NST OCTOBER 2022: Autumn Leaves and Sloe Berries

Toni'sfriend

Morning Everyone

I haven't been able to do our banking as I can't get a signal on Himself's phone to get a passcode to access his account. It's not a huge problem as it's just to move money to various savings accounts and I can do it when we get home. The budget was all done a couple of weeks ago when my pension came in. It's a pain being paid at different times and not even the same date every month.

And I won't be able to do the food inventory until we get back either but I promise I will do it. However, I have checked what it is in the fridge, freezer and cupboard here and have a plan to use it up before we leave. As usual, we bought/ordered too much food, I thought I had it all sorted but things tend to go a bit awry when we're on holiday. Luckily it's harvest festival at the local church tomorrow and I have some things that we haven't even opened (jam, packets of chocolate biscuits, etc - quite a lot of chocolate biscuits!) so I'm going to donate them this morning. I think they are donating what is collected to a nearby foodbank.

Even here I haven't managed to avoid the football, F0xh0les.  Earlier on there was yet another of these extremely important matches which wasn't showing on any of the TV channels which we have but with the aid of several laptops and assorted gizzmos the Boy managed to get it for him. I despair!

It's a beautiful day here in the north east so after we go to the church I'm dragging Himself for a walk. Resolution for this month is a healthy lifestyle (again!!!!)

Have a lovely day.

CMD79

Good morning!!

I already love this challenge!!

My number 1 priority is to pay off all my debt, so most of my activity will be about saving money, making extra money and repaying money! But one thing I really don't do enough off is being grateful. I am grateful, but I need to make show to show my gratitude more.

I also want to spend more quality time with my daughter. I feel like I have increasingly shooed her away because I'm busy in the last year, and she's an only child and only 6. So, I'm going to start by being grateful that I have her, and grateful that I can enjoy a nice autumnal Saturday morning with her, and grateful that a little girl who lives nearby is having a cake sale to raise money for a really good cause around the corner so that'll give us a cheap treat which incorporate a lovely walk and contributes to a good cause. Although it will cost a small amount, I've scratched around the house looking for loose change to fund it, so... you know! But I do need to really think about money.

I have been doing a great job (self praise  I know!!) of sticking to a grocery (£50pw) and fuel budget (£20pw). However, I actually do waste a bit each week in perishing the fresh stuff and not using the cupboard stuff. SO! I am ploughing though my cupboards, fridge and freezer today and reducing the budget!) I'm going to do this by only doing the shopping 3 times a month rather than once a week. The budget is now going to be £60 every 10 days for groceries and £30 for fuel. Not a massive change overall, but hopefully this will reduce the waste, and the fuel can't stay above the fuel warning light!

As people have already started talking about Christmas, I'm going to try to use up some of the craft supplies I have to make some Christmas gifts. I need to do some planning on this and have a good sort out, but I'm going to aim to make 50% of my gifts this year. I have also already started to add extra items into my grocery shopping when things I like to get for Christmas are on offer.

I've already been following some other challenges which have been very helpful. NSDs have definitely stopped me just popping in and getting a tea and Mars bar on a whim, and Tilly Tidying and Payment a day have worked for shaving down the debts, so I'll continue with all of those. I'm aiming for 16 No spend Days, Making £20 Extra A Day, Payment A Day and Tilly Tidy. 

Good luck with the challenge, and good luck with the new energy tariffs! I've got the blankets out, unplugged the tumble dryer, and about to start routing through the hats, gloves and scarves!

xxx


 

CMD79

Toni'sfriend said:

Morning Everyone

I haven't been able to do our banking as I can't get a signal on Himself's phone to get a passcode to access his account. It's not a huge problem as it's just to move money to various savings accounts and I can do it when we get home. The budget was all done a couple of weeks ago when my pension came in. It's a pain being paid at different times and not even the same date every month.

And I won't be able to do the food inventory until we get back either but I promise I will do it. However, I have checked what it is in the fridge, freezer and cupboard here and have a plan to use it up before we leave. As usual, we bought/ordered too much food, I thought I had it all sorted but things tend to go a bit awry when we're on holiday. Luckily it's harvest festival at the local church tomorrow and I have some things that we haven't even opened (jam, packets of chocolate biscuits, etc - quite a lot of chocolate biscuits!) so I'm going to donate them this morning. I think they are donating what is collected to a nearby foodbank.

Even here I haven't managed to avoid the football, F0xh0les.  Earlier on there was yet another of these extremely important matches which wasn't showing on any of the TV channels which we have but with the aid of several laptops and assorted gizzmos the Boy managed to get it for him. I despair!

It's a beautiful day here in the north east so after we go to the church I'm dragging Himself for a walk. Resolution for this month is a healthy lifestyle (again!!!!)

Have a lovely day.

Enjoy the lovely day!! 

