - I hope you have a cheap and painless time at the dentist! Good luck with the declutter.

I've been laid low by illness the last couple of days - on the plus side, I haven't eaten (so that's saved money), but on the downside I've had to fork out for Lemsips and eye drops. However, I don't think they should count as spends under NSD challenge rules.

Today I will:

- Have a NSD, all meals from stores. My appetite is definitely coming back, I can't stop thinking about macaroni cheese, and lemon curd on toast!

- Do any surveys for I-say and e-rewards - I ordered £40 worth of John Lewis vouchers from I-say yesterday. Really pleased with that, given that I don't do the surveys as often as I could, plus I seem to get rejected from loads! :j

- Do my YNAB for August. Really want to save a lot this month, for home improvements.

- Tidy the house now I'm feeling a bit better.

--

This is probably TMI (but we're all friends here :grouphug:) - does any one have a good stain remover they can recommend for 'time of the month' related issues? :doh:

foxgloves

Morning all,
Sending positive vibes to everyone who is feeling low, stressed, poorly or off to face the drill & the nasty pink mouthwash. A few money saving things today, but have got to spend a bit of time on some Council stuff this morning, so not as big a list as I like to aim for.
*Back into the swing of counting up calories & filling in my food tracker as of today. Cutting out all the naughty extras is a money saver in itself.
*Watered veggies & fed all the fruiting varieties. The cold nights which are coming (Grass frost??!!?!) won't do the courgettes much good. Hope the days will be nice & sunny to cheer them up.
*Make dough for tonight's pizza & bread rolls for rest of week's lunches (ingredients weighed out but then had to chase mr f in car to give him his phone which he managed to forget this morning......a saga ensued & I'm now a bit behind).
*Awakened early by cat fight outside bedroom window. Was it ours? He was looking innocent & unscarred this morning, but as he's pretty big, I couldn't point the finger without having seen the other one. Hmmmm) Used the early feline alarm to get up & do the ironing while still on Economy 7 tariff. Hope bill comes soon, want to see how we are doing. I like Co-op Energy on the whole. I was with Npower before, too, like Ally, until they went too far on how much my monthly payment should be (basically £80 to £133, when my actual monthly underpayment, according to both my regular weekly readings & THEIR OWN FIGURES was £3.
*Managed to get a £1 delivery slot for online grocery order. I don't use online much, but we had a voucher code refund so obviously wanted to make use of that. Popped across to the village butcher & farm shop this morning for stewing steak & a couple of fruit & veg items. Good start to the reduced grocery budget......Week 1's shop = £49 spend, leaving £1 for a pineapple from the local market.
*Park at a further away car park for my meeting tonight, which is £1 after 6pm.
*Finished my knitting last night, so will sew in ends, look at how it joins up & wash & stretch (which is an instruction on the pattern, not the usual 'blocking' but actually stretching it out then hanging it up to dry. Hopefully something lovely & new to wear, anyway.
*Withdrew cash to pay remaining Savings Pigs.
*Bought 2 packs of seeds - mini turnips & spinach - which are ok to be sown in July. We have a spare bed due to having to lift our onions & shallotts early (allium leaf miner......it's reached the North east midlands & it's heading north, horrible destructive pest that it is) so I wanted to try & get it used for food crops rather than keep it empty.
*Checked ebay sales......another item sold last night & still lots of watchers, so my total may go up a bit more. Hope so......it's all destined for the car fund.
OK, time to go & pound that bread dough, love to all,
f x

DawnW

Morning all
Thanks for the start DNMS. Enjoy your time at home - you will get another job soon enough

Hope everything is ok FatVonD - I read your post on yesterday's thread, but it was late, so I didn't reply

Ally, I am a serial bank account switcher, go for it, it really isn't that much hassle at all, just need to keep an eye till you are sure the Direct Debits etc are going out ok, wages/pension/benefits or whatever going in. You can keep the old account open till you are happy with all this

Ratison, I have found Stain Devils to be quite good, you can get different ones for different types of stains. Had good results with felt tipped pen on tablecloth recently!

Right, so far today I have:

Up early again to another doggy accident. Poor old thing. can't help it

Put away all the [STRIKE]carp[/STRIKE] sales stock that was all over the spare bedroom yesterday after I unloaded it from the car and hauled it up 2 flights of stairs. Possibly unsurprisingly, I didn't feel much like crawling in the loft cupboard with it after that

Sorted out some bits to go to sales unit while I was at it

Seen to hens

Bread maker on

Cleaned the inside of the kitchen window as it looked filthy after the window cleaner had done the outside yesterday

Picked a big bunch of sweet peas - free flowers for the house, and they smell gorgeous

Just eaten a slightly shrivelled peach as my dieting stomach was grumbling a bit and it is not lunchtime yet. Thank goodness for fruit!

Still to do:
Charity shop run to get rid of some old clothes (I bought some 'new' ones from ebay recently)

Check banks

Do any surveys that are available

Tidy / hoover

Do a load of washing and dry outside (hopefully, or on the airer if it rains)

Meals from stores, probably need to buy some spring onions while I am out though, as we are between batches in the garden

Harvest any produce that is ready, and water anything that needs it (plants in pots don't necessarily get enough water just from the rain)

Put box of sales items in car (though I won't take them down today, I can walk to the charity shop to save fuel and bag some free exercise)

Right, I will be happy if I manage that! Hope everyone has a good day

1HANNAH

Ratison wrote: »

Hello all, thanks Determined for starting us off.

