Sat/Sun 1st/2nd August - What Small DFW Things Will You Be Doing This Weekend?

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-Jedis,

Off out today to go to another free ParkRun as a 'ParkRun Tourist'. I'm off to the one at Strathclyde Country Park an hour away from home. I think sometimes ago another Forumite said they ran there, though I can't remember who that was. John, maybe? Anyway, if you're reading this...my running kit is black please wave!


Nillionaire Month Two:

:grinheart Do Royal Mail Surveys.

:grinheart Do iSay surveys.

:grinheart Take coffee and sandwiches as we're going for a walk around the country park afterwards to do some photography.

:grinheart Get Toblerone through Shopitize for the £1 refund while we're out as our local Sainsbury's doesn't stock it.



Back later...Stay away from the dark side, Jedis.

Bobarella

Morning All

Ally posted a very important tip on yesterday's thread if you are a twitter user. I am quite a big user so I actioned the advice immediately. If you didn't see it please go back and have a look. It sounds like lots of people have had big bills by not changing their phone settings. Thanks for that Ally.

Well after a funny night (was awake at various points, the last being 5.20) I woke with a start at 8.20. The latest I've been awake since Christmas probably. Christmas break not the day itself

So I feel a bit behind. But OH and DS don't even get their train till 11.30 and won't be home till 3 ish so I've still plenty of time to complete my plans..

The fridge is now looking quite bare from 3 days of solely eating up leftovers. Our lovely neighbour had left a big sack of his own potatoes in our porch when I got home yesterday. He had said he might. The cost saving alone is several £££. He gave us lettuce when he had spare of that from his garden too. Anyway I'm going to do shepards pie tommorow with some of them plus the YS mince so I have a shopping list of less than £10 to put out entire weekend menu together which is pleasing. Just having coffee and leftover pastries before I get myself sorted to go out. The thought of a new welcome mat is making me so happy. The little things

Bob

determined_new_ms

Morning ally :wave: enjoy your run! Feeling a little delicate after the party yesterday. Was a nice evening, fires on the beach, dgd enjoyed playing with the other children and found it hilarious we took her quilt :rotfl:

Bob your question re stoozing once you've transferred to 0% interest card you could build up a stoozing account. We started stoozing when we cleared our debts, got a card spent our regular outgoings on the card and then put all of the money we would have spent in a savings account. I have a Santander 123 account and get about £10pm interest on it. I've transferred the balance onto a second 0% card now. We've been doing this for about 2 1/2 years and at the end of the 0% period we'll have about £500 balance. At that point we'll do it all again if we can :T

Small things for today:
check banking
load of washing and line dry
not use the car, walk any journeys
NSD?
all meals from store
dinner from meal plan
do studying need to do the work for my course on Monday over the weekend
go and visit mil
water plants
go for a run
photo things to list on eBay tomorrow
continue sorting out front garden

Ok that's everything I think. Have a lovely day x

determined_new_ms

Morning Bob!

DawnW

Morning all
Thanks for the start Ally - hope you enjoy your run Thanks for the Twitter tip as well. I don't use Twitter (and this is not going to encourage me to ), but am going to check my phone to make sure the app isn't on there. Sort it out, Twitter!

DNMS, Bob, I used to stooze, but don't now, as it became more trouble than it was worth at one point - it might be different again now of course. What I do have is both a Santander 123 account, which pays interest on your balance and gives cashback on direct debits for bills, such as fuel, phone, water rates etc, and a 123 credit card, which pays cashback on things like supermarket shopping. The 123 account I mainly use as a savings account, though you do need to pay in £500 a month and arrange some direct debits. The credit card is a spending card, not a balance transfer one. I have set up a direct debit to pay it off each month in full

Right, list for today:
Check banks
Any surveys
Post a birthday card
Take a few items to sales unit
Small shop at Sainsburys, using voucher (and taking list)
Take paper recycling to paper bank while there - the refuse collectors are supposed to take it in the recycling box, but they don't always, and it tends to blow everywhere when you put it out in any case
Bit of ironing
Tidy up where needed (looking round, quite a bit This is always on my list, but I obviously don't always do it!)
HM meals
Stick to diet

