Thursday 26th November - What small things will you do today?

princess_pea

Morning all :wave:
Thanks for starting La E

It's payday tomorrow and I'm down to my last few pence. The little bit of money I had at the start of the week has gone either in the car or on bits and bobs of food. I can gladly say the credit card has not been used though!
Work have managed to mess up the first payment of these extra hours I'm doing so I've been under paid this month. I can still put the extra I have got into the wedding pot and will get the missing money next month. I knew something would go amiss! But hopefully it'll be sorted now going forward. It's lovely to see the wedding pot growing!
LSD today as I bought some soup for lunch. Other than that all meals from stores.
Marriage prep tonight which means free drink and cake!
Budget is sorted for next month. We get paid a week early in December and before Christmas. I'm going to ignore this and not touch the December pay packet until the end of the month - January is always expensive and I have my car MOT and car tax to pay for! It's also my birthday on the 6th January so no doubt we'll be doing something as I have the day off work. This will be the first Christmas in a long long time I haven't arranged an overdraft to pay for it :j but this does mean it'll be tighter than usual so I'm sticking to Martin's mantra of no unnecessary present-buying!
Banking/ FPL/ surveys to check
See if the refund for an event I didn't go to has cleared in my Paypal account yet so I can transfer it
Lots to do at work today and tomorrow - very much looking forward to the weekend!


Have a lovely day everyone

lego_mum

:wave: Hello all, Thanks for the starter LE.

My list for today as follows

Health & Fitness plans (lose this weight once and for all, no fad diets ever again!)
:starmod: Walk the boys to & from the bus stop
:starmod: Gym class – aiming for 5 a week (works out to less then 80p/class!)
:starmod: Fill water bottle at the gym
:starmod: Walk at least 7000 steps to get bounts points
:starmod: Eat for health
:starmod: Drink water through the day
:starmod: Monitor fitness goals etc using my fitbit daily & adjust when needed

Daily jobs
:starmod: Wash a load at 30 degrees
:starmod: Hang washing on the line if dry/radiators if not
:starmod: Check banks/update spreadsheet
:starmod: Delete junk from emails
:starmod: Clean & tidy fridge (make sure we don’t waste anything) spinach looking sorry for its self so that will go with some banana & milk and make a smoothie for the kids tonight Also made a vegetable sauce to go with pasta in the next few days
:starmod: Use something out of the food use up box finished off some spices, it was a duplicate bottle
:starmod: Plan today’s meals from stores
:starmod: Make families lunches for tomorrow
:starmod: Minimum heating on (set for 30 mins before dh gets up), plenty of blankets & jumpers available  its soooo cold here so I've put on my bargain cashmere jumper that I picked up for a tenner last month

Tidy home = Tidy mind
:starmod: Hoover carpets - ds2 wants to help so will leave this for later!
:starmod: Clean the kitchen using minimal products
:starmod: Tidy at least one cupboard
:starmod: Gather together items for the cs

Money making schemes
:starmod: Inbox pounds 5 searches not sure if I should keep going with this one tbh
:starmod: Swagbucks
:starmod: Check Fpl
:starmod: Check luckyphone
:starmod: Check for surveys

Freebies/vouchers/offers
:starmod: Check 02 priorities need to go into town with dh at the weekend to pick up a couple of bits from whsmiths
:starmod: Check tcb/quidco used tcb to by some flipflops that I'd been wanting from clarks & used a 20% off discount code too
:starmod: Check cos/shopit added 2 receipts to cos & gave my sis the money I owed her for the freebie she picked up yesterday for me


Extras
:starmod: Make a date cake THIS IS A MUST DO!!
:starmod: Book mrT xmas delivery slots - did this at 12.01 this morning and got the two slots I wanted
:starmod: My dad has given me some ys leeks that he'd like me to make leek & potato soup with (dh & df's fave) so need to make that to send some round to him & dh can have it with some ys chili & cheddar bread (also from my dad )
:starmod: I'm sure there's lots more to add but I'll add them when I think on or I'll not get anything else done today!!
:starmod: Send meter readings

Have a good day all
BOB Loving the updated signature!!

