Getting it together...one £ at a time!

It's an ambitious goal DIA, but one it's important to set. What is the point if i set a goal I know I'd be able to achieve easily?

Weekly shops fit best for us to minimise waste (not 100% but better than monthly shops) and we have such a busy calendar that it helps to plan things week by week. Also, our kitchen at the moment is pretty small and we have a small freezer so I wouldn't be able to store things if i only went shopping once per month. I try to cook fresh as much as possible so weekly helps with the fresh ingredients not going off or running out.

I won't get a late start, but I will be taking an hour out to go to my son's nativity later in the week and another hour to finish early to pick him up from school on his birthday (he normally goes to an after school club on that day). Normally I'd just catch up on anything important but there's a LOT to be done before the Christmas break and I want to get ahead of myself.

Morning all - how is everyone on this fine Wednesday morning?

I woke up with what felt like razor blades in my throat, so i'm taking some echinacea and cold&flu tablets in the hope of warding it off. In reality, i know it's because I'm run down and too busy (plus haven't been eating as well as I was) so it's not a surprise really. Doesn't help me though, because the rest of the week is super busy!

Managed another 40p survey on PA today - not waiting on 4 being approved worth over £4. Just need £2.79 to cash out.

The £15 Amazon voucher arrived and has now been added to my account. I have a couple of things in my basket for the kids' stockings so i'll see if i still want/ need to get them by the end of the day.

I took a look in TCB and last time i checked, the pending cashback all had 12 week lead times, but this morning everything bar one for £1 was cleared. Applied to have that transferred by BACS so I should have £16.40 coming into my account in the next couple of days. Again, this will go into my credit card.

I need to grab some snacks a little later as we will have family round tomorrow evening for my son's birthday. Hoping to keep to £10 since I'll just be buying crisps and dips, maybe pretzels

Discussed the Christmas menu with my husband last night and since we're only cooking for 3 adults and 2 kids (us and MIL) we are going to do a ham and buy a beef wellington + roasties, pigs in blankets, gravy and 3 veg dishes as trimmings. None of us are that keen on turkey so seems pointless buying it. We are pretty sorted for drinks, might just buy some beer and a couple of bottles of prosseco from Aldi. Trying to stay away from too much festive gluttony (most years i'd go wild buying cheese, olives, crackers, sundried tomatoes etc which we really don't need).

I did start a new tab in my spreadsheet to keep track of survey/ cashback earnings and where they're going. hoping this will be a nice motivator.

We can do it Abba! I definitely need a focus - life just gets so busy sometimes that it's easy to get distracted and off the wagon but when I've got a goal and can see the numbers, it really drives me.

You've paid off a tremendous amount this year! I've been keeping up with your diary - the amount of stuff you get through in a day really motivates me to get my finger out and get stuff doe