Something else I don't do enough of, is giving. I give a lot of my time to things in terms of community groups, but I definitely could start adding a couple of items into the shopping for the foodbanks. So thanks for reminding me of this.

And you also reminded me to think about our healthy lifestyles... or intended healthy lifestyles. We're not too bad in that our meals are mostly fresh and balanced and includes fruit for snacks etc, but there is room for improvement, particularly on the exercise front. We do walk to and from school 90% of the time, but as the weather changes, I want to try to keep this up, even if it means investing in better umbrellas!

xxx

grandmanerd

News from the chaise longue.
Not been naughty, just exhausted. Yesterday I put on one of my winter tunics, my new scarf (present from DS2), my winter trousers (only velour joggers but thick and warm, they look enough like velvet for evening wear when we are 'away' (think it's 3 years since Beloved and I went to Keswick and the last time I was away was a 'twixmas' break in LLandudno with mum (Dec 2019). I've put holiday plans on hold for this year but want to try for a couple of days out (even if it's only a bus ride to somewhere I can sit amongst trees).

Yesterday I had a mission - to get further than the bins for the first time since last Saturday. Opened the back door and the warm tunic trousers and scarf weren't going to be enough, I had to go and fish my winter coat out from behind the bedroom door. Went to the solicitors to tell them about the new buyer for mum's bungalow and pay a small deposit for 'expenses'. Then I went to the library to return books (my mask and the fur around the hood reduced my visibility to a few square inches). Rested there for a while, picked up some new books and then went to the 2 nearest cs in search of a warm fluffy cardi - no joy. Bought a few extra food bits, came home, left my coat drying over a chair and came back upstairs moving 2 bags and a large drink bottle two steps ahead of me.

Crawled onto the bed (my knees didn't want to play by this stage). Ate from my supplies (using up some ood crab spread on crispbread - very ood but think they're the modern equivalent of ship's biscuits then spent the afternoon resting, reading and doing a few little jobs including notifying the other hospital about my change of address and phone number and working towards some sort of life plan. The suggestion was to write out your ideal day, month and year to work out what was important to you and was quite pleased that some things (reading, being creative and all the things I do to support my mental health - gratitudes, focusing on what I can do and mindfulness) featured on all 3 lists. Added some practical stuff.

I have a list for what I want to do in the next few days (recuperation - hope to get to my Art therapy on Tuesday) and a rough plan going forward. Ticked off a few items from the challenge - winter coat, scarves, warm tunic and trousers. I already have a fridge and freezer list written, want to continue to use up mum's remaining tinned stock (soups, fruit, rice pudding and beans) and some dried stuff (packet sauces and microwave rice). I need space to get the house jobs I need done and although the grand plan is to move DS3, his Beloved, the 3 grand-chinchillas and about half the furniture, I still need to keep nibbling away at stuff that no longer belongs in my life (furniture that's too heavy for me to shift, new lighting needed as I can't really go up ladders to change lightbulbs). 

I had a quick forage under the kitchen table, found a bag of bags (plus bits from the last stage painting at mum's - old top and a pot of cream - didn't want to muck up the newly cleaned shower so used the outside tap and had a tub of face cream in my bag in case cold water alone didn't work), selected 2 part full shower cleaners and one toilet cleaner from the last bag of mum cleaning stuff to bring up to the bathroom (they were still in the bag because I've got piles of cleaning stuff all over the kitchen - under the sink is 'hors de combat', despite giving my helper elf, the food bank and anyone else bags of it). Mum's cleaner liked dedicated products - so 2 shower cleaners, bathroom cleaner, special toilet cleaner and wipes and I think some of the stuff under mum's kitchen sink just got pushed to the back (side and corners) + some in the back bedroom cupboards.

So food use ups (next trip downstairs will be for a part cooked ready meal, ood but unopened dip and any things I can find that can be dipped in the dip - celery, peppers, mushrooms, etc), cosmetic and medicinal use ups (various dregs of gift sets mum was given - anything opened couldn't go to the food bank), cleaning use ups.

Garden round up will start from the tenth - if I can get to art group and collect my blood form from the doctor's (could I 'pop in' - no it's trek across the car park and the town hall square then round the corner to the bus stop, long slow trip across from the bus stop to the infirmary, past the walk-in centre and drop in zone to the lifts, past physiotherapy - you get the picture) that will be enough for this week. If it gets near the end of the week, I might have to use a taxi. If I can manage alone the bus is now £5 for a all-day ticket (go Andy - king of the North) and with your permission f0xh0les, I would like to ride to the other end of the line and raid the Morries salad bar, look on the ys shelves for plant based meals and (long stretch) get across the by-pass to sit amongst trees. This will count as a day out.

