What small DFW things will you do w/c 18th June??

Happy_Kitties

Morning everyone

Brilliant work on the overdraft Spudsmum it all counts
Frustrating DNMS that you haven't heard back about the fabric or the lamb.

1LL it's my own fault, always suffer after sport but the hospital did say to improve my strength and conditioning ready for surgery and it has been working, esp as I'm not allowed to swim now,just takes a toll on my arms:o. Birthday this weekend and what am I doing......more sport but it is great fun:D

Not much going on here.
DD still doing great work on using up leftovers and putting various concoctions together so nothing is wasted:T
Banking all checked and everything good
Line dried washing-more to go out today
Dishwasher has been working a bit harder and using a higher temp, but doing a good job and making life easier for me
DD and I are going to start tidying up the living room and pack up the last of the mess ready for decorating next week
More cleaning today if I get motivated
RM surveys to do
Picked up some YS desserts and yogurts yesterday with good amounts off, half of which have been beavered away already by DD

Well that's about it from me......off to do some cat cleaning and tonight me and DD cat have decided to do some Christmas wrapping:xmassmile.......i know, I know it's only the middle of June but if I don't do it gradually I can't manage it all in December and find it very stressful.......plus I've worked out buying throughout the year my average savings tend to be around £500:j

Have a great day everyone x

carrielovesfanta

Good morning!

Hugs to all and sorry I missed wishing you all a happy solstice yesterday.

The gig was great but I will admit that stadium gigs are not my thing really. I find it hard to stay as engaged with the experience when watching the big screens. OH did very well considering the number of people (like 50,000? 60,000?).

spudsmum -excellent work on the overdraft!

Been slightly awol yesterday. After swearing I needed an early night, I got stuck in work until 9.30! Got to bed at 11 then up at 7.30 for a careers event that I promised to do at nephew's school. Spoke to a load of embarrassed teenagers for a few hours and got a freebie tuna buttie for lunch. Odd jobs in the afternoon (neither of us had been at home for 2 days really so bits of washing up piling up, bins to take out etc).

Tried to get an early night last night. Success for me but OH's tablet didn't agree with him yesterday and he was retching and taking antacids til 1.30am. Poor chap is still asleep. His tablets do this very occasionally and we haven't found the trigger yet.

So today's mission:

• B/L/D from stores (brekkie was homemade cinnamon rolls and fresh strawberries from the garden. Heaven!)
• Gym at lunchtime
• Epilate legs
• Go and do something nice and chilled with OH
• Water garden, bit of potting on
• Get OH to swing via BandM or similar for more compost
• Update budget sheet. Pay OH's ccard. We were going to overpay but obvs had not budgeted £120 for gig tickets!)
• Washing on line to dry

Not much doing. Aiming to have a really nice day today.

Have a good one all

clf x

ziggy2407

Good Morning All

The sun's shining and I am raring to go (no really, I am :rotfl:). Today's plans:

Check Bank & made PAD - Done
Buy supplies for plasterer - Done
Empty bedroom -
Put lots of sheets down to protect carpet -
Bake -
Little bit more decluttering
Enter a few comps -
All meals from cupboards/fridge/freezer -
Checked: Tombola Stars, Lucky Bob, Luckyphone, FPL, WinaDinner -
Read or knit -

Have a great day all!
C x

allydowd

Hi June-Penny-Jugglers,

Unintentionally slept in this morning.

Debt-Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Four:

THINGS I WILL DO:

* Check online banking. Done.

* Take medication. Done.

* Turn alarm clock off at the wall til tonight. Done.

* Get some exercise. Done. Line dancing to YouTube. (With the curtains shut naturally.)

* Sort out lots of things for our holiday. :cool: Namely:
-Clothing Done.
-Podcast downloads. Done.
- Sew a loop in the back of my baseball cap so now I can hang it off my bag with a carabiner. Done.
-The zip on my cases was broken....so will replaced it with a circular keyring fitting. Done.
-Fit carabiner clips from my climbing gear to my pac-a-mac and my baseball cap so they can hang from my shoulder bag when I'm out and about. Done.

* Make quiche. Yes, I know I've been saying this for 4 days.

* Read meters.




To live without risk is to risk not living.

Working_Mum

Wow CLF epilating!! I tried that and it really hurts! #braveryaward!

