£50k to zero - made it across the finish line

Drawingaline

I am with you on things opening. The only place I am going is the hairdresser's and I have a shoe appointment for the three boys. One definitely needs new shoes, but have been unable to get him measured has been a bit of a stumbling block there! 

One-step-at-a-time

Yep there are some things you need to physically be there for! I have avoided the hairdresser for the last 10 years so I'm not going to start now

One-step-at-a-time

Having a whale of a time sorting things out this weekend - we've been on a freecycling rampage; the attic is getting emptier (though there's still a LONG way to go) and things I never thought would find a new home have been snapped up! eb4y has been a pleasant surprise today too as a broken thing I listed for £1 for spares has gone for £25 (something of DH's so he gets to decide where the money goes). 

I've pulled out all of our garden furniture and given it a brush down, and put a very knackered sun lounger into the tip pile for whenever we can get there next. This week if it stays as nice as it's supposed to I'll be rubbing down and repainting some metalwork and giving the shed a brush down and repaint, but balancing that with sitting out in the garden with cups of tea.

Lastly I've snagged some free seed trays so will be spending a bit of time this afternoon getting them planted up with more herbs and chillies.

Our food budget for the rest of the month is squeaky tight, I've basically got to make £7 and a few nectar points last until the 28th. As improbable as it sounds I think we'll be fine as all that's needed is a little bit of fresh veg (we have plenty of frozen) and possibly some milk. 

One-step-at-a-time

One week to budget reset day! Looking forward to getting under £4k. I've already paid off more this year than I have left to go
Work is bonkers this week so the time is going fast. Been let down by a couple of free cyclers today but all my parcels have been posted and the money has come through, so I'm in good shape for the end of the month.

Drawingaline

So close!!

One-step-at-a-time

Still inching slowly towards reset day! No more food needed so that's good, but may possibly be borrowing £10 from next month's personal spends depending on whether I get an answer from someone on Marketplace. I spotted a fab cupboard that would replace the absolute mess of misfit shelving we have currently, solid wood, immaculate, and exactly the right size for £10. This will be my third attempt to get the right thing without breaking the bank; I've narrowly missed out in the last couple of bits of furniture I've asked about. I got to this within 20 mins of it being listed though, so fingers crossed there.
**edit** foiled again! The seller read my message and removed the item soon after without any kind of message back. Nice. Would 'sorry I've changed my mind' or 'sorry it's already gone' be too much of an imposition to write? Grrr.

It's been a good freecycling week, anyway - I've decluttered lots of odds & ends and picked up a couple of really useful items in return.

Signing off on some side hustle work this weekend so should have an extra £100 to look forward to in next month's money shuffle. A few errands to run today then a bit more work in the garden, I have lots of planting to sort out.

One-step-at-a-time

I failed miserably at planting anything new yesterday but I did pep up all of our houseplants! I will do that today though, and also rescue a snake plant that's flopped sideways a bit as it's not quite deep enough the soil and move my successful jalapeño seedlings to bigger pots. Blustery outside so the rest of the afternoon might be spent performing attic raids and pulling down more to sell or freecycle. 

One-step-at-a-time

No attic raids for me at the weekend but I have been tying up some loose ends. One inside renovation project will finally be finished at lunchtime, and the next (a small raised bed for the garden) may well get done this evening.
I've also started requesting quotes for a couple of long overdue garden jobs that we can't tackle ourselves. I've been putting them off because of the unknowns about cost, but that's just silly as I need to know what my savings target is! Onwards...

mark55man

really interesting to read your garden plans - we're trying to do a bit more in ours this year

thanks for posting on my diary, I know I'm joining your journey late, but hopefully the last leg will be the most exciting (but not too exciting) as you get nearer and nearer to £00 and then shoot well past it 

One-step-at-a-time

Cheers @mark55man ! 

I'm hoping the next few months will be boring and uneventful

This month I'm keeping £450 back from the scheduled payments to cover any extra cash needed for garden work, so for the time being my number will stay in the £4ks. I should have almost that much extra coming in from invoices I'm due to submit over the next few weeks, but as we're cash poor outside of the EF (and garden work is not an emergency!) I want to make sure we have a comfortable cash buffer this month  (the savings I do have are not instant access). Obviously I still want the DFD to be September,  I just need to manage things slightly differently for a bit to make sure we're not left short (the objective is to not have to sling anything on the 0% purchase card).

The only planned expenditure this month is on very small DIY/craft bits - some fabric and fittings to finish a couple of things around the house that we don't have supplies for, which will come in well under my £50 'miscellaneous spends' limit.