Bonfires and fireworks - NST November challenge

laurenh1

Hi all

Just Checking in.

NSD still on 3 as I have been to Tesco, and I am off to Aldi tonight. I am hoping to stay out of the shops until Saturday though, after today,

Organise- Cleaned car on my lunch, got car insurance quotes, tonight I will look over my budget.

Value- bought an amazon voucher to get the 6 pound top up- I was buying Hubs xmas present from amazon anyway. I also have a cash back amazon voucher which I will use. I have checked my sky bill and it is cheaper than I thought, very happy with that. Needed some new baby plates from tesco which were 1 pound each so looked about and got some coloured plastic picnic plates which were 4 for 1.50.

Excersize and eating - doing both, will run tonight.

Christmas- see value- I have now got the vouchers for hubs final present - just waiting for my top up to be added.

Mental Health- feeling on top of things. have a plan to be organised by the end of the week.

Have a good turtles!

Ps- I had a lot of success with Sky on "Chat" for anyone looking to negotiate. and covent garden are now offering pound coupons on their website ( soup is 1.17 in Tesco, so 17p with the coupon)

thriftylass

BadBookkeeper wrote: »

I don't batch cook where is best to do a frozen food shop to fill it up a bit?

So do you mean to stock up on ready meals (not sure where best to buy). Or frozen things that are easy to portion out and cook from scratch? I buy all my frozen veg/fish/fruit mixes etc from Aldi/Lidl. But we had a few flyers from Iceland through recently and their offers look good.

BadBookkeeper

Thanks thriftylass I mean things that can be cooked from the freezer straight to the oven. Only usually do this about once a week but at the moment I only have fish fingers, oven chips and frozen veg so it looks a bit sad and boring!! I know its not healthy/cheap but would like to have a good stock up so we have a bit of choice and therefore on those days an expensive/unhealthy trip to the takeaway is avoided

DebtFreeDuo

BadBookkeeper when cooking something I usually make too much for this exact reason. I have all sorts in my freezer at the moment that I can just grab out and put in the oven or microwave.

thriftylass

Oh no, I wasn't judging just clarifying what type of food. I think Aldi and Lidl also do nice pizzas, chicken Kievs, battered fish, fish in various marinates etc. we occasionally have the curly fries from LIDL in the freezer and they beat any take away.

BadBookkeeper

thriftylass wrote: »

Oh no, I wasn't judging just clarifying what type of food. I think Aldi and Lidl also do nice pizzas, chicken Kievs, battered fish, fish in various marinates etc. we occasionally have the curly fries from LIDL in the freezer and they beat any take away.

I know just wanted to explain myself more justifying for myself really thank you will have a look at icyland there is a farmyfoods near me but never ventured in...

thriftylass

BadBookkeeper wrote: »

I know just wanted to explain myself more justifying for myself really thank you will have a look at icyland there is a farmyfoods near me but never ventured in...

F@rmfoods don't but Iceland have a good website and do online orders.

See know all about them but haven't used them yet. Need a bigger freezer first

mothernerd

Icyland are fairly good and have home delivery if you spend over £20 for those who like to go in and pick their shopping. On-line with home delivery has a higher spend required for delivery. I like their large packs of chicken breasts which cook from frozen and things like cooked meat are very good value especially the 'trimmings' packs. Things like sausages I cook a whole bag in the oven and then wrap packs of 3 sausages in cling film and freeze again. The chips/ chicken popsters/ spicy breast steaks are cheaper than most supermarkets, taste much nicer and are much cheaper than the 'takeaway' option (have been trying to wean DS3 and Beloved off them). Fish are 3 packs for £10 and mum likes the mini-joints (3 for £10, some 4 for £10) as she gets a meal for 2 with some left over for sandwiches although whole joints would be better for families. Veg is good, own brand ready meals at £1 each are fine (stocked up before I had my hip operation).

F@rmfoods are quite a bit cheaper (veg 5 for £4) and big packs of chops etc. Also good for things like toilet rolls (3 x 18 packs for £10) and biscuits (good selection of things like j*mmie d0dgers for 39p a pack) and they often have offers on mutli packs of famous name baked beans. Toilet rolls are useful if you are making a special trip and want to fill the car up (taxi in my case). We often get 4 page leaflets with lists of offers and coupons £2.50 off a £25 shop more off £50 and £100 shops.

mothernerd

Very tired and aching a bit but very happy. A brown envelope was waiting for me when I got home. Finally got my Carer's Allowance, backdated to April (applied in June) so bank account should be looking healthier as they have sent a payment of £1800. I will have to pay back most of this as I have already been paid Working Tax Credits for this period (checked when I did my renewal and it said not to notify them of a change in income/ other benefit until it was actually received). However going forward I am getting the full amount and will no longer have to follow 2 sets of rules (35 hours caring and 30 hours working for starters but lots of others as well) which should be a massive reduction in stress.

