NST - January. Bobs post bauble debt busting challenge

jeanangeo

Evening turtles .

Thanks to Bob, CEW and chippy for the KFC links. I didn't get a chance to use them yet but I will be planning them in soon .

I didn't check in yesterday because by the end of the day I was completely knackered and just wanted to veg on the sofa.

This weekend was my first fortnightly batch cooking session of 2016. I made two types of Indian dal, 30 chapatis, spaghetti in pesto and tomato sauce and roast vegetables with stuffing. I am now fully stocked again.

Batch cooking weekends always physically wipe me out as I have to get my usual weekly house clean done as well. It all seems to take most of the weekend. I post here from the comfort of a much needed early bed .

Yesterday (Saturday) was a designated weekly shop and also a designated batch cooking shop. On the good side I was able to fund most of the shop with Christmas M&S vouchers. On the bad side I bought a couple of things that were not in my list. I can't decide if the two cancel each other out and I can claim an NSD or not. Probably not though as my intention was that I stick to the lists regardless of how the shopping is being paid for . That means I'm down one NSD and stand at 9/31. I will work out where my budget stands tomorrow after work.

I'm sure when I was younger weekends used to be relaxing. Right now I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Batch cooking is awesome but I do find it hard work.

Yaaaaawn, off to la la land now.

Catch y'all later, cowabunga, etc

jeanangeo

must.try.harder wrote: »

We have actually been trying to build up £1,000 emergencies, but every month there has been something else go wrong so as soon as money goes in to the pot it has to come out again, so we barely have over £100 saved up : (

Hi there, so sorry to hear about the unexpected spends. I know that feeling of one step forward two back very well. Last year I was fighting 8K credit card debt and everything kept breaking. I had to keeping pushing my date back and it got me down.

All I can say is that at least you are not chucking your money away frivolously like most of the people out there. Anything you put in your pot is there for you. You haven't wasted it on TVs, clothes, eating out, etc.

Eventually, stuff will stop breaking and progress will continue. The hard bit is committing to trying to be careful with money and you have got that covered.

Feeling your pain, hope things get better soon.

themarsbargirl

Must try harder - ok, so you've barely got £100 saved in the emergency, but at least you're not back in debt and you're using the fund you're trying to build for emergencies. It's a win as far as I can see, although I do get that it may appear disconcerting.

Whoever wanted motivation to ditch the scales.....bin bin bin! Think of it as an item you can tick off the declutter challenge.

(Sorry, I'm really bad with remembering usernames when typing)

Congrats to those who have been batch cooking....all sounds amazingly yummy!

I can claim nsd 7.....I feel on track, a third of the way through my nsd and a third of the way through the month.

misstara

Can't remember if I posted yesterday (brain too tired to work properly) but it was a NSD. I did the weekly shop today so all stocked up and hoping for lots of NSDs during the week

The_Only_Girl

Hi all, late check in for me tonight. I had a lie in this morning and had a slow start but from 1pm I didn't stop til now. The kitchen had been tidied, all laundry done, weekly food shopping done and had a nice supper with the hungry hippos. Finally managed to use up all the leek that I mass purchased in December (5p for a pack of 3 leeks). We had leek and potato soup to accompany grilled sea bass (bought as ys - £1.71 each reduced from £3). The hungry hippos were in their elements and demolished the dish rather quickly. 3 portions separated in the fridge for tomorrow's packed lunch. Had a good ys haul today at Mr. A's, a good combination of bread, pasties, vegetables, salads,fish, and milk (at full price). The total price was only £10.84 reduced from £34.30. Also had 25p cash back from Shopitise for the milk and 18p for the receipt uploads in cos and csnap. Would have been a good day wombling but the rain damaged a lot of the receipts I saw on the ground. I found one partially wet with 13 unclaimed points (have not uploaded them yet on my nectar cards as I didn't want to look to suspicious with a damp and slightly dirty receipt. Will try my luck next week. Fingers crossed.

rylee12

Have had a hectic couple of days so apologies for not managing to check in.

My NSD's are not quite going to plan this month - I've only managed 2 from the last 7 days so really need to try much harder over the remainder of the month.

Just managed to complete my first online shopping order of the month so by tomorrow I'll have a house full of food so won't need to keep popping get to the shops.

