rlc22's 3 year challenge!

rlc22

Well, I never made it to the Zumba class the other week as we all overslept! I've now arranged with a friend to go to the one local to us on a Monday evening so the 9th of May it is

Things have been very slow on the MFW front around here. I think I'm going to cut back our target for this year and basically just aim to pay off as much as possible of any "spare" money. We're just in the process of booking our holiday to see DH's brother and it's going to cost us a lot more than our normal holiday budget. It's important to see our families though so while part of me is disappointed that I'm falling at what feels like the first hurdle, we can't just stay here and not take DS to see his uncle.

The problems with our neighbours are still not resolved and I think that sorting out our issues could get quite costly. Added to that the fact that these things are quite stressful too

I'm consoling myself with the fact that we're automatically paying off an extra £100 per month with our standing order payment, I'll OP any money that I get from Quidco and surveys and I'll keep plugging away at those to make small-ish OPs here and there.

We can always re-evaluate things later on in the year anyway and at least the mortgage is offset so anything that's in the savings account helps too.

One thing I am excited about is that our garage conversion starts next week. It's been a long time coming as we got planning permission about 8 months ago and I can't wait to have the extra space. It will really help with storage too as currently we have too many things and not enough places to put them.

We're off to Dorset for the weekend on Friday - I'm really looking forward to getting away from it all and relaxing by the sea. Hopefully we'll get some good weather too

rlc22

Ok, I'm feeling a bit better now. I've just worked out that with our "standard" monthly OP, plus OPing child benefit money and our monthly £5 from the Halifax reward account each month would mean that we'd have paid off £2864 extra this year without any real "effort".

Add to that any survey/cashback money and I think we'll be doing quite well after all

Then we can just see how we go with money after the holiday/legal problems are all done and hopefully we'll be able to top that up a little.

rlc22

Just checked Quidco and my payment from Swiftcover that I've been waiting for since June last year has finally come in, so I'm due £60.89 in the next payment run :j

However, have had a bit of a spender of a day as I booked our flights, accommodation and car hire for our holiday in the States and it's come in at a whopping £3375! That's nearly 3 times what we would spend on a holiday before we've even factored in spending money.

Oh well, I did splash out a bit and get DS a seat. He'll be 22 months when we go so could still travel as an infant on our laps, but I think it could be 9 hours of hell if he didn't have space. I'm also hoping that he will sit and watch the in flight entertainment for at least 10 minutes here and there os him having his own TV screen should help (at least, that's how I'm making myself feel better at spending an extra £400 that we didn't have to!)

Happy long weekend everyone - I hope that everyone enjoys their time off if they're getting some. I don't think I'm going to watch the Royal Wedding live, but I expect they'll have a highlights show which will be fun to watch

rlc22

Where have the last 4 weeks gone?!?!

I've had another expensive month. One of our cars needed the cambelt changed and I hadn't realised previously to factor it into my budgeting, so that's £400 of unexpected spending this month - ouch.

My MFW'ing has taken even more of a backseat now that I'm in a job that's keeping me incredibly busy. I've only written on DY review recently and am at about £15 worth of miles there. I think I'm going to get to £20 and change for an Amazon voucher rather than hold out for the cash at £50 - it will take me far too long to get there!

Still been keeping on top of onepoll though as they're so quick and easy to do - am at £27.85 for my second lot of £40 and it seems to be taking ages to get there...

Nearly at a payout level for Toluna now too, so going to put a bit of effort into that this week to get to payout and then will probably abandon it as I just don't really have the time.

Just remembered earlier that I have a £30 Body Shop voucher I bought through Groupon that needs spending by Wednesday so going off to spend that tomorrow. Was originally going to use it to buy some presents, but am bridesmaid at my sister's wedding next weekend so think I might treat myself to some new make up instead.

Our garage conversion has now started, so I'm quite excited at the thought of gaining extra space. We really need to get the house sorted out and I'm sure there's loads that we can declutter - it will help when we can give everything a proper "home" and I will be getting a utility room too - is it sad that I'm most excited about that?!

Here's to June being a cheaper month... Although I can't see that happening with the building work going on!

CathT

I wondered where you had gone. Ouch at the car expense, we have a 'car account' but there is no reserve for unexpected repairs like that.

You will love your garage conversion and the space it gives you. Ours runs alongside our lounge-diner and makes a fab playroom/potential 4th bedroom. Hope there's not too much mess.

Re: surveys, i think you have to pick and choose what suits you best. Like you say OnePoll is easy whereas I struggle to get going with Toluna.

Don't leave it a month before posting again!

mummyofonechild

Ouch

We had our cambelt done last week and it (only) cost £250. That was at the main Citroen Dealer. We shopped around and our local garage wanted £325 :eek:

Its still cheaper than a new engine should it have failed.

Good Luck and enjoy your Body Shop trip.

MOOC xx

cha97michelle

Thought you hadn't been about for a bit.

