NST - January. Bobs post bauble debt busting challenge

Bobarella

rylee12 wrote: »

When everyone is back in their usual routine of work/college/school it's not usually that bad but the Christmas/New Year break followed by my little boy's birthday on Sunday has sent me into a downward spiral.

Just trying to wing it a little for the rest of the week and plan properly from next week onwards.

Yes I know exactly that feeling. I had a baby 12 weeks ago and this week was the first time since then that I've had both children on my own. Just due to the way, paternity leave , christmas break etc fell. When it was just me and my son who is now 7, I used to get loads done but add in a little baby and the last 2 days have been very difficult. It's back to routine today so I can handle small person who sleeps for hours on end, & tailor things around that.

clippy_girl

dolly84 wrote: »

CEW - we bath our dog ourselves and he looks just like a dogs trust advert, we tie him up outside and then wet him with warm water - this takes forever due to his double waterproof coat, then we lather him up. The rinsing is the bit he hates, we do it with the hose straight from the outside tap, he looks pitiful but it can't be that bad as he loves to swim in rivers even when they have ice on them. When we let him go (we are both soaked by this point) he has what is known in our house as a ballistic fit - he charges around the garden like a maniac with his bum hunched underneath him.

we used to wash our collie in the garden. We would loop her lead handle under the rotary airer and then once we finished she could only run around in circles rather than rolling in the mud :rotfl:

apple_muncher

Happy birthday to your son, Dolly! I guess the wine purchase is not for his sleepover...???

short_bird

Catwoman_2015 wrote: »

I've signed up to a thing called The January Cure where I get emails telling me to do a particular cleaning/sorting challenge in my house........so ended up cleaning and mopping all downstairs floors.

Yeah! The Apartment Therapy January Cure! I wasn't here at the weekend so haven't done the floor cleaning yet. I'm rearranging furniture again so cleaning carpet as it is revealed Yesterday's assignment was check the fridge and pantry so I've done that and disposed of 5 items. Oddly enough, no out of date chocolate or cake or biscuits

Looking like an NSD today as there are plenty of jobs to do around the abode and plenty of food in to keep me going.

Bobarella

Catwoman thank you for the suggestion for indoor play. Much appreciated.

Jeanangeo you have definately had your light bulb moment on eating out. It's great. You will be saving a fortune. Well done on 5 NSDS too.

Dolly - happy birthday to your son. Hope he and you enjoy celebrating together.

GSRcat well done on your bargains. You are right about self care being important. The clich! about if mums happy everyone's happy is there for a reason.

Bobarella

Hi All

Today is a spend day as I needed nappies but have only spent £2.50 in total as I used £5 in nectar points.

I was so proud of my OH today. He has been less enthusiastic in the DFW life than me although very supportive. I sometimes think he would love to go a day without me holding forth on one money related topic or other. Anyway I had asked him to go and buy some gaffer tape to repair something. He noted that the gaffer tape was £5 whereas we could have a new item for only £3.50 instead. I told him how impressed I was that he'd thought about it that much. A small example of how attention to detail pays.

Routine had recommenced thankfully. Have managed a good long walk and had time to tidy up.

All priority bills now paid. Plus paid for my son's term of dance fees to save losing a NSD on another day.

I'm doing a fish pie for dinner. Not sure whether to count that as a meat free day. I've always wondered why people class fish in a different category as they are both the flesh of a living creature. ..and on that note

Keep up the awesome work everyone.

Bob

dolly84

apple_muncher wrote: »

Happy birthday to your son, Dolly! I guess the wine purchase is not for his sleepover...???

It would probably help but I will refrain on that evening.

GSRcat - well done on the wellies, they are very expensive things to buy for kids.

The_Only_Girl

Hello all! Quick check in for me to declare NSD no 3 at last! And I was allowed to park in the patients' car park again without having to pay, saving me another £5. I managed to collect my staff parking permit this afternoon 2 minutes before they closed so it's back to normal tomorrow. Had a nice day at work, my 3rd day and I'm starting to feel less like an alien. I'm getting to grips with some of the routine stuff and I even managed to deal with a query on the telephone. Dinner will be the last lot of the BIG batch of spring rolls and a bit of stir fry marrow. (Meatless day no 5) I'm feeling less achy from all the walking and sometimes running we do at work and I'm still trying To decide whether to have a chill out evening tonight and do some sewing.

A bit of good news! Some extra earnings dropped into the bank account £9.40 from shopitise and just requested £9.42 from quidco (might take 5 days). I am yet to list items on eBay but will probably do that on Sunday.

Catwoman_2015

Evening Turtles!

I am pleased to report today is NSD number 5 and I kicked my procrastinating butt into action!

Started at 04:30am when DH got up for work and I got up too feeling rather sorry for myself with the beginnings of a cold/sinus pain. Decided that having a ginger & lemon tea, followed by a nice hot soak in the bath with some essential oils to unblock my nose might help before going back to bed.........only thing was I ended up changing the bedding before getting back into bed as my logic at that time in the morning is there's no point in a freshly washed me getting into non-fresh bedding!!! :rotfl:
Managed to have a few hours of restful sleep after that thankfully. Then got up to make a large batch of freezer supplies/store cupboard veggie chilli and a pinto bean dip that I'd never tried - was surprised how yummy and really easy it was to make (again using store cupboard supplies - this frugalness is testing my culinary panashe). More money saved as I will no longer be buying the 5 tubs of humous I usually get every month for £10 a time. :T

I then had a stern talking to myself, made a large mug of coffee (OK, 2 large mugs) and actually sat down to switch utility provider which has saved us £200 ish a year (it is a variable rate tariff with no fixed term though so will have to keep an eye on the prices every month in case it goes up).
Also changed my mobile phone contract so am now saving myself £16 a month there too, whoop whoop!
Hate dealing with this sort of stuff as I find companies always try to bamboozle you with rates/terms/make it increasingly difficult to do comparisons. Glad it's done and out of the way for now.

Finally, took Christmas decs down, vacuumed up remnants of tinsel/tree bits and printed off some free weekly chore/meal planner pages I found on Pinterest to help me keep on top of the meal planning & January Cure cleaning regime.

Bless DH, he got a £30 gift voucher for Xmas and told me when he got back from work that it was valid in Wilkos and that he'd noticed the particular brand of cat food our fussy felines eat was on offer.........so has given me the gift card to spend tomorrow on the cats instead of himself! Love that man. All my chatter about saving pennies seems to be rubbing off on him, and we're only on 6th Jan. :happyhear

Bob - I don't have any children yet, only 2 cats and I struggle to keep on top of everything in my house so you are doing a fab job with a young baby and 7yo. Well done!

Time to go get ready for my first night shift now :eek:

Until tomorrow turtles!

Catwoman x

Bobarella

TOG - well done on all your meat free days and also all the extras you are earning/saving.

Catwoman -well done on your very productive start today. So you are another who does shifts. Stewby and TOG will sympathise no doubt. I'm sure you know this but hummus is so easy to make and if you've ever had fresh hummus you won't go back to store bought. All you need is chickpeas, garlic,lemon juice and oil. I also add a lot of salt and pepper to mine and sometimes cayenne. If you buy a 1kg bag of dry chickpeas you can get a lot of hummus out of that.
Thank you for the kind words as well. Good luck on your night shift.