However I feel entitled to have a minor rant here (will try to avoid being political, forgive me if I stray). It has taken me from June until now to get this money. I applied on-line but have written 5 letters and made 2 phone calls (was due to make another phone call this week), mostly in response to letters from them ignoring or mis-interpreting facts I had already given them.

Each time they gave me a deadline for responding whereas their time for responding to my initial application was 6- 8 weeks.

I know we need to careful with public money (our money, paid for in taxation) but I am annoyed by both their gross inefficiency and by the sheer economic madness of the whole exercise.

(straying into the political ?) There seems to be a policy of frustrating and discouraging people from getting the benefits they are entitled to in the hope that they will give up. I am so tired of seeing people with multiple disabilities having been declared 'fit for work', hearing about people starving because they have been 'sanctioned' (to meet hidden targets, not for genuine reasons) and people made homeless by the infamous Universal Credit with it's six week delay before any payments are made.

Back to being Practical (with my accounting head on).
It's all economic nonsense. Every phone call (for which I was charged at an extortionate rate) someone had to reply, pull my file up on the computer, go through several security checks to make sure I was who I said I was, read through to see what had actually happened so far, work out where they might have gone wrong and then tell me what I needed to do (usually regurgitate all the information they had been given in the first place, if they could be bothered to read it instead of finding spurious reasons to delay matters again). That person's wages have a cost. Each letter sent has a cost (£20 estimated many years ago). A better use of public money would have been to read the information sent and make the correct decision in the first place.

'Entitled'
When I left school and started work, I paid National Insurance contributions. In return for this I would receive money if I were too sick to work, if I stopped work to have a child, if I were injured and could no longer work, if I lost my job or was made redundant and ultimately when I retired. I was made redundant at the age of 19, a co-worker younger than I was being made redundant for the second time.

Over the years that agreement ('contract') between worker and state has been eroded beyond recognition. Extra conditions have been added, starting dates are later/ waiting days increased. Offices have been closed, most benefits are administered remotely.

Antagonism between those in work ('taxpayers') and those in need ('scroungers') has been stirred up. Pension ages have risen, conditions for those in work are more stressful as companies 'downsize' to make higher profits leaving too few doing too much. Universal Credit was supposed to equalise benefits between those in and out of work - what they didn't say was this would be acheived by putting the majority of those in work down to poverty level (oh sorry, they abolished the words 'poverty level').

Rant over. I persisted, I wrote, I phoned, I jumped through hoops, I explained in words of one syllable. I won.
:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Celebrate and be happy.

One last thing. If anyone calls themselves a 'taxpayer', challenge them. People with a disability, people not currently in work, sahms, pensioners buy food, clothes, fuel - all of which incur VAT. We are all taxpayers (except the super rich ?). In fact food and fuel form a much higher proportion of spending for poorer people.

I hope no one is offended by this post. It is not my intention to be political but I do hate waste of all kinds and an inefficient (or punitive) benefit system does not benefit the majority of us.

Today I am grateful for finally receiving Carer's Allowance (will check if Carer's credit is included or if I have to apply separately), for finding a pack of wraps in the bottom of the freezer, for resisting going out to buy chocolate last night (remembered the ice cream in the freezer).

mummylewis

Evening all!

Sorry been MIA for a few days, we've been pretty busy sorting house stuff out. I'm on 2 NSDs so far this month. Today was super spendy - the plumbers came! Huzzahh!! 2 brand new rads and a full flush and chemical clean of the system (you should have seen the sludge :eek:) and that set me back £855. Totally worth it though and we had saved the money so not unbudgetted. Also ordered some Xmas pressies today (getting the most out of the spend day I guess!). The order was from the U.S. though so I reckon it'll attract some hefty import fees. Again out of the Xmas fund so not unbudgetted.

Got around £30 left in the grocery fund to last until 20th. Meals are planned until 12th and don't require any more shopping. That £30 will be spent but won't need any more than that.

Organise - used the time today with the plumbers in to give DD to nannie and get the spare room sorted some more. Ripped the wardrobes out and did 2 tip runs getting rid of the carcasses and crap we've accumulated in limbo (conservatory!). Recycling being picked up tomo so that's the rest dealt with. Next steps are to rip out coving/dado/skirting boards and all wallpaper off. That'll take til Dec I reckon!

Christmas - imported goods sorts DH and FIL (plus FILs gift from MIL). Got DM and SILs gf sorted today too. With nectar double up coming next week I've got all my points planned out (currently got £67 worth so can get £130s worth:rotfl:) and to be honest that might be me done with the Xmas booze bought too!

Gratitudes - DH ripping apart the spare room, DD having a poo (sorry TMI but sometimes the poor mite really struggles), and my biggest gratitude goes to the plumbers because my living room is warm for once!

Will check in again soon,
Keep saving!

MLx