You do sound so busy. If i were you i would definitly aim for £20 on dy as i think your points would expire before you got to £50.

When busy, you do need to pick and choose more what you do. I only persevere so much as i don't have any other income source.

Nice to see you posting again.

rlc22

CathT wrote: »

I wondered where you had gone. Ouch at the car expense, we have a 'car account' but there is no reserve for unexpected repairs like that.

You will love your garage conversion and the space it gives you. Ours runs alongside our lounge-diner and makes a fab playroom/potential 4th bedroom. Hope there's not too much mess.

Re: surveys, i think you have to pick and choose what suits you best. Like you say OnePoll is easy whereas I struggle to get going with Toluna.

Don't leave it a month before posting again!

Thanks Cath. We should have expected the cambelt really as it's at least something you can anticipate. We only bought the car last year, so my learning is that I need to think about some of these bigger things that need doing in advance and we should have made sure it was done already - oh well, hindsight is a brilliant thing...

Our garage will be a playroom and utility room (well, utility room/general storage space really). I can't wait to have a home for things - I think that all the hoovering and dusting I'll be doing later will be worth it.

I hope that things are good with you

mummyofonechild wrote: »

Ouch

We had our cambelt done last week and it (only) cost £250. That was at the main Citroen Dealer. We shopped around and our local garage wanted £325 :eek:

Its still cheaper than a new engine should it have failed.

Good Luck and enjoy your Body Shop trip.

MOOC xx

£250 is quite a bargain in cambelt terms! Especially for a main dealer. I had to get our other car serviced last week and saw that the main VW dealer will replace a cambelt for £319 - thought that was a pretty good price for a main dealer too.

Like you say - better than an engine rebuild too!

cha97michelle wrote: »

Thought you hadn't been about for a bit.

You do sound so busy. If i were you i would definitly aim for £20 on dy as i think your points would expire before you got to £50.

When busy, you do need to pick and choose more what you do. I only persevere so much as i don't have any other income source.

Nice to see you posting again.

I hadn't thought about the miles expiring - thanks for pointing that out so my aim will definitely be for £20!

Thanks for the replies everyone - I went out earlier and spent my Body Shop voucher all on me in the end! Got a bit of make up and a new hairbrush

Made umpteen cups of coffee and tea today and been struggling to keep DS from trying to join in with the building work - exhausting this building malarky

rlc22

Hello my poor, poor neglected diary.

I'm sorry I've abandoned you so long, but I promise that it's because I've had a lot going on...

So 5 months since my last update and it seems like longer ago than that. MFW has really been on the back burner over the last few months. My not-so-new job is crazy busy but I'm enjoying it and getting good feedback so worth the fact that I no longer have time to do my One Polls during the day!

Our garage conversion is now finished and it's changed my life completely. I feel like I have space. No more toys in the lounge. It's brilliant and I reckon it means that we could stay here a lot longer than I otherwise might have wanted to.

I've now got a utility room with lots of storage too, so it's so nice to be able to close all the washing, ironing board etc away.

Unfortunately the issue with our neighbours is still ongoing and still quite stressful. We've been to mediation and genuinely believed it would resolve the matter a couple of months ago, but unfortunately that's not been the case I don't want to say any more on a public forum, but suffice to say that it's been getting me down.

We went on holiday last month and had a fantastic time. Spent loads more money than we had planned, but DS absolutely loved it so it was worth every penny. We're going to be good on the holiday front from now onwards - I work for a travel firm so hopefully I should be able to get some good deals

It's DS's 2nd birthday next Tuesday. I can't believe it's come around so quickly. I'm loving having a toddler at the moment. He's talking so much and is so utterly amusing it's untrue. I'm not looking forward to the inevitable tantrums though so let's hope he retains at least some of his laid back nature into the terrible 2s!

Finally, I'm back on the moneysaving now that holiday and building work have sucked all the spare cash out of us.

I've scanned in all my DVDs on Music Magpie (thank heavens for the iphone app) and Turn into Cash. I then did a really geeky spreadsheet to compare the prices of the 2 to see how we could maximise our £££. I got an extra £8 by doing it like that so I'm very chuffed

Quidco owe me about £180 so that will be nice when it comes in.

I'm up to £34.80 on One Poll so am going for that to try and get to the payout level.

Need to get back into DY. Will do some reading and rating this week before I look at writing any more reviews so that they don't get completely ignored still going for my £20 payout there!

I've been keeping a vague eye on other people's diaries over the last few months and I'm so impressed that everyone has made so much progress even while popping out babies/getting pregnant/putting houses on the market etc. You're a great bunch

rlc22

Oh, I forgot about the imminent costs.

Need new tyres for the car - am going to "splash out" on winter tyres as none of the roads round here get gritted and I need 2 new tyres anyway so might as well get a job lot.

Car tax coming up at the end of next month. For both cars. Ouch.

Christmas :eek: I bought one present already for my lovely little baby niece, but there's quite a few still to go!