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Home > No eating out challenge, bit of good money news, etc.

No eating out challenge, bit of good money news, etc.

September 18th, 2012 at 03:15 am

Sept. 16: success.
Sept. 17: success.

So far, 15 out of 17 have been successes. Tomorrow I might have a drink out, and possibly the next Tuesday. Other than that, I don't really have any plans to eat out, so it's just a matter of resisting laziness and temptation. Smile

The pedometer challenge went well the first week; I logged about 44,000 steps and only needed 42K (6K per day). That was with my pedometer not working some of the time, so I probably did a bit more than that.

I can probably thank the pedometer challenge, and not eating out, and counting calories, for my weigh-in yesterday. Back down to 133! I'm fighting a terrible sweet tooth/snack monster this month. (I don't know if "snack monster" is a thing, but it ought to be!) Tonight I'm desperate for a snack again. I've been doing well at picking something sane; one piece of cinnamon toast, or a spoonful of chocolate flavored peanut butter, or two or three Hershey's kisses. I think that's the best way to get through this and hopefully it won't just prolong my time of having a sweet tooth! But, I lost weight, so I must be managing it well.

This week, the pedometer challenge is 8K steps per day, so I'll have to step it up. I walked from work to daycare and daycare to home this evening, and that pushed me over my daily goal. Did I mention that I get a $50 gift card if I hit the step goals for the whole month? That's motivation!

***

Anyhoo, on to money news. AS got a freelance project from a company she's done regular work for, but hasn't gotten an offer she could take since she had SL. This one is higher-paying than most; $1000! She said it would be long but not too involved.

It occurred to me that we should send part of it to the IRS for taxes. Then I remembered: I need to do the UK taxes this month.

Ugh!

I hate the UK taxes because I barely know what I'm doing. But we never owe anything, and this year we made less than usual because of a bunch of repairs and things. And, it's gotten easier now that we get statements emailed to us; I just plug the numbers into my spreadsheet I made up, look at last year's taxes to copy which fields I need to fill in this year, and mail it off before Oct. 7. Really, just an hour or two of work. But I treasure every hour of free time, dangit!

But anyway, should be able to put most of that freelance check into the moving fund!

***

I was looking at my goals this year, and even though I haven't hit any of them yet, I'm on track to hit the student loan one next month. Hopefully some of the other goals will follow soon!

***

We finished spending up the three Amex Delta SkyMiles cards. NT and AS have gotten their 30K mile bonuses, and mine should hit by the end of the month. Together with miles we've accumulated gradually over the years, we'll have about 120K miles. I found that if we reserve our tickets using one of the Amex cards, we can just use 10,000 points for $100, as many increments as we can.

That's pretty incredible. We'll be able to shave $900-plus off our airfare just for spending $1500 to earn the points. That's an unbelievable return.

***

OK, I'm losing focus. Gotta go find a (reasonable) snack to quell my crazy snack monster, and then relax.

4 Responses to “No eating out challenge, bit of good money news, etc.”

  1. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1347935903

    Way to go on the walking!

    That is a pretty sweet deal with the airmiles!

  2. Shiela Says:
    1347942570

    Amazing job on your pedometer challenge. The $50 gift card is a great motivation.

  3. Momma and the boys living on budget Says:
    1347973175

    Great job on the walking and trying to eat at home. We are currently in a no eating out challenge for Sept and Oct. We did have on fail last week and will be going out to eat for my bday.

  4. rob62521 Says:
    1348011383

    Good job on the walking!

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