Frugal, thrifty, make do, mend! Let this debt come to an end!

SuzeQStan

There’s all sorts about Taurine online - it was on bb@ news the other day saying it extends lifespan of mice by 10%, and that it helps people lose weight apparently. 

But these food/vit fads are usually pretty flash in the pan, 

Jellytotts

Don't forget that some of the weight in the frozen chicken and veg is water so that will cook out.  

Elisheba

Morning, thrifty folks! 

Between yesterday and today all my bills came out and my overdraft is still in the black, albeit only by £16! I haven't actually paid my full overdraft off yet - some of that money is earmarked for the annuals pots, but there was a time when I would be £2080 in the red at this point in the month and panicking, and this is the first time it's been in the black so I'm celebrating by looking at it multiple times and smiling a lot 😁.

Today should be a NSD. I have lentil soup made for lunch, and potatoes and peas cooked for dinner - just need to chuck some protein in the Instant Pot, probably a Quorn fillet.

I've just remembered I need to visit some kennels on a lunch break and pay a deposit, but I think I'll leave that until Monday. I really don't want disturb my in the black balance 😂. Technically the deposit is coming out of annuals so doesn't matter when I pay it, but since the Annuals are currently bulking out my current account it can wait!

The dog food I put in the slow cooker overnight has expanded so much the lid is raised by a centimetre or two this morning. I may have over done the rice! I'll wait for it to cool down, break the chicken through it, and put it in tubs and weigh it, then see how my dog gets on with it.

Despite the forecast for rain overnight the washing I put on the line seems fairly dry. Hopefully it will be done by tonight and I can get it out away. I noticed last night I'm missing a T-shirt and some PJ bottoms. I live on my own and haven't been away anywhere, so they must be somewhere!

I must put together a food plan and start a shopping list as well. Ideally I'll get it done in Friday night, then I can mainly just do relaxing things on Sunday.

Have a great day, everyone! 

foxgloves

Oh your comments about your overdraft took me right back, @Elisheba. Back in the Spendy Era, I was always in my overdraft from the moment my rent/mortgage went out mid-month. My overdraft lasted for a shocking 24 years, for no other reason that I always overspent my income & never budgeted. After the LBM finally hit me like a ton of bricks, my overdraft was the first thing I tackled, pulling back the amount a bit each month till it was finally gone. I was amazed how much simpler budgeting became (bearing in mind I was very much a beginner) once all my monthly salary was my own instead of a big wodge of it disappearing straight down a black hole every pay-day. It's so nice not to dip into the red, even if it's only a few quid keeping one in the black. Psychologically, it just feels a lot better.
Hope the dog food is yummed up with relish.
F

TheCheerleader

Hi Elisheba, I’ve enjoyed following your diary from the beginning and hope you don’t mind me de lurking about dog food, you’re doing similar to us so thought I could help..
Our black lab was diagnosed with chronic liver disease aged 5, we have to feed him a strict diet of no red meat, low salt, low fat.
He has 3 meals a day;
Morning and evening meals are rice, veg and either a fish or chicken fillet.
@ldi and T0sco sell mixed 1kg bags of cauli/broccoli/ carrots/peas approx  £1.19.
T0sco £2.50 frozen white fillets., they quite often have an offer of buy 5 frozen items for 4.
Lunchtimes he has 2 slices of whole meal bread and either eggs, cottage cheese or sardines mixed in.
He has either apple slices, homemade oat and peanut butter biscuits or carrot sticks instead of dental sticks, as the vet told me they are the equivalent of a pork scratching!
He’s now 11 really healthy and still loving life!

SuzeQStan

Bye bye overdraft 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Elisheba

Evening, frugal campers! 

@foxgloves I remember you saying that about your overdraft a while ago, and that's actually what made me decide to tackle it now instead of last. It almost never costs me anything as I've set everything to come out on the 28th and I get paid on the last day of the month, but I thought about what you said and decided the psychological aspect of not going into the red even if it's only for a day or two would be worth it. Also, it makes it easier to reconcile everything!

@TheCheerleader Welcome! And thank you for reading my ramblings! It's a Lab I have as well, and he's 4 1/2 now. As I rehomed him, and I'm pretty sure the people I got him from got him from a puppy farm, I have no idea what he's likely to be susceptible to getting. I'm just praying he doesn't get hip and joint issues Labs often get, especially if there has been no genetic testing when they were bred. I am paying for an insanely high level of insurance cover just in case though. I'm glad your homemade food is working out. Mine never gets dental sticks as he just seems to breath them in rather than chewing then so a waste of money 😂. I do occasionally buy him a big dinosaur bone (that's what they call them 😂) from the pet shop, which probably isn't great for him but he loves them!

So I transferred all the food I made in the slow cooker into margarine containers at lunchtime. They fit 400g in perfectly which was good. I got 6 1/2 portions, and he got the 1/2 as a lunchtime treat. It was all very easy, if a bit messy to pot them, so as long as I'm feeling motivated and okay I don't see why I should do it in future. 

I'll see how hungry he is after 3 days of them to see if that's the right amount to feed him, but he absolutely loved it. Because I never cook with meat I went a bit mad with the (homemade) antibac spray afterwards, just in case of salmonella or what have you 😂. 

Moneywise, it has indeed been a no spend day. Also my Simply Be refund went in, and I remembered my brother owes me £40, so technically I've ended the month with £96 not £16 😁.