I have been doing a little bit of analysis so thought I'd share. I was hoping to do a mid year review but have done it 2 weeks early as I had a bit of time this morning!! I had an awful year in 2017 (following my largest customer going pop and leaving me with £60k of bad debt) which followed a cancer diagnosis in 2016 which saw me take almost a year out of my business to cope. So I started afresh in 2018 and set myself some budgets based on what my trusty "Spends Book" had told me I had spent last year.

I pay myself a weekly figure every Thursday to cover food/fuel/social life etc - this way I feel less constrained than simply having "x" for the food budget as my life never runs smoothly!

I now keep slightly more comprehensive records but thought I'd share what the cumulative impact of small conscientious steps can do! There have been times when I felt that what I was doing wasn't making a difference but actually I HAVE made a difference and I am thrilled.

I have moved my weekly spend on food/toilettries/cleaning etc from £109.75 to £74.22 - that's a massive saving of £852 on last year at this point!!

My fuel is bang on the same at £30 per week!

I am currently feeding a family of 3 on £59.32 per week - this includes two very hungry teens and lots of meat as my kids are carnivores!

I am currently having one in three days as NSD's - 32% year to date which is great - I am quite strict and a no spend day means no spends whatsoever from my purse or on my debit card for work or personal. So 1/3 NSD's is ace for me!

I set myself the weekly/penny per day savings challenge and have a total of £644 saved - this is going to be my emergency fund and Christmas spending!

I continue to snowball my debts and have paid off £5100 between my mortgage and other debts. Really pleased with this figure.

I would love to pay my annual bills annually rather than monthly by direct debit - I managed to pay my car insurance in one lump at renewal on 31.5.18 £214 - I will accrue each week so I can do this again next year.

I am still "shopping from home" and being frugal etc and loving 2018!!

I read diaries every day and they keep me motivated but wanted to share my progress.

Happy MSE-ing everyone

((hugs))

WM x

foxgloves

Working Mum - Sounds like you are doing great - I don't have children but have seen what my nephews can eat when they come to stay...they are 15 & 10 & are like food hoovers!

Purplefairy - Glad the garlic flatbreads are proving useful. I made a batch this week. They do freeze well & it's so quick just to get a spare portion of something out of the freezer with one of those, when there isn't a lot of spare time or it's the end of the month for the grocery budget. Good way of using up slightly out of date yoghurt too, though if it looks or smells iffy I wouldn't use it, of course.
F x

foxgloves

And on today's money saving list:
*NSD - considered cycling to local shops. Unconsidered it as have about £7 of Personal Spends left until Wednesday & have promised to go out for a bacon roll with mr f tomorrow morning.
*Cleaned whole house using minimal products & washable microfibre cloths. To be fair, mr f hoovered upstairs as he had a later start this morning.
*Watered veggie garden. I'm growing mini cucumbers this year...the little ones which can go whole in a lunchbox. Picked 1st one this week, looks like another 4 ready this weekend & lots more coming.
*Got our banking up to date. Mum's cheque had landed in our bank account (from when I did her grocery shopping last weekend) so I paid that off my CC (which was used for maximising points for vouchers). Also transferred funds to pay off our recent legal bill. That was a bloomin' big frog, but all is now done to our satisfaction. Gutted to have to use our Loan Pay Down Fund to pay the bill, but felt it was a better option than dipping into our emergency fund. It could have been worse. I was expecting a bigger bill, which is one of the reasons we'd been putting this task off so long.
*Updated budgets generally & checked that the big birthday camera transaction had gone through correctly, which it had.
*All free leisure today - aiming to finish my sewing project this weekend to give me time to ask friend for help making it up. Also really looking forward to sitting n the garden with my book. Simple pleasures!
Take care all,
F xx

spudsmum

allydowd wrote: »

Well done spudsmum and Mr Spudsmum. :T

Thanks Ally and everyone else who commented. Currently he has £6.34 in the account until monday when council tax and water come out but hopefull we can continue to build on this.

Workingmum - sounds like youre doing great!

As for me - trying to get my budget on track after a spendy few weeks (and a £415 garage bill!) Not overspent but not had anything left either for several weeks. This week for the first time in ages I'm under budget but only by £1.72. Hoping this is where we start to turn the corner again as i was regularly £40+ under budget every week before so know it can be done. Need to get some money put aside ASAP especially with summer holidays coming up though we'll be making use of free activities as much as possible this year.