Night all x

Catwoman_2015

Morning Turtles!

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I wrote a very long one before work...........and then lost it all and didn't have time to re-do!

Yesterday was another NSD so that takes me to 8/21.

Sainsbobs delivery arrived, but they had run out of the one item that influences me using that particular supermarket - cheap own brand clumping cat litter!! :mad:
So now I have to figure out a cunning plan of where I'm going to get some from/how to get it home when we don't have a car/how to keep it dry in this weather on the way home (most litter bags are made from thick paper so if the litter gets wet it will be useless).
Had an Ocad0 leaflet drop through the door the other day giving 25% off first shop with them, however min spend is £60............that would be an awful lot of cat litter and no where to store that much!! :eek:
The solution may come to me when I have my pre-bedtime soak in the tub shortly. Zzzzzzzz

On the plus side though, did a strange but tasty concoction of batch cooking before my night shift yesterday - mushrooms, red onion, cranberries, walnuts, spinach, juice and zest of an orange, coconut milk and couscous. Oh and the obligatory garlic in all my meals! Don't know if it's to everybody's tastes but it was warm and comforting whilst also giving me some much needed vitamins (am terrible when it's cold, I just crave crumpets, toast and all things carbohydrate instead of fruit or veg!!) :rotfl:

Stewby - I feel your pain. I work for a train company and get annoyed whenever there's negative media coverage about industrial relations etc. I've learnt to switch off to it now. I've never been balloted to strike over anything but witnessed my colleagues doing it and even felt guilty going into work when they were striking; even though it wasn't my departments' battle and I couldn't have joined them if I wanted to. It is not an easy decision employees go into, the media portrays anyone striking as selfish, greedy etc and that's not true. If workers didn't have a voice or the option to disagree with new terms and conditions then we might as well go back to slavery (sounds dramatic but if you have to do everything the boss at the top imposes upon you against your will then I can't think of a better word to describe it right now).

Must Try Harder - I echo the sentiments of what other Turtles have already said. You may not be able to see light at the end of the tunnel at the moment, but if you keep chipping away you will get there. House emergencies are sent to try us - we've had leaky roof repaired (twice), dodgy light fittings (light bulbs exploding in poltergeist style-manner!), cracked window panes, old boiler dying..............oh and we've only had our house for less than 18 months!!! :eek: Previous owner was a DIY "enthusiast" which meant he attempted to do EVERYTHING himself and we now exclaim "Oh !!!!!! ******* (insert surname of prev owner)" whenever we discover a new/urgent attention required botch up. It helps keep us a little bit sane by shouting this at the top of our lungs - our new neighbours must think we're mad! :rotfl:

Well done everyone else on batch cooking/cleaning/generally being awesome. :money:

I've shifted the worst of the cold germs now so am going to get back on track with the money-saving domestic goddess-type duties when I've slept. Hubby was in a bit of a grump when I saw him for 5 mins as I was leaving work/he was starting, so going to think of something nice to do for him later to cheer him up that doesn't involve buying biscuits (the usual cure) as he says he wants to lose a bit of weight this month.

Have a good start to the week Turtles.

Catwoman x

Justforme

Does Amazon sell the cat litter maybe Catwoman? often free delivery there x

dolly84

must.try.harder wrote: »

So I have made 8 NSDs out of 10 so far and everything was looking positive...until this weekend came along. Saturday I got a phone call saying I need to spend £450 to fix various things on my car (brake discs and pads, tyres etc). Then today I somehow put my car key fob through the washing machine. I'm pretty sure they cost over £150 to replace...

It justs makes me feel like I am fighting a losing battle paying off my debts. It is one thing after another. I am still paying off last months huge vet bills and now this...feeling pretty down

What a complete pain for you. These things happen to all of us at one point or another so try to draw a line under it and move on.

x_raphael_xx

must.try.harder wrote: »

Well I do have a small amount of emergency savings, but unfortunately I am going to have to use those to pay a builder to fix a wall in my house as water is currently coming into my hallway...yet another thing going wrong.

We have actually been trying to build up £1,000 emergencies, but every month there has been something else go wrong so as soon as money goes in to the pot it has to come out again, so we barely have over £100 saved up : (

Surely this is what emergency funds are for