Spend Free Twenty Twenty Three!

x_raphael_xx

Oop! It's been a hot minute, about time for an update!

2nd Jan - Spend day - Groceries. Allowed spend.
3rd Jan - NSD #2. My last day in work before my birthday leave. I usually take from 4th onwards off, and use up the last of this years hol allowance. I managed to squeeze out 2 weeks (minus a day).
4th Jan - NSD #3 - My birthday. I spent it in my pjs playing games online with the bf and my bestie.

5th Jan - Spend day - Pet food and 2 replacement bulbs for my frog tanks (both went at the same time). Essential pet stuff is an allowed spend.

6th Jan - NSD #4 - My brother and Dad came to visit for the weekend. My dad mainly so he can visit his mum in the home. They have her on some dementia medication, and it's definately helping. It won't stop it, just slows it down a little.
Trying to avoid the usual get-to-gether takeaway, the bf cooked a stew in the slow cooker for tea. Delicious.
7th Jan - First unauthorised spend. £9.10 for a taxi into town. Dad had booked us into my favorite restaurant as a late birthday meal (on him of course) it was cold and rainy so we took a cab. My brother paid the return fare later in the evening.
8th Jan - Lunch out £12.20. We met dad and granma in town before dropping her back to the home, and my brother to the train station. Dad stayed for tea (I cooked a stirfry) and left early the next morning.
9th Jan - Posted the scorplings I'd donated as a charity reffle prize to the winner. I'll chalk this one up from the 'Gift fund'.
10th. 11th, 12th and 13th Jan - NSDs #5, #6,#7 & #8. - I started feeling ill after the weekend, so spent the 2nd half of my holiday mainly sleeping.
14th Jan - Pet food - Allowed spend
15th Jan - Coach tickets bought for my marathon in April. The prizes are starting to rise, so I thought best to get them sooner rather than later. Its an 8 hour trip on the coach, 2 hours shorter by train but almost double the cost. So I'll just have to deal with the longer journey. Parking in Brighton would be very difficult over the marathon weekend, and expensive for a parking permit. Plus petrol would have cost more, so it's the cheapest option.
16th Jan - Postage for a tarantula £7.65. I think my female has had enough of this loaned male, so I've sent him onto someone else who might be able to use him. They paired once and I tried again a couple of times but there was no signalling to each other, so I'm hoping that means shes gravid. The ladies in the post office were horrified to hear what was in the package! (You're allowed to send inverts by post. He was safely and securely boxed up with cushioning and a heatpack to keep him warm) Also back to work (still feeling grotty)
17th Jan and today - NSDs #9 &#10. - I've been so busy this week catching up on all my work from my time off. Bf has caught whatever it was that I had and is now sick. And I've also got a sick tarantula. Shes sitting with her legs all curled up, which is not a good sign in spiders, we've had a cold snap here the last 2 days so I'm hoping the weather has just got to her. I've got an extra heat mat against the enclosure and shes starting to move a little. But I don't know if she's getting better or just settling. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

x_raphael_xx

Jan NSD #11

The sick tarantula seems to be on the mend. I've kept her warm all day and she's starting to move around. I'm not convinced she's out of the woods yet, but I'm more hopeful.

x_raphael_xx

Friday I had to buy some petfood, just a couple of tubs of crickets and locusts. £6.00

Then I had a nice chilled weekend and I'm finally starting to feel better, and so is the sick tarantula. I think she's out of danger now, I'm so relieved.

Sat, sunday and today have been Jan NSDs #12, #13 and #14.
It's also payday today, so I have jiggled my pots around and paid a nice £850 chuck to the mortgage overpayments.

x_raphael_xx

Jan NSD #15

Another NSD.
I asked the bf this morning, to take something out the freezer for my tea. He forgot. Normally this would have resulted in a takeaway, but I scraped together ingredients for an omelette. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected, normally I think omelettes are boring.

x_raphael_xx

Reporting in with Jan NSDs #16 & #17 for wed & thurs.

Today was a spend, my turn for groceries. £64.75 but we needed a lot of things like washing powder & loo roll.

I may need some pet food soon, but I have some flies and a range of different size roaches, so I'll hold off as long as possible.
I did attempt to breed my own fly cultures, but the fly food mix went moldy in the tub the first time. Maybe I didn't mix it properly. I will keep trying! I did get a load of maggots thou, so I'd say 50/50 success.

x_raphael_xx

Time for a recap I think! 
I ended the month with just one more NSD on the 28th, totalling 18 NSDs for the month.
29th & 30th spends were groceries & milk.
31st was a birthday card.

All in all not a bad month. The only things I could have avoided was a taxi on the way to my birthday meal, and eating lunch out the next day. But as these were holiday spends, I don't think I did too badly.

February I managed 16 NSDs over the month.
Apart from groceries and petfood were allowed spends.
I then also had a physio appointment, which I consider important healthwise so that's okay.

I did have to make a large purchase of a water cooler for the axolotl tank, £268.14! However they are extremely sensitive to a rise in water temp, preferring around 16-18 degs. As the tank was already sitting at 20 deg, and summer hasn't hit us yet, the water cooler was an essential purchase. It was the cheapest we could find (that didn't look like it was from a dodgy seller) as some of them can hit £1k!
I also bought 8 shrimp for the tank, as a clean up crew, and I expected a few to be picked off by Bungalow the axolotl. I have since counted 5 at a time, so I think some are doing a better job at keeping out of his way.
Smaug the beardie was also digging in her enclosure, so I bought another couple bags of sand to give her better depth for digging, and just in time too as the night I added the extra sand, she dug a hole and laid 22 eggs!
Beardies will lay eggs even if not fertilised, so I won't get babies from these, but the local pet shop may have a male for loan, so could potentially be a future breeding project!
As these items were for the comfort of my pets, I am okay with spending here.

The only other item I purchased was a new calendar for my granma. She is developing dementia and has been living in a home since November after a trip to hospital, however they feel she is capable of living on her own again, with a care package in place, so she will soon be back in her flat. Last time I was there to check over the place I noticed she still had last years calendar on the wall. Not wanting her to move back and get confused over the date I bought her a calendar for this year.

x_raphael_xx

March 1st, 3rd & 4th were NSDs #1,2 & 3.
2nd of March I had to buy some petfood, mice and locusts.
So far so good for the month.

I do have to get an updated driving licence as mines coming up to its 10 years, I may do this tomorrow as I'll need to head into town to the post office.

x_raphael_xx

Ugh so I stomped all the way into town yesterday and the post office's renewal system was down.
Had to spend £9.00 on some photos to do a postal renewal.
My passport is in my ex-married name, so I can't do the online renewal.

I was tempted to pick up something tasty for lunch while I was in town, but I resisted and made myself a sandwich when I got home. Only other spend was on a couple of bags of salad for the pets. Now Donatello the tortoise is out of hibernation I'm getting through a lot.

Today is NSD #4