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NST June 2019 - Ninja powers
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I am picking up my mask & Cape & I definitely would like a wand!
Minimise-
Bills my gas & electricity has just gone down to 50 per month, & having just paid my car off my bills are already really low.
Plastic - really working on this, I am after some bees wax wraps but never have the cash for them. Hopefully once we have our house I'll get some then.
Unnecessary spends- I don't have the budget to go buying things we do not need.
Maximise- dream big, this is what this is all about for us, we want our own home. We have painstakingly saved 16,200 over the past few years & have a plan to have 22,000 plus fees by the end of the year.
Health- need to work on this while hub is away it's hard to excersize but he is back for the short term & I shall make the most of it.
Time with those you love- this is a biggie, when hub is away I struggle to find time to sit down with the kids on days I'm at work as I'm so busy cooking cleaning etc.
Budget is set - I will get 15 NSDs.
Good luck Turtles:D
We don't have any expensive social plans this month; a christening (token gift and a couple of drinks), a theatre trip already booked (sweets and drinks from home) and that is it.
Minimise:
Bills 1) Swap my mobile phone provider 2) Reduce gas usage
Clutter 1) Dining room unit 2) Pink bedroom 3)Dresser drawers
Spending 1) Groceries budget £300
Unnecessary spends 1) Stick to our budget 2) First monthly budget meeting planned with DH for 2nd June 3) Cut back to avoid using CC this month
Waste 1) Minimise food waste ( I can't afford to waste anything this month)
Maximise:
Dreams (dream big) 1) Debt free in 4 years, mortgage free in 10. DH is motivated to clear mortgage in 10 years (a very tough target) so I want to keep him focussed on this with any tactics you lovely peeps would like to share. Debt is all on 0% and will run down in the background.
Education 1) Sales efficiency analysis (work) 2) Yoga 3) Clean eating diet and keeping it up to include batch cooking, motivation, tactics to avoid eating carp etc.
Fruit and veg intake 5/day every day including at least 1 green veg everyday 0/30- 5/day 0/30 green veg
Getting niggly jobs done 1) DS CTF/ISA 2) Sort pink bedroom back to a bedroom instead of a dumping ground 3) List freezer and re-organise contents 4) Paint porch interior 5) Paint utility, downstairs loo and spray paint cistern and replace loo seat.
Health Lose another 7lb (ideally by 25th June but this will be tough)
Meal Planning - will post them and be accountable to keep me on track with eating well, weight loss and grocery spending.
Moving more - Exercise 3 times per week and walk dog everyday I am home - Exercise 0/12 Dog walks 0/20
Time with those you love - Phone D&S, phone S&J, visit Mum, book meet up with J&C, phone JP, phone JL
NSD Aiming for 10 due to wanting flexibility of buying fresh food every couple of days 0/10
Pay off £7000 - £1743 - 19.4%
Make £2021 extra income - £99.75
here's what I've chosen to focus on:
clutter - YES, I have been putting aside some clothes for the charity bin and will get to it this weekend. I’ll be moving flat AGAIN potentially in August so need to think about more de-cluttering.
plastic - Still an ongoing battle but trying to shop at the grain store and local markets for fruit and veg to minimise plastic. Also waiting for someone in the supermarket to chastise me for not using the single use plastic gloves and plastic bags, but it hasn't happened yet!
screen time - I probably need to stop scrolling aimlessly through instagram so have deleted from my phone and will look at it on the laptop occasionally.
spending - reining it in now - having a weekend to myself so not spending much ( I have the excuse of hiding from all the football this weekend - everyone knows I hate football and definitely avoiding the English fans…. we spotted some yesterday… “there’s some!!! How can you tell?…. the car full of booze) ) :rotfl:
everything is budgeted from now until I go back to work mid-september....
wants - I spent 5 euros on a cute little cool bag and freezer blocks so I can go out sunbathing all day and have a picnic, and that’s all I want for my summer!
waste - pretty good with meal planning and minimising food waste but can always do better. I have also purchased and started using my moon cup
dreams - starting to save for a flat. Well, I think that’s what I want eventually. Ideally mortgage free but who knows.
education - really enjoying learning spanish again. Also looking to practice aerial hoop this summer, it’s something i used to do in London but gave it up as it was very expensive and I didn’t have space to have the equipment at home. But I’ve found a gym pass for 75 euros a month and may give it a go again over summer.
fruit and veg intake - Need to get a bit better at this, will hunt down some goodies later at the market
Fun & laughter- Yep! need to take myself a bit less seriously at work methinks
Generosity - will see if I can help walking the dogs at the animal shelter.
