Mon 18th July - What Small Debt Free Wannabe style things will you do today?

allydowd

When we start out on the DFW trail we do loads of "big stuff" that makes quite a difference to our situation. These include having our lightbulb moment, cutting up the credit cards and cancelling Sky and the gym.

But once we have done the bigger stuff, we often feel that we are not making the same amount of progress, when in fact the small steps are helping us form good financial habits and helping us get closer everyday to staying in control and becoming debt free, or staying debt free.

Examples could be hanging washing out instead of using the tumble dryer or leaving your purse/wallet at home to avoid the risk of spending.

So be proud of those small steps, they really are important! :money:

allydowd

MONEY MAKING AND SAVING SITES AS OFTEN MENTIONED IN THIS FORUM:

• Benefits check-up ( Link )
• Coupon Shop Forum list of money-off coupons (Link)
  
• Cooking On A Bootstrap, cheap recipes ( Link)
• eBid ( Link )
  
• Freecycle ( Link )
• Free Postcode Lottery ( Link )
• FreeStuff ( Link )
  
• FreeUKStuff ( Link )
• Income Tax Calculator (Link)
  
• i-Say Surveys (Link)
• List of online newspapers. At bottom of the linked page. ( Link )
• LuckyPhone free lottery with loyalty rewards (Link)
  
• Marriage Tax Allowance (Link)
  
• MSE Boost Your Income page. Gateway to lots of money-making links. ( Link )
• MSE Abbreviations Explained ( Link )
• MSE Deals and Vouchers ( Link )
• MSE Wow Offers ( Link )
• NHS Minor Ailment Service article (Link)
  
• My Supermarket ( Link )
• OnePoll ( Link )
• Quidco ( Link )
• Reclaim PPI at no cost to yourself ( Link )
• Resolver tool. Helps you draft a letter, send it, monitor replies and then escalate it to an Ombudsman or key complaint body if it's not sorted. (Link)
  
• SayNoTo0870 cheap phone number finder ( Link )
  
• Survey sites that pay for your opinions ( Link )
• Swagbucks ( Link )
• Swapit ( Link )
• Tesco Orchard product testing (Link)
  
• Tickety Split cheap train tickets (Link)
  
• Toluna ( Link )
  
• TopCashBack ( Link )
• Wombling Guide (Link)
  
• You Need A Budget site and App (Link)

Checked 28 June 2016.

allydowd

Hi July Joculants,

Just a tiny post. But tiny is ok!

Day One of Operation Get My Mind In Order. That's my priority today.

Debt Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Two:

* Do RM Surveys.

* Do not go to work earlier than required. Do not stay at work later than rota'd. Doing this will not help.

* Take a packed lunch.

Live long, live well and prosper.

upoiupou

Mon 18th.

I'm trying to find cheaper ways of grocery shopping. Looking into click and collect (online shopping where you pick it up from the shop instead of delivery) since I hope this will avoid a minimum spend. I can rarely put enough together for the minimum spend. I don't have enough storage space for 10 packs of toilet rolls to make up the amount. So I miss out on a lot of cheapest own brand stuff because our small local supermarket doesn't stock them.

Looking into this, I came across a Quidco offer for that supermarket. Will look into Quidco on the forum now.

SpekySquarehead

Good morning,

Thanks for kicking us off allydowd.

A short list for myself today;

Bring lunch and snacks into work
Enjoy free coffee at work
Check banks and YNAB
Check free postcode lottery
Exercise

Confident I'll nail this list 100%.

Have a nice day everyone.

PurpleFairy26

Morning all :hello: sorry I didn't post over weekend. I did read, but had a lovely relaxing weekend away. Was very MSE as we used the time for walking, not going near shops and did some home treatments in each other so I got some for free 2 X NSD too.

Anyway on to toady:
Pop to shop to get a couple of things stick to list
Treat out for food using te5co vouchers
Check banking, move some money to savings
Post 2 fleabay items
Put some money in to the bank, move to cc once cleared, can do at post office when do parcels
Cleaned DD mattress and put out in sun to dry
Put old duvet and some towels in bag for dogs home donation
Print voucher for family day out tomorrow

Enjoy the sunshine folks

determined_new_ms

Hi guys & thanks for the thread ally. Hope you have a good day, totally agree with working for the hours you are paid for and no more. Firmly believe I should work as hard and efficiently as I can while contracted to work but after that time is finished work should not encroach on personal life. Life is for living!

Kept trying to post on the thread over the weekend but there was always something else to do! Had a lovely weekend - Saturday went to the allotment in the morning. Then in the afternoon we met up with my bff, her husband and ds (my godson) at the beach and in the evening went to meet up with my dear old friend who lives in Holland but was back in the area visiting. Was truly lovely to catch up! Yesterday allotment again - feeling a bit tired of all the digging at the moment! - then we stayed at home in the garden. Was given a massive courgette from a fellow allotmenteer (2kgs! :eek: As it was such a lovely gesture I didn't want to say no as we're overrun with courgettes as it is!), 200grms broadbeans & a bunch of sweetpeas. Sold dgd's highchair for £10 on facebay so the day ended in profit!

