More Bangs for my Bucks - MF by 50??

evab_2

Well done on reaching and exceeding your targets, good luck for next year I'm sure you'll get under 100k.

Happy New Year!

StuartGMC

Thrifty
Best wishes for 2010 and may all your targets be broken along the way!

setmefree2

well done on the OPs. Good Luck in 2010

Thriftyknickers

Finally - a December and end of year update!

In December I had £37.32 of additional income - £5.46 from Quidco, £11.18 Visa cashback and the rest from Ebay. So in total for the year that's £1866.02. This is made up as follows:- (might be useful if you're trying to bring in a bit of extra income and want an idea of likely returns for your time?)

E Bay £523.43
OISE (foreign students) £488.00
Amex cashback £276.76
Quidco £138.92
Global Market Questionnaires £64.53
R Points £61.43
Shop&scan £60.00
IPSOS £40.00
OnePoll £40.00
iPoints £30.00
Pure Profile £26.55
Lightspeed £24.00
Valued Opinions £20.00
Home of Research £20.00
Visa cashback £11.18
Daily Mail House of Fraser voucher £10.00
Boden Pizza Express voucher £10.00
Heart Radio survey £10.00
Amazon - selling books £6.22
Churchill Insurance - voucher for quote £5.00

I'm a particular fan of Shop&scan (because it takes no time at all - register at www.volunteer4panels.com) and Pure Profile (now that I've realised that they don't actual email you all the time that questionnaires are available - so I try and check every day. They seem to be quite generous in the amounts they pay, although you need to get to £25 before they do pay out. PM me if you'd like a referral). I used to love Global Market questionnaires but they don't seem to be as generous of late.

As for 'savings', this was £48.74 in December; £914.18 for the year - although as I mentioned in my last update, I haven't been tracking this properly and will now stop. However, I've given you a breakdown just in case it helps.

Nectar Points £483.50
Tesco Vouchers £141.60
Tesco Deals £50.00
Pizza Hut offers £38.62
Disney shareholder savings £35.76
Sainsburys Vouchers £34.48
Boots Advantage Card £30.59
Costco £19.80
Tamba discounts £16.12
Daily Mail Vouchers £13.75
VIP discount card at local designer outlet £10.34
Marks & Spencer vouchers £10.00
Bicester 10% card £7.84
MSE £7.00
ToysRUs vouchers £5.00
First Great Western £5.00
ELC 20% vouchers £3.00
Legoland annual passes discounts £1.50
Waterstones card £0.28

Unfortunately Tesco don't accept 'any' MOCs any more so that will really impact this figure.

In December I found a new online pet food supplier which I was very pleased with, which undercut my previous best (even without cashback - Zooplus). They are called Viovet and I was very impressed with their service (I order Hills Science Plan in bulk) as well as their prices. Might be worth investigating if you're after pet items in bulk.

I've also be playing around with my spreadsheets and compared 2009 to 2008 as follows:-

Bills -13.72%
Overpay Mortgage 52.00%
Oil -42.47%
Food 8.22%
Cat Food -11.52%
Vets -12.38%
Petrol & Diesel -16.88%
Other car expenses -78.33%
Fun -40.70%
Home 127.93%
Kids -17.88%
Presents -19.85%
Holidays -5.66%

So as you can see, the bills are down - largely due to the cut in interest rates on our mortgage and the effect of our overpayments. And our overpayment figure is massively up (thanks to being inspired in this forum!) and the reduction in our bills in the first place. I'm amazed at how much the 'oil' figure has come down - I'm sure we're comparing like with like as we have a delivery every quarter, but we have tried to cut back and we had a new boiler installed mid 2008. I clearly need to keep an eye on our food bills - have been a bit lax of late, particularly over Christmas. However, I think this is artificially inflated as one of my twins is still in overnight pull-up pants (52p/night!!!) and I've been putting these down under 'Food' (which really includes all of my grocery shopping) whereas nappies etc used to go under 'Kids'. Note to self - another goal for 2010 is to get DD out of these ASAP. Her twin has been dry overnight for over a year. Any advice gratefully received!

