What small DFW things will you do this week? w/c 30/01

Bagpuss741

Today I have/will:

1. Checked online banking
2. Transfered £2 from savings to bank account to make sure car insurance is covered.
3. Boots survey for free foundation I got sent to test.
4. Consumer Pulse
5. Survey for shampoo I tested.
6. Food shopping. Have a £5 off £30 shop so will use that.
7. Meals from stores
8. Watch fortitude
9. Read subscription copy of Red magazine. This months issue had a £20 voucher for ESPA inside with no minimum spend. Looked online and they had a sale so ordered a gift set for £17.50:) Had to pay for postage but it's lovely and came with lots of free samples. have kept the samples for myself and put the giftset away for christmas:)

FatVonD

That is quite a find Bagpuss, was it the February issue? I'm sure we have one knocking around at work somewhere.

I am off today and my plans are:

Supermarket shop, DS is coming with me so it won't be cheap but I do understand that he's getting bored with eating the same old things all the time. I'm toying with the idea of taking him for a mother/son lunch in a cafe first. We've not done it for a long time and then at least we'll be shopping on a full stomach!

SORN DS's car, I'm sticking to my guns and not taxing and insuring it for him, he needs to get a job and do it himself.

Apply for jobs, the local garden centre is employing and I plan to tell DS about it but I'd actually love to do it myself too (I love gardening.) The job I'd apply for is 24 hours per week which would cover my outgoings and give me time to try out the soft play thing on the other days. Not sure how working with DS would go though :eek: They also have a Saturday vacancy which would suit DSGF but not sure if it would look odd having three people from the same address (all with different surnames) all apply at the same time.

I plan to hit the local Mr T just before YS time. There are three regulars there most nights at YS time, Mr Grabby man, girl who hides the best stuff at the back and a nice 40 something woman who I've chatted to a couple of times. Grabby and nice lady were ribbing each other the other night about arriving earlier and earlier to beat each other so it all seems quite good natured (and he knows he has competition!) Sneaky hidey woman seemed to have the lion's share though and seems to be friendly with the eastern European girl that works there and was doing the reductions, I couldn't understand what they were talking about, obviously, but I think she may now be the one to beat :cool:

I found a great new noodle recipe to try yesterday (basically cook them in a stock with melted peanut butter in it) so think I might have found a recipe where I could throw in the reduced pastrami they always seem to have there. (I've never eaten pastrami but it's strips of beef, right?)

Still no news on my tax rebate but a colleague has only just had a letter about hers and her return was submitted about a month before mine.

Have a great day all

AndyLGR

I requested a decrease on my credit card limit today. It may not sound much of a thing to do, but it feels good to be able to do that and not be dependant on it.

Happy_Kitties

Please someone give me a kick up the b@ckside to
*tackle Everest ironing pile
*work on a letter I really need to get going on
*list items on the bay of E

Hope everyone is having a good day X

foxgloves

HappyKitties - Consider your backside kicked! Come on now, get those things done, or at least half of them, then you can put the kettle on & have a sit-down.

Hello everyone else!
Nice start to the day as it was 'Weigh day' & I lost 3lbs last week, despite doing pretty much b*gger all exercise! Quite a useful morning for money saving, but then got bogged down in a bit of a political thing necessitating an email that turned into an essay. Never mind, I'm back on it & am powering through the list. Money saving stuff as follows:
*Cleaned all downstairs with minimal products & washable microfibre cloths.
*Did 1 Annoying Job. (Time it's been annoying me - 1 year. Time it took to do: 8 minutes)
*Make packed lunch for tomorrow's shopping excursion (to prevent the panini & chips money leakage!)
*Did a few surveys. Earned another £5 voucher so updated my signature.
*Another 50 p coin paid into my sealed pot.
*Entered a competition.
*Updated budgets.
*Transferred some money from marmalade sales into our Loan Pay Down Fund.
*Emailed bank to set in process a partial repayment (from the above fund) of £2000.
*Froze l/o spicy cauliflower that I made last night.
*2 'Use-it-ups' successfully.....well....used up & binned & composted accordingly.
*Vouchers, gift cards & Clothes Piggy cash stashed in purse ready for tomorrow's shopping trip.
*Received notification that I've been selected for a longer survey project (Ipsos) which will pay £40 vouchers on completion, so worth doing. Postie brought all the paperwork. Will read it & start Monday.
*Register for cashback app.
*Dinner = Freezer-dive. Turkey chilli (batch-cooked after Christmas, lovely recipe which I make every year) & home made low-fat jacket wedges.
*Wash hair & let it dry naturally.....although any electricity savings will be wiped out by the gas I'm planning on using for a loooonnnngggg pamper & soak in the bath when I've finished all my jobs!
*Changed all household linen. All loaded into washer for overnight laundry on cheap tariff.
*Write intelligent shopping list. 'Aren't they always?', I hear you ask? Well, no, clearly not, as my last list had some really basic stuff missing & there's been quite a few recent occasions when we've ended up buying 2 or 3 things we didn't need, because I hadn't bothered to check. Also, even if I've done a really accurate list, if mr f does the shopping himself, say, on his way home from work, which he sometimes volunteers to do, there are times where he'll come home & say 'I noticed you hadn't put x/y/z on the list, so I made sure I got some'.......whereas I hadn't put x/y/z on the list precisely because we didn't need any!! So I'm going to aim to spend a little bit longer & produce a smarter list. I always meal plan first, without fail, but complacency can start to creep into everything, can't it, when we've been doing it for a long time. Think I will include a little corner on every list where I can write stuff we really don't need.
OK, I think that's it. I'm off downstairs to check through the fridge & pantry & start on that list right now!
Cheers all, enjoy your Friday nights,
F xx