Leisurely day to myself today, as OH is out till late afternoon

Weather not looking good though

Hope everyone has a good day

foxgloves

Morning Campers,
Breezy but pleasant sunny day here. Cat hasn't got the energy to play up as he went for his jabs yesterday (£20 less than I was expecting) & is a bit sleepy. So today's small things so far:
*Saved a bit of energy bill by recycling hot bath water to wash pet bedding.....saved more by drip-drying it on line rather than using spin cycle. Also ran washing machine overnight on cheap cycle & laundry now blowing dry on the line. Turned spin cycle down to a lower setting as everything dries much quicker in the summer. Also washed hair & let it dry naturally.
*De-scaled water filter jug. mr f has been making noises about buying a new one because ours is 'all skankrous'.Forensic investigation of the 'skank' by me revealed it to be only limescale. Soaked the affected parts in vinegar & it came off in 5 mins. Replaced cartridge using the last of the pack of Wilko's own brand cartridges (to fit the Brita 'Maxtra' jugs) which we bought to test. They have been fine so we will buy those in future. Jug looks like new.
*Have already meal-planned & shopped for the coming week, but made another meal plan for the week after & a small list of items we'll need for it. This is to make use of an excellent Co-op offer in our local branch which expires this weekend. For a minimum spend of £15, dividend card members receive a food goodybag containing £10 worth of groceries. I had the free breakfast goodybag a while ago on a similar deal. This one contains pasta, pasta sauce, garlic baguettes, chocolate biscuits, orange juice, tea bags, soup, baked beans, peach slices & meringue nests! I think it would be stupid not to take advantage of it if there are some packs left when we go this afternoon. For customers on a desperately tight budget, what a useful resource this would be. I do hope lots of people take advantage of it.
*Checked my ebay auctions which are all up today. Remember those shoes I listed at £9.99, not knowing if they would sell? Well, they've sold for £28.27, & another item sold overnight too. Had a bit of snotty message from a bidder (about an error in one of my listings caused by me forgetting to opt out of the global shipping programme) so I am hoping that the item sells to the other bidder, who I know really wants it.
*Updated grocery budget with the vast £1 I spent yesterday. That was the last £1 of this week's grocery budget which I intended to spend on a pineapple. However when I got to the local market, I found I could pick 'any pineapple & any melon' for £1, so I felt I'd had my money's worth!
*Re-embursed both 'Household Pig' & myself......monies used in a complicated swap, which even I don't understand & I was the person who worked it all out!
*Paid another 50p piece into my sealed pot.
*Reminded mr f to dig some more potatoes.
*Watered greenhouse veggies & the new seeds I sowed yesterday (baby turnips, spinach & more radishes). Also check on sulky courgette plant I moved yesterday. It didn't really have enough light, so Have put it in a sunnier spot, even though it's not a brilliant idea to move them when they're fruiting.
*Knit like mad - bit of a saga, but the lovely garment I finished this week turned out to have an error in its construction caused by me misinterpreting an instruction in the pattern. I had 2 options - bodge it with 2 seams & feel bloody annoyed each time I saw them in the mirror (v expensive yarn - alpaca & silk - received as gift) OR pull out the 2nd section & re-knit to get it correct. So I frogged it & am now re-knitting. Annoying in terms of time, but my mistake & a beautiful free garment at the end of it.
*Collect boring household item from 'Homebase'. We ordered it 5 weeks ago, so very slow to get from warehouse to branch....perhaps it was strapped to the back of a small inexperienced tortoise who had forgotten to bring his sat-nav..... but the upside is that we've already paid, so if I don't get side-tracked by any sale shelves, it should be a no-spend visit.
*Updated calendar. It always amazes me that as soon as filling in the calendar starts to slip,
budget slip-ups are not far behind. Planning & being organised really is everything in keeping the household finances straight.
Have a great weekend, everyone. I've got to get those needles clacking now, but it's nice enough to take my knitting basket & pink stripy camping chair out onto the courtyard & sit outside.
F xx

1HANNAH

Good morning all,

Thanks Ally for the start, I hope you have a good run & thanks for the twitter tip.

