Keeping on the Straight and Narrow...

enthusiasticsaver

Just read through your diary and very impressed with how you are dealing with repaying the debt and budgeting and recording spends. We use pots and monthly budgets too. I hope your SIL gets on ok with chemo and radiotherapy. Awful news for your family. Hope your DH is soon back to full fitness too.

nomorecredit

Hi Dancing

Just wanted to stop by and say hi. I know I don't post much but I do read your diary and continue to cheer you on :-) Sorry things haven't been great and despite of everything you are so consistent with dealing with your debts and monitoring spend it is very admirable and proof for me there is no excuse. I bet you felt so much better with having the declutter and what a bargain for the hot wheels.

Hope you have a nice weekend.
Best wishes
NMC xx

nomorecredit

Hope DS1 is feeling better now too its rotten when they are ill x

DancingInTheRain

Thank you enthusiasticsaver and NMC, your comments are really appreciated.

The support on here really is so lovely and helpful, especially when real life is so difficult at times which can then threaten to derail our plans - it's great to be alongside like minded people whatever stage of the MSE journey we're all on.

A big :T:T to all of you, you're all superstars!

DancingInTheRain

Morning all.
As predicted yesterday was a quiet day at home, DS1 is thankfully over whatever bug he had and somehow the rest of us have avoided it too.
Both boys played in the garden yesterday in between rain showers so benefited from getting some fresh air to stop them (and me ) going stir crazy.
Spent a bit of time deep cleaning the house, including contact surfaces and the boys favourite toys so hopefully no germs lingering although I'm sure DS1 will pick a few more up when he returns to school tomorrow!
Was on course for yesterday to be another much needed NSD however it was my lovely sister-in-law's birthday and she was feeling well enough to want to celebrate the occasion so 15 of us gathered at a lovely local bar and shared some nibbles and had a couple of drinks each.
It was a really lovely evening, she was a bit emotional but really appreciated all her nearest and dearest making the effort to mark the occasion.
We have £5.50 to see us through to Tuesday so lovely DH came to the rescue and used money from his personal spends budget to cover our costs, what a star!
His reward is a lie in this morning, I'll need to collect our car as I left it at the bars car park last night but other than that a quiet day in store I think.
Hope Sunday treats everyone kindly x

beanielou

Sounds like a good celebration

savingholmes

Glad you got to celebrate together. Hope your partner recovers quickly too.

DancingInTheRain

:think: Hmmm have I just been spammed with that last post?

Anyway it's payday, hurrah! Yesterday was a NSD so actually ended the month with £5.50 however DS1 came home from school with a request for a 'donation' of £5 for upcoming Christmas activities so I guess I really ended up with 50p

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, I've been having a few tests and have been diagnosed with high blood pressure so now have a regular medication to take which needs reissued every 28 days. Did a bit of research into the Pre Payment Certificate and it actually works out cheaper to get this than pay for the medication (costs £104 for a year as opposed to £117 for 13 prescriptions at £9 each). So £13 saved over the year, thought it would be worth sharing this on here in case it would benefit anyone else.
Managed to maintain my NSD as when setting this up although the certificate was valid from yesterday the 1st Direct Debit won't go out until next month.

Getting a grocery order delivered today, so not a NSD. I'm making use of DH bring home and stocking up on supplies as we're at the bare minimum with many things.

Onwards and upwards with a new month, take care all x

DancingInTheRain

Just checking in to keep myself on the straight and narrow
No debt busting news, waiting for DH's pay coming in on Friday before making a plan for the coming month and trying to see if we can squeeze enough out of the budget to hit out £9,999 by Jan 1 target. It's something we both really want to achieve but realistically it may mean not contributing to our depleted savings pots for another month so we really need to consider this carefully.
Historically we tend not to spend much in January so we can also use money from our December wages to help us achieve the target, just need to be very careful in how we budget. Lots to think about...
NSD planned today but am going to the cinema tonight with friends to see Last Christmas, booked this yesterday as was spending on groceries anyway and used 2 Meerkat codes for the 4 of us so all sorted in a very MSE way
Have a great day everyone x

DancingInTheRain

Good evening

Yesterday remained a NSD as hoped, film was a bit predictable but the soundtrack was all George Michael songs so I was happy enough with that also good to catch up friends after a hectic few weeks.

Today has also been a NSD, tomorrow definitely won't be - I have an appointment to get my hair cut and dyed and we're out in the evening with our friends for our annual Xmas get together. There's 12 of us going for a meal and drinks so we have to do it in November as December is impossible. Always worth the effort and we're all pretty good at attending as we do this in lieu of gifts to each other and our children (children still get birthday gifts though).

Popped in to see my brother and sister-in-law with DS1, she's really suffering at the moment so took some batches of soup to try to help them with easy meals, she's got 1 more week of treatment before a four week break so hopefully she'll get a bit of respite then. A cuddle from DS1 put a big smile on her face if nothing else

DH gets paid tomorrow so we're going to finalise December's budget over the weekend, this will fit in will as the majority of our Direct Debits go out on Sunday. Also going to start tracking NSD's and earnings from surveys and scanning receipts again to help keep me focused on doing this, current totals are:

NSD's 2/30 (from pay day 26 Nov)
Yougov - 2770/5000
OnePoll - £16.25/£25.00
Prolific - £0.00/£5.00 confirmed, £0.77 pending
vypr - 1680/10000
Receipt Hog - 1449/1500
Shoppix - 735/11500 (Going for the £20 payout)