Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

apple_muncher

Those are Jan results to be proud of! Well done!

XSpender

Suffolk_lass said:

XSpender said:

Suffolk_lass said:

If you fancy a bit of light relief The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is very easy and a bit of a romp - it's also the Book at Bedtime on R4 if you wanted to podcast it while doing something else

I didn’t realise you could listen to the Book at Bedtime on a podcast!  I can’t see the one you mentioned but I can see a few others I would like to listen to.

They have stopped calling it that - if you wanted to catch up on The Thursday Murder Club here is a link - I got to it from Radio 4 sounds, schedule then it is on at 12.06 as well as 22.45 - then as an all episodes link

Thanks for the tip.  I have subscribed on the i-player radio app I already had downloaded.

XSpender

Payday for me today!    No shuffling required as I moved all the savings over yesterday and paid a £25 OP to my CC out of DH pay.

I had the worst headache yesterday but dragged myself to the precinct in the next small town to finally pay my coins in, buy DH lunches from Icyland, stock up on cleaning items and buy a birthday gift at B&M.  They had moved their cards so I didn't see them until I had paid and was leaving so nipped to Morries for a card for the birthday girl and one for DH.  I am glad I did as I picked up 30 GF/posh sausages for £3 and 12 bread rolls for 60p.  Lunchtime seems to be a good time to pick up reductions in my Morries.  I've spent £44.62 on food so far this 'month' and Mr T shop is expected to be about £68.

The headache finally wiped me out and I zonked out on the sofa at 8pm and didn't stir until 1.30am when I went to bed.  DH said I barely moved and was so out of it he left me where I was under a blanket.  Our mattress (2nd hand when we got it from a  friend) really needs replacing and isn't helping either DH or I sleep well at the minute and I need a decent amount of sleep to function.  The springs go boing when ever DH moves which wakes me up and he says he can feel them through the mattress.  This isn't in our budget this month unless we use some of the money I was using to hit £1000 target.

The dog has tiddled in my office again so we are going to hire a rug doctor this weekend and do all the carpets in the house.  7 weeks time and they will no doubt be getting tiddled on frequently but it whiffs in my office, even after enzyme spray and our vax carpet cleaner, and I have moved to the dining room to work.  I have a sensitive nose.  The carpet really needs replacing but we are hanging on until the old boy passes as he loves sleeping up there and it is a big room.

XSpender

I have resolved the mattress problem, for now, and will move the mattress from the guest room bed to our bed as it doesn’t look like we will be having guests for sometime.🙁 It is a double and our bed frame is a king size but it should be ok.  The one we have on there at the minute seems a bit narrow anyway and is supposed to be a king size.

I might relocate my office to this room too as it is the smallest bedroom and at the back of the house and put the bed frame in the front bedroom I am currently using, it is the guest room as it has the en-suite which is useful for parent show need to get up in the night.  At some point in the future we intend to swap the door so the en-suite will be on the bigger bedroom at the front.

I was supposed to be getting my hair cut today (£71) but the hairdressers is of course shut due to lockdown so have moved the money budgeted to the ISA along with £9 for the voucher I used in Mr T.  I have budgeted for a hair cut/colour in March in case they reopen then. Any longer and I will have to colour it myself! It was ok in the first lockdown when nobody saw me but I am doing several zoom meetings a day with clients so don’t want to look too ‘witchy’.

A chunk of of money spent at Mr T on food, a hoodie for DH (which he loves so much I wish I had kept it for his birthday next week!) and 2 bras for me that don’t fit right and will have to go back.  I am getting a bit desperate for bras as I am down to 2 and 1 of the 2 has developed a dodgy wire and both are a bit knackered.

I’ve spent about £130 on food since pay day and the freezers and cupboards are rammed. I have done a meal plan for the month and apart from chicken, dairy, fruit and veg and a couple of ingredients like chorizo we are sorted for the month.

I don’t trust DH and I to go to Costco just for chicken so will buy it at the supermarket and use up what is in the freezers to make room for a meat stock up at the end of the month and spending what is left in the budget.  I have listed the contents of 1 freezer and will do the second tomorrow and reorganise the contents in to some kind of order.

DH is going to take the camper to work next week for a good run out so we will put some fuel in it tomorrow.  Once that has been done I will do a round up of each of the variable spending trackers and the current account and sweep the odds and ends into the ISA along with £20 from the variable spending categories.  The £20 is my 2nd savings challenge for this month, £20 from my variable spending categories every Sunday, The first challenge was £109 for the month and was paid to the ISA on payday.  I have also transferred the 365 x 2 challenge money to it’s own special accounts in M0nz0, one for DH challenge and one for mine, for the whole of Feb rather than do it daily.

