Good Things

Yesterday's/Today's Three Good Things 

1. Another No Spend Day today / Meals for the rest of the week already sorted.
2. Although yesterday started off with a bit of a wibble, my call for help on FB was answered several times and turned my day around - Thank you lovely people! xXx
3. I've learnt not only are people only too willing to help if you just ask, but that there's no need to wait until you've lathered yourself up into a right royal tizzy before asking!

^_^

Z x

Extreme Budgeting – Items 4 to 6

Hello y’all out there in cyberland. Here’s the second instalment of my EB ponderings:

4.         Earn points – Whenever, wherever you can make those loyalty points work for you. If ever I’m going to buy something from Amazon I make sure I log in via the www.nectar.com website. There’s currently 2 nectar points per £1 spent (until the end of January). There are lots of other online shops you can earn Nectar points from this way. I converted my points to an Amazon voucher, so the cycle continues…

Various websites will award you points for answering surveys, clicking on links and rating adverts. The one I’m signed up to is http://www.maximiles.co.uk/. I recently earned enough points to get a £30 Argos voucher – that nicely reduced the price of a particular Xmas prezzie by almost 75% :^)

There are lots of ways to maximise the points you earn, and then how you spend them. Do you have any tips for getting this sort of money-for-nothing?

5.         Look at second hand on eBay/Amazon – This tip applies to lots of things, but I find it’s particularly good for books on Amazon; and collectibles on eBay. Don’t be afraid of buying pre-loved!  I tend to buy books for their content, not their good-looks – so second hand suits me fine here. My favourite bargains bought this way were out-of-print cookery books – ones fondly remembered as parental recipe bibles of our youth, but thought never to be seen again.

6.         Penny jar(s) – Lots of the thrifty bloggers out there have just begun a new year-long sealed pot challenge. http://sftandthe101challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/new-sealed-pot-challenge-sign-up-please.html . It’s basically piggybank saving, but everyone agrees to not touch the money until a set date (just before Xmas), then share how much they’ve accrued for their chosen goal.

That’s enough for today. Back to college in the morning, so it’s off to bed for me.

NN!

Z 

Six Good Things

Yesterday's Three Good Things

1. Nice catch up with chum n kitties - much tea consumed.
2. Good to see some of the college gals
3. Actually did a BIIIIIIG chunk of homework *gasp!* 

Today's Three Good Things 

1. Lovely morning of V+ catch-up in peace, and much amusing social media banter this afternoon
2. A super stonking lunch made by my own fair hands, even if I do say so myself! (Cheeeeeesy crumpets for tea later... oh yeah!) 
3. Today is gonna be my first No Spend day :^D

I demand that you tell me yours!

Z x

Extreme Budgeting - Items 1 to 3

Just a quick post today - to go through my first three items on my Extreme Budgeting List

1. No spend days - This one should be fairly self-explanatory. It's all about getting out of the habit of spending on an ad hoc basis. I'll be making packed lunches; ensuring to take a water bottle out and about; investigating where I can park free of charge (a little walk never did me any harm); and such like. This is one of Froogs' solutions for living cheaply, but I think I first heard of the concept on the Holly Is Stopping Shopping blog. I was going to recommend you have a look at Holly's blog (I read about her year's challenge start-to-finish over the course of about a week) but it appears she's closed the site down now :^(... I might even start leaving my purse at home. This one could well help my waistline too, as it'll preclude my buying chocolate willy nilly!

1. Make it / freecycle it / swap it - A bit of a googling around usually reveals that someone somewhere has had a go at making most things. Stuff I've already got on my DIY to do/try list include: pencil skirts from t-shirt fabric; greetings cards; a new wash kit bag. Alternatively, is it the sort of thing that comes up on Freecycle? I've joined my local Freecycle group via the Trash Nothing website. I've signed up for their Daily Digest email. Free things I've scored from there already are: a mini fan heater (for a friend to take the winter chill off her conservatory) and a named brand yoga mat, block and bag kit. The only real criterion is that the recipient must collect at the donor's convenience. For that reason Freecycle is also good for getting shot of stuff without too much hassle. I've offloaded a perfectly good (but surplus to requirements) washing machine. Lastly, if no-one seems willing to part with it for nowt, will they enter into swapsies with you? You might be able to offer a service - maybe babysitting, or car washing, in return for your required thing.

1. Calculate journey costs on Google Maps - I noticed recently that the journey planner thingamabob on Google Maps estimates your journey's cost (scroll down to the bottom of the blurb on the left hand side of the page to see it). You can tailor it to your car: vehicle type - compact/standard/high consumption; fuel type: petrol/diesel; and fuel price (per litre). Now I can keep tabs on how much driving about actually costs me, rather than bimbling about the countryside fooling myself that it's free! Next time I empty and refill my tank I'm going to keep a proper tally to see how accurate it is in comparison to what I paid at the pumps... I'll let you know the results.

So how's them apples? Anything of any use to you?
TTFN,
Z x

Today's Three Good Things

1. I completed my 2nd blog post using my hypnobird set task - it really did make it much less painful! Woohoo!!!!
2. Mum's cooking stuffed pumpkin for dinner (yummmmmmmalicious!! - I don't care if you don't agree! :^P )
3. I've just freaked the boyf out with my spooky telepathic powers - Mwaahhahahahhhhahhahha!!

