MoneyQueen’s MFW Journey and Daily Diary

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

I am officially a "Matched Bettor" now as have placed my first Free Matched Bet.. so fingers crossed.

Floxxie, I know Pizza Hut is not MSE, but one has to have few treats now and then.. For Motivation if nothing else...;)

Have updated #67 with the energy readings for Feb. Lecycy has remained almost same.. But Gas has reduced a bit due to less number of days and also because it was a bit warm last few days...

I did lots of cooking this weekend so there are 15 meals in Freezer now :T

Weather was really nice yesterday here so had a nice time with some friends

DH is not really well tonight so will probably have an early night...

Take care everyone...

StuartGMC

MQ
Good to hear you are starting out with the spreadsheet now to assist you, it is very very useful in allowing all the what-if scenarios to be considered. It is of course somewhat addictive but where would we all be here without them?

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

It has been ages since I updated my MFW diary...

Not because I was busy but because I just couldn't be bothered... :eek:

I think I just tried to do too much the last 2 weeks both on the work and home front and actually lost all the motivation soon.. So I took today off and relaxed the whole day in the garden and now I am back on track...

Also I and DH are having a day out tomorrow... and then I will spend Sunday cooking for the week...

Right first things first...

I have done a bit of MBing last week...and I admit even if it is not difficult, it is quite stressful

Things at the grocery challenge front are quite bad... we have spent £113.08 till date.. so are way beyond the target... and most of it is due to takeaways/ eat outs

On a positive side, have received £39 for the mobiles that we sent for recycling... :T so the cheques will be deposited to my bank account on Monday...

I haven't checked the leccy and gas meters for the last 2-3 weeks so that's something that I am going to do tomorrow...

DH has received £16 from a cashback site so that's gone towards OP for the mortgage...

BOE base rate reduced so our new mortgage interest rate now is 1.29% :T

Everything else as usual...

Take care everyone...

MQ

Floxxie

Well done MQ. Think you deserve a day off!

I haven't been too good at updating my diary either. Haven't found the time to do it. MBing takes up so much both in actual and stress time. :rotfl:

It's impossible to be motivated all the time so don't feel bad if you have off-days (or weeks). You'll be mortgage free before you know it

Floxxie

setmefree2

Floxxie wrote: »

Well done MQ. Think you deserve a day off!

Enjoy the sun It's free after all

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

SMF2 and Floxxie.. Thanks very much
I had a really nice day... the weather was so nice... :j

Though it is back to cloudy today...

Not sure how the next weekend is but if it is any good , will be planning another day out with DH though this time will be taking homemade sarnies to keep the costs down... Spent £7.13 yesterday for food but the day was worth it...

Also will be planning something nearer next time as yesterday was a 70 miles trip...

We have bought a new coffee and lamp table today.. DH just assembled it and then I just realized that there is a manufacturing defect in the coffee table . Will have to contact the store tomorrow... it is a local store and we have used it for the first time so not sure how good the after sales service is... Thankfully we have paid by Credit card so hopefully it should be sorted in the end...

I have received a £10.00 payment from a Bingo site and also £28.78 from Floxxie's referral so £38.78 paid into the mortgage account today

Mortgage balance stands just under £103000.

One of DH's regular saver account matured this month so have got around £6900... Have to find an account to deposit that. With the interest rates really low.. Egg Money with 4% seems the best bet.. so this is something that I will be doing tomorrow.

Things on Grocery Challenge are not really going well and this is something that I really need to work on next month... I am going to do some menu planning this week depending on what I have in the store cupboard to bring the things back on track...

Take care everyone...

Thriftyknickers

Hi MQ, Just wanted to say, I'm enjoying your thread. Dying to know how you get on with MB! I'm so risk adverse the whole idea doesn't sit easily with me but so many MSE-ers seem to do so well out of it. Plus you've inspired me to have a good look for a decent ISA and regular saver. Good luck!

MoneyQueen

Hi ThriftyKnickers,

Glad that you enjoyed my diary...

Regarding the ISA, the best one out there at the moment is 7% but it is a regular saver so if you can take out £300 every month, you can get the most out of it...
I have already applied fot these accounts for both of us to start in April..., otherwise there are few more aroung 3.5% interest which is still better than other savings accounts as it is all tax free

I am going to do more research on other Savings Accounts.. will update this thread soon

Regarding the MBing, I started last month only and have already earned few hundreds and I haven't been doing it very seriously... and the best part is that it is tax free

I am at work right now, but will write to you in detail when I reach home. It can be stressful and hard work at times but believe me, it is not difficult and as always there are so many people on MSE forums always ready to help

Nice userid by the way

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

I have had a look at all the savings accounts available and it seems Egg Money is the best bet as I do need access to this money very soon... so thats where the cash goes

I deposited £39 cheques from the recycles mobiles into my bank account yesterday and also there was another £1 cheque that I had so as soon as they are cleared £40 is going towards mortgage OP so £68.78 this month


I took the energy readings yesterday and we have been using 5 KWH per day and 30 KWH per day for Gas.. so Gas consumption has gone down but I think mostly it is due to better weather

Finally got DH to paint the flat roof that was leaking for over a month this weekend. It has rained today and I am pleased to say that it is no longer leaking :j

I haven't done any MBing this week due to coming late from work but hopefully should do some this week. I am off the second off of Friday when DH is at work so should have some quiet time to do couple of more bookies...

Thriftyknickers,

As I said earlier, MBing is not difficult as long as you know what you are doing... Have a good read at the Sticky threads on the Gambling Forum before starting with it. Feel free to ask questions there or pm me if you don't understand anything...

And as always go through cashback websites and use referral where required for some extra cash. You can use the Referral board for that. Most of the time it is 50% share.

Take care everyone and Thriftyknickers Good Luck to you...

MQ

MoneyQueen

Hi All,

I have been very lazy this month and haven't updated my diary a lot but this is going to change in April

Anyways I have posted the SOA for March in the next post.

There have been some unexpected expenses - £655 that we sent to India and we have bought a new coffee table for £304...

Things at grocery front are also bad though I now think £75 for a month was unrealistic so this month I have set a target of £125 and I AM GOING TO BE WITHIN THE BUDGET IN APRIL

We have started replacing some veggie food with organic alternatives. Earlier only things we bought organic were Milk/ Eggs/ Buter and Cheese. We do want to switch to Organic completely but this would mean a big dent in the Finances so I am afraid this would have to be gradual so that we really don't notice the difference. Though once we are MF, it will be Organic and Fairtrade only.

DH hasn't sorted the printer yet so we haven't used any supermarket vouchers. Hopefull this will be done soon

Better News now

I have done a bit of MBing this month, going to do this seriously in April. We have decided that all profits from MBing will go towards a dream holiday we are going to in Summer 2011 so I am not going to put this towards OPing mortgage

Also I have got an overtime payment this month and also DH has received some arrears payment today :j