NST Joyful July

x_raphael_xx

FurryBeastOz wrote: »

I just tried the Eat Well for Less Donor kebab for dinner. Just like the takeaway version - all you can taste is the red onion and chilli sauce:rotfl: Another discard recipe:D but DH scoffed it and the LO's will do DH's lunch tomorrow.

Do you remember the show 'takeaway our takeaway'? where a chef would go round to a bunch of students and try and cook thier fave takeaways healthier, tastier and cheaper. I think they did a kebab on week.

NSD no 15 today, apart from the large amount spent on the car this month, I think I've done (and am doing) really well with the spends.

YOU If you don't like it, change it. Weight & Fitness. Yesterday I dusted off the Kinect and danced around the front room. I'm really aching today, so I must have been giving it some.

FRUGAL The Frugalwoods are having another Uber Frugal Month Challenge No spends, bf gave my hair a trim yesterday.

USE what you have. Nothing new bought

LOOK after you. Zoned out for a couple of hours and played some video games.

UNLESS you have a specific reason you should avoid takeaways etc Bf looked like he wanted a takeaway yesterday, but he cooked up a delishous salmon stew instead.

YOU will aim for 16 NO Spend Days 15/20

JOY Find 3 things to be grateful for at the end of each day.
1) Pouring rain today. I love the rain. Such a satisfying sound hitting the skylight in work.
2) HM Mac & cheese for tea
3) An hour of Portal, such a good puzzle game.

Toni'sfriend

Well done FBO and FlorenceJ for getting the first week over with and I hope all you teachers are enjoying a well earned rest.
We were up really early this morning and have decided to have a day in to take advantage of the lack of builders drilling and hammering. I've just cancelled all the hotels so moving forward a bit. Roast beef for dinner from freezer so a NSD coming up (I hope).
Have a relaxing Sunday.

crazy_cat_lady

Just popping in to say hello to all the regulars and apologise for being completely missing during July. Work and work have just all been a bit much. Now that work 1 is done for the summer I find I have the occasional few minutes in a day so thought I'd pop in and see what's what. I will be back for August challenge though.

Lauralozzle

Yesterday was a NSD so I'm at 9/14. Next week will be tough as I have roughly £10 personal money to last until the end of the month.

I've had a quick look at this months pay (wage slip is available online) and I've worked out that my overtime has left me with an extra £154 this month. A bit dissapointing because I've worked six days a week and most of it seems to have gone on Tax but I am being positive. That this £154 I can put on my credit card. I'd like to pay that off as soon as possible - before the wedding would be ideal! We can then concentrate on paying off the wedding from November.

mothernerd

Be a proton - always positive (geek cross-stitch)

From the charity stall book I bought yesterday
You know you are past it when :-
- A night out is sitting on the patio
- Your idea of Happy Hour is a long nap
- You can live without your sex life, but not without your glasses.

Extras because we all need a chuckle now and then.

I'd also like to reccommend a graphic novel called 'The Inflatable Woman', about a woman of a certain age who gets breast cancer. It was lovely, funny, honest, gentle, sad when it needs to be and utterly uplifting.

I need to sit down and savour some of the Frugalwoods posts.

x-raphael-x how about this https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/705517097846912535/ isn't it gorgeous.

EE thank you for your lovely offer, but won't it cost you a fortune. You shoud probably find someone closer to you, who needs it. Thank you anyway, so generous.

Today I am grateful for feeling serene, for the lovely sunshine (spread a quilt over some garden chairs to dry when I went to refill my water bottle), for my beautiful new stationery (can't stop stroking it.

f0xh0les

I will make it into double figures this month, but not by much! Cheapy holiday in Cheddar was great. The kids and DH were quite well behaved. Did the caves, climbed the gorge, went to Glastonbury Tor, took the kids to the beach at Weston S Mere and did Stonehenge on the way home. Not bad for 4 days. I overspent on the budget by £1.75 so I gave myself a round of applause. Nazional Trust and English Horitage membership . has paid for itself already - yay!

Masses of laundry done, but has to be machine dried as all the boys succumbed to ticks after running about in the long grass, and I spent 2 hours removing them- they were tiny- smaller than a poppyseed. Good cheap entertainment (DH bought the tweezers) not a holiday that will be forgotten in a hurry - my how they laughed at each other! Boys!!

Off to Belfast to step-gran tomorrow morning. DH not coming.
I have found a monkey forest that looks quite fun near Stoke, so might stop off there for lunch (DS3 is monkey mad) so hopefully will be another memorable excursion. Then on to Liverpool to do a few free museums before the night crossing. Well, that is the plan anyway. Still have not packed any bags. Must get on with that.

