What small moneysaving things will you do this week? W/C 18 December

determined_new_ms

FatVonD wrote: »

I've not done much in the way of shopping for Christmas, it's only a roast after all, isn't it? I will throw in a starter and a nice pudding but everyone is too stuffed to eat much in the evening, I will just buy some nice hand carved ham and bread and make sandwiches, maybe some snacky bits but I can leave all that until the last minute. Watch this space for the panic when everything sells out :rotfl:

wow FVD my kinda woman!!! :cool:

foxgloves

Hi Moneysavers,
Useful sort of day despite waking at 3 a.m. Bah!
*Two baths from 1 lot of hot water & only ironed what absolutely needed it, so a bit of energy saved there.
*Budget reconciliation session. Pay-day is Fri but my December budget will run to 27th as usual so as to avoid difficulties at the end of Jan. All manageable...only annoyance was not being able to pay an amount off a CC because the site was down. Will add to tomorrow's list.
*Updated grocery budget. I consider there to be a generous amount left for the final shop of December. Have impressed this figure on mr f, as there is still time for a Festive Food Red Mist to engulf him, especially as I'm thinking we will divide labours.....he can get the grocery shopping & I can do my baking.
*Write shopping.list (in hand).
*Use-it-ups today are half a home grown squash which I will chunk up & roast tonight with rosemary & garlic and a couple of bendy parsnips which I am using in normandy potatoes.
*2 x 50ps paid into my sealed pot. Mended mr f's sealed pot. (Left this for 3 weeks so as to give myself & my pot a head start!)
*Small change rounded up for shrapnel box.
*Baked a loaf....nearly.....it"s about to go in the oven.
*Did 1 measly survey & 1 prize draw.
*Knitted 2 new pan holders to replace old shabby ones (free, as yarn was from stash. Cast on next knitting project which is a tiny mouse with a woolly winter scarf, a kit I was given as a gift, so again, no sneaky trippettes to the wool shop.
*Make tomorrow's packed lunch.
*Filled up note pads using scrap paper.
*Tidy, tidy, tidy, tidy, tidy, tidy, tidy.......I think my annual New Year urge to declutter has kicked in early.
Take care all. All us insomniacs....let's see if we can't manage at least 6 hours tonight, yeah?
F x

DawnW

Afternoon all
Not done much today as I had a friend visit for lunch, but on the plus side I haven't spent anything either
*Quick tidy and whizz around with the hoover before friend got here, much needed after child visitors for the previous 2 days!
*Walked dog
*Watered Christmas tree
*Easy cheap lunch - on offer filled pasta with sauce I made from HG tomatoes, and froze Salad to accompany, and coffee and one of the fancy biscuits friend brought with her afterwards.
*Made a quiche shell for tomorrow
*And a couple of dozen mince pies
*Just done a couple of surveys
*£5 Amazon voucher claimed from Ipsos
*Wood stove alight so nice and warm

Still to do:
*Finalise shopping list for tomorrow
*Crackers, cheese and fruit for dinner, due to big lunch - OH went out for a Christmas lunch with a group of friends from the community thing he belongs to, so his lunch was considerably bigger than mine. Might sneak the odd mince pie :rotfl:

Earlyish night, as I think I am getting a cold

FatVonD

Evening all

'Twas a busy day at work today and I'm glad to be home but hand carved turkey (tomorrow's date) was reduced to half price this afternoon so I have a bag of beautifully carved (if I say so myself!) slices in the freezer to reheat on Christmas Day.

I collected the last two presents, I will wrap a couple shortly and move my uniform to the tumble drier before I fall asleep, my shift has been changed and I start at 7am :eek:

determined_new_ms

Morning nice one FVD

WFH today - and I actually have loads to do! Have back to back phone appts until about 1.30 then I'll finish as soon as I've done my case notes. Then go and pick up madam at 3.15

Feeling ghastly as have come down with a cold! Lots of hot drinks and pain relief in order!