I doubt whether my cat food costs are 'really' down - I just tend to massively stock-up when there's decent offers on in the supermarket. And we've had a good year in terms of going to the vets - only the standard boosters etc. Our petrol & diesel costs are down because my DH switched to a more economical diesel car last year (the exaggerated 'other car' cost in 2008 was its purchase) plus has started to try and work from home 1 day/week.

I'm not really sure why our 'Fun' figure is down so much - we're probably not eating out quite so much or making the most of offers. I checked with DH and neither of us feel hard done by so I'm pretty impressed with that one. The massive jump on 'home' spending is because we had to replace a number of broken electrical items this year. We had a bit of good news though. My washing machine appeared to be leaking in the run up to Christmas. I was fearing the worst as it was my DH's before we married, so years old and I suspect a bottom of the range Candy model. Anway, we investigated on Christmas Day (hmmm, maybe this partly goes to explain the reduction in the 'Fun' figure - I know how to live!) when the kids were having an afternoon nap and it turned out it was just a blockage in the 'u' bend of the waste pipe! Result! Even I can fix that one!

The decrease in the figure spent on the kids is I suspect due to no longer buying nappies (apart from as above). And the reduction in the presents and holiday figure is just by being a bit more careful I guess - using discount codes etc. We certainly haven't cut anybody or any holidays out.

So, finally to thinking of my goals for next year. That will be in another post (this one's already far too long!) but the main aim is to get the mortgage under the £100k mark and I think I'm going to see if I can get my additional income to £2,000. However, to acheive this I think I'll have to do some mystery shopping again and I'm not keen about doing tax returns - when I did this whilst on Mat leave a few years back, TNS paid everything for you and now you have to do it yourself. Will have a think about this one.

Until next time! Stay warm!

wantabetterlife

Great post Thriftyknickers and well done on all your achievements in 2009 :j:j

Thriftyknickers

Well, its taken a while to figure them all out (or to be honest, write them up!) but here goes! This year I want to:-

• Get our mortgage under £100,000
• Make overpayments of £7,000
• Get nett worth down to -£95,000 :j
• Earn 'Extra' income of £2,000 :j

and these are all now in my signature.







Plus I want to work on the following:-

• Re-write wills - one over from last year
• See if its worth changing energy supplier :j
• Drive 5 miles less per week - as per the government initiative. Not quite sure how I can measure this one though as I don't have stats from last year. Might see if I can dig out my mileage from service or MOT records and see what I can do with that. Otherwise, I'll just have to go with my gut feeling!

Then I have the following which aren't MS-y at all, but I want to record them anyway to keep me motivated! Last year, I decided the 'spiritual' caring/sharing side of me needed a bit of oomph so this year I'm going to:-

• Sponsor a child abroad (obviously a long term commitment, rather than just one year) :j
• Do more charity work - fund-raising, donating items to charity shops etc. :j

The mortgage figure is a definate goal but the nett worth figure (ie the savings and investment part of it) is a bit wooly as I'm not sure whether we'll need to replace my car this year, at the expense of our savings. We'll see how my car goes - fingers crossed!

Our savings are artificially high at the moment too because they've got a chunk in to cover next month's very high CC bills plus need to cover money we've committed for house repairs and holidays. In fact I don't anticipate making an overpayment on our mortgage again until at least April-ish (possibly later depending on how ISA rates look compared to my mortgage) as I want to hit my ISA and regular savings account as little as possible to pay these as they're paying better interest rates than my mortgage. My regular saver matures in May though, so unless I can find an 'instant access' rate that can beat my mortgage, that may turn into a £3k+ mortgage OP. We're in an unusual position for us this year. My kids start school in September, so instead of going on holiday then, we're going in June instead, bringing forward when we have to pay the balance. Normally, I get a bonus in July which covers most of it. This year we'll be paying for the holiday earlier and then hopefully using my bonus as an OP. Having to take holidays outside of school terms in future will hit the wallet hard!:eek:

The extra income figure is going to be a tough goal - think I'm going to be investigating MSing and more cash back options again.

