I'm going to do a diary too :)

gerbiljo

Hubby has won a large pizza free from our local takeaway for guessing the footy score!

No extra payments so far, work has been really tough again and walking away always comes as an easy option, hoping will get a payrise soon or might rethink.

Hubby is rubbish with the snack texting, not sure if hel keep it up!

SmlSave

Well done on the free pizza!

gerbiljo

We got a bargain in the end, another large pizza and breaded mushrooms for £5.48

This weeks shop was £38, so quite alot tho we did spend £5 on 45 chunky kitkats, bargain

My mum has given us £500 from her inheritance which comes with conditions, not to be paid of mortgage or to be spent on house permanent fixtures. Which is good as it is fun spending money. We have had a spree today and bought a bluray player and I've ordered princess and the frog on bluray for our little girl. We are ordering a picture and maybe a new chiminea and parasol for the garden, hopefully we should have a bit over too. So nice to have some money to spend as otherwise it would of just gone off the mortgage and be gone.

Apart from that no overpayments hoping might be able to live on slightly less this month so can throw a bit extra on the mortgage but wel see

gerbiljo

Taken a small step backwards this week in that I have just increased our direct debits...

We get really bad tv reception and freeview probably only works once a week which is really poor when it does work so our tv mostly only works through the analogue setting, which uses an extra long aerial and professionally installed booster plus another booster we added. We don't watch loads of tv, though our daughter has recently discovered cbeebies!

What with the digital switch over, when it happens were going to have to get a satellite. Having looked into freesat/ virgin (not in their area) we have decided to get sky. The plan is to have it for 1 year and then go onto the free to air channels. We have opted for the hd box which is another £10 a month but we get £95 cashback through quidco and a £25 M&S voucher (hopefully a weeks food shop or an xmas present for someone), so it works out £20 a month without the voucher.

Bit naughty as weve been putting off doing this for ages but can't see the point when we can get a decent deal to have rubbish tv for another 2 years then have to pay for a dish installation anyway (looked at the diy ones and don't think we can be doing with it). So there you go naughty! Apparently will be installed saturday...speedy, will be quite exciting for me as I've never had sky tho hubby has so he missed it a bit over the last 5 years...

will update again when I actually pay something off!!

SmlSave

My mum has given us £500 from her inheritance which comes with conditions, not to be paid of mortgage or to be spent on house permanent fixtures.

How nice of you mum

Enjoy Sky hun Me and DH loved it and got hooked. We've now got Freesat which uses the Sky dish as they started to keep putting up our fees, but we got almost 2 good years from Sky.

Are you keeping to the standard packages?

gerbiljo

SmlSave wrote: »

How nice of you mum

Enjoy Sky hun Me and DH loved it and got hooked. We've now got Freesat which uses the Sky dish as they started to keep putting up our fees, but we got almost 2 good years from Sky.

Are you keeping to the standard packages?

yes its very nice

wel tbh were not really that worried about the packages we just wanted good reception on the normal channels. we have picked the 1 minimum package and we have picked the discovery package as hubby liked that 'earth' programme and we both like fish and sealife, nothing else for now and dont really intend to add. seems like lots of channels all of a sudden to us, its being fitted saturday yikes!!

gerbiljo

Hubby spent loads on this weeks food shop £50 something, which has messed us up a bit but there you go, only 1 more food shop to manage now, plus I had a hen night which also messed us up a bit what with it being a 5 week month.

Next month we have a wedding and 1 birthday so after that its all quiet til xmas (more or less). I am hoping we can do some shopping for xmas with our £25 M&S voucher from sky. We don't spend alot on xmas really.

Not done any overpaying lately but its seeming really that for us we do our big payment on payday then any extras really happen as payday approaches again.

On the up I have £20 in our TNS account and £10 in my ipsos one so I'm trading them in to get a dongle for our new bluray I got with the money from my mum, so not helping with the mortgage really. I checked my lightspeed account and I've only got just under £3 in there so tbh I think I might wait til I get that and then resign as I dont think I get accepted for enough surveys. Might give valued opinions a bit longer as it seems that my browser doesnt like it much so I'm going to use a different one for their questionaires. Still like onepoll the best tho, £7 already and I've not been doing it nearly as long as the others.

