What small DFW things will you do this week? w/c 26 Dec 16

DawnW

Evening all
Plague house here, as DH is getting 'something', brother has a cough and cold though his seems to be on the way out.... will I escape????

Had the heating on for a while, as it is really cold. Off now, and stove alight, so nice and toasty. Horrible freezing fog outside though

Interesting hearing about people's ebay experiences. I have an ebay shop, through which I sell antiques and vintage things as a small business (I also have a unit in a local shop / arcade). I have the odd PITA ebay buyer, but most of my customers seem very nice. I do find though that if I (rarely) try to sell my 'own' stuff such as unwanted clothes, they rarely make what I consider they are worth (brands such as Monsoon etc). On the other side, I also buy most of my clothes on ebay, and it is nice to get a bargain.... The fees are a bit of a downer, but as a business I sometimes also consign things to real life auctions, and their fees are even higher. I haven't had much luck with Facebook selling groups, finding that people tend to mess about far more than with ebay, and I can't be doing with the arguments over who asked first etc. However, my DD finds them good for buying and selling things like clothes and toys for babies and small children. Whatever suits you I suppose

List for today:
Cleaned out fridge
Post office to drop off ebay parcels
Popped into sales unit, need to get in there and change stock - but not today! Tidied it up though!
No spends apart from a couple of small business items (and I don't count those!)
Made turkey and veg soup for lunch
Made a turkey, ham and leek pie (enough for tomorrow too :T - do you detect a theme here :rotfl:) and a quiche shell with the leftover pastry, which I have blind baked
Used leeks from the garden, which OH managed to prise out of the frozen soil, in both the soup and the pie
Used up some cooked veg with some of the pie for dinner, also half a swede which was lurking in the fridge
Walked dog
Listed a few things on ebay
A couple of loads of washing - I will put that on the airer by the stove before I go to bed
Forgot to read the meters - must do that tomorrow!
OH hoovered through before he decided he was dying of some variety of man flu

That is about it. Toasting my feet by the stove now, with a nice cup of coffee

YORKSHIRELASS

When I was sorting out a kitchen cupboard I found an opened box of Tetley Green Tea with Lemon tea bags. I have absolutely no idea where they came from, I dont remember buying them and I cant think who would have given them to me. Its a puzzle but I am just trying one now and they are quite nice!

Parents coming tomorrow, I am doing a traditional buffet, sandwiches, sausage rolls, quiche, fairy cakes, scones etc. so have been baking. I forgot how relaxing baking is, I dont have time usually.

FVD I am with you. I work 35 hours split between two jobs normally and rarely get chance to laze about. I am making the most of it!

Oh and Dawn it must be a real skill knowing what will sell and what won't, have always thought it would be an interesting thing to do.

Right, more lazing about to do.

carrielovesfanta

Quick tip for today. I downloaded a 4 week healthy meal plan to ring the changes/kick start a healthy year/save meal planning time
Tonight was pork with a warm mushroom and bacon salad. It was blooming delicious!

Hope all those feeling poorly get better soon x

1LuckyLady

Evening all, wow the thread has been nice and busy today, lovely reading all your news.
Its been a lovely day weather wise today and we finally made it out of the house. Unfortunately it was to go to the Designer outlet place 1/2hr away. Dh wanted to go, so we did. He didn't buy anything but one of the kids bought a gap top but it came from their spends not mine at least. Dh also wanted to eat out and the kids chose P1zza hut, it was rubbish and I don't think hubby would suggest it again! I made it as mse as I could by choosing tap water for both me & dh which saved £5.10!
As we drove back rather then coming home for a couple of hrs, we called in for a cuppa at my parents, my youngest stayed there whilst we then walked into town, rather then paying for parking for DH & Ds1 's opticians appointments. Ds now needs glasses (free) & dh is having to go to varifocals (£+++) .
Came out of there and ds needed the loo so we popped into M& s, whilst walking through the store dh spotted some smart jumpers for work, reduced from £29.50 to £19 so he got 2 of those ( I did have a giftcard so got £6ish off to) Dh vary rarely buys things but just at the minute he's costing us a fortune!! :eek:
Popped into there foodhall too and got some veggies/doughtnuts for 15/10p and a half cooked chicken for 50p.
Picked up ds2 and popped into the co0p before heading home and got 2 sicillian lemon cheesecakes reduced from £3.29 to 79p each, my family love these so we'll have them for new years eve/day
Checked banking/updated spreadsheets
Sorted through my makeup bag as I used to have 2 make up bags as I would have one in my gym bag. So I've reorganised and am aiming to use up 1 set of products at a time, rather then everyday possibly using a different mascara (there were 7 in there!!) as they're all open and look vary similar. So I have put 1 mascara/a nearly used eye shadow/nearly used lipstick/half eyeliner/dark eyes concealer & 1 foundation in an clear bag right at the front of the cupboard, this is my use up plan!
Tonights food will be jacket potatoes and fridge drive for something to top them.

