Fire Fox's Debt-Free in 2009 Diary

Fire_Fox

A 250 points IPSOS and a £1.25 Valued Opinions surveys completed!

Been to Home Bargains and got some really cheap bits - Seeds of Change pasta sauce for 39p, Red Sky handmade crisps for 59p, Discovery tortillas for 69p, Discovery spice mix for 39p. :money:

Went to Boots to spend the vouchers, but everything I use regularly was so much more expensive than Bodycare that I didn't bother. Also popped into TK Maxx and found another Stellar utensil for £4.

Fire_Fox

Fire_Fox wrote: »

09/08 - 12/08 = 12 units per day, but heating not used until until late November.
01/09 - 02/09 = 17 units per day! :eek: This is just heating one room, for two to three hours a night in the really cold snap. The heating has been off for the last two weeks!

03/09 - 06/09 = 11 units per day: not happy with this at all as this includes no heating. :mad: My bill shows were are still in arrears to the tune of £80 AND I can't see any evidence that Scottish Power have reduced their prices!

Fire_Fox

:j:j:j:j:j:j

I rang Tesco at lunchtime to see if they had managed to set aside the six bottles of Torres Vina Sol that I 'ordered'. Just been up there to collect, pondering on the journey the most MSE way to pay. Bought the six Torres plus two bottles of a New Zealand white (half price) that was out of stock on Wednesday: total cost £47.

Tesco then deducted 25% of the total (£12) whereas I thought I was only going to get 25% off multiples of six! Used my last £10 double-up voucher, the £5 Boots voucher and £3 of luncheon vouchers. Paid only £16 in cash for eight bottles of really good quality wine (plus £3 taxi ride home) and - since the Torres has 150 extra points - received 939 Clubcard points!!

:j:j:j:j:j:j

So far this year I have
£9 of luncheon vouchers on three for a tenner deal (cash spent £1)
£6 of luncheon vouchers on three for a tenner deal (cash spent £4)
£20 of Clubcard double-up vouchers on six bottles .... twice
Been given two bottles of red wine by Barclays
£40 of Clubcard vouchers on a dozen bottles (cash spent £3)
£18 of mixed vouchers on eight bottles (cash spent £16).

So that is forty bottles of wine from a total spend of £24! If my maths is correct I still have just under £25 on my Clubcard ready to be doubled-up.

Fire_Fox

My first time cooking a meal rather than eating junk food all evening in a couple of weeks! Two packs of diced turkey thigh, an ancient leek, red onion, mushrooms, garlic, leftover wine from the weekend, French mustard and a can of condensed soup. Now I have an induction hob and a large non-stick pan it's so much nicer making casseroles!

Fire_Fox

Leftover dinner tonight - some scrappy bits of bread from the freezer, the last of the milk, a couple of eggs, the last of some strong cheddar, some overripe tomatoes and the scrag end of a red onion transformed into savoury bread and butter pudding. :T I'd have previously chucked the bread and veg so this is a good effort ... or it will be if it's edible!

And logged in to Valued Opinions to find that I have £10 cleared and £5 more pending! Still neither hide nor hair of 2 x £1 surveys that never tracked ... I am at 1280 points from IPSOS and have the second part of a survey to complete later in the week - so close!

claire0788

A certain persons (coughyoucough) tip on a survey site has been working out great, so thank you 4 x £3 surveys and maybe a sample and extra £ for completing a survey on the sample aswell, again thank you

Fire_Fox

Thanks for reporting back, Claire, you made me !

Opened the new A&L online saver and transferred all my money in from the old e-saver for an extra 0.8% interest and no penalties for withdrawal. Also converted our billing account to the Premier Direct with 6% interest for a year! :money: Pretty pleased with the latter as had £150 in cashback for opening the Premier.

Fire_Fox

MSE things to do today: colour my own hair as I am going to see The Eagles in concert tomorrow (guestlist courtesy of my brother :A), make Mexican-style meal using spice mix and wraps cheap from Home Bargains, pork mince padded out with reduced sweetcorn, Smartprice onions, reduced Value carrots and red lentils.

I have just had an epiphany!! Calculated what our joint bills are for the benefit of someone else ... it's £40 a week each. :T We used to spend £80+ a week on food alone: now for the same money I can include council tax, TV license, electricity, water, internet and insurance!

Fire_Fox

Back from the fabulous Eden tour - free tickets and meal out, just paid £15 for the tip and £5 towards the parking charge. :beer: Popped into IKEA beforehand buying a butcher's block £8 (reduced from £17!), treatment oil £4, a set of prints £3 and a silicone turner £3.

Fire_Fox

Just done an online Tesco order to take advantage of the £10 off first spend AND £10 Topcashback offer only valid until Thursday. Not at all convinced that it will track as paying was a complete nightmare! Neither am I convinced that it will be delivered to the correct address as it gave the wrong building number at checkout. By then I was losing the will to live, having spent four days unsuccessfully trying to process an Asda order. :mad:

Completed the second part of an IPSOS survey for 250 points, a Saros survey for £5 via Paypal plus £92 from Wepromiseto has finally been added to my Amazon account! :cool:

In the oven is a Slimming World style 'quiche' to use up the last three eggs and a carton of cottage cheese (both out of date), cooked rice and Mexican spice mix leftover from the weekend, an onion and some frozen peas.