EH is Back - and going Onwards, and Upwards!

Pippilongstocking

Lob some beans up here will you - getting a bit short in my storecupboard and no asda anywhere near!! xx

Hope you've had a great day. Longer nights are brilliant I managed to sneak a walk in with the pooch (once he'd woken up) after I got home went to retrieve the big tubs from the side of the track which had made it half way along the road in the gales - lol!

Lemon_Tree

we sorted out our kitchen cupboards on sunday and found about 10 tins of beans. shame you're so far away from me.

EssexHebridean

What we need is a small remote controlled helicopter with a decent range on it - then we could fly food parcels up to Pip when things are bargainously cheap down here! Actually Stripes, just a thought, would it work to get an AF delivery to your OH, or even an Asda online shop or similar, and then for him to bring it to you when he visits, even if it came a bit at a time?

Hellnearth if we manage to meet this year when I'm up we'll have to do a swap - a jar of our marmalade for a jar of your jam!

Well annoyingly my first two days this week - both of which should have been NSD's by rights, haven't been! Yesterday I had to go and get sugar for the marmalade (which we now have 14 jars of in the kitchen!) and today I walked into town this morning to pay the cheque in from my clients (bless her, she was good as gold yesterday and literally the first job she asked me to do in the morning was write the cheque for her to sign and receipt the invoice) - while in I popped into our closing-down Millets and grabbed another pair of canvas shoes for MrEH - at £2 a pair we're trying to get to them as they put them in the shop - and also popped into Asda to get Green Tea bags as I had a Twinings 50p voucher and noticed that they had the Twinings teas at £1. Also bought a pack of pitta bread as they had some that looked lovely - ate 2 at lunch with soup and the rest of them are now frozen. Also had a mooch into the Body Shop to get ideas for what I could spend the Telegraph vouchers on at the weekend - I think the plan is 2 x mini shower gels with one, and a mini shampoo and mini face-wash with the other.

Anyhow, am now hoping for the other three days of the week to be NSD's to get me back on track.

Must remember come Monday next week that I need to go into the banking to shuffle money about - cheque won't have cleared until then but I must do it straight away once it has or risk going overdrawn the following day. I intend to put the "extra" bit I earnt for an additional days work to my standard booking straight into the holiday account to offset some of what I will lose out on when we are away, which will leave an extra £133 over and above what we've been "just managing" on for the past few months. The odd £33 is coming to me (I was intending to use it for a haircut but now have my fingers x'd that I might nab a free one) and the £100 can sit in the bank account until I decide where to put it. Might go with £50 to the holiday account and the other £50 to general savings.....Oooh, savings, excited about that idea!

Right - bed. Can someone remind me tomorrow evening from about 7.30pm onwards that I MUST submit my Avon order once I've checked it? Ta! :D

youareallhelpingme

I found you on twitter - I'm following you in our business name :j.

I have the mind of a sieve so I'll remind you now

AVON

EssexHebridean

Morning all! Thanks Me for the reminder - order all done last night on time thank goodness! I'll check you out on Twitter too!

To Do list for today then:

Sort out business Logo to send to chap who's doing website - needs address removed and tidying.
Work out how to get it across to the laptop!
Check out link website chap sent me previously re layouts etc
email to website chap with apologies for delay.
[STRIKE]Pay NI bill [/STRIKE]:eek:
[STRIKE]Washing up[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Avon books out [/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Declutter 5 x items or more[/STRIKE]
Start bag for discarded fabrics (non charity shop stuff)
[STRIKE]Tidy spare room desk[/STRIKE] :eek:
Deliver leaflets to small business centre
[STRIKE]Email to Approved food - delivery arrived a day early which was a pain[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Check banking[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Washing into machine to run tonight[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Empty dishwasher[/STRIKE]

Pippilongstocking

EH - you must have been reading my mind - there is a £10 cash back for first customers for many of the online shops through quidco - he lives in range of all of the major supermarkets - I did wonder about a nifty online order (with cashback) for the storecupboard from each as and when it worked in with him and get him to bring it up in the van............never thought of AF too!!!

