NST August 2022: Lights, Camera, Action!

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for a nice morning with friends, for dc enjoying time on their own, for an old old version of Peter Pan on utube, for my clematis soldiering on with another flower.

Thrifty_Taylor

Welcome back @f0xh0les, your post made me chortle 😂

NSD#14 I think?
A busy day here, woke up at the usual time, DH went to bed (been 'sleeping' on the settee since his + test result). I unwrapped all the wood from under the tarpaulin & spread it round the garden to dry, so could then be stored indoors ready for use. Walked 5 miles, then washed the dishes. After dinner I listed a couple of things on eboy, picked some Aronia berries before the birds ate them all, & some raspberries. Made a smoothie with the Aronia (followed a recipe as they're not the nicest tasting berries on their own!), then spent 2 hours painting 40 counter battens ready to make a trellis. A friend dropped some sewing off & had a look at our home made greenhouses for inspiration. Had a good chat outside, haven't seen each other for months. Washed the dishes after tea & did a couple of sewing jobs. Messaged a couple of people to suggest we don't exchange presents at the end of the year. Another eboy sale. Ready to finally relax now & have a soak in the bath!

Grateful for the wood now being dry, a catch up & now a potential new gardener friend, time to relax my aching back

BadBookkeeper

Hi Turtles,

Sounds like you’ve all had a busy weekend so far!

So as predicted yesterday was a spend day as I went to a festival with friends to celebrate their big birthday.  Had a fab day and spent £38 out of my £40 budget.

Today was an NSD so now 14/15.

Grateful yesterday for, fab friends and weather, good portaloos!!! and DH providing an excellent taxi service. 

Today grateful for a lazy day, drying clothes day & a wine or two as it’s bank holiday!

ldee2111

Yesterday was my birthday and I was gifted some really nice pressies. My family know that I like a practical gift and so I got an oil dispenser (wanted for about 6 years), a winter coat, a raincoat, a woolly hat, a fleece, thermal leggings, and a hot water bottle. I am ready for you winter! 

Mum also took me, OH, and DS out for dinner. 

Football club was running a campaign for the local food banks so we took a pile of bags to the collection point. I put in all the duplicates from our cupboard: pasta, rice, oil, ketchup, tinned tomatoes, porridge and bran flakes  and OH decided folk must be fed up with beans so went to the shop to buy jars of different curry sauces. 

£0 in my Sunday sweep! There was literally 20p leftover this week between our food, transport, and leisure budget! And my bank doesn’t allow transfers of less than £1 so I can’t even OP my mortgage with the 20p. I’m trying to keep our budgets steady and protect my envelopes system. But it’s getting harder to do. 

DS’s ‘envelope’ is now paying for swimming lessons, football training, and he’s trialling a drama class tonight and a guitar class on Friday - he can choose one he prefers. And that’s his envelope used up. 

Grateful for birthday gifts and family knowing me so well, for Mum taking us out for dinner, for friendly restaurant staff, and for living near some good restaurants. 

ldee2111

Has September been set up?x

apple_muncher

Grandmanerd is on the case for September, ldee.

And happy birthday for yesterday. Sounds like it was a lovely day.

Toni'sfriend

Happy belated birthday, Idee. Sauces for the food bank is a good idea. I usually add something like breakfast cereal when I go in to our local Aldi but I'll have a look at sauces for a change. Thanks for that.

Did I say I was having a quiet day yesterday? Well, I don't know what happened but I must have had a sudden burst of energy. I never stopped. Got loads of things done. 

Today's list started already. Half way through the Boy's washing and off to the shops after I finish this coffee.

grandmanerd

Yeah sorry - I have written out what I want under each heading but can't find the notebook I wrote it in (currently using 3 greyish pink ones and a couple of larger ones. If I can't find it quickly this morning, I'll redo it and post it.