We currently have over £1600 in our sinking funds which is pretty amazing for us carpy savers 😁 It will grow some more, get spent, and grow again because that is what it is there for, to cover upcoming expenses.  2 of our 2021 expenses are already funded. 🙂

Suffolk_lass

We have had a Dunlopillo made to measure latex mattress for many years and it is brilliant - when you come to consider your king size it is worth considering latex as it is 100% natural, no bed mites, hyper-allergenic and there are some good options across a range of options. Personally I would consider a topper next, on top of a reasonably priced pocket sprung mattress. The 5cm and 8cm Yanis ones are good. £305 for a kingsize here

apple_muncher

Re your hair, could you wear a hat?!?! A trendy beanie?

brizzlegirl

I also use a root spray to cover my roots. Works really well for those pesky Zoom calls! 

You’re  doing great. Pain about the bonus but looks like you’re adjusting to it all. Like those goals for February! 

greenbee

Delurking to comment re. roots. After the first lockdown my hairdresser changed my colour to work with the grey (after all that time we could see how it was growing!) so that any roots are much less noticeable. We thought it best to prepare for the inevitable in terms of both increasing grey and likely further disruption to appointments. There is now no obviously line of root growth, the colour works better with my skin tone which is sadly also changing as I get older. She also talked to me about lighting when on calls so I've got a ring light that lights my face from the front and I keep the overhead light off!

Suffolk_lass

I have an angle-poise lamp that faces the wall, giving a diffused warm-off-to-the-side light rather than the bright white halo highlighting every wrinkle. I wanted to avoid the Bohemian Rhapsody wrinkle-avoidance look too 

XSpender

My grey is not as noticeable now I have gone light blonde as it was when I was brunette in 2019.  I was really struggling just to cover it.  It doesn't help that my hair grows really quickly, the roots will be down to my ears by the time the hairdressers reopen. 

I was on a call this morning and it showed up every wrinkle.  It doesn't help that I had no make up on but I never bother if it just a call with our internal team.  Maybe I should make more of an effort.  That's a good tip about a ring light.  Sometimes I have to draw the curtains as the sun is beaming into the room but then it is too dark to see me properly and one of those lights would help.  I am sure they had them in The R@nge or Bee and M.

Last night I did a round up of the odds and sods on my spending trackers and then on the current account.  Added to the £20/Sunday Challenge I was able to send £31.60 to the ISA    The DD to the regular saver went out this morning so we are at just over 20% of the our 2020 savings target

Saving will slow down next month and I expect to be at about £2800 at the end of March.  DH is expecting a big bonus at the end of April but I have not accounted for any of his bonuses in setting my goals this year.  If he does get it we will split it between debt payoff and saving.  I have a (secret, in the back of my head but not so secret now I have written it on here!  ) stretch goal of paying £10k off debt this year which may be achievable with DH quarterly bonuses.  Once the savings target is achieved I will be throwing everything at the debt.

I took the bras back yesterday and bought DS 2 hoodies in the sale, neither of which fit so will be going back.  I also got DH birthday present, well he bought it, while I stood outside as he did the click and collect for a 2nd hand game.  I also got him the hoodie he loved in the alternative colour which he has already had on.  DS and I will pick him up a decent bottle of red and some c@dburys dairy milk during the week.  Anything left over from his birthday budget will be transferred to the PS5 sinking fund I have set up.  It is for both DH and DS and they won't be getting one until Christmas.  Birthday dinner for DH will be steak (already in the freezer) and a homemade lemon drizzle birthday cake made by DS for which I have all the ingredients.

We have decided that we probably won't take a week or 2 week holiday in the van this year and will stick to weekends while the pup will still be so young and getting used to the van, needing out for wees etc. I don't want to be sticking him in kennels when he is so young and since our holidays tend to be outdoor focused we always expected to take him with us. 

We always have a UK holiday at Easter, it is our favourite holiday of the year, and it was cancelled last year due to the lockdown.  We wandered down the Easter Egg aisle in Mr T yesterday and it really brought home how we wont be going again this year 

I think DS(10) is struggling a bit with being stuck at home this time around as I am working at home and DH is out at work.  We have had a few tears and some teenager sized strops and huffiness so we are changing our approach from this week.  DH is having a long weekend off for his birthday and I am going to try and do the same or at least have Friday off as I want a couple of days off at half term too.