FatVonD

I did go for a cafe lunch with DS and it was really nice to catch up with him somewhere away from home

Shopping wasn't too painful (on account of the full stomachs) and the straight to wok noodles I needed for the recipe mentioned earlier were on offer at half price which was a bit of a result :T I also bought value peanut butter so I'm good to go the first time I find the reduced pastrami and spring onions which seem to be YS regulars.

We did go into town afterwards to buy a T shirt for DS as a lot of his are either too small or too big. He has gone online and adjusted the size on his l00tcrate bundle which will take care of the too big ones from now on. We also picked up a nice long black top for DSGF in the sale, reduced to £15 from £22 but went through the till at £10 :T

I've still got to do the job applications and SORN but my grumpy cat has decided to sit on me which she rarely does so I'm loathe to move her!

I also need to clean the bathroom and organise all the fish paraphanalia that is gathering there.

Does anyone have any idea how much it costs to have a loft boarded or if it's easy enough to do it yourself? The hatch to the loft is in DS and DSGF's bedroom and I did think when we moved in that it would be nice to open it up, take out the ceiling so it is double height one side and then has a mezzanine level on the other (over the top of our room.) That is obviously a bit of a grand plan but I'm wondering if we could get away with just a loft ladder and boarding it to have their bed in the loft and keep the bedroom as their sitting room area.

Hope you're all having a good day

crazy_cat_lady

Bobarella wrote: »

Look what are you watching Cat? We've been watching an Icelandic thriller in the style of The Killing.

Sorry I'm so late replying Bob - we're watching Once Upon a Time. I actually like it a lot more than I thought I would, and am a bit sad that we have over 100 episodes to watch and only watch one or two per day. I'm desperate to know what's going on.

Sorry everyone for my lack of general input this week. It's been a really busy one.

crazy_cat_lady

Just caught up with everything - love and hugs to everyone :grouphug:
Ziggy - hope that you're doing ok.
Happykitties - so sorry to hear about the cat. Hope he still has a good amount of happy and painless time with your mum.
I've had a busy week - my 3rd cold since Christmas has been lingering and tiring me out. Work has been hectic and tiring, and home has been busy too. I'm feeling quite stressed today as I had a bit of a fall out with a colleague, which I really hate doing, but I felt as though I was in the right this time. I just stew over it and overthink everything.
Other than that the week has been just the usual stuff - I've chalked up a couple of nsd's but have had to buy milk tonight after getting home to find that someone (dh) had used the last of the milk and not replaced it.

Bobarella

Well, I am utterly gob smacked but I found £20 today! And equally amazing is the fact I found £15 only a week ago. Some of you may know I like to look out for the odd penny, but in 2 years of keeping score of my finds I have only ever found two x £5 notes and one £10 note, so to find £35 in a few days is insane.

Oddly on both occasions there were other people around!

Happy_Kitties

Many thanks FOXGLOVES for the kick up the backside-it worked!:D....and while I can't do masses of ironing because of my joint problems.....my major Ironing Everest has now turned into a mini Everest:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
I feel so much better for being productive and not wasting the day.
Dinner and pud were YS items.
Also sorted out some banking stuff with some future ideas now in place, so feeling much happier today that I have at least achieved a few extra unplanned things.
Busy day tomorrow but if I am feeling brave I might tackle mini Everest on Sunday:T