Other then that there hasn't been much else going on!
Tomorrow we are having a day at home and myself & dh are going to sort our wardrobes out, everything has got squashed together when storing/hiding xmas pressies etc so it will be nice to get them straightened out. Hoping to carry this through to the en-suite too and have a use up box set up in there for dh to get through his various lotions and potions too.

FatVonD

I managed quite a haul on 2 X YS shopping trips.

All of DH's workmates are coming round tomorrow for drinks and DH wanted me to cook a curry but instead I found six packs of Taste the difference meat balls reduced to 65p each (from around £3.50?) and four packs of ten turkey and stuffing pasties at a similar price.

I'm going to get some pitta bread tomorrow and do the meatballs with some sadly stuff and a yoghurt mint dressing.

I was hoping for some soft fruit on my Mr T YS trip (I was first there :T ) but there were none but I got two packs of finest tomatoes for 13p each and a couple of bags of watercress similarly reduced.

That just leaves pitta bread and yoghurt to buy (and falafel for one vegetarian) and I'll buy and defrost frozen raspberries to make an Eton mess and then we are done for less than a tenner :T

Mr S had wrapping paper reduced to 50p per roll so I have stocked up for next Christmas and also got a gold one to use for birthdays. I did also impulse buy some cushions but they will be going back tomorrow. What won't be going back will be the new towels I bought though, in my defence, I have been planning to buy them since we moved in (in January) and have been waiting for them to be reduced and today was finally the day :T

FatVonD

katy_ann wrote: »

Thank you so much everyone FatVonD - I have heard about trying a cranial osteopath at a local college here, I will look into this further x

It was very gentle, in fact had DS not been crying I'd have sworn the osteopath wasn't actually touching him at all but, once the plates had been properly aligned he looked mightily relieved and fell asleep!

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)

allydowd

Hi December Debt-Free Devotees,

Hurrah for the "weekend".

Debt Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Two:

* Ate rather a lot of free chocolate at work.

* Was given a box of chocolates from my Team at work too.

* No rent to pay til Jan.

*Not-so-DFW: I tipped my three key employees, they've worked so hard it would have been rude not to.

* Provisionally completed Jan's budget. Things could go either way in the next two weeks. Planned for austerity.

* Backed up Finances spreadsheet in case of loss.

* Have been really good all month taking food to work to microwave. Allowed myself a 90p portion of chips tonight but took my own mayo.


Live long, live well and prosper.

DawnW

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Oh and Dawn it must be a real skill knowing what will sell and what won't, have always thought it would be an interesting thing to do.

It is a very inexact science and I am still learning - it is something I took up in anticipation of retiring a few years early I like old things, and am interested in decor etc, and just buy what I like (and can get at the right price!). Luckily other people seem to like it as well. I made a lot of expensive mistakes at first though :eek:

Anyway, today's list:
I have already walked a mile to the surgery and back for my blood test, so feel justified if I *happen* to eat chocolate today :rotfl:
Also walked dog
Cheapie porridge breakfast

Still to do:
Read meters and enter readings onto energy provider's web site
Pay milkman's bill online
Tidy up and put washing away - it is currently on the airer and I don't want to look at it all day!
Ring and cancel a membership that I don't use. Only £2.99 a month, but better in my pocket than theirs!
Plenty of leftovers to use up today, as I did lots of cooking yesterday
Change bed and wash bedding
Wash my hair and allow to dry naturally
List some more things on ebay
Walk dog again later

OH seems to have some kind of flu bug (temp all over the place, disoriented, headache etc, but no cold or tummy bug). He seems a bit better than yesterday, but grumpy and feeling sorry for himself, so not a jolly household here I am afraid

determined_new_ms

Morning! Hurrah to another day off work :j just me and madam today as oh is going to dd's to help her finish off her lounge and hopefully going to purchase her carpet (but also ouch to our pocket!) Madam has asked to go to the soft play so think we'll be going there. Cost £5 + petrol... Will stop at Lidl while passing to get milk, eggs and olives and nip into asda to see if they have any reduced bread after some discussion we have decided to not go to soft play and instead get things to make playdough as ours is all a sludgy greeen grey and there isn't a lot of it left. Win win as all we need is some cream of tartar and I may stretch to another food colour :money: saving of around £4 and no temptation to get a coffee and snacks

Have done a meal plan for the next week and think we can get away with sub £10. So mission to spend less than £30 groceries until 20th is on track

need to check emails as have an email re changing energy supplier I need to read

dinner will be the salmon I got out of the freezer 2 days ago but haven't been bothered to cook

continue with mission to sort out our house, putting everything away so the appearance isn't cluttered! Made really good strides yesterday just need to continue and keep it at it's current level or improved!

Have rehemmed a pair of jeans. Glad for them as they are a slightly bigger size!

Go out for a walk with madam this afternoon. She has been asking to ride her bike to the local park so will squeeze that in as well...

either read a book or play a game with oh this evening

Think that's all for me Happy days guys x