NST Penny Pinching GoSober Stoptober

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. It the end of my first full week at work after maternity leave so I've been exhausted. No more spend days to declare. Yesterday we needed milk. Today I preordered a Christmas present for DC3. It's a new educational toy made by a local company and I've been waiting for them to release it. I've never seen them do special offers so jumped at the reduced preorder price. I now have all of DC3s birthday (November) and Christmas presents. All meals have been from stores, no takeaways.

Hi all :j

Challenge: Oops forgot this one yesterday! Don't smoke & rarely drink either, so it has to be giving up unhealthy snacks...Snacks mostly healthy (fruit) but did accept 2 little pieces of choc from DD & ate without thinking, doh!

No Spend Challenge: Do like the sound of this but do my shopping on Tuesday, I could prep by shopping at the weekend but hate going then & never do if humanly possible to avoid....hmm will have to ponder. Will make an exception for Tuesday & try for a 6 day week..
Organise. Start as you mean to go on. Know the contents of your fridge, freezer and cupboards. Plan your meals around them. Cook from scratch. Don't buy anything you can make unless cost /time taken dictates otherwise. If you are new to turtle challenges or still have full cupboards you could try living from the cupboards. Made a soup from LO chicken & veg etc. YS sausages & HM chips for supper.

Regular budget items should be set by 1st October. If you don't know how much you are spending on food or petrol, now is the time to find out. Question every purchase - need or want? No purchases today.

No Spend Days. Aim for 20 (high target) or 15 (low). Am aiming for 15 but hoping for more. Now 3/15.


Improvise. Make do and mend with a creative twist. think of a substitute ingredient, how to make an old/broken piece of furniture last a little longer. Spring came off up & over garage door, DH reattached it & it still works.

Exercise Four times a week at least (20 minutes minimum but can be done 10 minutes at a time). Get outside in daylight as often as possible. Out for a short time, logs still needing to be stacked this time in garage. Stupid female dog eating bark chips & growling at other dogs to keep away.

Christmas Glad others have this problem with OHs taking up valuable time when you can be getting on with stuff.....we are together 24/7 most of the time, but luckily can be in different rooms etc in this house, or in my case in the garden. 2 weeks break will definitely be welcome come December..

Finally Don't Be A Martyr For Christmas.


Banned Will only be chippys normally with the odd takeaway planned for a celebration etc. No takeaways today.

Extra Income and Extra time Spoke too soon, did not get much done today & DDs event was cancelled so she came back here...Luckily was able to go out over in York, so will not be back until tomorrow now.

Report in, daily if possible I'm here..


Go turtles !!

Coxy :eek: to your rude guest! I hope you aren't planning to invite her back.

Mothernerd the giants sound amazing.

Spendy day yesterday as met friend for lunch - Plan was to go to the park but it was lashing it down so we pottered around the shops instead. Kept within my weekend spends budget, but that means today needs to be a NSD, which should bring me to 4/15. I have a few quid change in my purse, which I will no doubt need to hand over to the children for something but I'm accounting for that against yesterday's cash withdrawal. I find budgeting for small amounts of cash v stressful which is why I only take out my spending money in cash - everything else is tracked on the debit cards.

On the banned list: we ended up having a takeaway on Friday but DH paid. Monday is eldest's birthday and he has requested a takeaway so that's in the budget. Sounds terrible but we must have only had one other for a few months now.

Sunny day today :j so it's all about getting the washing out and then heading to the allotment to DIG. A bit of housework to do but not too bad. I may negotiate with youngest on his rates for vacuuming. If I can get him down to £1 for three bedrooms I'll fork out 😁.

Hello again everyone :wave: Sorry I didn't reply yesterday but I was so busy all day (will tell you all about in a min) but went onto my phone late last night to update you all but then realised that I wasn't logged in on my phone and I couldn't reset my password as I can only access my works emails on my laptop! :rotfl:

Anyway, yesterday was NSD 2! :j Not too sure how many to go for this month as I'm a beginner but I'm trying my hardest for 15 I spent yesterday indoors tidying and decluttering my bedroom. I have literally halved my wardrobe with clothes and shoes etc, some that still have the tags on :eek:, which can be sold. Also found board games and a foam roller still factory sealed so they are being sold. Presents from my ex are definitely going :rotfl: Should make a bit from them as he bought me a real diamond necklace 2 Christmas's ago and I have the certificate to prove it. It'll only fetch about £50 so it's not a huge diamond but it's still a chunk of money to go off my debts I also did my budget and it's not a 100% complete yet as I spent most of yesterday tidying but I worked out I should have at least £175 extra to throw at my debts so I tried to make an overpayment to my Barcl@ycard as it is the largest and more importantly has the most interest charged, but they only accept overpayments greater than the minimum payment which means I need to find at least £233 to make an overpayment. :mad: Now is it just me or does that seem really sh!tty of them??? I had planned to put all the little sales etc straight off my credit card but it seems I need to wait until I've saved up £233 to pay anything off. Sooooo, rather than lose interest I paid the £233 instead of £175 and I will spend my fuel allowance on the card this month (my minimum payment will also come out in a few days). I have then adjusted my minimum payment to be the minimum plus the £175 from next month onwards so take that you sw!nes! :rotfl:

Today will be a spendy day as I need to top up on fresh things but I am returning a skirt and will get £30 back for it :j I'm also sending back some impulse spends before I went on my holiday a few weeks back so I'll get about £70 for sending all those back. I probably won't receive a refund from those until the end of the month as I have to post them back and they take approx 14 workings days to process the refund apparently. I'm going to bag all my loose change as it's all in the bottom of a drawer so hopefully will be able to put some in the bank this week.

It may sound like a weird question but can you sell or donate knickers? I have been going through my underwear drawer and have found loads without tags but that I've never worn, nor will I ever wear. Just wondering if there's anywhere I can sell or donate them or whether I just need to bin them.

Oh and I'm going to go for the spend freeze challenge but only until Friday evening. I think not spending for 5 days will be an immense start for me as a newbie :T

Anyway, onto the challenge etc....

Challenge I've really been thinking hard about this one. I'm torn between limiting my phone use but I also know buying lunches at work are my big unnecessary expense! So I'm going to do both. I will allow myself 1 lunch per week if it's an emergency but that is it! I will also have a 15min per day allowance for all social media, for the rest of the time it is banned!

Organise I have been looking through my freezer and cupboards and I have loads so I have been meal planning (hence the spendy day today to top up what I need)

Regular budget Sort of done but need to do it properly tonight so it's all pretty and satisfies my OCD with spreadsheets :rotfl:

No Spend Days 2/15 :T

Improvise I'm terrible for trying to make every meal "perfect" by having all the exotic ingredients e.g. when I have a stir fry I should just buy a £1 bag from Asd@ but instead I have to buy baby sweetcorn, button mushrooms, red peppers, sugar snap peas, cashewnuts, fresh pineapple...which obviously costs a fortune :eek: So instead I've been trying to tone my meals down, making them healthy but without reducing the enjoyment.

Exercise Tidied my room for several hours yesterday so I think that counts! :rotfl:

Christmas We already have some restrictions on present giving but I've got a few bits for my nieces/nephew already and am imposing a massive spending limit as I literally could spend £100 or more on each of them if I don't control myself! :eek: I keep reminding myself that I'm not their parents and they have a lot more money than me!

Banned Takeaways Have done surprisingly well, no takeaways at all this weekend which is unheard of! :beer:

Extra Income / Extra time Not got anything sold yet and self imposed phone use challenge starts today.

Report in Here! :wave:

I hope you're all having a great weekend! :A