Not intending on going anywhere other than doing the school runs so will stay away from shops. although I have had a best offer accepted on fleabay so will need to pay for that

load of washing & hang up

clean bathroom at some point while up there

knitting and relaxing later - although I felt so bad in the evening. So if it's a repeat of that I'll be going to bed.

lunch/dinner will be a use it up from the fridge - need to go through and make sure things don't perish!

Ok for now that will do. Have a great day guys

DawnW

Morning all
I have a cold coming too DNMS Talk about timing! :mad: DD2 and family also have a tummy bug, so I am hoping we don't get that as well

Anyway, I am determined to ignore it as much as possible, though I suspect an early night will be on the cards!

Today's list:
Expecting a Campbells delivery today - freezer tetris is therefore necessary. I have completely given up on defrosting the freezers before Christmas but will be aiming to do this after! Delivery all present and correct, and I managed to get everything in!
Also managed to stash some chicken stock I made the day before yesterday.
Need to do a shop, but whether this happens today or tomorrow depends on when the Campbells delivery arrives. So, a spendy day is on the cards - once this shop is done however (and it won't be a big one), I don't intend to set foot inside a shop until well after Christmas! Done :T Spent far too much over the last few weeks though :eek:
Sort out spare room and make it ready for my brother, who will be arriving on Saturday. It looks like a bomb has gone off in a toy shop at the moment :eek: Done
Load of washing, weather doesn't look hopeful for drying outside though Done, it dried a bit, but will need to go on airer overnight
Quiche for dinner, using up some OOD cream and some lurking cheese, plus whatever other bits I can find. I made the shell and blind baked it yesterday, so an easy dinner. Salad bits and jacket spuds to go with it, and there will be enough for lunch tomorrow as well Quiche in oven now, using up some leftover salad from yesterday, and the last bit of a pot of coleslaw
Made gingerbread dough, now all ready to roll out, bake and ice
Received a 2018 diary from RM surveys (useful size to use as a spending diary) plus £4 of shopping vouchers
Walked dog, OH now well enough to do the shorter, morning one
A couple of onepoll surveys
Kicked off an Ipsos survey, but I save the few consolation points they give me
More coffee and paracetamol needed first though!
Feeling quite yucky now but there seems to be a lot of it about!

foxgloves

Evening Thursday Penny-Wranglers,
Just a few bits today:
*Entered a competition.
*mr f had a call first thing to say his meeting was cancelled, which was good because he was able to claim back some of the time he's owed & he decided to do a 3-supermarket shop with the Christmas food list. He came back well under budget. £38 left to buy fresh veg for Christmas dinner & a bag of cracky nuts from the market tomorrow & also to cover a visit to the indie real ale shop. Should be ok.
*Iced the Christmas cake. Bought a pack of icing but re-used cutters, decs, ribbon, etc.
*Added peppermint extract to leftover icing & made into peppermint creams.
*Free Guardian, magazine & cappucino from Waitrose.
*Dinner is a use-it-up pasta bake. Will contain (among other things) half an onion that's been kicking around the veg basket, half a tin of tomatoes from freezer, ditto 2 rashers of l/o bacon & a pot of the home made pesto I froze when we had heaps of fresh basil in the summer.
*Friends coming tomorrow.....would normally go into full on baking mode but have decided to save time & money by cutting our Christmas cake instead, as that's kind of what it's for. Still have home made biscuits left from Monday too, so really no need for further spending.
*Have found a use for those pop-sock/knee high type thingies. I seem to have a drawerful which is weird as I hardly ever wear them.......maybe just with high-heeled ankle boots under trousers? Have found wearing a pair under usual socks adds another layer & feet definitely warmer. I hate getting chilblains so will do this to get at least some use out of them.
Ok, that is my small efforts today. Hope all the lergies that are developing are speedily on their way.
F x

