New recruit: First steps (advice appreciated)

BaconandEggs

Bufger wrote: »

To be completely honest you look fairly streamlined to me. You can consider extra income in the form of mystery shopping or selling crafts - find something you both enjoy doing together and try to make a few bucks from it. With mystery shopping you effectively get a meal out for free so i use that as my treat whilst getting paid for it.

Just make sure you put a value on your time. I'm paid X per hour at work and get time and 1/3 for overtime so thats how much i value my hours after work. If i want to earn extra it has to come at a benefit to me. I work a weekend a month at a paintball field which completely offsets the cost for paintballing once per month for me (my hobby) and leaves me £20 + for a treat that weekend after work (usually beer) - see if you can make anything cost neutral in a similar way.

Thanks. Yes - that's good advice about putting value on your time. It's finding that balance.

The wife makes and sells crafts in her free time. Doesn't make a packet from it but enjoys doing and it pays for more material - so it is cost neutral in the same way you describe your paintballing (great idea by the way!).

To be honest, I don't know anything about mystery shopping or surveys, although I see that alot of people on the MFW earn a bit extra from them. I guess my reluctance to go down that route comes from the fact that I don't want to be spending my time away from work doing more... work - especially if it is going to give me a worse return than my actual work (might as well do more overtime?). Surveys in particular sound quite painful - but as I say, my knowledge is limited in that respect and I am willing to find out more about it. Mystery shopping sounds more appealing. Would you be able to point me in the direction of any information on surveys/mystery shopping etc. so I can look into it further?

I've considered delivering in the evening as a potential way of earning more money, as I like driving and it would not mean losing weekend days (which I particularly like).

BaconandEggs

Bufger wrote: »

My SOA is about 2 years old now! i'll do a new one later and send you the link.

Thank you!

Bufger

MSE Mystery shopping thread - Try and read some of the first threads and the first posts of each to get some useful info on what to expect https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3297184

Its worth treating it as a little side perk where you can get some free meals now and then. Dont treat it like work (well the small bit of admin is). Its not as complicated as it seems and the best part about it is you get to make a difference in some businesses! someone that gives excellent service may actually get some recognition and maybe a bonus, someone that gives bad service could get some much needed help and coaching.

Just sorting the SOA out now but the Mrs is in a mood so it might take a while. lol

BaconandEggs

Right: still didn't get round to finishing the paperwork off last night as I stayed at work till gone 8pm. The wife was on a late too.

Had my MoT done and it cost £40 with pick up from home and collection - NOT BAD! And is passed! Woo hoo! That's one less thing to worry about anyway.

I've still not heard back with a quote for my electrics and still waiting for the roof to be sorted. Hopefully by the end of next week. Will certainly get a 2nd quote for the electrical work.
I wonder how many people get multiple quotes for things? For me it depends on what it is and how much it will cost. There are also other things to factor in other than cost (e.g. familiarity, reliability, trustworthiness and quality).

I registered with Grass Roots. Will be interesting to see if they accept my application and see if I get any assignments.

There is a thread on MSE which is getting alot of attention currently - in relation to the news story describing how banks have been asking people to cancel their Sky subscription in order to meet their other financial commitments.
In that thread there is some interesting information and alot of it puts what people consider important spends into perspective. Having read that thread I am having a rethink about a bike I have on order:

I ordered a bikie through the bike scheme at work. Before any savings made as a result of getting it through the scheme, the total including equipment is just over £400. Now that is a lot of money. It is not an essential, and I certainly could have spent much less on a bike. I've paid a deposit of 45 pounds on the bike (I needed to have the frame sent over from a different branch). I will save petrol cycling and it will be good exercise. It's a nice bike and I've only ever had 1 new bike before (when I was in my early teens). I've always bought and done up old racing bikes from the classified in the local paper. Although not anywhere near top-spec, it is a dream bike for me - but I can't help wondering how many (or how much of an) "excel brick" it would buy. It's a bit of a luxury. Of course, if I do cancel it, I will lose the deposit. Hmmm..

BaconandEggs

Bufger wrote: »

MSE Mystery shopping thread - Try and read some of the first threads and the first posts of each to get some useful info on what to expect https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3297184

Its worth treating it as a little side perk where you can get some free meals now and then. Dont treat it like work (well the small bit of admin is). Its not as complicated as it seems and the best part about it is you get to make a difference in some businesses! someone that gives excellent service may actually get some recognition and maybe a bonus, someone that gives bad service could get some much needed help and coaching.

Just sorting the SOA out now but the Mrs is in a mood so it might take a while. lol

Thank you.

I have applied to Grass Roots and will see what comes of it. Seems like an interesting thing to do regardless.

BaconandEggs

Got the quote for the electrical work. Just got to order some parts now.

hastie

Just skimmed through your posts. You seem really on the money and in charge of finances. Well done.
With that kind of motivation to reduce your mortgage you are on track for really changing your life.
Remember to enjoy yourself along the way too. It is good to loosen the purse strings along the way and have a bit of a blow out sometimes. Forgive me that i've only just found this thread and skimmed its contents. good luck for the future.:)

BaconandEggs

Thanks for reading. Hastie. Since we've not been in long, it seems like were really just setting the wheels in motion. Having said that, looking at all the MFW's here and the progress they've made - it is inspiring. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I hope that if we try to get our monthly income and outgoing in order, the rest will take care of itself.

BaconandEggs

Update from last post:

Overpaid 500.

I've decided to go ahead with the bike and plan to use it during the weekends and get more exercise. Still waiting for the voucher. Will keep updating re use. Satuday morning I looked into the additional cost of covering a bike on our contents insurance. It came out as 60 pounds extra (for the year) but ended up being 30 pounds extra when I pushed them a little harder - cashback plus "loyalty bonus".
Still happy about MoT from last week. I will get the advisory work done over the next couple of weeks at garages where I know I can get a better deal (as opposed to the garage that did the test). I'm hoping I can get this done for less than 100.

On Friday I bought one of the Touchpad bundles that have been talked about alot on here recently. The Touchpad, inductive charger and case for 189. Not bad. Will be interesting to see if that comes through. Good deal but still alot of money.

Saturday, I did the foodshop in Lidl and it came to just over £25, slightly less than our average (budget 200 per month presently). Paid in some cheques and did some general Town-based chores. Then spent the rest of the day giving the house a good clean. Hoovered everywhere and cleaned everything. Gave the floor under the bed a good clean. In the evening I finally got round to sorting all my paperwork out and chucking all the junk. This will make my aim of sorting my Tax return asap much easier.

Sunday we did some plastering and prepared some areas for gloss painting. Will be ordering carpets and cupboards soon hopefully. Got loads of tomatoes, potatoes and salad out the garden and ate some Sunday night.

We went to Tesco to see if we could find the Casio camera offer that was on here - but there were none left. However, we managed to get 3 books from The Song of Ice and Fire series for 10 pounds (each one should be £9) so that's a pretty good saving. Already about 7 chapters into the first book. Looking forward to reading it more.

BaconandEggs

Not posted for a while - will post a detailed update soon.

Have recently enquired with mortgage company re overpayment. We are allowed to OP 10% of total outstanding balance per year. I asked when the deadline (end of year) is (having assumed it was 12 month from when the mortgage was taken out. I was told it is the end of the calendar year - end of December.

This has some advantages in that we now have an additional opportunity to OP 10% before the end of our fix. However, it also means that it will be more difficult to pay the full 10% this year.

I am wonder what the best option will be:
1) to go into our emrgency fund, paying the full 10% and recouping our emergency fund via savings at the start of next year.
2) holding on to the emergency fund and not OP.

What do you think?