NST October ORGANISE OCTOBER

Kerry_Woman

Day 2
Achieved another NSD - 2/20.
Brought my own lunch in today to work.
Walked about 25 minutes today. Had to drop off repeat prescriptions to GP on way home. Missed a bus and there was a 15 minute wait, so walked to another bus stop further on to get another bus home.
Grateful for:
Getting home at a reasonable time, considering had to go to GP surgery.
Having a chilled out evening at home.

apple_muncher

Sazzle - having to buy medicines doesn't lose you an NSD. But buying a kinder egg definitely does! Hope your little one improves quickly.

Got myself my 2nd NSD -it makes me feel better to get some right at the start of the month.

Today I am grateful for having the energy to do sooooo much running around at work, for mild weather, for the wind (I love walking in the wind), for lovely colleagues, for getting my head's little nod of approval at something I did :j, for an easy tea, for having the energy to sort out my food for tomorrow (school run>counsellor>school trip with dd's class, no breaks), for the enthusiasm my y9s produced when biscuits were to be gained for their work, for egg + salad cream sandwiches.

Scrimps

I know Im a bit late but could I join please. I saw last months and like the all in one/holistic challenge. Ive been away for a couple of days so couldnt log in before. I tried quoting but couldnt get it to work properly. Update below:

-Organise: Ive just done a massive shop and the cupboards are full. The cats have plenty of food and I have no need for toiletries etc for a couple of months. My main task this month is to finish decorating and get the baby room ready as we're expecting our first on Dec 9th - part of this is winter prepping as the decorating is following insulation works.

-Regular: My budget has been set on YNAB. £200 for food, this month I really want to stick to it, we dont usually. £75 for fuel, we walk and cycle to work so this is just for beach trips around cornwall so this should be plenty! Possibly for a trip up to visit family also - 200 mile trip

-Get ready for winter: I have already started this with all the insulation works on the house, now I need to finish the decorating afterwards. Getting ready for winter for me is having this done and a very stocked cupboard (food, cat food, toiletries and cleaning) prepped for when the baby arrives. Also need new wipers on the car.

-Always be kind: I shall try to remember this. Not just with words but thoughts also. Im particularly irritable at the moment and I dwell on the things that irritate me.

NSD: Im going for 20. DH can spend as he does (he is naturally a non spender) the only limit I have set him is no more than 2 supermarket trips per week, he needs to plan his meals (he makes my meals but is fairly new non meat or dairy eater himself and is struggling to plan meals resulting in multiple trips) so the NSD is just for me.

Improvise: not buying something new for the baby room and using what we have avilable already - shelving etc. Not sure yet

Stoptober: Obsessively looking at ynab and the mortgage overpayment calculator. Ive set the budget, I dont need to keep staring at it. Ive already given up cigs and alcohol due to being pregnant but the obsessive budget fiddling is getting silly!

Exercise: Im counting my 1.5 mile walk to work for this but thinking about it im only going in 3 days a week in Oct so will and yoga to this also. I wanted to do this every day but 4 days a week would be good, it really helps with my stress levels also.

Christmas: Nope. We dont go big into christmas at all so this is not an issue until November. However, if I can get a thoughtful birthday gift sent to my mum IN TIME FOR HER BIRTHDAY:eek: that would be a big win and a first or a good number of years!

Banned: agreed! I do budget for this but no need to spend money on lunch and chocs at work and spend quite a lot. This is banned this month.

Extra Income. One poll survey to be checked every day. I would like to ebay my Garmin triathlon bundle which is worth a couple of hundred also.

Report in daily. I cant see a reason why not but often dont so will make best efforts.

Nothing to report on the NSDS as yet as have got back from a spendy trip away and am getting my haircut tomorrow so that will be paid for but I absolutely will do it!

DebtFreeDuo

Day 2
NSDs 1/15
Exercise Cycled 1/10 (Saved me around £3 on fuel and parking)
10k steps 1/22
Food budget £4.22/100
Extra Income £50/£150 received broadband cashback

misstara

Organise - Stovies made from leftover roast beef from last night. Will be out all day tomorrow so prepped tea to take with me, made egg mayo and will take a tattie to quickly microwave. I'll need to get a bus ticket tomorrow so will make up a wee list of anything we need since it won't be a NSD anyway.

Budget - £37.10/£150 food, £0/£20 social

NSDs - 2/20 today

Stoptober - fail on no junk food snacking, chocolate and dolly mixtures today

Exercise - over 19,000 steps achieved plus went to the gym after work

Extra income - just away to go and check my emails for surveys, have picked up a shift with 2nd job for tomorrow

apple_muncher

Misstara - I don't count my bus travel as spends. I use my oyster, but don't count the top-ups, in the same way that the turtles don't count petrol spends as breaking an NSD. So you may be able to save your spending for another day?

Scrimps - are you a non meat and dairy eater, and dh has started eating that way? Or is he the non meat and dairy eater? Just wondering, as you confessed to buying chocolate at work...

DebtFreeDuo - you cycled and did over 10k steps. Wow.

DebtFreeDuo

I did apple muncher, I cycled about 11 miles I think, somewhere between 5/6 miles each way, I really must eat properly though as I always have to stop due to feeling a bit dizzy and I know this is because I haven't eaten properly. I don't know if my Fitbit counts any of my cycling as steps though, I will test this out next time I cycle in to uni.

mummylewis

Hello everyone! Been pretty busy with work so didn't get a chance to check in yesterday.

So 1st Oct was a SFD. Very happy to start as I mean to go on!

Today was spendy but all in budget. £40 on petrol, was running on fumes! £92 food shopping. Been running down the cupboards so needed a fair bit of stuff.

No purchased drinks or lunches. No extra exercise either but I have a lot of stairs at work so I'm counting it as decent days anyway haha.

I did spend £60/£100 of the Christmas budget too. It's likely that'll be it for at least a couple of weeks.

Hoping for 2/20 SFD tomorrow

Scrimps

Hi applemuncher. I eat meat and dairy etc but my husband doesn't. As the person in charge of most of the cooking, he does the batch cooking of my meals but we haven't got on top of batch cooking the no meat/dairy meals for him as much as we would like, still learning. He doesn't go hungry, but often there isn't much to put together as a satisfying meal that he hasn't alreadt eaten 3-4 times that week so he ends up popping to the supermarket again and again.

mothernerd

Dear turtles , I have read through briefly and will respond later. Chasing Sunshine, dizzy blnd and Scrimps you are in, will assign numbers later.

Today I phoned the Carer's Allowance people as they have turned me down based on my being 'in full time education'. I'm not, the course they asked about was between 2005 and 2007. Next excuse was that I hadn't got my college to fill in the back of the form.

I explained that the form they sent did not really apply to me, the college was discontinuing the course, the parent college (UCLAN) had not organised the required bridging course and had lost their science accreditation so were changing the syllabus, our tutors were moved, the building we were studying in was being pulled down (now a sports stadium) and that the replacement would be a dedicated sixth form college and we had been told we would not be allowed over the threshold.

He said decision was taken on 22nd September and my letter did not arrive until the 25th. I think the deadline was the 14th and I tried to get it there by then. I also note that their letter is dated the 22nd and I recieved it on Saturday (30th) so I suspect their internal systems are at fault rather than the postal service.

The upshot is that I have to write another letter, asking them to look at the decision again and putting in everything I wrote in the letter they have ignored. If that is not done within one month (starting from the 22nd), I can still appeal but would only get money from the date of the appeal, not backdated to the date of my original claim.

I will also trawl through all the files in case I can find anything from the college/ course which supports my dates (as it was 10 years I finally threw it out a few weeks ago).

See you later.