Thank you - otherwise helicopter good idea too

EssexHebridean

LOL - well if we've both thought of the idea it must be a good one!

My AF order which came yesterday was excellent value - frankly even if the delivery had been at your level it would STILL have been excellent value. Highlights were the enchilada and fajita dinner kits (bought 4 of each - total spend on those was £5.98) and the jars of Thai curry sauce which look lovely - and 3 for 99p! We eat a lot of crisps - I got a total of 64 individual packets for £4.99 - as our "goal" spend is always to get them for 10p a packet we were pleased with that, and also some big bags for sharing, tortilla chips and the "Red Sky" ones which are delicious - they came out at 50p a bag. Add to that things like fruit juice (ocean spray Cranberry & blackcurrant drink - 3 for 99p) and the cous cous & bulgar wheat I got (am about to do one of the packs of cous cous for lunch so will let you know how it was!) and the whole thing was superb value, I was more impressed than I expected to be.

OK - Money stuff:

My cheque from my clients is paid in and will clear on Monday. Once that has cleared I need to shuffle the council tax and water rates money away into the savings account until next months are available too, then I will pay a £300 lump sum to the mortgage. I am trying to work out if I can shuffle the money around to let me pay an extra £54 to that as well as that would knock another full month off the finishing figure. Hmmmm.

My £7.45 TCB payment has been transferred to the holiday account - hopefully I should have a Quidco payment this month as well although that depends on £35 from Nationwide going to received. That will also go to the holiday account, however we need to start thinking about paying the balance of the cottage (£440 I think) and getting our ferry tickets booked as well (Just under £70) so those will be coming out.

Avon is not bad this campaign, although not as good as I have had. If all goes to plan I will earn about £35 - £40 though so worth having. Hopefully the next one will be better.

Grocery budget - under control I think. The Approved food order will give us lots of meal options, and the crisps will prevent us from going over to the market and then buying "other stuff". I will make use of Tescos 3 for 2 on pet supplies to get cat litter, and maybe some cat food as well. Other than that it should just be fresh stuff needed.

Still transferring odds and ends into the VSP account - my plan is to transfer odd pennies each time I go into the banking, with any rounding down of the bigger stuff happening on a Friday and declare my total on a friday too.

Decluttering has slowed down a bit of late - I need to give myself a kick start again. It's always the way though - you start off in a wave of enthusiasm, do the bits that make a real visual difference, then can't decide what to continue with!

Exciting/Fun stuff - Chinese new year was excellent and definately qualifies as fun! Next definate plan is me visiting a good friend down on the south coast at the end of the month, but we might try and squeeze something else fun in there in the meantime....watch this space!

Lemon_Tree

hi EH, i always wondered if Avon was worth the effort now i have my answer. Where i live we never seem to get a book two campaigns in a row IYKWIM. In the end i end up ordering from our works Avon lady as she always leaves a book in the ladies loo which is a fab advertising location it seems. Did you say that they were doing muslin cloths recently? I've had a quick flick through but couldn't see them.
May have to go to Tesco's for the pet offer, though Co op were doing their boxes of food 2 for £2 which is a marginally better offer i think.

EssexHebridean

I can't remember seeing the muslin cloths in the Avon book and have just had a flick through and can't see any, but you're right, I'm sure someone did mention it. Avon income can vary dramatically - I was lucky in some ways starting when I did just before christmas as my first few campaigns were fairly good earners as a result. My Mum used to reckon that she averaged at about £25 per week when she was doing it - I'm not there yet but I can certainly see how you could do that much, and more.

Post just arrived and in it was a letter from an insurance company - I wrote last week to cancel a policy which, now I am self employed, is absolutely useless. Their small print says there is a 90 day cancellation policy so I was expecting to have to pay another three months premiums, but lo and behold they have cancelled immediately! :T

taxi73

that's good of the insurance company as every little helps.I see you are organised as ever