NST October ORGANISE OCTOBER

Dorastar

This is just the challenge I need. Unemployed at moment and September has two birthdays in it so now need to pull back the reigns on spending and get seriously organised. We have big debts and nowt coming in from me.

FOOD BUDGET - I'm at home so no excuse for not cooking from scratch and baking yummy treats. Need to get it to £50 a week for the four of us and then ds's school meals are on top of that. Have put money aside for those from redundancy money

TOILETRIES/MAKEUP - Need to see what we've got, loads of stuff stashed up and not being used and can repurpose some as gifts

STOPTOBER - Social Media, I can seriously waste hours doing nothing

EXERCISE Something every day - for free - why am I paying a gym membership when I can walk/run/youtube video exercise?

ONE MORE TIME GOALS - I need to sit down and re-do these after a recent huge life change

CHRISTMAS - Still in negotiation as to who and where it is. Got some presents to stitch already and a list started. In-laws have saved supermarket tokens for us so that usually covers a lot.

BANNED Takeaways, coffee shops, chippys, pie shops, vending machines, sandwich bars etc. - Plan to meet up with friends at each other's houses and bake treats instead of buying them and using up hubby's coffee house points too!

EXTRA INCOME - Surveys, selling books, making stuff to sell, car boot, part time work and job searching for my new career

mothernerd

Everyone up to here has been given a challenge number, let me know if I have missed anyone. To new starters - DON'T PANIC - it can take a while to get into the turtle way. I think everyone who has taken part can vouch for it even if we all have months when we don't do so well and can't see the way forward.

Actually DON'T PANIC is for everyone whether it's Christmas, a sick child, a motor accident (winter prep) or just real life dropping one bombshell after another on your heads.

Dorastar

That was definitely a message for me - I am in full panic mode today as I know things have run away with me, especially as we've been a house of plague recently and that just turns cooking and eating into a chore. Gentle day today to recover myself, and lovely Strictly and Casualty to look forward to then new start tomorrow. Thanks for the DON'T PANIC message

DebtFreeDuo

Can I join? I haven't completely got my head around it all yet so I'm going to just start with some basic goals if I can?

Food budget: £25 per week.
NSD: Going to start small at 15 as I'm new to attempting this.
Exercise: Cycle in to uni more, I'm aiming for 2/3 days per week and to increase this each week. Also aiming for 10,000 steps per day on weekdays.
Extra income: Surveys and Ebay, going to try and list one item per day.

Sazzle13

Just sat down and worked out my budgets :T
I've planned my meals this week as I'll admit I got into a really bad habit of buying both my breakfast and dinner from Greggs racking up to £30 per week :eek:
Petrol £100, usually £70 but I have a trip to the seaside planned and I start college on day release so I've factored in parking. Food £100, I'm recently divorced so I've moved back in with the parents as I'm clearing debt / saving for a deposit so I buy for me as I'm healthy eating so it covers meat and veg (this is a complete estimate as I've never tracked) and money for day trips etc is £100. I have 4 planned meet ups / days out some prepaid but some will be drinks out Iike tea and coffee.

I'm hoping for 18 NSD

STOPTOBER I barely drink so I'm giving up crisps and chocolate ... in the effort to make healthier treats.

Christmas is nearly done, I've saved with park and do a lot of my shopping Boxing Day

October is my month I'm wanting to get back to gym and back into healthy eating.

I get a free flu jab at work so that's in November but I do need to sort a car emergency box! I've been decluttering all old clothes this week, some went to the charity shop and I have a tip run tomorrow, tomorrow's job is my daughters room, we'll both be going through it to make room for Santa, I've already so a bag for recycling, anything broken will go to tip.

I think this is just what I need to get myself sorted. I've buried my head in the sand long enough

FurryBeastOz

I’m in. I’ll do my budgets and plans tonight and post tomorrow.

redofromstart

May I join in please mothernerd? September really helped, even if I did run out of time to post at the end.

Milk fiends here too.

ilovetea

Please can I join.
Been visiting my daughters and grandchildren for a few weeks and have rather overspent.Don't mind as I don't see them very often.
Will add my targets tomorrow if that's alright.
Ilovetea xx

sashanut

No 6 checking in.....

Looking forward to starting tomorrow, will post goals/targets etc once I have worked on them....

One thing I wanted to ask in terms of NSDs - I also subscribe to the Payment a Day challenge - so no NSDs possible at all unless I can be excused these payments? No real debt so what I do is to use my cc for almost every purchase (!) including groceries, petrol, car repairs, animal feed etc in order to collect vouchers/points which I generally use near to Christmas - on YS stuff. I then try & make an online payment every day, which I post on the PAD thread. I don't generally clear the whole balance, depending on how spendy the month has been, but it is always paid off in full every month via DD ...not going back there again!! So Mothernerd, can I still join?

mothernerd

Okay everyone up to here is in and numbered.

People who are away - feel free to alter NSDs etc in proportion to your participation ie 5 days in Lanzarote - cut NSDs by 1/6.

sashanut PADs are fine. In effect you are 'paying to debt or savings', the money isn't being used for frivolous purposes but as intended. The PADs do not lose you a NSD. Putting things on a credit card is fine IF you are not going wild and dropping things in your trolley or basket without thinking.

The NSD is to stop the 'just popping in for one thing' turning into a basket full and another £20 gone. I have said that some turtles don't use the NSDs - if you aren't prone to impulse buys and aren't spending mindlessly it is fine.

At times I haven't used them for good reasons. When I was waiting for my hip operation I was told not to walk (after months of physiotherapy). I had to have shopping so it made sense to do the £1 each way bus hop into town and bring a small rucksack full of shopping back each time so the weight was not too much and I only had to walk for one block when I got off (and on bad days I could hold onto people's garden railings to help me along).