NST Super September Scrimping challenge

redofromstart

:hello: Please may I come and play? Sun Addict helpfully mentioned it on her diary so I came to see, and like the idea.

I used most of the emergency money to clear the debt so I want to pay as much back as I can in September before my contract ends shortly.

• Check in daily
• Notepad sorted
• 18SFDs committed too
• Cashflow calculated - its ok but I need to replace the EF I used to clear the debt
• Food only budget £500, I've been running the cupboards down for a while, but must not restock the freezer
• No work spends - I take coffee rather than buy it but have been guilty of the odd purchased lunch. OH and boys take packed lunch happily.
• Social life. :rotfl: If we need to feed visitors it will come out of food budget
• DFD: want to at least apply to move the mortgage and shorten term by end of month
• Exercise, easy enough, dogs have to be walked and I am generally the one home and with time.
• Beauty spend: use stash. Not a problem. Already committed to hair and dentist next week though so they will have to stay in as spend days
• Time for me: reading, as always. Preferably in the bath.
• Heating, cold today actually but jumpers on before heaters, and wood burner before heaters

Kerry_Woman

Had paid the council tax for September today. The rest of the bills for this month are all direct debit. The money for these are all allocated.

cybertortoise

I'm checking in with my first NSD today. YNAB is ready to go to record all my spends. My DFD is the 28th August 2020. It's the day before my 40th birthday. I need to make all payments on time and find an extra £5k to have everything cleared by then so hopefully these challenges will help me to save a bit and pay extra to my debts. I keep thinking I can save myself a fortune if I bake my own bread or make plant based milks but I'm so bad at planning in advance. I choose dinner at about 4pm! This has to change.

Good luck to everyone, I hope you all have a great month.

f0xh0les

Start of the month so spend day for me. Pantry stocked and lunchbox foods bought in. Used up a jar of jam this morning - 2 kids didn't fancy any of my other suggestions but the idea of a jam sandwich amused them.
Will nip out later and fill car with petrol - should mean a fortnight without having to do it again.
Fruit bowl full.
Plenty of DIY jobs that need to be done without any spends as I have bought the ingredients already.
Feeling optimistic about September.

foxgloves

Hi September Scrimpers,
I think I got off to quite a good start. Here goes:
*Check in 1/30
*Grocery shopping done for camping trip. Spent less than £18 which leaves over £42 for picking up anything we need while we're there. Wrote list, then gave it another look. Crossed off bread rolls as plenty of flour in so baked some instead. Also crossed off loo paper as had failed to check supplies in cupboard. Plenty in there so crossed it off list. Only used Waitrose for 1 item.......which meant mr f could have a free coffee & I could have 2 free magazines.
*Not an NSD as shopped for the above but also had to buy the gas cannisters for camping trip that we couldn't get yesterday. Yesterday's store only had branded ones & they were priced at £2 more per cannister, mr f managed to get his headtorch for £3.....again, much cheaper than the ones he looked at yesterday in the other store. So £18 spent there.......which is a bit annoying because these were planned August spending & now I've had to have them in my super-shiny new scrimpy month, so booo to that, though on the plus side, we did get significantly better prices by waiting a day. Oh, & I bought 4 x 2nd class stamps. I don't see much point in buying 1st......I have sent 1st class letters which arrive 2nd & have also stuck on a 2nd & my letter has arrived first thing the next day.....seems random.
*Other scrimps have also been in preparation for camping trip.......I always used to buy 2 or 3 mags to take on holiday but I have recently been given 4 nice ones, plus got the 2 free ones this morning, so that's me sorted. Defo won't buy any. I like to take a bit of fruit with us when we go away in our tent, otherwise things can get a bit carby, but again, didn't buy any, as picked a big bag of pears from our tree instead.
I think that's it for my Day 1.......Oh, I forgot my exercise goal. Yes, achieved it 7564/7000 steps so far.
Hope everyone else has got off to a good start.
F x

crazy_cat_lady

OK - Day 1 and I have failed miserably and on a spectacular level. I've bought a new sofa. Completely unplanned but I have needed a new sofa for a couple of years. I found it in an outlet shop (while looking for a mirror with dd) and got £540 off the price. I did have the money to pay for it without getting into debt but it's hardly a good start to Scrimping September. Apologies.
Don't think that there's much else to say apart from that really.

DawnW

Check in 1 / 30
Wrote down all spends in my little diary, not good
Confession time - OH decided to paint the garage, so bought paint (£66 :eek:) and I bought a bag for my presents box, earmarked for either a Xmas or a birthday present for DD2 (£16). Also got OH's personal spending money out of the bank for him

So no SFD for me today

Bills get paid first as a matter of course, no issues there

Spent £1.98 / £160 on groceries

Sorted freezer out this morning so that I can ram more stuff in But this is home grown produce, not bought food, I hasten to add!

Lunch at home, bits from fridge with bread and HG tomatoes and cucumber. Dinner was HM potato, spinach and chickpea curry with a shared naan bread... and there is apple crumble for pudding, also HM. Or scones I already had all the ingredients for these.

No social stuff today

My aim is to start to rebuild savings after a spendy few months

Brisk 2 mile walk to the shop where my sales unit is located (and back). Also walked dog, but he has to sniff each blade of grass, so this doesn't really count as exercise!

Don't buy much in the 'beauty' line - only toiletries really! Nothing needed atm - I do have a hair appointent booked for later this month, but only for a trim.

Making time for myself....well my walk was pleasant enough

No heating, wore a cardi this morning as it was chilly.