See you in August

lcc86

Have spent today doing my RDA volunteering and then rode my share horse. Thought it was going to rain so stayed in the school, but it stayed dry so I could've gone out after all! Doesn't matter, I was pretty knackered so appreciated the shorter ride today. Have some housework to catch up on so I'll crack on with that in a mo.

Another NSD and healthy day too :T

x_raphael_xx

x-raphael-x how about this https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/705517097846912535/ isn't it gorgeous.

Nice!


Nice day today, walk thru the woods with MIL and Duncan. It's about a 3 mile walk, so poor Duncan was pooped when we got back to the car.
Just digesting a nice roast, it was postpone from last weekend when I was ill.

YOU If you don't like it, change it. Weight & Fitness. Nice long walk, spoilt it a little by eating my body weight in chicken and potatoes thou.

FRUGAL The Frugalwoods are having another Uber Frugal Month Challenge I have an optimistic outlook on life, I always try to look at the better side of things. I never used to be like this thou, I used to flip out over tiny problems, which I realise now, weren't problems at all.
It took me a little while to learn to re-think and learn to say 'poop happens' and just get on with life.

USE what you have. Nothing new bought

LOOK after you. Had a mini lie-in this morning and enjoyed my walk. Chilling for the rest of the evening.

UNLESS you have a specific reason you should avoid takeaways etc No takeaway, delishous roast instead.I might have headed to the costa drive through if I was driving, but I just glanced wistfully as we passed instead.

YOU will aim for 16 NO Spend Days 16/20

JOY Find 3 things to be grateful for at the end of each day.
1) Roast.
2) Grateful for bf for humouring me and taking a detour on the drive home as I had a pokemon tip off (caught what I wanted )
3) Bf doing the roast dishes

FurryBeastOz

NSD:j. Food prepped and neatly parcelled up. My fridge is a beautiful sight to behold.

Interviewed 1st candidate for cleaning job. I may be free by the beginning of the month. I've already rejigged the budget.

So I looked at the next 3 months in terms of goals and broke them down into chunks.

1 - another 3 weeks of this temp job. An excellent reference has to be my top priority. Hence -

2 - Started an Advanced Excel/Visual Basic course. My IT skills are woefully out of date and I am supposed to be doing system improvements. I can now write a macro to do some of the basic tools from excel - make things bold/italic etc. Joy:rotfl:

3 - 10 weeks to my competition. Saw the PT this morning and he said I was doing well. Its been difficult eating so many calories. I'll be interested to see how I feel in a couple of weeks.

My budget for Fat/Unprepared took a hammering at the beginning of the month, but the past two weeks have been great. Apart from 2 parking tickets:mad: However, over £75 in unnecessary spends has got to go - I need it for the cleaner.

PlaysNicely

:wave:

Mothernerd .. when I used to get my pocket money and go to Woolworths, my sisters used to head straight for the pick & mix but I'd go straight for the pens, glitter, cards and paper aisle, particularly liked the little gummed shapes for making patterns with! Cannot live without Post-It's, highlighter pens & coloured pens, officially! I used to have a Stationery Sister at work, if either of us picked something up on a weekend, we'd buy two because we knew the other one would love it too! I still use the bunny paperclips she bought me! Perhaps you can be my MSE Stationery Sister ... that is I shall think of you when I see lovely bits that I can't buy because I have to use everything up first?

Anyhoo ...

1) NSD - achieved only just, must buy milk tomorrow, so 16/16 :T
2) Frugal food shopping: no additional spends.
Picnic dinner of caponata (cold), garlic potato salad, tomato & feta salad & warmed pitta breads.
3) Try to up my own income in some way (legally of course)! Achieved.
4) My NST health goal: 10,000 steps a day (average to total 70,000 across a week)!
Up early & long walk before weather set in...12,680 so far today much healthier, so far this week then 15,910 / 70,000.
5) No FleaBay shopping for the whole month - achieved both days so 22 / 31 achieved, 1 breadbin shaped glitch!
6) Frugal focus: sourcing instead of spending:
Work in progress ... surgery currently taking place on glove puppy, went wrong last night as also watching a drama with subtitles, hard to read & sew! Will try harder tonight!

Simple pleasures:
Kestrels, frogs & woodpeckers all seen on walk today.
Cheeky glass of wine with dinner!
Antihistamine cream again - you won't believe where I got bitten today :eek:

Wishing everyone well for the coming week, PN x