Hannah, your breakfast sounds lovely, did you make the pancakes yourself?

Ally - I hope you have a cheap and painless time at the dentist! Good luck with the declutter.

I've been laid low by illness the last couple of days - on the plus side, I haven't eaten (so that's saved money), but on the downside I've had to fork out for Lemsips and eye drops. However, I don't think they should count as spends under NSD challenge rules.

Today I will:

- Have a NSD, all meals from stores. My appetite is definitely coming back, I can't stop thinking about macaroni cheese, and lemon curd on toast!

- Do any surveys for I-say and e-rewards - I ordered £40 worth of John Lewis vouchers from I-say yesterday. Really pleased with that, given that I don't do the surveys as often as I could, plus I seem to get rejected from loads! :j

- Do my YNAB for August. Really want to save a lot this month, for home improvements.

- Tidy the house now I'm feeling a bit better.

--

This is probably TMI (but we're all friends here :grouphug:) - does any one have a good stain remover they can recommend for 'time of the month' related issues? :doh:

Hope you are feeling better soon.


Yes homemade pancakes, really easy


1 egg,
225ml milk,
150g s r flour
15g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
100g of summer berries that I defrosted last night
and a pack of chocolate chunks that I'd got on a COS offer last week.


Mix all together then
Using a table spoon I drop 1 spoon of batter into a hot pan, the mixture should flatten on its own but not spread far. After a minute bubbles will come through to the surface. Flip them but don't move them around. cook for another minute
If doing lots at once put the pancakes in a clean tea towel and fold it over to keep them warm whilst you cook the rest a few at a time. In my pan I usually cook three at a time.


Mix all together

allydowd

Back!

The dentist was able to save my broken tooth (for a fee of £60). Unfortunately and NHS filling wasn't suitable so I had to get a white plastic-glass composite one privately instead. This is still great news as that tooth supports some other structures in my mouth which would have otherwise also needed replacing if that tooth had to be pulled out. So I've just a free check-up left to go and hopefully that's me done for six months. And it was almost painless too. Just OH's appointment tomorrow now, and I'm sure that's not going to be simple.

:grinheart Have re-done August's budget to take into account our current temporary unemployment.

:grinheart Paid off the short-term debt of £240 we had to run up for three weeks to keep our car on the road. It was on a 0% credit card.

:grinheart Decided we will switch bank accounts and claim a £100 switching bonus when I'm (hopefully) back in work in 5 week's time rather than now when our budget is really tight.

:grinheart Free EHIC cards arrived in the post.

:grinheart Printed a coupon for money off 'our' toothpaste from CouponShop. (Link)

Offer:

:grinheart £2 of coupons off Danone yogurt. (Link) Print your own or have them sent to you.

twiggy86

Afternoon all!

FatVonD and anyone else with teethy problems or otherwise not 100%- Hope you're feeling better today :grouphug:

Today I have/will:-
* Check banks
* Finish washing up OH started before dashing out the door rather than let the water go cold only for OH to refill it later
* Take lunch to work
* Update work expenses
* Check FPL
* Check paypal for OnePoll money - nope but I only withdrew it yesterday so maybe I need to learn patience!
* Earn more on OnePoll - suppose it's worth starting again but it's taken ages!
* Check shopitize etc new deals
* Go to bank at lunch - DONE Had to park quite far away (there were spaces but not ones that someone rubbish at parking (me!) could fit in) so hobbled along as refuse to pay for the car park especially for the matter of minutes!
* Decide how to split/allocate money and then update spreadsheet, signature and snowball - £30 CC, £30 house renovation fund
* Write a meal plan - must get back to doing this!
* Start writing shopping list - lots of house/cleaning bits needed
* Dinner from stores
* Sweep stairs rather than hoover (they don't have carpet on them yet anyway!)
* Strip bedding
* More crochet - I've gone wrong somewhere but I'm hoping it will turn out okay anyway and I'm telling myself that if I wanted a perfect blanket I'd have bought one! This one's unique and personal (baby blanket for friend so I hope she views it the same!)

That's everything I can think of for now

DawnW

1HANNAH wrote: »

Hope you are feeling better soon.


Yes homemade pancakes, really easy


1 egg,
225ml milk,
150g s r flour
15g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
100g of summer berries that I defrosted last night
and a pack of chocolate chunks that I'd got on a COS offer last week.

Mix all together then
Using a table spoon I drop 1 spoon of batter into a hot pan, the mixture should flatten on its own but not spread far. After a minute bubbles will come through to the surface. Flip them but don't move them around. cook for another minute
If doing lots at once put the pancakes in a clean tea towel and fold it over to keep them warm whilst you cook the rest a few at a time. In my pan I usually cook three at a time.

My grandchildren all love pancakes for breakfast, like their parents before them :rotfl: I make plain ones though (no berries or chocolate, though I might try this), and they add their own topping (nutella is popular, also honey, or a squeeze of lemon juice and tiny sprinkle of sugar (the kids need supervising with this :eek:) An amazing treat, apparently, and costs next to nothing

As Hannah says, they are really easy (I have taught the bigger kids to make them, under supervision with the stove) and I can never understand why people buy those little packs of them, which are quite expensive, and you only get a few in a pack. And pancake mix - what is that all about? It is just flour - isn't it :huh: You seem to have to put other stuff with it?

In the unlikely event that there are any left over, they keep fine till the next day if you wrap them up

You can also make the batter the night before and keep in the fridge if you don't have time to do it in the morning. All part of the fun though, I am reliably informed :rotfl: