NST - January. Bobs post bauble debt busting challenge

The_Only_Girl

Hello all, quick and late check in from me. Not a NSD today as had to do a small top up shop £22.39 to avail of the coupon 3p off per liter of petrol for £20 shop in Mr. S.. Packed lunch essentials, fresh milk, fruits, bread and laundry materials all included. Price match gave me £5.86 savings and £2.66 savings on petrol, giving me a total savings/womble of £8.52, plus 58 nectar points earned. Not bad for my first womble of the year.

Tomorrow is my first day in my new job, for which it's not just me who's excited - the whole family is super excited. Today marks the start of a whole new lifestyle for all of us. No more night shifts, no more weekend shifts! Today we had a proper lie in (bliss!). Woke up to cook a late breakfast early lunch - Spanish omelette using food in stores. Laundry was done, house is spotless, weekly shopping done, ironing finished. Hubby cooked dinner which is tofu and pak choi stir fry (yum!). Kids commented on how they feel less stressed already. We all agreed to stick to the routine of keeping on top of things to prevent unnecessary stress with playing catch up.

Enjoy the last bit of weekend. Have a nice working week everyone!

Dottydaisy

Not read through thread, decided to post and catch up tomorrow. NSD 2/21
Picked our dogs up from friend who looked after them when we were away.
Breakfast of cereals, lunch was scrambled eggs on toast and fruit, dinner was vege spag bol, rice pudding and used up last of Christmas chocolates. Everything from stock.
Will have to spend tomorrow so making menu plan and will only buy what we need to complete that, toilet rolls and fruit.
Have reset my YNAB account and put in all my dd's etc, will try to update daily so I know exactly where I am with controlling my spending.
Tomorrow will continue decluttering the house, lots to go to charity shop, and do some batch cooking.
Hugs to all Dotty daisy

Tall_order

Had a great start making money this month but failing somewhat on the no spending.
Although, so far nothing has come out of the bank account.
1st (my birthday) when collecting the car from the New Year's Eve party venue my husband stopped off and bought me some bacon to make me breakfast in bed. This came out of the change from the money left over from the night before (only bought drinks for the kids as it was my birthday people bought me drinks!)
On the 2nd we went to return a gift my husband didn't want, and used the store credit to buy one of our sons some trainers that he needed. I also bought some hamster food and bedding from the pet shop in the same place, however this came out of some money I made selling the kids old snowsuits and usually we would have gone round the whole facility and bought other junk we didn't need So for us this was a win. Then went and did our weekly supermarket shop. Went over budget by £7
But we are going to cut next week's down by that amount to try and teach ourselves a lesson!

Today,
Now I'm not classing this as a no spend day, but should I? Husband went into town to return 3 gifts we didn't need / want (his mum goes mad on us and buys stuff that doesn't fit /we already have bless her)
We got £92 (!!!!) split between 2 gift cards which we will save either for Xmas or for anything we need when we move.
However, in order to go to the town centre to return the items, my husband had to pay for parking. There is nowhere you can park for free and no free way of getting there so the £1.50 (again from change we still had left from New Year's Eve) was impossible to avoid.

Gah! I have to be so, so careful the rest of the month!!

jeanangeo

Another late post from me from my phone....

NSD 3 for me.

Interestingly, I have managed to get by from my cupboards and fridge so far without my monthly designated shop or my designated batch cook shop for this week. I batch cooked a pasta dish from stores for lunch/dinners to go with the meals I already have stored. I didn't need my designated petrol spend yet either.

The stores are not going to last much longer though. The delayed designated petrol day will have to be tomorrow and I will definitely need my next designated petrol and weekly fresh produce shops this Saturday. I may end up with a bit of supply/petrol money hanging around still but it's too early to tell.

I have found the NSDs ok so far. However, I'm back at work properly tomorrow so I'm expecting to start feeling the urge to cafe splurge increase. Hopefully, turtle power will save me.

Have a radical Monday brothers and save me a slice. Laters

PS my phone keeps inserting double spaced lines between paragrphs awhen I insert a single spacer line. I have to then edit the post to delete them (which I am doing now). It's really annoying.

dolly84

Purplejay – my DH is in a similar position with his work lunch. He does like sandwiches but gets fed up of them so he takes cooked savoury rice mixed with chopped salad vegetables and the same but with cous cous. He also takes cold quiche and frittata.

Fmess/CCL – When I was in middle school my art teacher had his own nightmare come true. He was a very big man and quite stroppy and one of the boys in my class was a total pain, one day the teacher was so annoyed he picked up one of the large bottles of paint from his desk and launched it to the back of the room at the boy. I had at that exact moment dropped my pencil under the desk and was retrieving it, when I got up all the kids were in open mouthed shock and half of them had white shirts covered in black paint. I believe the teacher was ‘asked’ to resign.

I have made my debt repayment today of £399.88 and the interest has gone on, I am now under £5k. I have also had the SO go into the savings account so that is building up nicely too.


DD has gone back to school today but DS is off until tomorrow. It is very miserable again here so I’m not sure what we will be doing.

dolly84

TOG - good luck for your first day, I hope it is all that you want it to be.

Well done everyone on all the using up of leftovers and thrifty cooking that is going on, I really enjoy reading about it, it gives me lots of new ideas.

Tall_order - I would count the parking as a spend too.

I am making shepherds pie for tea tonight using a big pack of YS lamb mince, I am doing a crushed potato topping with a rosemary, sea salt and black pepper seasoning for a change to mash.

x_raphael_xx

Tall_order wrote: »

Now I'm not classing this as a no spend day, but should I?

I don't class bills as spends, as they are an essential regular payments. I do class food shops as spends as they are irregular spends.
I think the point of marking down NSDs is to get people to focus on 'do I want it?/do I need it?' and to help you see where the little unnecessary spends can sneak in.
End of the day, I think its up to you to decide what is classed as a spend.
I wouldn't mark unavoidable parking fees as a spend day, unless your hubby decides to pick up some sweeties while he's there

Edit to add: Popped another £145 into my Emergency Fund/Savings today

Bobarella

Hi there

NSD 2 for me here. Its an at home day with the children, and no one seems in a rush to head out. Son has done more holiday homework this morning & DD is soundo in the pram. Never wake a sleeping baby right

Have made a PAD of £10 to THE DEBT, checked through all my direct debits, card payments etc online. Done a fair bit of house work, although the hoovering didnt get done yesterday and I cant see how it will today as the baby will cry, and I cant leave her awake upstairs to hoover downstairs...might have to leave it for another day

Meat Free Monday happening here, tonight is pasta with roasted veg & salad. Nothing fancy but it will do fine.

OH took his usual packed lunch today, so his only spend is travel, which is not within the scope of my budget for this challenge.

Think thats me for today

Bob

Bobarella

Catwoman - I'd agree 100% that working in a homeless shelter counts for way more than a token donation . Well done to you and I am sure the feel good factor will be long lasting too.

Themarsbargirl - your point on noodle score goes to show exactly how important it is for people not to get hung up on credit scoring but to pay attention to the important things like paying down debt and keeping payments current. I wish they would put a sticky to that affect in the credit files forum as the same questions get asked time and again by people who are stressing about that often.

TOG - it sounds like you have made such a good start to Jan. It must feel wonderful to have finally finished doing shifts.

Calling14

Happy Monday folks:)

As if first day back in work isn't bad enough. Blood donation later:eek:

Well done everyone of your debt payments I can't even think about any until Thursday - get paid weekly

Put another 15 pounds into my EF today which will be gobbled up by house repairs no doubt eventually.

Was going to pop out for a walk around shops but not trusting myself, will stay in office today. SFD 4/21

Not going to do a credit report as I have at least 5/6 with ridiculous high credit limits on them - so don't think I have any problems there. I could probably do with closing some down but wait until all my debt is gone, in case I need a balance transfer doing.:D

Still got enough roasties,veg and turkey for tonight's meal. :TLeftover Blackberry/apple crumble as well.

May need some milk tomorrow other than that supplies looking good.:o

Filled a charity bag yesterday. Got an old DVD player and portable one so giving that to a friend - decluttering has started. Will try and sell some curtains and more bedding.

Need to pop in dentist and get signed up onto Denplan so I can change dentists this month.

Payments with Quidco seem to be taking a long time lately. Was hoping to get my 160 back from BT by now.:(

Have a good day turtles. :beer: sorry anyone doing dry January