Lois_E begins a long MFW journey

newgirly

Hi lois, just spotted your diary , looks like you are off to a good start. Its very brave doing a spending diary I've never had the guts, I would hate to see how much goes on wine and coffee's

Have you started doing surveys and cashback yet, I had £65 from topcashback come through last week for an ins. policy I took out a few months ago, money for nothing!
Its early days yet but there are great ideas on the oldstyle boards and one of my favourites is weezl's cheap family receipes site with loads of homemade healthy meals, super cheap.

Best of luck.

cha97michelle

Thought i would pop in and say hi after seeing your posts all over the board. Welcome and good luck on your journey.

Lois_E

Thanks for the messages everyone.

Today got off to a bad start when I couldn't find my cheque book. I'm sure it's somewhere in my room, but there was limited time to look for it before school. So I paid off the "please return this by tomorrow" voluntary contribution in cash at the school office, and will leave the others for Friday. (My kids' school is a polling station so they've got no school tomorrow.) Apart from that, my total spend for today was £2.15 on lunch. I get a subsidised proper cooked meal for that, and I really enjoy the experience of eating something I haven't had to cook, so I'm not switching over to taking lunch in, or not for now, anyway.

GeorgieFTB

I don't blame you, we have a canteen as well... my kids get hot school meals so if I eat something hot at lunch as well it means I can do beans on toast for us in the evening, I figure it saves me some money and my sanity!!!

Gx

Lois_E

newgirly wrote: »

Have you started doing surveys and cashback yet, I had £65 from topcashback come through last week for an ins. policy I took out a few months ago, money for nothing!

I've looked into this but decided not to do it. I've been trying to cut out a few things from my life to leave me more time so that I don't feel so under pressure all the time, so taking on new things to do wouldn't really make sense. Besides which, if I was able & willing to invest more time to earn more money, it would be more effective to increase my hours at my job, which would get more money for less time and effort than I could ever make from surveys. Most importantly, I am already spending more time on this computer than is really ideal for my family, so it's better if I don't take on more things to do sitting at a screen. Altogether, I'm glad it's helpful for lots of you, but I don't think it's for me.

AuntieMabel

Lois_E wrote: »

I've looked into this but decided not to do it. I've been trying to cut out a few things from my life to leave me more time so that I don't feel so under pressure all the time, so taking on new things to do wouldn't really make sense. Besides which, if I was able & willing to invest more time to earn more money, it would be more effective to increase my hours at my job, which would get more money for less time and effort than I could ever make from surveys. Most importantly, I am already spending more time on this computer than is really ideal for my family, so it's better if I don't take on more things to do sitting at a screen. Altogether, I'm glad it's helpful for lots of you, but I don't think it's for me.

I'm a bit torn on the surveys business. I only signed up for them after reading about them on here. Whilst it's easy money to answer questions, and I know that the money does mount up, I find it quite frustrating when the questions seem to go on and on for a 50 or 75p survey, or when you answer a boat load of questions and then are told you're not suitable. Not sure whether I'll persevere with them but will give it a bit longer. But cash back is easy money - but only if you were going to buy the thing in the first place!

ally18

I would definitely recommend using the cashback sites as a must for any purchase, thats my only way of making more money as I really don't like doing surveys either and tbh, I can't do them as I can't access the sites from work. I don't like going home and then sitting on the computer again after being on it all day

Lois_E

Thanks for the advice. I'll see what I can do about looking into the cashback possibility, then.

Today's been an expensive day. £12 on a new mouse for my computer. I've tried buying the really cheap ones, but they seem to stop working after a couple of months, so this time I've gone up a brand level and paid £12 rather than £6. We'll see if this one lasts a bit longer. But the big spend was uniform, PE kit and underwear for DD (and a little bit for DS).

Total £50. :eek:

She has grown out of EVERYTHING. I got a friend to give me her DD's cast-offs for home clothes, but I've had to bite the bullet and buy the uniform in a hurry. She went back to school this week with her trousers barely able to be done up, even though they fit just fine a few weeks ago at the end of last term. Maybe I should stop feeding her - would save on food and clothes.

Diary still up to date.

knithappens

I will be following your diary, I dont have a diary myself, but blog instead, I cant do both so my blog wins , anyway, single mum here too, have 3 munchkins, 15, 8 and almost 2, i teach part time, but will be redundant from september, and am retraining to be a childminder, not as much money but means i can spend some time with my munchkins, will be interesting to read your diary - good luck

Ayeshalush

Hi Lois

Thanks for posting on my diary and welcoming me. I see that we are similiar in age -I will be following your journey with interest.

I can understand your feelings about the survey sites. I do do surveys but it does take up a lot of time. I am lucky in that my job involves me sitting at a computer all day so i just always have a window open with a survey running and answer questions between doing other things. If I didn't have a desk job I wouldn't do them either. i would, however reccomend cash back websites if you make online purchases - as a previous poster said, money for nothing - always good!:D

I am so envious of you being in your forever house. That is somthing that has been very much on my mind lately - think this may be my mid life crisis!! I figure that if I don't have a plan in place to purchase my forever house sometime soon I will be stuck in this house for the rest of my life, and i def don't want that (although i am not unhappy being here at the moment). i just would like the security of having the mortgage paid off and am loathe to borrow more.

Anyway, enough of me. Keep up the good work.

A
xx