NST November 2025: NOWvember

dustydigger

Had a problem with heating system. Was a nice morning could do without radiators on but in the afternoon  radiators wouldnt work at all. Wasnt the boiler,my son sorted that last week. For weeks radiators werent very warm,today nothing at all. Decided the radiators needed bleeding. Started off well,but then when I was bleeding the kitchen radiator ,after soaking up the water that trickled out,when I turned the key to tighten up the fitting part of it snapped off!. Fortunately the part left had closed off the water thank goodness.. I turned everything off,and about 3 hours later I decided to test the situation. To my relief system worked,radiators are back to full heat like they used to be. Radiators are 15 years old,any plastic arts of fitting are now very brittle and snap easily. Could do with all new ones,but its a council house,good luck with that.
Disrupted the day and plans a bit,but I did scrutinise my bank statement for 25 Sep to 25 Oct,latest figures I have,.More about all that tomorrow,but I certainly made some lists and calculated expenditure for month
That included a list of my monthly DDs for my charities. I need to make a few changes,2 or 3 pounds a month extra on my  donations. Charities are having a tough time nowadays,cost of living has dented public desire or ability to donate. OK,another couple of quid to Save the Children, etc is minuscule,but it will make me feel better. lol.At the moment I give £32 a month in DDs,and each month I choose a different  new charity to give a one off £5 donation. . I want to up my whole giving to £48 a month.. But to this day trigonometry is a no go area for me!
For honing the mind today I did a little maths. Cant ever actually remember doing surds at school I wasnt in a top tier for GCE maths,in fact just scraped by with the lowest possible passing grade back then in 1964.Because even then my stupid immune system was useless and I normally missed up to a third of the term. . And I ALWAYS missed when some important and difficult topic was introduced. Such as sines and cosines. Logs.The quadratic formula. I spent such anxious years valiantly trying to catch up with the class.Nightmare..
Nearly 30 years later I joined a class teaching the new GCSE maths course,and was able to fill in some gaps of knowledge and understanding,and actually got A*!.Biggest achievement I ever had lol.

apple_muncher

Morning everyone! I think I've allocated everyone a number. And I've corrected yours f0xh0les - I'd put you down as 18 by mistake. Oops.

thriftylass

Good morning,

NSD 1/3. Sat was one but yesterday and today wasn't. Had a bit of a fall out with husband about his bad habits, trying to sabotage my positive efforts and being taken for granted. So I had a chat with the kids, booked a hotel in town (DH gives me a hotel voucher once a year to get a break from mum duties, came in handy yesterday). DS was fine but DD was a bit worried about dad being on morning duty as that never happens (or hardly ever happened in 14 years, different story). But they are old enough (10/13) and could make their own lunches and take themselves to school. Had a lovely time.....

Anyhoo, off to the gym.

f0xh0les

Hugs @thriftylass it is hard when one seems to be more 'with the plan' than the other.  Glad you could get away for a bit.

Today food shopping was achieved after the morning shift at volunteering.  

Ended up spending £52 but I did find ys washing powder and sandwich fillers, and got home to find I had been paid £44 in interest from a bank account that I no longer have. Inside my head, that means that I spent £8 on shopping, because the other money was not budgeted for and was a surprise bonus.  Deluded fool that I am. 

Good Luck to all Turtles awaiting the PB fairy tonight.  Will finalise my budget when I know if I have won anything. 

