NST December: Frugal festivities

Fmess

calling glad your friend and daughter were ok, I'd be the same

Today was a spendy day as I got the fresh items I needed to contribute towards Christmas dinner. Did some temping work, waited over 2 hours for the electrician to turn up for his money (!) and walked the dogs.

Today I am grateful for:-
1.) the love of my family
2.) the chance to earn extra money
3.) my home

Bobarella

Calling - that is good news. I am glad.

Dolly - good luck with your Jan food budget. How've you chopped the £20 off if you don't mind me asking? Less meat? More shopping at cheaper shops?

TOG - your posts sound so joyful for the new year. I'm so glad you are full of optimism.

Late so all for now.

Bob

Bipex

Another spend day yesterday, but after some planning ahead, I should have 5 SFDs in a row now, before my next spend day on Tuesday.

Dolly: well done coming in under budget!
TOG: couldn't agree with you more about the stress of multi-store shopping, I hate it. Often local smaller retailers are cheaper and usually friendlier too. And very nice to see your optimism for next year.
Chocolatelover: sorry to hear you feel poorly, hope you feel better soon.

Grateful for:-
A sunny morning
Help from a good friend to finish something that had to be done today
Mushrooms

traveller

Hi everyone Justforme, so sorry for all the news you've received lately Calling glad your friend and daughter are ok Thrifty well done on the bank stopping your card. Misstara, sorry you missed your boat and the added expense Bob and Bipex thank you so much for your nice words Mothernerd, here's to a debtfree start to the year for you :T Choccie get well soon , I know how you feel and Welsh kitty, good luck with your new endevours and TOG, wishing you luck with with everything.

Well I'm glad I made it through work this week. I've felt absolutely awful this week with this cold and not very festive at all but I'm off work now till the 5th and my daughter is back at uni next week so I'm going to make the most of it

Bob, your post regarding family, really hit the nail on the head for me. Last year, I invited mine around for christmas and they all had their excuses, but this year I'm expected to go to my mums. My children will be with their dads family, so I could use the day to just slouch around . But no, I'm going to my mums out of obligation, despite the fact no-one had this towards me :mad: Anyway, moan over, all shopping ect is done. I ordered some bits in from M&S to do a small brunch tomorrow morning,which was out of the overall food budget,so has worked out very well.


Today I'm grateful for a happy healthy family, food and warmth, and no work until 5th January :T Take care everyone

chocolatelover93

Morning everyone
Probably my last check in for a few days as I am going to try to have a tech free Christmas.

Bipex - thank you feeling a bit better today, still woke up feeling sick though not as bad as yesterday though so that's good

Three things I am grateful for today:
1. Mum letting me use her cooker to cook Christmas meat (eating at hers anyway but mine isn't very good )
2. Having the day off
3. ITS CHRISTMAS TOMORROW!!

Have a lovely Christmas everyone xx

dolly84

Bobarella wrote: »

Calling - that is good news. I am glad.

Dolly - good luck with your Jan food budget. How've you chopped the £20 off if you don't mind me asking? Less meat? More shopping at cheaper shops?

TOG - your posts sound so joyful for the new year. I'm so glad you are full of optimism.

Late so all for now.

Bob

I worked out my normal 4 week grocery budget and just reduced it by £20 so I will have to look for some bargains, make hm soup which I find very filling and cut down on the biscuits/cakes etc which is always a good move.

Bobarella

Hi Everyone

It's raining hard and windy here. Am having a break with the baby asleep on me and a coffee. Time to get on here

At the risk of sounding like I'm wishing my life away (I'm not) I am looking forward to 2016 and the renewed energy of a new year. I will be £306 a month better off after the 15th Jan when I repay the last money I owed HMRC. In reality I won't have that whole sum for debt slaying because we've been living on a bit of a shoestring at times so a bit of cash to help will be nice anyway.

I also plan to set up a holiday fund in the same bank as we have the children's accounts. We don't have an online link to these and me and OH both feel it would be nice to have somewhere to stash the odd tenner each time we pay in for the children. Bearing in mind I haven't had a holiday since 2011 in any sense of the word, that's a pretty big hope for 2016. I'm not talking anything big, and actually we've discussed how we could make it a bit of fun and tailor our holiday to whatever in the pot. So if we have £200 then so be it. I have vowed to spend more time with my family this coming year which won't be hard compared to last. I will be starting my 5th year of self employment and I need to start planning for leisure time. It's an area I struggle with as don't work = don't get paid. I spent 2011 planning the business. 2012 starting it up. 2013 establishing it. Half of 2014/2 months of 2015 closed due to a flood and the past 9 months fighting to reestablish it. Oh and have a baby
As we are fighting to be debt free time off always feels counter intuitive but it's happening this year!

Gosh this is turning into the Bob retrospective so I'll stop now.

Thanks to all of you Turtles for your excellent company this year.

Bob

dolly84

Happy Christmas everyone.

I have received a lovely gift from work today - 2 bottles of Prosecco and a huge box of chocolates. Today we are going to the Christingle so there will be a donation for the charity they are supporting this year, other than that I don't expect to spend.

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for a good walk with dd, for making and delivering some Christmas goodies, for a relatively tidy house (for us, anyway!), for dh digging out the blue lights, for seeing Santa's sleigh go by (pretty hard to spot this year, but we knew where to look, which helped!)

Wishing all my fellow turtles a peaceful and joyful day tomorrow. And, who knows, we may all get another NSD!!!

Bipex

Traveller and Bobarella: It seems all families have their issues. I'm just grateful for the ones with whom I get on well. Mutual respect with family or friends is a treasured commodity.
Chocolatelover: glad you are starting to feel better
Bobarella: that's great news about clearing yourself of the dreaded HMRC debt, well done! Good idea about the holiday fund, you certainly deserve it.

Grateful for:-
Good neighbours
My recently new fridge/freezer, which both has more room, and uses less power, than the old one
The courtesy of other road users

TO ALL: Once again thanks for the good companionship, support and advice since I joined, and very best wishes for a fair share of enjoyment and relaxation, which all deserve over the holidays!