What small DFW things will you do this week - w/c 22nd August?

La_escocesa

DNMS - You are my money saving guru!! :heartpuls

I'll try it for September... Going to go shopping on Thursday so I don't need to spend any more in August. Will have plenty time to plan.

I'm thinking about splitting up our 'grocery' budget too so I can see exactly where it is going - separate food out from cleaning products, housey stuff etc. Have also found that it's best to include wine and beer as otherwise we 'just pop in' for a bottle of wine and come out with snacks etc too...

I've just downloaded my YNAB history since 1 January so I can have fun creating reports with the CSV file - my inner data geek and budget geek are very happy :cool: :rotfl: #notimeforhousework

PurpleFairy26

What a nice thing to look forward to determined

La e loving the picture on your profile. Very summery on a dreary day like today.

We got caught in a massive thunderstorm earlier, we only got a little wet but it was amazing watching the sky light up. Hope everyone is safe as it went on for well over an hour and some of the bangs were huge.

Managed everything on my list tea nearly done, I also got round to making the pesto from my list earlier in the week.

Going to snuggle under a blanket after tea and catch up on the vuelta with DH.

[Deleted User]

I've just used Confused.com, to find an alternative renewal quote for my car insurance, and managed to reduce the renewal premium by £132. :j

I also managed to get better cover.

[Deleted User]

lego_mum wrote: »

What a great saving!

Going toward a holiday.

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)

SPOTLIGHT ON BENEFITS CHECK UP:

What is the Benefit Check-up?

Put simply, you can visit this free webpage to see what benefits you might be entitled to.
It's easy to use, you just click "Start Benefits Calculator" and answer the questions. It's anonymous.
At the end of the questions the website tells you whether you could be claiming anything and how much you might get. Allow 20 mins to answer the questions.
It's useful if you are planning a change in your life and want to know how that would affect your benefits. You can also calculate your state retirement age on the site.

Here's the link if you want to try it out. (Link)



Links checked 28 August 2016.

allydowd

Hi August Awesome-ees,

48 hour working week over. Hurrah! The money will be nice. Three days off now, hopefully.


Debt Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Two:

* Dinner was grilled random things from the freezer.

* Currently fighting a bit of disordered eating. Finding it hard to eat at work but I can eat fine at home. This has saved money but I need to make a recovery plan for next week.

* Paid bills on time.

* Lots of stamps from RMSurveys which I will eBay.

* Just opened wardrobe to find rail had fallen down again. Will go to ironmonger for new fitting. Hopefully will get one for about £2 to save needing a new wardrobe. I fixed it about 6 months ago using the old fitting, but that has now died a death.

Live long, live well and prosper.

La_escocesa

Hi everyone :wave:

Bedsit Bob - Nice saving! :beer: You have reminded me I need to sort home insurance...

Today we're off to the inlaws - Sunday lunch, dog walk in his favourite woods (where we used to live) and chilling out doing not very much.

YNAB/spending analysis since the start of the year is underway - it's a fricking revelation to track spending! I hear myself saying things like 'we used to spend £200 a month on groceries so why has it gone up?' and then I realise I truly have no idea what we used to spend because my budget was 'back of a fag packet' type of thing and never then backed up with actually checking receipts/spending!

We also used this website yesterday for dog food - http://goo.gl/GvRZao - putting in dog's weight and you can then find the best food for your dog in 'price per day' order. So we can move from a dog food that gets 3.5/5 (their analysis of goodness, not user rating...) @ £1.12 per day to one that gets 5/5 and costs 97p per day. :T Only thing is that is costs more up front...

Right, catcha on the other side :beer:

crazy_cat_lady

Right. I am going to try again today with 2 very important things.
1. Stating my intentions for the day on here and then also reviewing
2. Trying again with YNAB. I've tried twice and just can't seem to get along with it - I've done lots of training sessions and I think it's a brilliant idea but I just seem to stop doing it after a few days. My brain tells me it's too much time and effort
Had a day out yesterday, unplanned but brilliant, but also spendy. The extra cash is seriously running out so I need to make another fresh start for September...
Other plans include
Tutoring
Visiting my mam for a catch up and free feed
crocheting
getting the kids to earn their pocket money
I think trying with YNAB is going to be the biggie for me for the week ahead...

allydowd

La_escocesa wrote: »

You have reminded me I need to sort home insurance...

I don't recommend Littlewoods Home Insurance. From recent experience they couldn't manufacture a Smurf in a Smurf factory.

[Deleted User]

La_escocesa wrote: »

Bedsit Bob - Nice saving! :beer:

Yep. Definitely better in my pocket than theirs.

The £132 is going toward a December holiday.