2023 - Positivity And Progress!

leftatthetrafficlights

DNF is standing at £47.61 now 😁

Finances took a bit of a hit in the last couple of weeks as we went away for a holiday/city break. It was a spendy few days but we enjoyed ourselves so it was worth it!

The rest of this year will be building the savings back up so the DNF will be put on the back burner until its done - I'll check the figures required and update but I think it's around £1500 that I need to find and I'd like to get it sorted ASAP; the account we used is my safety net - it has our basic lower limit savings plus my slush fund and I feel uncomfortable it being below target so it's important that normal service resumes as quickly as possible for my peace of mind.  

I'm setting a challenge to spend no more than £20 per week on groceries for November- it's a five week month for us which started on Thursday and I spent £34 yesterday so I actually only have £6 to spend between now and 2nd November (12 days) theoretically. I'm pretty sure that I will need that for fruit so I'll need to eat from the garden, freezer and cupboards and make milk and bread from scratch; I've got plenty of toiletries, household cleaners etc and I don't really need anything else as far as I'm aware.

I'm going to do a meal plan today, I made a 'sausage' casserole yesterday with stuff from the freezer so that will cover today's food. I'll need to do an inventory of the freezers later as I need to know what we have.

It's going to be hard work sticking to this mini challenge but I'm feeling positive!! 

ETA - I've checked the figures and I need to repay £1350 to the savings/slush fund account  - I've added it to my signature 

leftatthetrafficlights

£6 for 12 days challenge: Day 1

I'm not planning on going to the shops today so hopefully I will get through day 1 of my mini challenge without spending anything!! 😉

It's exactly 10 weeks until the last day of 2023 and 16 days to the astronomical mid point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice which is my new year 😁

I'm looking forward to the fresh start which my new year will bring and am going to spend the next 16 days really analysing my spending behaviours, my budgeting and my financial goals for the forthcoming year. 

This morning I have checked my purchasing history on am*zon for the past few years - it's quite stunning/shocking how much stuff I have bought which I probably wouldn't have purchased were it not for the ease with which the 'buy now' button can be pressed 😳🤦‍♀️ I had decided at the beginning of this year that I was going to buy less from them and although I have reduced the quantity, it is still a ridiculous amount - one of the things I need to do immediately is to remove the app from my phone. It's just to tempting to have a thought in my head, go onto the app to check it out and then just buy it without further thought...I have done the 'in the basket and leave it for 24/48 hours' method which has helped a bit but not enough! 
 
I've been checking my budgeting 'pots' - they're all okay but I need to go through them and shuffle money from those which have an excessive amount in (very few!) and check the individual expenses I have paid out from them this year to make sure that I am allocating appropriate amounts monthly. 

Basically, today is going to be a bit of a day of financial assessment and reflection - if I am to really overhaul my financial habits, I need an honest view of what those habits are and a recognition of any trigger points I have and why. 

It's going to be an interesting and probably mildly depressing couple of hours!! 🙄😂

leftatthetrafficlights

So, I've spent 70p on onions in the last 10 days!! 🙌 in all honesty, I've been unwell for a few days so no cooking by me but dh has been using freezer stuff up so it's worked out well 😉 

I've decided that for my new year I'm going to amalgamate the three threads that I currently have to make life more simple - I don't want to have to post in three different places and all of the threads are about the way I'm trying to live more frugally and more simply so it makes sense to bring them all together...I'll post the link to my new thread once I put it up in case anyone is interested!

leftatthetrafficlights

I've moved the pennies from my pots to the DNF today - it's very slow moving but at least it's progress!! 🙄😂

leftatthetrafficlights

A pleasant surprise over the weekend - one of the very old debts that I had has been paid off! 🙌 to be honest, I had no idea that it was close to being finished - I haven't looked at a statement from them for ages, mainly because it's just been part of my life for 18 years 🤦‍♀️🙄 

Anyway, they have refunded my last payment and told me to cancel future payments so I'm going to put them into the DNF from now on 😁

leftatthetrafficlights

This is my last post on this thread - I've started a 2024 thread on the OS board as previously mentioned. 

2023 has been fraught if I'm honest - I think that I seriously underestimated the lasting impact the events of 2022 would have on us and a variety of additional curveballs really didn't help 😔

However, I have also learnt a lot, have discovered a lot about what is important to me and had the opportunity to dabble and test out ideas I've had so it's been a useful period too. It has allowed me to visualise my ideal day to day life. 

2024 is full of promise - I feel that I can focus on what is important to me and build a life that I love with the people I love. I am looking forward to it! 

To those of you who have encouraged and supported me on this thread I send my sincere thanks - I may have been sporadic in my engagement on the thread but I don't underestimate the help you have given me.

New thread (if anyone would like to follow) is: 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6493531/slow-living-2024-doing-it-old-style#latest

It will be all about frugal slow living and living in harmony with nature - not much will be added before 2024 but it will be an active thread!