My DH has agreed about the aim to sponsor a child. Fortunately my income will be going up from this month to more than cover it as we need less childcare vouchers this year (kids starting school plus I have a bit of a surplus to use up from last year). I'm also going to look at Give As You Earn options etc too to see if I can do it efficiently as possible. Hopefully can report back on this next month.

We have made an OP this month. DH had £500 languishing in an account not paying too much interest so he's 'donated' it - although he can call it back again at some point if he needs it. (We have the same amount of money to spend on ourselves, but he's much more low maintenance than I am so often has money over which builds up. Unlike me...!)

So, not too bad a start to January. Disappointingly we couldn't get Quidco (7%) cashback on our ClubMed holiday because we couldn't complete the transaction online - they always have problems with their kids offers online for some reason. However, I did find an agent who would discount it by 5%.

Have you seen that Quidco now have in-store cashback too for some retailers? We had to buy 4 new kids car seats so got cashback for them even though we bought them instore (as we wanted them fitted). Very impressed - no problem tracking.

We bought an annual cinema pass in a charity auction which expired at the beginning of this month - we have 1 night out a week as a 'couple' when my Mum comes over to babysit. Anyway, we've changed her Monday night to a Wednesday night so we can now make use of the Orange Wednesday offer at the cinema - £7 for both tickets. We weren't used to the cinema being so busy! (Definitely recommend this week's 'Up in the Air' - and not just for Gorgeous George!:D)

I've come home tonight to discover I've won £25 on the premium bonds - pity it wasn't £25K! I only have a few but they have been sitting there for the best part of 43 years!

I had a reflective strap and bike lights for Christmas so I've riden to work and back once a week so far this month, which is about 6 miles each way. Previously I only cycled when it was light enough to get home in daylight. Two of the journeys were when we still had snow on the ground - we live at the bottom of a very big hill. I had to push my bike up the hill and then cycle from there as the car couldn't make it and we were 3 miles away from any buses running. Did have a bit of a disaster this week though when my chain fell off :eek: and as we're out in the sticks, there was no street lighting and I hadn't thought to carry an additional torch. I had to mend it (with the help of another passing cyclist) by the light of a phone box!

Finally, some sad news, which I'm sharing, in the hope that it helps us all keep our MFW activities in perspective. My uncle died last week, aged 62. He came home from work early as he felt poorly, went to bed and died. So always remember the balance. We all hope we'll live into a nice, healthy old age, but some of us won't. Enjoy every moment, not just delaying all of your dreams until your MF and keep the balance right for you and your family.

Here's to a healthy, happy MSE 2010! Enjoy!

taka

I'm sorry to hear about your uncle. Things like that definitely remind us to live for NOW too.

setmefree2

Sorry to hear about your uncle. 62 is far too young:o

Good Luck

smf2

SmlSave

Sorry to hear about your uncle Thrifty.

We bought an annual cinema pass in a charity auction which expired at the beginning of this month - we have 1 night out a week as a 'couple' when my Mum comes over to babysit. Anyway, we've changed her Monday night to a Wednesday night so we can now make use of the Orange Wednesday offer at the cinema - £7 for both tickets. We weren't used to the cinema being so busy! (Definitely recommend this week's 'Up in the Air' - and not just for Gorgeous George!:D)

Not sure if you're aware - I'm sure you are - but if one of you has the annual cinema pass then the other can get in for free with the orange wednesday ticket! We do this with our friends every week and I get lifts to work in return

Thriftyknickers

Thanks for the suggestion but out local cinema is Empire and they won't do an annual pass. They did one as a special prize last year for a charity auction which we won, but don't do it commercially. Pity!