Payday tomorrow, and I'm in the office so I need to remember to make my lunch tonight. I absolutely have to get some cat food which is annoying as by the time I get in, eat, take the monster a walk and go to Lidl, it'll be bedtime. I really want to dye my hair for Saturday, but unless I do it tonight (which I'm not really feeling tbh) I don't see it happening. 

I do need to bring in my washing and put it away tonight, so must remember to do that. My dog walk was after work tonight as I got cramps at lunchtime and needed to wait for the painkillers to work. It was actually quite good because I was able to walk off some of the stress of a pretty hectic work day.

I wasn't very hungry for dinner (too many mid afternoon biscuits 😳) so I opened a tin of peaches, and had them with some custard that needed using up as a light supper.

Hope everyone is having a chilled out evening, and is fighting fit to face Friday when it comes! 

Elisheba

Oh, I've just seen in my emails I've had my Delay Repay on GWR from Tuesday approved! £1.67 each way, so £3.34 back on a £13.35 return ticket. Both delays were less than half an hour, so only partial refunds due. Better than a kick in the teeth I suppose 😁

Elisheba

Evening, fantastic frugal folk! 

Payday today! I looked at my bank this morning and thought - that looks like a bit much! So I double checked my pay slip and I've been paid about £30 more than expected each month since April!

It looks like my student loan went down a bit, which is probably right as I'm on the Scottish system and the Scottish government are always tweaking what you have to pay back. It also appears that my local government contribution is now 6.5% rather than 6.8%. Since I've been at the top of my pay grade since April 2022, I've either been paying too much for the whole of 2022, or they have decreased what people on my grade need to contribute this year. I've fired an email to the pension people to ask them. I wonder if I'll get anything back if I have overpaid? Because it's defined benefit based on salary, I don't think having overpaid would give me any extra pension so I hope so! 

I can't believe I didn't notice I was getting more money though! Just goes to show my mental state really wasn't great for a while there. Compared to how I'm feeling now it's like night and day. Now I'm proactive, I'm organised, I'm calm, I'm getting things done around the house and at work.

For a few months there though I was literally taking almost 2 weeks to make myself do a load of washing. And the thing is, when I'm like that I don't really see it. I just think everything is normal until something happens and then I'm like, oh sh*t, it's happened again, hasn't it? My brain has broken down. But until I realise I can't do the things I know that help, so it's a bit of a catch 22.

Anyway, enough of broken brains. All's good right now, which is the best any of us can really say, isn't it? The evils of the day are sufficient thereof.

So back to pay day. I've now updated my s/s with what I have actually been earning, and that will probably explain why I had a fair bit of money last month I couldn't reconcile. I haven't had the chance to do a full reconciliation for this month yet - it takes a fair bit of working out as the Amex, which I use for most everyday purchases runs for mid month to mid month, then that gets paid back in full at the end of the month. So it all means lots of sums, and quite bit of time.

I went to pack a packed lunch for the office today, but I didn't have enough soup left and not enough time really to make a sandwich. So I packed coffee and biscuits for the train, and crisps and fruit for lunch, and then treated myself to a goats cheese and roasted veg baguette from a cafe near work. I get 10% off there with my staff ID card so it was less than a fiver, and much, much nicer than a meal deal from a supermarket. Couldn't do it every week but I'm calling it a payday treat.

I managed to do a meal plan last night, and put together a shopping list, so when I got home this evening I went out to Lidl and did a big monthly shop. Only thing they didn't have was the cheap loo roll, but I've got enough in to get by. I didn't buy dog food as I've got a lot left, and not sure if I'm going to make my own or not yet. I'll have to pop to Aldi as some point as well to buy some of their cheaper UHT milk, but I'm in no rush for that either. Oh, and I had a code for £5 off at Lidl as well, so that was nice!

I could not be bothered dying my hair after putting all the shopping away, so I'll just have to go to London tomorrow with dark roots. The plan tomorrow is to get up about 6am, get ready, have breakfast, take my dog a walk, then get the train about 8.30am to London. Friends are meeting me at the station, then we are doing an audio tour of Mayfair and Soho, then getting lunch, then seeing one of my friends singing in the London Gay Men's Chorus on stage at Dean Street, then we'll follow the parade for a bit, then drinks and dinner. I imagine I'll be exhausted by the time I get home tomorrow night, and significantly poorer!

I've done all my money transfers for the month. I don't know if I've mentioned before but I keep my current account at zero, and instead keep all my cash in my Barclays Rainy Day Saver account, which is instant access, and pays 5.12% interest up to about £4k. I just transfer money back to my current account as things come out, and it means I'm getting about £5/£6 in interest every month from the Rainy Day Saver which is a nice little bonus.

My Amex cashback is also building up nicely - it's at about £120 now, and I think that pays out in October/November time. Due the massive £50 interest on a credit card last month and probably £25 this month, and then the £150 fee to transfer the cards to a new interest free card, I will still end up paying out more than I'm earning interest wise this year, but a fair chunk of it will have been offset at least.

I think that's all my money news for today. I hope you are all having a lovely Friday night, and have a really good weekend! 

beanielou

Great news on being OD free.
I too remember the days when I was hardly ever out of mine!
Looking at your sig you will soon be in the £5k's.