Niggly jobs - got a couple done this weekend actually. Feels good.
Health - been getting back into exercising this week
Time with those you love - really need to think about this. My best friend here is going back home to New zealand and also the guy I’ve been seeing is going home to the UK for an operation for 2 months. I need to start to build a life in this country and properly make friends if i’m going to be able to stay here... and plan to see my family every now and again.
Have a great weekend turtles
Emergency fund €2k/€2k
House deposit €8700/€25k
Minimise:
-bills (change provider, reduce your usage)
-plastic
-screen time (you’ll sleep better, get more done, be more sociable…)
-spending
-toxic situations and people (set yourself free from their entangling tentacles)
-unloved items (someone else can love them instead)
-wants ( at heart, we are simple folk who don’t need much)
-waste – food and other (don’t throw your hard-earned money down the drain/ bin)
Bills are just out of contract, plastic is a continual battle and so is screen time, spending isn't too bad ... toxic situations, ongoing, unloved items - because of my new kitchen, I'm finding a few more, thats going well. Waste, surprisingly badly
Maximise:
-dreams (dream big)
-education: learn to do something new (from plumbing to breakdancing)
-fruit and veg intake (we know the health benefits)
-fun + laughter (so important!)
-generosity (donate, give, help others)
-getting niggly jobs done (then they can stop bugging you)
-health (don’t pay for health issues later in life – be healthy now!)
-inner ninja superpowers (we all have them. Dust down the cape)
-moving more (goes with health. Get shifting that booty)
-pennies (they are powerful. Treasure them)
-time with those you love
Working on all this! Especially time with those you love, my sister is coming round in 20 minutes, I gotta go
Retired August 2016
Paid off French mortgage September 2018
New kitchen fully installed June 2019
Not counting this! 2020
Garden fencing completed, woohoo 2021..........
October 2021: aiming for £5,000 new money for premium bonds or a car.
Lauren - the wand chooses the wizard!
Shrewbie - it is not easy to escape the expat mindset/lifestyle, you will find your Spanish friends. Sorry about my Spurs fans invading your city, they will be gone tomorrow. I will keep a close eye on them tonight for you.
Well, I went into town this morning, and tried on lots of clothes, which all looked awful as I need to lose weight. It was a shock seeing it in someone else's mirror. So I am remotivated. Then I went off to the market, and came home and made a massive 8 fruit, fruit salad, with everything left over from last week in the fruitbowl, and some fresh berries and watermelon I got today. So that is there for pudding and snacking. I love watermelon quite a lot. There is no excuse.
Did a money jiggle, used 2 vouchers, have already menu planned, and apart from a loaf of bread, I am sorted for lunchboxes starting again on Monday (yawn!), so heading out to Mr T's as I am too excited about the football tonight to sit still for long.
The weather is sweltering, my borgettes are looking ready to throw out some flowers. I am going to put some ice cube trays into the freezer to freeze - well, I usually use them as chocolate moulds, so we will have 'oddly shaped frozen shapes' (TM) instead. Frozen teaspoon anyone? Frozen teapot shape? no? ok then.
Right, going to hit the supermarket while everyone else is enjoying the heat*
My IP address got banned yesterday, so I did not know until now that my post made it through. Grrrr! stupid automated random IP assigning server. Glad my post is not AWOL though.
*I am not enjoying the heat, but my laundry is loving it.
hehe it's all good fun. My dad is a spurs supporter too and he was desperate to come but he couldn't get time off work.
Emergency fund €2k/€2k
House deposit €8700/€25k
Decluttered a couple of items in the bin.
Put somethings in the bag to go into the communal recycling bin. Still need to put recycling out at some point.
Went to park run.
Was very busy this morning. Went to 2 food shops before I went to park run. Then catching with other shopping afterwards. Did treat myself with a strawberry trifle at my favourite shop. Brought loose fruit from a stall, no plastic, brought my own reusable bag.
Chilled out this afternoon and enjoyed the lovely weather.
Today I am grateful for the stonkingly good weather, for an early start, for getting some school work done, for a catch up with an old friend, for dd playing out a lot, for leftovers for tea, for seedlings still growing, for still having another day of the weekend to go, for my kettlebell.
Deni x