First step is the shopping. DH is finishing work early so were heading to Lidl - hoping to keep it to around £40ish as already have a huge stockpile in the garage. Will embarrass DH and eldest small by going round with my calculator but i dont care :rotfl:

Few things that may potentially derail me:

1. Eldest small is having dental surgery under GA tomorrow and is frankly terrified but trying his best to keep it together. so some small sweetener/treat may be required. (They dont generally get stuff other than xmas and birthday but this is an unusual situation) Not promised him anything yet - we will see how he does.

2. All the kids need new undies - eldest small's pants are age 7-8 (he's 10!) and going in holes and the twins are ready for potty training (oh joy!:eek:) so need pants and new vests without poppers at the bottom. Also the washing machine seems to eaten all their socks - i can only find two pairs from the hundreds they had. I've put it off as long as possible but its pretty critical now so i have to bite the bullet. I will try to be as frugal as possible but we'll see how we go.

I have lots of produce nearly ready in my garden and the smalls practically inhaled the first few strawberries ready yesterday (i love them but am sadly allergic :mad:) Picked the first rhubarb also and should have the first onions and potatoes in the next week or so. Aside from the obvious money saving aspect it gives me much more of a thrill than i thought it would to grow and eat my own stuff. Especially since i normally have black thumbs (or whatever the opposite of green fingerd is :rotfl:)

Foxgloves i'm really intrigued by these garlic breads everyone s raving about - recipe pretty please??!

PurpleFairy26

foxgloves wrote: »

Working Mum - Sounds like you are doing great - I don't have children but have seen what my nephews can eat when they come to stay...they are 15 & 10 & are like food hoovers!

Purplefairy - Glad the garlic flatbreads are proving useful. I made a batch this week. They do freeze well & it's so quick just to get a spare portion of something out of the freezer with one of those, when there isn't a lot of spare time or it's the end of the month for the grocery budget. Good way of using up slightly out of date yoghurt too, though if it looks or smells iffy I wouldn't use it, of course.
F x

They're definitely on our make again list. I actually used OOD creme fraiche as my yogurt was earmarked for breakfast. And they came out fine.

Spudsmum recipe is
400g sr flour
2 level tsp baking powder
2 crushed garlic gloves
250g low fat plain yogurt
Approx 100ml water.

Mix dry ingredients, add wet and bring together to form a soft dough. Roll out to pita bread size ovals and fry in a hot pan or griddle (I used a non stick frying pan) wiped with oil on a paper towel for 2 minutes each side. They puff up nicely when cooked. I ate some warm originally and then cooked the rest and froze and today for lunch it was yummy from the freezer. Thanks again to Foxgloves for sharing.

Enjoy!

Just back from a night at friends. Drank tea. Go me. Also went to supermarket. Cupboards were bare, well fridge at least :rotfl: will save me having to go tomorrow and get side tracked with smalls in tow.

allydowd

Hi June-Penny-Jugglers,

Up with the lark this morning. Go me! :T

Yay! £65 reward card has arrived from when we took on our new Broadband provider! Have given to DW as part re-payment for monies loaned to me to pay for my car.

Debt-Free-Nillionaire Continuity Plan Year Four:

THINGS I WILL DO:

* Check online banking. Done.

* Take medication. Done.

* Turn alarm clock off at the wall til tonight. Done.

* Get some exercise. Done. A walk along the prom.

* Sort out lots of things for our holiday. :cool: Namely:
-Buy additional travel adapter. Done.
-Buy drinks for journey. Done.

* Make quiche. Yes, I know I've been saying this for 5 days. Done!

* Read meters. Done. Really pleased. I've been home all week but our electricity bill hasn't risen.

* Clean bedroom with Stardrops and washable cloths. Done. Treated wee patch of mould before it gets worse.


* Clean Study with Stardrops and washable cloths. Done. Treated a wall that's prone to mould as a preventative.


* Clean bathroom with Stardrops and washable cloths. Done. Put out new toilettries to replace used ones; if I don't DW will buy more. Use up showergel that DW has rejected as it "doesn't smell of much".

* Clean sitting room with Stardrops and washable cloths. Done.


* Clean kitchen with Stardrops and washable cloths. Done.

* Do some batch cooking. Chicken and lettuce soup made. Lamb curry made. Used lamb, lamb stock and chillis from the freezer.

* Chop dying onions and freeze. Done.

* Clean microwave with Stardrops. Done.

* Signed up for one month free trial of Netflix. Done.

* Disinfect toothbrush heads to prolongue their life. Done.



To live without risk is to risk not living.