Not a great start, but I am trying to stick to the rules

misstara

thriftylass wrote: »

*Try and check in once a day with your progress ! Will do

*Get a little notebook that you can fit in your bag, or a slip of paper! Write down everything you spend - good and bad!! I have a notebook and pen in my bag for this purpose but always forget, not this month!

*You will aim for 18 SFDs!(Spend Free Days). If purchases of “yellow sticker delights” are made without full price items this is an SFD. Medication and normal monthly DD’s or CC payments are exempt and you may class these days as SFD’s also. Will aim for this.

*Pay you debts and bills first, budget to live off what is left! Budget is set for the month.

*You must decide on a budget for food now. This must be stuck to rigidly until the last day of the month ! Consider how much you REALLY need to feed your family, make meal plans, limit snacking with the kids or tell them “when it’s gone that’s it until next week”. Mine is £350. The budget is £150 for me and OH, I failed epically at this last month so must plan better.

*Try and eat everything in your cupboards and freezer BEFORE buying any more. Money spent each week will be for essentials – bread, milk and fruit & veg before buying more. Get right down to the bottom of that chest freezer, get out those nearly out of date packets of rice. Stop stock piling for Armageddon and wasting money. I don’t care if you are prepping for visitors or a “just in case” situation! (note to mainly myself: STOP SPENDING SO MUCH ON FOOD!) I need to defrost my freezer and clean my fridge so this rule will help I also need to defrost my freezer so plan to eat down the contents.

*You must bring your lunch to work every day. No coffee shops, no work canteen, no cafes, no sandwiches – NOTHING. You will waste SO many precious £££’s when something better can be created at home. If you think it doesn’t matter and I won’t find out – you are right. But you are cheating yourself. I generally do this everyday anyway.

*Plot the course of your social life now before the beginning of September. Make sure you have a budget planned for meals that can’t be wormed out of and birthdays etc. Money placed aside for holidays can be classed as “no spend days” – anything over the budget will ruin that SFD!! Cancel something you really don’t want to go to –you HAVE to start making sacrifices now. September will be an expensive one unfortunately - I have a hen weekend and wedding to attend plus 2 meals out with friends planned. Some of it is already budgeted for, the rest will be paid for from earnings from 2nd job.

*Decide on your DFD!– when do you want to start doing what you want to do??? I'm aiming to be debt free by May next year.

*You will accomplish some sort of exercise per week, 3 sessions of 20 minutes anyway you want. Walk someone’s pooch, walk to work, walk around your block 5 times… anything! I walk to and from work each day (45 mins each way) plus try to run at least twice a week. I have a gym membership that I haven't used for a couple of months so plan to go once a week.


*Beauty spends are not allowed to exceed £10. That includes you boys as well. Use up all that you have in the house BEFORE spending anything more on beauty bits – seriously how many body moisturisers do you need ladies? Still have quite a few bits needing used up.

*Make time for yourself this month. Even if it’s only 10 minutes a day do something for yourself whether that is going for a walk, having a bath with loads of bubbles or sitting outside with a drink – we need to make the most of the evenings. Love sitting outside with a drink in the evening but don't often do it, will definitely try to factor in more me time this month.

*Keep the heating off as long as possible, put a jumper on etc. We live in the north of Scotland in an 80s bungalow with metal windows. So it might be a challenge :rotfl: we also live in the north of Scotland, this will definitely be a challenge!

Right that's all my aims for the month out of the way. Today has not been a NSD, I'm currently travelling back from a funeral and grabbed a few snacky things at the station. Will probs pop to the supermarket on the way home as well.

Eager_Elephant

Thanks thrifty, goals below:

*Try and check in once a day with your progress ! - Will try.

*! Write down everything you spend – I have YNAB to keep me on the straight and narrow!!

*You will aim for 18 SFDs! – Gulp…will do!!

*Budget to live off what is left! – Need to do my usual monthly money shuffle and that should leave me with £50 spending money for the month – need to pay £30 deposit for hen do next year.

*Budget for food - £350. This is for 3.5 of us (DS at Uni but currently home for summer and won’t return until late September. DD starting a school where she can have 3 meals a day so they should help reduce it in future.

*Try and eat everything in your cupboards and freezer BEFORE buying any more. – The cupboards are starting to look bare so may need to do a largish shop later this month.

*Lunch to work every day. – Luckily(?) as I am intolerant to loads of stuff I can rarely buy lunch out.

*Plot the course of your social life – will allow £20 for meal out with bestie which will happen sometime this month.

*Decide on your DFD!– my debt is on 0% as defaulted a few years ago and there just seems no rush to pay it off. Was hoping to clear £3k of debt this year – have cleared about £900 so far so need to get my butt into gear.

*Some sort of exercise per week, - dogs are walked twice a day for 20-30mins each time

*Beauty spends are not allowed to exceed £10. – eyebrow wax is £10 (£8 for wax and £2 tip)

*Make time for yourself this month – I take 30 – 45mins each evening after work to have a cup of coffee and read the paper, its so lovely to do as previously I have rarely taken time for myself.

*Keep the heating off - our house is pretty well insulated so we should be ok for September.

Eager_Elephant

Today was a spend day - DD has a friend round for a sleepover so popped to shop for snacks and pizza (much cheaper than a Dominoes).

I think this weekend may end up spendy as need to buy animal food and a present for my brother and his wife who have moved into a new home and we are visiting at the weekend so might get them something from a local nursery to go in the garden.