dustydigger

Want to sort out finances this week. I run almost everything from my current account. All bills are direct debit,as are my charities,I buy all my food online every 5 or 6 days,only buy some milk and bread,if I run out. Or get a birthday card from corner shop,that sort of thing..Only cash  pay out is my window cleaner every 2 weeks,£6.
I joined Northern Rock way back in 2001 when they introduced ISAs.. 6% interest unbelievable! .
Stuck with them through thick and thin during credit crunch,never withdrew my savings when long lines were stretching round the block to remove  their cash from the bank,nearly bring catastrophe on the country. Then we were bought by Richard Branson. Stuck with them even though the name Virgin money seemed a rather embarassing name. Still stuck when Branson sold his company to Clydesdale and Yorkshire.And through it all I had the same technology. Now this quarter we were informed that all those old old accounts were to be closed down,as they couldnt support modern banking.October 31st was to be the final day we had to go to the bank and either close down or set up a new account. But because of my circumstances with my eye op and recovery they extended my grace period to 1st Dec. I have an appointment Wednesday 5th at the Virgin bank in town to close down all old accounts and set up new CA and linked savings account.. I have a few complications because I have been made an official financial appointee.,whereby our pension credit is officially put in my name since poor Mr Dusty cant cope with money at all. Once upon a time he was a professional accountant directly the finances of 8 factories,distributing wages etc. Now it all means nothing to him.
Anyhoo,we will get it all sorted. I will withdraw  a fair sum to hand over to family to pay for their xmas presents,
From now on too I have to be careful not to build up saving. On pension credit if we have savings over a certain level we start losing our housing benefit,that is a nightmare.  I need to keep an eye on things.
So Wednesday I am hoping for good advice and practical help with setting up new accounts.
Anyway to get back to point of this many weeks ago my online CA disappeared offline,I cant see what is going on in my finances except by monthly bank account statement,only know cash balance by trudging to ATM.which is a pain after instant access to accounts online.Cash machine near us gave up having paper receipts couple of months ago,dont even offer mini statements anymore. Most annoying
So for now I cant even say which are NSDs. Several charities come out on 1st of month,but since that is Saturday I think they wait till Monday to withdraw. So Saturday could be a NSD or not.Will have to wait till finances are sorted and I can once again go online to my bank acc to see exactly where I am at any time.
I will have a new card and a new password etc for account.,that is going to be a pain updating all the companies I use online..Some companies make it easy to change details etc,others seem to enjoy making it difficult. We'll see.
I have been very happy with NorthernRock/Virgin over the years.Fuss free,fair interest rates etc. Last few years been a bit more dodgy.They blame technology so one we have new tech and accounts we'll  see how it goes

BadBookkeeper

NSD - 2/12 - Nearly nipped to the shop for a birthday card but will hang on a couple of days instead of wasting an NSD 😇

Outside - not today except to bring the recycling in.

Winter Planning - Cleaned out all recycling bins. 

Veg/Fruit - Pommegranite, satsuma, peas& sweetcorn and home made veg soup.

Enjoy / Grateful for - I’m having a terrible time at work with a new system where migration didn’t work correctly and it’s been left to me to sort out.  Making some progress, but having to do my normal work too.  Month end comes around far too quick! 

Make Time / Lists - Written out a work plan for the rest of the week so all aspects get some of my attention. 

Bring your own / use up  - Used up veg for soup yesterday & reorganised our menu due to dates on food items being short.

Exercise - Completed 45 mins in the walking pad so should get over 5000 steps in today. 

Remember others - Donate / Act of kindness - Pair of cushions in the charity bag. 

leftatthetrafficlights

NSD 2 - tomorrow will be a spend day as I'm ordering some more balsamic vinegar 😁 

Walked the dog for over an hour this morning - weather was very blowy but it stayed dry thankfully! 

I've spent the majority of my day planning for my New Year on Friday so I've done lots of writing and thinking which has been lovely 😁 

Dinner was a repeat of yesterday but I had scrambled tofu on toast for brunch - I have it with hm chutney and I'd been craving it since the weekend so it went down very well! 

Gratitudes today - spending time with the dog and starting to get through to him (he's not my dog and I only walk him three times a week so it's a learning process for both of us! 🤦‍♀️😂); feeling the wind in my hair; the ability to choose my activities and having food that is lovely 😁

dizzyblnd

Hey everyone, 

can I join for Nowvember please? I know I’m late. The 1st being on a Saturday always throws me as I do all my food shopping, petrol etc so alas no nsd for me. Today was a nsd though as I was at work, then home for dinner, which was from stores. I tried a new granola today as J0rdans was ridiculously expensive and couldn’t find it cheaper so swapped to Tesc0 own and was pleasantly surprised. I think I will keep that swap. Purchased yesterday as part of my weekly food shop. I have set myself a challenge of spending under £400 on food this month, so trying hard to find ways to cut costs where I can. I generally cook meals fresh every day and make all our own lunches so looking for small ways to make it cheaper. Every penny counts and all. 

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for my eye issue only being inflammation and should be sorted with drops, for some free shelves from 0li0 and they were only a 3 minute drive away, for dh prepping tea, for working with some absolutely lovely people, for bagging up the last of the chopped- down jasmine ready for the tip.

ldee2111

Still on NSD 0/12. It was OH’s mum’s birthday so we had his parents over for a takeaway. 

It has poured down all day long, but I did leave the house to fetch our car from the engine workshop where it’s been for over 2 months! Good to get it back, however, I can hear a faint rattling sound. OH will be driving it tomorrow morning to the gym so I’ll wait and get his thoughts on it before I raise with the garage.

Still feeling overwhelmed with tasks I neglected last month, but just need to tackle them one by one… the time to get control is NOWvember! 

Grateful for Mum driving me to the garage, for a takeaway for dinner, for TV shows that make me laugh, and for seeing my outlaws.