Anyway today's efforts:

* All meals from stores - will have lo courgette pasta for my lunch
* [STRIKE]nipping to a friend's in a minute so will nip to the SM and get a few things we need. Will give her a decent sized round courgette to get rid of some![/STRIKE]
* [STRIKE]take bag and list to SM and stick to it![/STRIKE]
*[STRIKE] make a thank you card template and email to oh to get him to print some off for dgd to send to people[/STRIKE]
* make some fudge for thank you gift for cm for throwing dgd a birthday party
* [STRIKE]post letter[/STRIKE]
* have bookmarked a few recipes to use up courgettes over the next few days - stuffed courgettes, creamy bacon pasta (using up greek yogurt that went ood over the weekend) & courgette and broadbean pilaf)
* exercise - 20 mins of hulahooping
* might go to the allotment, really should but am feeling so tired with it and it's going to be a scorcher!
* list 5 things on fleabay
* [STRIKE]get 1/4 cake baked last week out of freezer for deserts/lunches for the next few days[/STRIKE]
* feed vegies
* salad from garden

Ok that's all I think

foxgloves

Hello Frugalistas,
Gloriously hot sunny day here today. Great start to the week's money saving activity:
*Two baths from one lot of hot water,
*Did laundry overnight on cheap tariff. Re-loaded & will set timer for same again tonight.
*Laundry pegged out on the whirlygig in the sunshine. (Cat currently using as giant parasol!)
*Phoned local locksmith. Quote (job as yet unseen) seemed very reasonable. Fingers crossed.
*Did rubber chicken. It was massive! mr f has his own methodology for finding the biggest chicken in the supermarket. They are usually described as 'Medium' or 'large' or whatever & all in the same price band, but he inspects the label more closely to see the cooking times. The one with the longest cooking time is the biggest chicken. Yesterday's was huge. It did roast dinner yesterday. The leftovers will top a spicy Mexican-style pizza tonight, make chicken madras for tomorrow, make chicken & mushroom supreme & some stew for the freezer & all the gribbly bits are in the slow cooker for stock.
*Made a loaf in the BM.
*Made dough by hand for tonight's pizza & bread rolls for this week's lunches
*Watered veggies & greenhouse stuff.
*Cut today's courgettes. I need 1lb for a recipe I'm making on Weds & that's not going to be a problem.
*Paid holiday cottage balance on CC to maximise gift voucher points, but paid it straight off today as had saved the money in our 'Holiday Piggy'.
*Paid off our other CC which we used for our grocery shop yesterday (again, just to maximise points).
*Updated grocery budget.
*Did an Ipsos survey as am getting close to next cash-in. Also a couple of Tolunas.
*Entered 6 competitions & 1 supermarket feedback prize draw.
*Make tomorrow's packed lunch.
*Cut lettuce & pull spring onions for tonight's salad.
*Find seeds which need to be sown this week.
*Make list of items to borrow from the library instead of buying them.
*Continue knitting Mum's present - may give it to her for 80th birthday rather than Christmas.I think it will be nice enough for a special birthday as it's beautiful part-mohair yarn. Hope so!
*mr f managed to pop home for a quick coffee in between appointments. He'd driven past a garage & seen lots of (supposedly) competitively-priced pre-registered new cars of the type we are strongly considering, so we need to have a final discussion about loan planning before we go & have a serious look. Think he may be getting slightly worried that I am going to arrive there in absolutely Hagglemongous Mood. I calmed his worries for now......but yes, I do intend to haggle big-time. We have an absolutely non-negotiable top price limit & I will not be going above it, regardless of how many free car mats I'm offered. My feeling is that the new reg plates come out in Sept, so they will have a shed-load of pre-regs to shift in August.......& one of those could possibly be shifted in our direction if the price is low enough.
That will do for today. We have a meeting tonight, & it's too hot now to do many of the garden jobs on this week's list, so I think I'll aim for an early start tomorrow morning & prioritise those for then before the sun gets too high.
Hope everyone's getting a good start to the week.....if not, so what? Just start your week off again tomorrow. New starts are good!
F x

DawnW

Afternoon all
Thanks for the start Ally, hope you are ok!
Beautiful sunny day here today, the first one this summer when it hasn't been intermittently cloudy and / or raining.

So far today I have:
Wrapped and posted 6 ebay sales :T which was just as well......
Popped into sales unit where nothing had sold. Again
Bought a few bits from a fellow dealer who has fallen on hard times - no, I know this isn't the correct basis for buying decisions, but a) it will help him out, b) I only spent just over £20, and c) I reckon I can make a bit of money on the items online
Listed a few more items (including the ones I bought this morning)
Picked carrots and a courgette for the recipe I want to make for dinner, and found some cooking chorizo and peppers in the freezer. The other things I need I also already have
Load of washing in the machine

Still to do:
Peg out washing when done, I know it is late, but it will soon dry in this heat
Walk dog
Water everything that needs it in the garden
Cook chorizo and veg stew for supper, as we are a bit fed up with salads atm

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine

allydowd

Debt Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Two:

* Do RM Surveys. Done.

* Do not go to work earlier than required. Do not stay at work later than rota'd. Doing this will not help. Achieved.

* Take a packed lunch. Didn't manage to eat much of it. Must set this straight tomorrow.