I want to get the roof repairs done - 3 missing slates and the stub of a chimney that needs taking down and that patch aligned with the rest of the roof. that needs doing because the water gets in those gaps, runs down the corner of my room (no point painting until fixed), the middle of that wall in their room (already had to have socket repairs once) and can't plan how I want the garden in case the builder needs to put up scaffolding. Will combine getting mum's estate accounts up to date (meeting with brother at niece's house on the 13th) and sorting out my own money and checking in with the UC (see if the promised arrears arrived) and seeing what I need to do next.

Wanna_Bee_Free

Menu planning done for the next 4 days based on the ongoing mission to empty the freezer. I am planning to make Hungarian Goulash soup for lunch to use up the small amount of sad looking mince in the freezer. Feeling organised with my lists and plans, thanks to the thread. I'm sure I'd have put it off otherwise.

apple_muncher

I started today with a lovely lie in until gone 8, then I took 2 boxes (the liddle f+v ones) of books to 0xfam and 2 bags to the Sally Army this morning, finally getting them gone after several weeks of them being ready . Champion procrastinator here... It was so lovely and sunny that I was in a t-shirt, denim shorts and my sandals!

lcc86

Evening turtles, I hope we've all had a turtley kind of day! I got up early and went swimming. I was on call until 11.30 but fortunately didn't get called in. Would've had to drive and pay for parking because of the strikes so it worked out well for me. I got on with LOADS of cooking. I had 6 simplycook recipe boxes and I've cooked them all, along with prepping some lunches (mainly chicken, rice and veg for OH and a veggie alternative for me). I've also got a sweet potato and coconut curry on the go in the slow cooker. All in all I've got every meal prepped for next week, my only problem will be whether I have enough room in the freezer for it all! Some freezer tetris will have to be played... Still got a few lunches to make but need to defrost some chicken overnight, so that's a job for tomorrow. 

I went to a boxing class with my old PT as well at lunchtime, haven't been since before Covid and it was great, but I'm knackered now! I had to buy a couple of bits in the supermarket that were missing from my weekly shop, and some eggs from the farm shop.

All in all not the most exciting day but I got all the jobs done that I needed to and don't have to worry about cooking now for the rest of the week! Time to chill for a bit before dinner and then a nice mug of hot chocolate as a treat. 

f0xh0les

I have had a 3 soup frenzy tonight - Curried BNS and (not )chicken soup, tomato and red pepper soup, and carrot and cumin soup. Then made a  seeded tear and share bread-roll-honeycomb/flower shaped thing, and it was FAB.  All from the pantry, and jam-packed full of veg.  My carrots were nearly black so they needed to be shaved and prepped or they would have gone to waste.   Anyone else noticed the cost of bread going up?  Anyway, it will be an easy lunch or supper tomorrow in five minutes flat. Cook once, eat twice.

Nipped into the  very local c/s and was happy to see TWO very large  slow cookers in there (they were £8), I did not buy anything, but it is nice to have a rootle around - I am on the hunt for a lazy Susan.  One day it will be waiting for me... just not today.  0/15 NSDs.

Grateful for a robin singing his head off in a bush in the park, a lovely walk in the not hot sunshine, watching the next instalment of 'Elves on a Boat' or whatever it is called.

greent

Day 1 - CT scan this morning (was only booked yesterday) and then we went to the local farmers market - spent quite a lot there, but all supporting local businesses (other than buying 2 drinks from Wi1k0 - ran out of what I had and was told to drink a lot) and 2 free sausage rolls from Gr3ggs with 02 (brought them home for kids to eat)

Tesc0 shopping this afternoon - bought new slippers for DS2 and DS3 (outgrown old ones - which are also well worn) which had 25% off - nice bonus Used a small tcb voucher payout towards the cost and transferred the rounded up amount to savings - have an account where I put in all extra and free money)

Went for a walk along the canal and through a field. Fed the swans sunflower seeds from the garden - they love them  

Made curry for dinner, throwing in some spinach to use it up  

Now sat watching strictly with a cup of tea and some lit candles on the mantle. No heating on as yet - tonight is actually quite mild (last night was much chillier due to the rain) and the washing also managed to get dry on the line today - whoop!

Thankful for dry weather, a fab farmers market in the next town, yummy food, finding a £2 coin in my knicker drawer!

BadBookkeeper

Happy October turtles

Inside - Spent the day cleaning the house
outside - not today but will tomorrow as we are dog sitting so it’s a must to go for 2 walks. 
Fun - Just enjoying the fact it’s the weekend.  Watched a bit of footy this afternoon.
Food - Had a takeaway this evening paid for by DH. We have decided to try and have one a month rather than once a week 
Read - downloaded two samples to my kindle.
Plan for December - I’m usually well started by October but haven’t done anything yet except write a few list.  It’s also ds birthday so it always spendy!  I’ve saved all year so most items covered.
NSD - 1/15
MSE/Other - Checked cupboards for unused items and surprised with what I found including a savoury packet of rice that can be used for stuffed peppers apparently. 

Yesterdays pay day meant my cc debt is now in the next grand down.