Tomorrow was fairly tiring, slightly frustrating but ultimately satisfying. Beloved found she couldn't manage all day at Doku Doku followed by group gaming on the pc all night so went back to bed, so the second half of their room is on hold (I'm only doing various categories of rubbish/ recycling, stacking pots in a bag to be brought down later and reclaiming any of my towels and bedding I find. Think they're both getting old for the conferences - DS3 came back about teatime. He alternated standing and sitting until they became painful and because he was on his own, he couldn't leave the stall to get anything to eat or drink. Didn't make enough money to cover the cost of his table.

I think the final score (a couple of bags still need taking out to the bins because I was too tired to do another trip down the yard) was 6 small bags and 2 bin bags of rubbish (it was easier to grab handfuls and pack them in the thin carrier bags), 2 sacks of cans taken to the recycling point on the far car park ( I tipped the bin out and separated the tins to make room for the large rubble sack of plastic bottles I'd collected), 2 sacks of paper (started in my room) and 2 medium cardboard boxes (I'm keeping a couple that had tech items in as it's good quality, thin but very strong cardboard), two more bags of weeds/ choppings to the green bin plus a couple of chunks of branches cut to 1' lengths, 2 more buckets of sifted soil, half a rubble sack of stones/ chunks of brick and plaster.

I put all the toiletries from the over door shoe hanger into a string bag and all the small stuff (toothpaste and toothbrushes, make up) in a small cardboard box and put the shoe hanger into the bath with a generous dollop of my old bath stuff. Just used the shower head to flush out the last scraps and hung it temporarily over the towel rail to drip (will take it outside when I go downstairs). I've cleared the scraped up weeds from outside my back wall. 

I swept all the patch where the garden table had been and moved the magic motorbike to the bottom end of the yard, covered it up and put the table (on it's side) in front of it. This is so the workmen have as much room to work as possible and also to keep things out of the way of the expected poonami. I was going to go to the bungalow but as it's a bank holiday, there won't be any buses so I'll carry on here. It's also mum's birthday so will take it slowly.

Washing and washing up are being held in bags until after the soil stack has been done. I'm going to go round the kitchen as well and hope I end up with some worktop to clean. Random gloves etc have been added to the washing bag to be paired up and sorted (think I kept back a cream wool set and a black silky set of mum's in case it was cold on the day of the funeral). DS2 and his Beloved bought me a beautiful scarf for Isaac Newton's birthday so old ones can be donated/ binned.

Finished another library book and read a graphic novel before a very late bedtime. 

Grateful for progress, getting a new soil pipe, having a plan and somewhat haphazardly sticking to it, feeling hopeful and slightly excited.

grandmanerd

September    https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6383164/nst-september-2022-picture-yourself-on-a-boat-on-a-canal/p1?new=1

Let me know if it's too vague or complicated (it's the revised version - I'll probably find the original in the next 5 minutes and I'll have missed stuff

f0xh0les

Today I am 0li0ing old school uniform now that the new school uniform has arrived -  I figure if people have not got their uniform sorted yet, they need it for free.  Surprisingly it is being picked up by 4 different people today -  and I thought I was a 'Last Minute Larry' !!

Made a bendy veg stew with the sad veg in the bottom of the fridge and a handful of pearl barley, and made suet dumplings.  Nobody complained, it does not feel like Summer here today.  But it is dry so laundry is still on the line.

Did a food inventory and have made a meal plan, and a shopping list for tomorrow.  I have  £27 left in the bank account for the rest of the month, and then got an email to say my £7.50 worth of books has been accepted and payment is on the way, so back up to £35 ish, but I need to pay for back to school haircuts out of that.... boo! Pickinng up my first T00 g00d t0 g0 magic bag tomorrow. 

Supper is burgers from the freezer with coleslaw and salad.  Still have £4 in my purse in coins.

Nearly into the -ber months but I would not recommend  eating UK seafood after all that sewage being dumped in the sea, even if the next few months have R's in them.   We will be safer trawling our little nets  on sticks off the side of grandmanerd's canal boat on our epic cruise next month.