I bet some piggypoints the other day on a bigbrother eviction, tho I'm yet to get my points that seems a pretty way to earn some points without giving everyone your details!

Anyway work has been tough and I've not been that happy and I am constantly trying to decide whether I should change jobs. I did ask for a payrise the other day...I think whatever I need to hang on til the end of the year really and think about 2011.

We finally have sky, I love it I'm ashamed to say and a little scared I won't be able to give it up in 1 years time, I am happy now as I think our evenings will be better, I get in late and like to sit and watch the soaps having my dinner, then watch other rubbish for the rest of the night so I am consciously going to try and sky plus what I want to watch and not watch what I don't want to watch and take the dogs out when I get in, I need to get in the habit.

Finally hubbys work is really busy and he did about £100 overtime this weekend, this will go into his saving which is his account he controls, if he has any over we might put it towards the extra £100 we need to pay to get to £85k.

Next update will probably be payday...

pammyj74

well done on the surveys, I really need to get back into the habit of onepoll as it just seems some are quite long for just 10p and it puts me off but am almost half way there

I am the same with my job, I dont hate it as such but some days I would rather be somewhere else lol. I would love to have a job closer to home. good luck with whatever you decide there.

uzubairu

gerbiljo wrote: »

We finally have sky, I love it I'm ashamed to say and a little scared I won't be able to give it up in 1 years time, I am happy now as I think our evenings will be better, I get in late and like to sit and watch the soaps having my dinner, then watch other rubbish for the rest of the night so I am consciously going to try and sky plus what I want to watch and not watch what I don't want to watch and take the dogs out when I get in, I need to get in the habit.

Don't be.

I have Sky+ HD downstairs in the lounge and Sky+ basic multi-room (6 year old box) in the bedroom.

I very, very rarely watch live TV as I only watch what I have on the planner.
An hour long programme on the channels with adverts takes 40 ish minutes to consume when you can skip the adverts.

We used to have a Sky Sports package, but I didn't watch much, due to me working on Saturdays, and shifts during the week (OH is indifferent to sport in general).
We scrapped the Sports (never bothered with Movies), have several mixes (that cover all the channels we like to watch) and we pay £31 in total and I too wouldn't scrap it.

gerbiljo

Yeah I agree some of them aren't worth 10p, but I resent all the gender/age/where do you come from and then getting declined, so I guess I like that I bipass that, plus some of them are fairly amusing...I just did one on sweaty men haha. I might get fed up with it tho before I hit £40!

Yeah I constantly want to work somewhere else and I wish I could have one of those books (probably only do them as computer games now) where you had to make a decision and turn to the appropriate page but u could sneakily look ahead and work out the better destiny...I'm scared of leaving a predictable job for one thats worse. I will see how the next week goes, I tend to perk up near payday. If not I will probably try and stick it out til the end of the year...I'm just making excuses really...

Yeah perhaps I shouldn't feel bad, I probably need to dump BT and my broadband package and that would virtually cover the cost really... definately my husband won't want to give it up as he had it at home before he met me so its something hes wanted for a while. We rarely watch different things so I am going to do some cunning cabling to get sky on all the tvs (for the reception really) with switchers rather than getting new boxes at the mo.

Was a bit upset last night as hubby slated the dinner and said he's bored of the same old thing and said most of what he's got this week he doesn't want. He did the shopping this week and as we have sort of 'rota-ed' the food he knows what's coming, in my defence I have asked him lots if he wanted to change any of the food and he said no, hes a sort of 'don't mind' person, but obviously he does mind. Anyway we solved this by getting him to design the food rota which is virtually the same except he has added in a weekly takeaway, to me a takeaway is a treat rather than a weekly thing (fair enough in a normal situation but seeing we are really trying to cut back I don't see takeaways as essential) anyway hubby has his overtime back so I think if he wants to buy takeaways that ok as hopefully it wont mess up the challenge as he might be able to contribute a bit extra to the food.

Got child benefit today, gonna hold onto it til payday I think as we've spent alot this month, unless I get time to be sure I don't need it and over pay it. 10 days til payday...