Improving my life during Summer 2010

Mags30

My foot still hurts:( No need for toenail painting this week!

• Car insurance renewed €637.40
• Grass + hedges cut €40 (€35 + €5 tip)
• 7 magazines in recycling (was aiming for 20)
• 25 reviews finished for another €20 voucher

Instead of moaning about the money spent I'm applying the rules from the Secret so I'm happy that the money I paid for the insurance means I can use my car for the next year. The money I paid to get the grass and hedges cut makes my house look better:)

Going with the way of thinking recommended in the book it's better to be happy that you made 20p on onepoll than to be giving your energy to worrying about how you will pay for things.

(It does freak me out a bit though because it seems to suggest that you attract bad things by negative thinking)

I'll do my monthly updates for freebies, mystery shopping, surveys and toiletries next week, then I need to get back on track properly for September. I want to add a few more MSE challenges and get back to the law study which has been abandoned again. September is back to school month so I think it's a good time to do it. I've even bought myself some new folders, notebooks and pens:)

vasseur

Mags30 wrote: »

Did that this evening, thank you. It's not much better today unfortunately, it's a really bad cut. Have had the worst period pains/cramps today too. Feeling sorry for myself:(

Feeling a bit :undecided about men again today. I was explaining my foot incident to a male friend (whose wife is having a baby really soon) and he's being all sympathetic and keeps texting to make sure I'm ok. I feel that all his concern is a bit misplaced, it's his wife he needs to be checking on, my injured foot is definitely less traumatic than childbirth. I can vouch for this - there is no pain like childbirth.

In MSE news I got an email today saying that Estee Lauder counters were giving out samples of their new eye cream today so I limped (literally) along in my ugg boots to ask. The girl in Debenhams was a little dozy and couldn't find the samples, she looked for ages and then found what she thought was the free sample and put it in a bag for me with a foundation sample. Except it wasn't the free sample! It was a full size tester RRP €49. I'm not sure if I should feel guilty or not but to be honest I don't because I buy things from Estee Lauder a lot (double wear light foundation is a favourite). I can sort of see how she made the mistake, the pot is small, it does look a bit like a GWP sample but surely she didn't expect eye cream to come in the same size bottle as shampoo. Fantastic. You obviously deserved this.

Now if I could just attract money the way I attract free cosmetics...... but by getting the free cosmetics you are saving money!!

Looks like The Secret is at work.....

Mags30

polesalot wrote: »

Looks like The Secret is at work.....

Hopefully:) The new Secret book (The Power) suggests that thinking positive 51% of the time is enough to tip the balance in favour of attracting good things. That's not hard, I had always assumed that the Secret required positive thinking 100% of the time which is unrealistic for most people as we all have bad days. I think I feel positive about 70% of the time. I don't religiously read these books by the way, I have a stack of around 25 of them and I dip in and out of them.

Spent the weekend at my mothers, she's feeling better thankfully and going back to work (school) tomorrow. There were some freebie packages for me at her house too (a reusable shopping bag, Nair hair removal gel and a book).

Driving: Good experience to report today. I had no problem holding my car for ages in a traffic jam on a really steep hill while a bloke in front of me backed his car into a parking space on the hill. I did my hill starts so easily too. This time last year that would have been my worst driving nightmare. Hoping that this time next year I'll be having similar nostalgic thoughts about how my finances have improved.

vasseur

Mags30 wrote: »

Driving: Good experience to report today. I had no problem holding my car for ages in a traffic jam on a really steep hill while a bloke in front of me backed his car into a parking space on the hill. I did my hill starts so easily too. This time last year that would have been my worst driving nightmare.

Make sure you don't burn your clutch out like I did!

Mags30

polesalot wrote: »

Make sure you don't burn your clutch out like I did!

That incident has made me really careful about using the handbrake to hold the car. I really hope your car is ok, as others said it's probably ok so long as you don't make a habit of it.

There was an open evening at a local gym this evening so I went along to have a look because exercise is part of my plan for September. You can pay per visit there instead of paying for a years membership so that appealed to me. It's huge and they have computer screens on the machines so you can check your email, twitter or MSE while working out...how fabulous is that!

BUT it was the most intimidating place I've been in ages, 90% Mr Muscle type men doing weights and other fairly strenuous workouts while showing off their tattoos. OK they looked good but it was intimidating and strange. There wasn't one overweight person in there and this is the biggest gym in the city. Honestly I'd rather stay unfit than spend any time there.

I stopped at Dominos for a pizza on the way home:rotfl:That's the effect it had on me.

Mags30

Crowdology £13.76

Lightspeed Panel 495 points (115 points = €1 Paypal)

Toluna 37,224 towards 60,000 points for a €15 voucher

OnePoll £9.65 towards £40 Paypal

Surveyhead €8.98 towards €20 Paypal

Pureprofile €1.05 towards €25

Mags30

Surveys: I've just reached £10 on onepoll:T (only £30 to go...I'll be a while) but I'm stupidly addicted to onepoll lately.

Loving how there are loads of new diaries started today Sept 1st--back to school season feels exactly like Jan 1st for new beginnings.