DawnW

Morning all
I was up before 5 this morning because I started coughing and didn't want to disturb OH. I may well need a nap later!
Other plans, such as they are:
HG fruit from freezer for breakfast instead of bought fresh fruit (done, early, I know, but I have been up for ages and was hungry)
Check banks (done)
Fold clean washing on airer. At least one item needs ironing (curses!) will do it so it isn't hanging about
Another load of washing
At least one of the necessary dog walks
Need to clean out the microwave
Rest of quiche for dinner
No plans for spending or going anywhere today, apart from the postbox to post RM surveys letters. I will keep my germs to myself!
Maybe make up the gingerbreads from the dough I made yesterday, which helpfully sits in the fridge until I am ready to roll it out and bake it
Try to do some cleaning / tidying / decluttering
Look at budget spreadsheet for next year :eek:
Wrap last few presents
Check for surveys

OH has his GP appointment today (at last) to hopefully find out the results of all the tests he has had for his back problem, and hopefully suggestions for a way forward :T

determined_new_ms

Morning yippee no work :j awwwww that feels sooooooo good! Going to be a fairly low key day until we get ready to go to the panto early evening with the network of kinship families we are part of All paid for so apart from taking snacks and getting an ice-cream should be a low spend day :money:

As well as heavily relaxing/playing/crafting I intend to:

* sew up a sparkly top I got from a CS. It's perfect but too long for me so a quick alternation and that's my xmas day top sorted with a lovely red cardi. All for less than £10 :money:
* while I'm at it do a few mending of items with little holes in
* all meals from stores - lots of use it up going on!
* go through fridge/clean it and make sure nothing goes to waste
* tidy up & vacuum - the constant ebb and flow of the tidiness/cleanliness of our house :eek::o:rotfl:
* go through the larder and find out some of the xmas treats I picked up and hid from myself!
* we're thinking of walking up to the woods and picking some foliage to make our wreath - depends on how I feel....
* [STRIKE]payday today so log on to banking and do some shuffling [/STRIKE]
* entered the yarn/knitting comps ziggy posted on the fb page - done thanks Zigs! :A

Ok more than enough to keep me going. Happy Friday guys :A

foxgloves

Morning my little stuffing balls,
Here are today's efforts.....there won't be any more efforts after this today as we have friends coming over & intend to devote the rest of the time to eating Christmas cake & festive shortbread shapes:
*Added a further 2 x £5 vouchers to my survey income total for 2017 (£304....not quite my best, but a very useful amount & could have managed a lot more if I had kept up with Toluna, which is the one which tends to fall by the wayside as they email me soooooo many invitations to new surveys for which I am then entirely the wrong demographic)
*Signed up for Swagbucks.
*Did a handful of surveys - quite a lot of Onepolls today, inc one at £1 & a Prolific Academic for £1.20 (logic problems were involved, so that twisted up the poor old grey cells!)
*Final grocery shopping of December's budget & we have come in at (drum roll!) £9.00 under budget! This includes filling the freezer with a big fresh fish delivery as well as all beer, wine, etc, for the festivities. Am pleased with that, & pleased with mr f, as he can get the red mist big time with all the lovely festive food & booze in the shops.
* Entered 2 x prize draws
*Updated budgets & checked online banking to make sure salary had gone in early as expected. It had, also travel expenses so all will be ready for my next big budget day on 27th Dec, when I will be setting January's budget.
*Fed sourdough jar ready to bake a nice crusty loaf tomorrow.
*Took all ingredients out of the freezer in readiness for tomorrow's baking/cooking day.
*Dinner as per meal plans - chicken thighs which will be cooked in the leftover BBQ sauce from a batch I made back when we had our tomato glut. Still doing well with using up oddments from freezer.
*Knit a project from my stash.
OK, must go & get downstairs warmed up now, as our friends who are arriving later are chilly mortals & our house is very cold. Will also get quick magazine bag ready, as can declutter a big wodge of mags off to them.
Hope everyone starting to feel a bit festive - I must say it does feel odd with it being the first Christmas without my Dad, but life goes on, & he certainly wouldn't have wanted anyone to be sitting around moping when they could be eating turkey sandwiches, playing board games,listening to carols, etc.. Can't help but feel sad though.
F x