Bob, Sounds like you have lovely neighbours

Dawn, I do the same as you with the Sant 123 acc/cc, done it for a year and found it to be great (with the exception of them double charging the annual fee on the cc!)

Dnms, Sounds like you had a lovely evening.

Its wet and grey here this morning but I'm still smiling as dh starts his two weeks holiday today
We've had an electrician out this morning to fix our burglar alarm, looks like we've found a good one, hes charged me cost for the batter (£16) and said just give him £20 for the call out, Dh was expecting at least double that
We have the inlaws coming to stay for a few days next week as its ds2's birthday on Friday, so I might not get to post much next week and then the Monday after we're taking the kids to Butlins
Hope Ziggy is enjoying her time in the caravan


Todays list
Switched mobile off over night done
Heating off (get fleece blankets out if needed) done
Check FPL done must check back later
Use nectar search
Do Post survey done
Do 5 searches on inbox pounds done
Check Banking/update spreadsheets
Unsubscribe from junk emails done
Check http://ashleighmoneysaver.co.uk/ for daily chance of winning £50 done
Check https://www.luckyphone.co.uk/ - like FPL done
Apply make up/perfume well perfume done
Drink warm water rather than tea/coffee save the cost & less calories too done
All meals from stores - plan & prep - done
Try to use something out of the use up food box Used a Schwartz spice pot to make a curry, added in an extra handful of diced peppers that I'd frozen earlier in the week & added a few handfuls of peas to increase the veg intake for the day
Use something out of pamper box
Read a few pages of a book
Wash a load at 30 degrees done
Hang washing on the line nope its wet
Check out flylady email and complete todays task
Clean & tidy fridge - if I keep on top of this daily, we don't seem to waste any food.done used up chicken breast in curry
Clean & tidy freezer (update freezer list) done
Add items to charity bag
Do some Swagbucks
Check email survey opportunities done
Check checkoutsmart added 3 receipts between mine/dh's accounts
Check shopitize
Check TCB/Snap Save -
Check Quidco/clicksnap
Check 02 priority need to call in at Halfords to collect free car washing kit (will go with dh so that he can claim it off his works phone too ) NONE AVAILABLE

foxgloves

Dawn - Glad you were able to use the chilli tip. I always do some of each. They freeze really well. I still have a big bag of green jalapeno chillies I grew last year, which I use regularly for pizza toppings, fajhitas, etc. I'm short on the long thin hot green chillies for curries though, so although I managed to over-winter 3 jalapeno plants (quite difficult here, as we are a lot further north than you & our house is really cold) & will get a small crop this year, I chose to concentrate on 'Heatwave' this year. If the first picking & all the flowers & baby fruits are anything to go by, it looks like a prolific cropper, which will be great, as I love stringing up the red ones to dry at the end of the summer. By the way, I did go ahead with my 10 courgette plants, so as to give me lots for pickling (made for first time last year & we both loved them but recipe takes a LOT of fruits). However, because they are planted in different places around our veggie garden, they are all at different stages at the moment, so I'm not inundated yet! Two plants have courgettes just ready for picking now, others maybe in a week's time & the furthest behind ones are just setting the first tiny fruits. I think we possibly have more growing space than you? We have quite a big garden, so our veggie plot is around 1/3 or so of an allotment plus the greenhouse.
f x

xxxJOJOxxx

Hello Everyone


Todays little listy


~ 2 collections due from facebook selling pages tick
~ Ebay item sold tick
~ All meals from stock
~ little walk after Lunch
~ One load washing and Ironing
~ Onepoll tick
~ NSD
~ Its Saturday, so some tips from work
~ Another Item on facebook selling pages


Happy Saturday Everyone x