NST August - AB's Amazingly Aware August Challenge

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for good fencers, for getting out and about with dd (before the rain arrived), for good coffee, for lovely charity shop workers, for chill out time.

dolly84

Bob - my ebay account is linked to my paypal account but I only got 5 points from that. We think it must be something to do with DH filling up with diesel at work - so it is totally free as his work are paying.

Does anyone have any experience of mouthguards for children? We tried to fit DD's yesterday but it wouldn't fit, she had very oddly shaped teeth at the moment, she has a small face and a lot of teeth all jostling for room and we are waiting for more baby teeth to come out so she can have braces. The guard didn't seem to soften up much and was making her gag.

We are going cycling today with the kids, just for an hour or so. Me and DH will go cycling later too.

nannygladys

Another sfd for me, I must be doing OK as I still have money left in my grocery purse and a bit (but only pennies)in my treat purse so roll on September 1st. Any money left will go into my EF as I want to get about £5000 in it but it will take a time now I'm not working.

I'm thinking of getting some bulbs to plant in the garden as this year they didn't do too well, so will go for a look round the local garden centre, but will wait a week before I buy them to enable me to work out what I want where.

Dinner today is freezer surprise as I have some meals that I cooked some time ago but didn't label, I think it may be chilli!! I was given a big bag of cooking apples yesterday so I must start doing something with them, have to go over to the recipe section to have a look for something different from the usual crumble.

Anyway hope everyone is still in a positive mood as we are nearly there now
Nannyg

Bobarella

Hi All
A good day. The 3 of us cycled to Catford for school shoes, via the water link way which is a 7 mile path starting near our home and going as far as Deptford. We use it a lot. It never feels like we are near some of the busiest most traffic snarled roads in London (south circular anyone? ) & we always see lots of nature along the way. Today we stopped so my son could try a Sloe berry..despite our warnings there are loads out already.

The school shoe thing was not fruitful. The pair we want, that I have a free voucher for (from collecting my credit card reward points) aren't in stock and they don't know when they will be. Son can still fit into last year's so do we wait and hope or buy another pair? Humm. ..

Cycled back along the water way to big Mr S where we used a voucher that gave 150 points if we spent £10 on cat food. We got 5 kilos for that amount which will last ages (around 1 month) & save us buying the smaller boxes which works out much more expensive.

The police were outside the supermarket doing bike marking for security so OH dealt with that whilst I bought the pet food. Not directly money saving but very helpful in preventing expensive loss of bikes if they were stolen.

The majority of our DDs will head out the door on Tuesday so should be able to see more clearly what's available for CC payments then.

Hope everyone is enjoying the bank hols.

Bob

apple_muncher

Garnered a surprise NSD here as dss + gf went to aldee and got me the 3 items we had run out of, and wouldn't take any money .

Did a 100 burpee workout this morning - v ambitious! Then spent the afternoon staining the new fence, and the gate, then shifting a load of compost bucket by bucket onto the garden. I do not expect to be able to move much tomorrow!!!

Thank you Bob for the s t r e t c h concept back in July - I have made mine an Aug - Dec one to see how far I get. With 2 extra big people to feed for Sept, and maybe longer, I have to be careful not to pay off too much in case we need it. (they are contributing, but it is more of a token gesture than 'rent' as they are not earning yet) After a month or so, I'll have a better idea of how much money we need for food.

Thank you academiablues for August's challenge, especially the mindfulness.

One more day and then another fresh start. I love fresh starts! In case anyone missed it, September is here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5314988

Calling14

Reporting in and claiming a sfd for a change.


Academia thanks for August's challenge sorry went bit off the rails towards end of the month. Tried mindfulness a fair bit lately.

Really finding it hard without my dog this weekend, went for a walk and picked lots of blackberries today. House and Garden tidied up.

Tomorrow will need milk so Spendy day.

September I need to diet, great challenge apple muncher will try my best.

Have a great rest of the weekend folks x

nannygladys

Not a sfd and spent nearly all the grocery purse money.

Anyway off to bed
Nannyg

misstara

The last two days have been NSDs taking me to 18/20. Should hopefully get another one tomorrow too.

The_Only_Girl

Hello everybody! As we close this challenge I would like to share my good news. As of Thursday, we have sent our last payment to our credit card! I have wanted to shout to the roof top the debt free scream but held back until we could actually see the updated balance with the three magical letters NIL. Thank you so much for inspiring, encouraging, motivating and teaching me new ways to deal with our situation. It has been a difficult but eye-opening journey for My hubby and my two boys. I will continue the journey with you in next month's challenge and the months after that with the aim of remaining debt free. Next target for us will be to have a healthy emergency fund equal to three months living expenses and then start the mortgage free journey. Cheers to all!

misstara

Congratulations TOG, that's fantastic news :j