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas,
A useful sort of day, but can't decide if it was money saving or not. mr f didn't have to go into work until mid-afternoon so this ended up benefitting me in 3 ways: 1)I had access to the car in the morning so could go into town 2)He said if I changed my cleaning day to Thursday instead of tomorrow he would hoover & clean the bathroom 3)This has freed up much more time tomorrow, which is my Big Budget Day as December budget is quite complicated. So anyway:
*Laundry had all dried overnight on heated airer - cheap tariff, that's the way we like it.
*Saved a smidge of energy by turning towel radiator off for a few hours & switching off iron to press final garment (ironing day, bah!).
*House cleaned using minimal products.
*mr f unblocked household drain using boiling water & his bare hands. Plumber call out averted :-)
*Checked OLB for energy rebate etc, no sign of it yet. Was hoping it might have come in time for budget day, but never mind, at least I know the sum we should be getting.
*Did a couple of surveys.
*Nobbled mr f about the weekend. We'd hoped to do our North Yorkshire day out which we postponed last weekend when weather was wet. Forecast still looks ropey, so decided not to use 164 mile's worth of petrol if it's going to be too rainy to do much walking while we're up there. Planned city centre trip instead & will pick up grocery shopping at same time.
*Bought turkey. I like a free range one so decided the best option price-wise was a frozen one. Bought it using my credit card (will pay it in tomorrow) so as to maximise points for vouchers & also used a £4 off voucher & availed ourselves of a free 'Guardian' & coffees (Waitrose) while we were there.
*As mr f had successfuly used his O2 Priority offers in WHS for freebies earlier this week, I took my phone in & used the offers for free chocolate money & free roll of giftwrap - it's nice paper too, not horrible cack, so anyone with an O2 mobile contract, do register for the O2 Priorities ap. It's very easy at the till. Just show the offer, click to 'Use it now' & a code appears for assistant to enter into the till.
*Knit more hiking sock (present).
*Knit more sleeve (another present).
*Using-stuff-out-of-freezer fortnight: have taken out a big bag of tomatoes & some pork which we'll eat tomorrow & 3 bread rolls. Need to make space for my Christmas baking.
*Thursday is vintage market day in town. Managed to cross market square without looking. In the spendy decades, I used to spend a fortune at such markets, flea fairs, etc. I really want one of those old 1930s mirrors with a bevelled edge instead of a frame, which hangs on a chain. I gave mine to a charity shop when I sold my old house & I wish I hadn't! Never mind, when I have the spare £30-£40 the things seem to cost now, I will start looking. However, with the Car Fund needing to be stepped up over 2016, vintage mirrors can't really be a priority. (Still keeping my eyes peeled in charity shops, though....just the sort of thing which might rock up in our YMCA chazzer!)
*No downstairs heating going on until 5pm at the earliest.
*Cat has been assisting with money saving today - he heard a robber cat coming through the cat-flap & was off the sofa & flying out after him in nano-seconds!
*Packed lunch & work snacks made for tomorrow.
OK, that's me for today. I'm going to do about an hour of knitting before going to round up the stuff for making my pinto bean chilli tonight.....except pinto beans.....I make it with black-eyed beans which are very cheap in the world food aisle at Sainso's - thanks to Ziggy for that tip. Also bought brown basmati rice from that section recently. Big bag...think 2 kg, for £3 which is just a little more than I've been paying for 1kg.
Bye for now,
f x

Bobarella

Thanks LegoMum

determined_new_ms

Warning rant alert! I am so sick of people in public services who have no compassion for dealing with people with MH problems and just make situations worse!

Received a call from dd in a very distressed state. She had visited yesterday and stayed over with a friend last night so caught the train home (ok so at this point mistake #1 - she didn't get a ticket before she got on the train. Frustrating but in the scheme of things not the worse decision she has ever made - one of the aspects of her illness is she is impulsive and doesn't think through situations consequentially).

Ticket police come along and she has no ticket but has the money to buy one so asked for ticket. When asked why she didn't get a ticket she explained there is no office at that station. Things then escalated out of control, the officer's said it was a very convenient story and threw her off of the train and what's worse they said she couldn't use the station and had to get to another town to get the train.

Knowing my dd and hearing her on the phone I know things would have gone from bad to worse with her mood and her ability to deal with the situation (she has a mood disorder which means if her mood is escalated beyond a certain point she actually and medically CANNOT calm herself and needs help, hence the call to me). While she was having a episode one of the officer's was laughing at her, telling her she was crazy (FYI to anyone working with the public if someone is acting crazy then maybe they do have MH problems and need your help not ridicule!) telling her she was embarrassing herself and continuing to tell her to get out of the station.

When I spoke to her initially she was hysterical. I asked her to put the man on the phone and I would try to mediate. When she handed him the phone he dropped it on the floor.

I managed to help her calm down and we came up with a plan to deal with the situation. Once she's calmed down I called the transport police to complain. What is wrong with some people? Don't they have any compassion??? So many people who are in positions of authority have no understanding of how to deal with people with MH problems and just inflame the situation and make it worse.

I'm so upset that these people treated her like that, she's trying so hard and every situation like this sets her so far back.

Sorry to offload

DawnW

Sorry to hear that DNMS
Is your DD home safe now?

I agree, that was a disgusting way to treat someone who was obviously distressed. And I can't see why she couldn't simply pay on the train, as she had offered to do - people do this all the time, as many stations don't have functioning ticket offices at offpeak times. I would complain direct to the train company and the oversight body (can't remember what they are called) too, let people on social media know and write to the press! :mad:

lego_mum

Dnms, sorry to hear that, I'd second everything Dawn suggested. Hope your DD is ok.

Baileys_Babe

Baileys_Babe wrote: »

Morning all and thank you to La e for starting the thread this morning.
I over slept this morning until 9.30!! I awoke to find OH sitting in bed reading his book. Luckily nobody needs to be anywhere today, so no mad panic. Since waking I've checked FPL, read a few important emails,paid window cleaner (sent OH out with the money) read and replied to this thread.

Today:
Check FPL
Write shopping list
Go shopping & stick to list
Stick to meal plan
All meals from stores
Minimal heating, we have jumpers & blankets
Entertain the family for free
Educate children for free
Turn off lights and appliances not in use
Run DW overnight
Run WM overnight
Dry laundry on airers
Make bread
Pack lunch for tomorrow's HE workshop
Pack resources for tomorrow's HE workshop

I am sure their is lots more we will/should be doing.
I will also be trying to get an early night and wake at a more reasonable time tomorrow.

I have done everything on my list with the exception of packing tomorrow's lunch as the bread is still baking
I am so tired I could happily go to bed now, but we still need to eat our dinner which is nearly ready, thankfully.

carrielovesfanta

DNMS - I hope your dd is home safe. What a ridiculous way to treat someone who is clearly distressed. Disgusting.

Baileys_Babe

DNMS sorry to read of your daughter's experience today, I'm glad she felt able to turn to you for support.