What were your 3 good things today?

Z x

Day 2 of Bloggy Goodness

Today's post is going to be a dual purpose thing. The main theme of my post is to talk about my ideas I've had for extreme budgeting in ZOIE year. In the process of doing that I shall be carrying out the exercise set my very clever hypno helper lady at Lighter Dawn Hypnotherapy.

I'm a rubbish concentrator and terminal procrastinator - so I've been set the daily task of coming up with a theme to write about (pick a theme, any theme); choosing three key words about that theme; then setting a 5 minute timer and just writing, incorporating those three words in the first sentence. I'm to write, and write only. No reviewing, no correcting, no fannying around with the formatting as I go along. When the 5 minutes is up I'm to go away completely from my work for at least another 5 minutes. I have to repeat this cycle until I have a whole post, essay paragraph, whatever. Only then can I review, correct typos, etc, etc.

It's a weird ole concept for the gal who will merrily faff around with spelling and formatting for hours, rather than actually getting on with the content.

Anyway - on with today's theme.

I've taken inspiration for my extreme budgeting from various blogs that I read - but I think my main influence here has been Froogs at Frugal Queen. Thanks Froogs! Please have a look at her blog if extreme budgeting floats your boat. :^D

Since deciding that I really want to run with this challenge I've been noting the ideas / tasks on my trusting mobile. Here they are:

1. No spend days
2. Make it / freecycle it / swap it
3. Calculate journey costs on Google Maps
4. Earn points 
5. Look at second hand on eBay/Amazon 
6. Penny jar(s) 
7. Pressure cooker / slow cooker 
8. Bulk buy with others
9. "Cheapest"s database
10. No new clothes month
11. Late night supermarket shopping
12. Frugal recipes and/or ingredients

I'll provide you with explanations of each over the next few days, as I'm running over 'blog time' now (another parameter set by hypnobird).

So how was Day 2 for you? Did the earth move? 

Z x

Welcome to my year

I've been meaning to start a blog for ages now, but somehow never getting around to it... (huh, the story of my life). Well that ends now. Not only is it a new fresh year, but it's the beginning of MY year. 'Your year?' I hear you exclaim. Yep, my year! 2013 is spelt the same as my name (ZOIE) so how could it not be mine? You are, of course, more than welcome to join me though :^D

So, why start a blog?

First and foremost, it's for my poor little brain's sake. An inherent hoarder, I'm loath to let anything go, even thoughts, but it's simply got to capacity in here now and something's gotta give. I know unless I'm careful it'll be my marbles which are most easily dislodged. So I plan a controlled release. Any and all stuff which might be of (vague) interest to someone out there in cyberland will be emptied out of my noggin and put here, in black and white. Hopefully you'll enjoy some of it. Hopefully you'll find some of it useful. Maybe some of it will even be inspiring. Who knows? But if all it does is maintain my sanity, I'll be happy.

What delights can you expect?

Well, I've got a few themes in mind. They're namely: 

Extreme Budgeting - being frugal is a favourite topic of mine. I enjoy reading lots of blogs about other people's adventures in thrift, and have been inspired to really take the bull by the low-cost horns this year. I sorta stumbled (budget-wise) through my first term of being a full-time student. Now I want to really hone my cashless skills, and I've got all sorts of ideas in that vein that I'll float here.

Craft Ideas - This is mainly tied up with the budgeting thing now. I've always been fairly crafty, but mostly in an arm-chair capacity. In other words, I have constant streams of ideas of things to make, to modify, to repair, and I generally have the skills to realise those ideas, just not necessarily the motivation... So, in the name of not spending, I will actually start making stuff (instead of buying it)! It's already started - my nieces got a homemade puppet theatre for Christmas. It was mostly made by my own fair hands, but I have to give credit to my Mum for helping me out. I expect I'll tell you about that soon.

Finding My Fitness Fit - The seemingly never ending search for activities to keep me fit, which cost little or nothing and (more elusively) don't feel like a chore... 


Cool Stuff - I know I'll witter on about stuff that just catches my eye (Oooo! Glitter!!).  Hopefully you'll like it too.
In fact, let's start as I mean to go on. Here's a pic of the coolest cat on the planet, my Eddie :^D

Three Good Things - Writing down three good things about each day is an excellent habit for keeping my outlook on the bright side. Not only does it help me, but I found through sharing mine via a certain social medium (which shall remain nameless, but I'm sure you don't need three guesses) that it seems to help other people too. I'll tell you about how my habit came to be, and what today's things are/were.

Today's were: 

1. It's my lovely bloke's birthday today. I think my prezzies for him hit the spot, and even the weather seemed in a celebratory mood - a glorious rain free rainbow above his house first thing this morning.
2. I made yummy raw salsa for lunch with some a GIANT bunch of coriander that was going begging for 10p in the reduced section at the supermarket yesterday. It was yummy, good for me, and sooooo cheap!
3. I got around to launching my blog!

Anything Else We Can Think Of - I'm sure other stuff will occur to me as I go along, but I'm also open to requests. Is there anything you want to hear about from me? Lemme know.

Anyways, that's enough jibbering from me for today. How was your day? You're looking mighty fine in that outfit - is it new? ;^D

Catch ya soon :^)
Z x

P.S. As you might have guessed, I haven't thought of a proper name for my blog. Got any ideas?