The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

Cinny91 · 1 November 2016 at 12:19PM

Kids cinema has been a hit with Oscar and his baby friends. If you have a Cineworld near you it would only be £7.20 for all 4 of you to go if you prebook (as long as you can say no to popcorn requests!) Plus with changing bags you can just take your own food and drinks in on a grand scale :cool:

I am realising it's very hard to be rational when it comes to your kids because you naturally want them to have everything. I constantly have to play the game of "Does Oscar need this? Or do I want him to need this?"

Meant to say, hope your move and change to your new job goes well, Archers! My commute is a 2 minute walk, sometimes when I'm super tired I wish I had a super long commute to just stare into nothingness

wendz86 · 1 November 2016 at 3:04PM

Hi,

Had a very lovely but busy (and hangover inducing) few days for my birthday. Got a massive to do list now though as real life got abandoned.

Hope all goes well with the new job Archers and you had a good last day at the old one.

In terms of winter activities. Poppy enjoys a look round the Christmas decorations in shops and definitely a few crafts indoors are a winner. Write a letter to father christmas and go and post it.

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 3:54PM

ARGH! Why does NIM have to go and be all secure and use different passwords for every account?! So secure we can't log onto anything! He's ruining my budgeting

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 4:33PM

Well, now I see why we have debt that I can't get on top of. We spend £1671 a MONTH more than we bring in. Wish MSE let me swear right now.

ETA... okay, not quite as bad as I thought, turns out I didn't change the column on weekly/monthly/annually a few times. As it happens I don't pay the £145 tv licence monthly, or spend £200 a week on groceries...

Okay, £871 a month overspend now I've worked out ticky boxes. That's still not good - but it's more doable than £1671!!!

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 5:18PM

Been through budget again, cut it as much as I think I can, still need £180 a month from somewhere to balance it. Going to talk to NIM tonight, need to be united on this one. Will have it automatically in 9 months when we don't have childcare anymore. May even have it in January when my teaching starts properly. But I need to make things work in the meantime without doing anything daft. I've put in things like budgetting for car repairs, it's a fake balancing if I take it out... but if I leave it in I can't make a month balance. Need a few hours to think on this one.

ETA. !!!!!!. Just realised NIMs counselling isn't even in the budget yet, that properly screws things. Now back to £375 a month out.

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 5:43PM

Okay, does anyone shop on Amazon and not use a cashback system already? Quidco/Topcashback don't do it - if you don't I have a site I've been using this one for the last year and while they don't do as good rates on most sites as Quidco/TCB they do do a few that Quidco/TCB don't cover, Amazon are the one I use it for - please drop me a pm with an email address and I'll refer you. £17.96 in the last year which isn't loads but it's something (and I get a £5 referral fee which right now I really need!).

Likewise, shopping receipt scanning, I use an app to scan my receipts, I get around £5 every 2 months, again not lots but it takes seconds. It's called Receipt Hog - insert vosk6778 as a referal code. It's not a great signing bonus but it's an extra few coins which all helps.

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 10:08PM

Debt totals found.

My MBNA £13309.61
Barclaycard £12679.10
NIM Barclaycard 2014.13

Total £28,002.84 ..... which is about £3k higher than I thought it was.Revealing day. Feeling a bit at sea right now. Not giving up but this is so much harder than I thought it was going to be.

On the plus side NIM was able to talk about it a bit tonight, which is real progress.

Dinah93 · 2 November 2016 at 10:51PM

Fun with https://www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk - I always knew the 30 minutes NIM has the shower on on a morning was wasting water, I didn't realise it was costing us around £1 a day.

ruby_eskimo · 3 November 2016 at 8:50AM

Sounds like it was quite a stressful day yesterday Dinah. At least now you know where you stand rather than trying to second guess how much you owe and to who. It's a really good sign that NIM is engaging with you in this process so you're both in it together. Might send you a PM about the amazon cashback as it's coming up to Christmas and I might just order a bunch of things rather than trying to fight my way round the shops, and will use your code for receipt hog. Every little bit helps and all that. How is the ebay stuff going? I really need to try and start listing stuff as I want to make some extra cash before we move and don't want to move all this stuff just to get rid of it. At the same time I don't want to just donate it all the charity! Selfish of me I know.

Sounds like you had a great birthday Wendz and hope you're move goes well Archers!

Dinah93 · 3 November 2016 at 9:09AM

First load of eBay stuff going over to my listing helper today. I have so so much stuff we could both do it full time for 3 months that I think a 50% take for 0 time is an excellent answer right now

The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

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