Mags30

• £5 Amazon voucher from World Mail Panel
• €25 Shopping centre voucher for review writing (used towards the yantra mat)
• A charity CD. A very generous man who was sitting beside me at a work event bought the charity cd’s for everyone at the table. I don’t like the cd and won’t listen to it again but that was such a generous thing to do.
• Avery labels (from freebies board, will use for study notes)
• Green re-usable bag from Supersavvyme (again from freebies board, not as nice as it looked in the pic)
• A free chick-lit book from the Easons facebook bookclub “Jumping in Puddles” by Claire Allen. (I HATE facebook, I don’t officially use it but I have a “fake” account that I use to avail of promotions and discount codes)
• Moleskine notebook from Keynoir (found on the freebies board, paid postage €2.48, not sure what I’ll use it for) Suggestions welcome.
• 50 photos worth €9.95 (full loyalty card)

Free food:

• A Chinese meal paid for by the ex
• The nicest food ever at the neighbours barbeque
• Cappuccino @ McDonalds (full loyalty card)
• Cappuccino @ BB’s (full loyalty card)
• Overpriced Sandwich @ O’Briens (€6.75 but free with a full loyalty card)
• €5 Cafe voucher (from a local newsletter, paid the balance of €1.35 for tea and cake)
• Can of Tesco Lemonade (local radio station were handing these out in shopping centre)
• Lucozade sport protein + carbohydrate bar and an energy drink (at the gym open evening)

And loads of free cosmetics:)

• Thierry Mulger Womanity perfume sample from Debenhams (I hate this, would never buy it)
• 3 Aftershave samples from Boots (Dior Fahrenheit x1 and Armani Attitude x2- passed on to a male friend)
• Yes to Carrots body butter sample sachet
• Yes to Carrots day cream sample sachet
• Yes to Tomatoes body butter sample sachet
• Yes to Cucumbers hand cream sample sachet
• Femfresh wash and wipes
• Toxic twins false eyelashes (3 sets but no glue)
• Lancome Alice Temperly make up bag and 100ml bottles of cleanser and toner
• Thierry Mulger 6ml Angel hand cream sample
• L’eau d’Issey Miyake perfume sample
• Rimmel sunshimmer 125ml (comp win)
• Kerastase Chroma Riche 30ml conditioning hair mask and 5m serum
• 6 Nuxe samples (face cream x2, shower gel x2, firming body cream x2)
• Full size Estee Lauder night repair eye cream
• Estee Lauder night repair serum 7ml sample
• Estee Lauder Tinted moisturiser sample
• Nair hair removal gel

Mags30

This is all a bit disasterous and embarassing really:o I honestly am trying not to buy things and apart from reduced/clearance items I'm not buying anything....but if I'm still buying this much who knows what I might have been spending previously.

28 items out

• Clinique Take the day off make up remover 50ml
• Body Shop rainforest moisture shampoo sample
• Body shop rainforest moisture conditioner sample
• Toxic Twins foot detox patches (x3)
• Yes to carrots body butter sachets (x2)
• Time delay cleanser 150ml tube
• Revlon toner 50ml
• Pack of Bodyform ST’S
• Sephora eye make-up remover 50ml
• Contact lens solution 240ml
• Lee Stafford heat protector 50ml
• Clinique quickliner for lips (honeystick)
• Kiehls cucumber toner 5ml
• No7 Protect and perfect serum 5ml
• Aldi day cream 50ml
• Vichy Lipidiose body lotion 7ml sachet
• Laverana body lotion 5ml sample sachet
• Aftershave samples x6 (passed on to a male friend)
• Clarins water comfort one step cleanser10ml
• Pack of BLAX hair elastics

But 62 items in:eek:

All the free stuff in the above post counts for a lot of this but I still managed to spend €95.61. Most of this was spent on clearance perfume sets. (I counted each item in the set)

• YSL Parisienne gift set at Boots €26.99 RRP €68
• Kylie Showtime perfume set at Boots €6.99 RRP €31
• A bottle of Chanel No5 in the Cancer charity shop €25 (charity shopping is clearly not saving me money)
• Stella McCartney perfume set at Boots €14.99 RRP €56 (paid with points)

Then there were loads of almost free clearance items from Ruby + Millie paid for using the Boots £5 vouchers, clearance items from FCUK and Ted Baker....(Grabbit board), a Clinique 3 step trial pack, Aldi moisturiser (I went there to save money on groceries).....and a few other random things.

This really is ridicuolus but i does explain why I've been afraid to do an item count before.

If this was Bargain Alerts I'd probably win a prize for getting so much stuff for just over the price of 1 bottle of perfume but I have both debt and clutter so this isn't good. I just hope that I won't be tempted to buy much at full price closer to Christmas.

Aim for September: Loads of items out, very few in.

Mags30

Ongoing

• Freebies
• Mystery shopping (I need to become active with more companies)
• No toiletries
• Surveys
• Review writing
• Decluttering

New

• Daily Clicks
• NSD's (No spend days) Aiming for 6
• Study and write notes for tort law textbook (to finish by Oct 13th)
• Exercise 3 times a week
• Start applying the envelope system to my cash spends
• Go to see "Eat, Pray, Love" at the cinema (out on Sept 17th as far as I know)
• Some random fun hopefully