Blinking in the brightness of the lightbulb moment

Cat2011

Was about to declare that I had a NSD, then remembered I'd just filled the car with £58 of liquid gold/diesel... Oh well - had a No Naughty Spend Day... managed to not spend a penny at work which is great . Slight trouble is that I've failed to do any shopping - and so have no breakfast, and no lunch to take to work .

Hmm. Cheapest is to prob pop to local shop in the AM, and buy cereal and lunch. Will be cheaper than work, then do big shop tomorrow night. Grr, no NSD tomorrow then .

Cat2011

Oh.... fiddlesticks......... One of my lodgers has just shown me 3 wet patches on her bathroom ceiling (under the shared bathroom), and the sound of dripping water.... The first big problem with my house... had to happen sometime I suppose.

I took the side off the bath and had a good look. The floor is pretty soaked! I also noticed the builders didn't bother finishing off the walls in any way so no wonder the water poured straight to the floor below. Anyway - *might* be water getting through the seal on the drain in the bath. If the seal is inadequate - I'm slightly hoping that's the case, because then I might be able to get the builders to fix it (house is only 18mths old).

Other possibilities are that it is rain water, or the tank in the attic is leaking, or there is a pipe leaking or....??

Going to run the shower in the morning and see if I can trace the source of the water. If it's not obvious i,e. leaking pipe I can seal - it's going to be an expensive "call a man in" jobby. Erm.. who exactly do I call? Builder? Plumber? Never dealt with "A Man" before.

Cat2011

So ran the tap in the bath - and looks like the seal on one of the pipes under the drain is leaking. Hopefully it's just due to being clogged. It's thankfully an easy bit of pipe to remove - 2 screw ends. Will take it off tonight and clean it out, and try and fix it back on and seal it properly.

Cat2011

October Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £221.26

£4.50 - Daily round down of bank accounts
£4.48 - Daily round down
£3.00 - Daily round down
£30.00 - Mystery shops
£22.65 - Amazon sales
£20.00 - Mystery shops
£4.20 - Daily round down
£3.46 - Daily round down
£60.00 - Mystery Shops
£0.74 - Daily round down
£4.23 - Daily round down
£2.53 - Daily round down
£1.97 - Daily round down
£2.86- Daily round down
£1.90 - Daily round down
£34.74 - Mystery Shops
£7.62 - Amazon sales
£4.01 - Round down
£1.15 - Round down
£6.00 - Mystery shop
£1.12 - Round down

Cat2011

Cat2011 wrote: »

So ran the tap in the bath - and looks like the seal on one of the pipes under the drain is leaking. Hopefully it's just due to being clogged. It's thankfully an easy bit of pipe to remove - 2 screw ends. Will take it off tonight and clean it out, and try and fix it back on and seal it properly.

Well that was a disgusting job. Urgh! Pipe is now clean and screwed on, but drain still leaks . Think it must be the seal around the drain in the bath. Going to call the builders tomorrow and tell them what for - it's still under the 2yr guarantee, so should fix it - tho no doubt they'll come up with some excuse not to...

Cat2011

Yay!

Been paid the £100 for opening a co-op account :j - was just about to go into chase-up mode with that one . Of course now you get £200 for opening an account... pah!

Think might try and use the co-op account to swap my current account to another with an offer. First Direct maybe? not sure if you need direct debits on the account - could always transfer a couple of credit card direct debits to the co-op account... Will look into it.

Have also managed to get approx 200 quid withdrawn from one of the matched betting sites I was using. Will add that to the tally once it has cleared.

Another whoop-ish. Had a letter from American Express today. I have a credit card with them that I never use. I rang weeks ago to ask if they'd offer me a 0% deal, but they said no, so I arranged for an accidental £1.80 positive balance to go back to my account and thought I'd closed the card. But it was a very confusing phone call, and tho the £1.80 got returned I don't think the card got cancelled. I never chased it up - but today, American Express have said they've reviewed my usage and decided to close my account - saves me a bit of effort ringing them I suppose!

Time for a boooo. I completely forgot to renew my tax disc - just found the form under a heap of paperwork - attempting to renew online now - it's nearly 3 weeks out of date - hoping there isn't a fine winging it's way to me in the post... :S

Cat2011

October Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £321.26

£4.50 - Daily round down of bank accounts
£4.48 - Daily round down
£3.00 - Daily round down
£30.00 - Mystery shops
£22.65 - Amazon sales
£20.00 - Mystery shops
£4.20 - Daily round down
£3.46 - Daily round down
£60.00 - Mystery Shops
£0.74 - Daily round down
£4.23 - Daily round down
£2.53 - Daily round down
£1.97 - Daily round down
£2.86- Daily round down
£1.90 - Daily round down
£34.74 - Mystery Shops
£7.62 - Amazon sales
£4.01 - Round down
£1.15 - Round down
£6.00 - Mystery shop
£1.12 - Round down
£100 - Co-op account open bonus :j

Cat2011

Yay. Managed to get the last money out of my matched betting fund. That's another £70.50 and £353.94 to add to the October tally! Might hit the crazy £1,300 target afterall? Maybe....

October Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £745.70

£4.50 - Daily round down of bank accounts
£4.48 - Daily round down
£3.00 - Daily round down
£30.00 - Mystery shops
£22.65 - Amazon sales
£20.00 - Mystery shops
£4.20 - Daily round down
£3.46 - Daily round down
£60.00 - Mystery Shops
£0.74 - Daily round down
£4.23 - Daily round down
£2.53 - Daily round down
£1.97 - Daily round down
£2.86- Daily round down
£1.90 - Daily round down
£34.74 - Mystery Shops
£7.62 - Amazon sales
£4.01 - Round down
£1.15 - Round down
£6.00 - Mystery shop
£1.12 - Round down
£100 - Co-op account open bonus
£70.50 - Matched betting
£353.94 - Matched betting

Cat2011

Feeling really quite desperate to re-calculate my DFD.... but I must resist. As it's mid month, I'll only calculate it wrong... Looking forward to Tuesday (payday) to see how far I've come this month . I feel like I've made lots of progress, and then realise I've still got so far to go!

*sigh*

No word back from any uni's yet.... No offers - but no rejections either. Methinks it's going to be a long wait... Desperate to get rid of this debt, so that I can get myself into debt all over again by being a student... I just want to know if I'm in so that I can start planning! I swear I should have been a party planner or something - I love planning things. It's the actual doing of things where I always fall down. Such as the doing of tidying my room that I've been procrastinating about for weeks. I literally can get from the door to the bed and that's it.

Checked out my gas/elec on a price comparison site and they all said I'd save £23/yr. I have £60 of penalties if I leave my current supplier, so not exactly worth it. I need to find out when that penalty period ends.... but even then is it worth it for a paltry £1.91 a month saving? Hmm. I guess there are some cash back offers too. And I do seem to very much in the "lots of little savings" type of person. Maybe it is worth it?

Right - to do this weekend!:

• Order online food shop (fridge is completely bare!)
• Put dry clothes away
• Laundry - wash and hang
• Tidy room
• Write essay
• Listen to some of my lectures/do actual MSc work as opposed to just thinking about it....
• Submit tax return - it's mostly filled in, just need to make sure the numbers are accurate.
• Mow the lawn!!

Time to get on it!

Cat2011

October Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £1016.64

£4.50 - Daily round down of bank accounts
£4.48 - Daily round down
£3.00 - Daily round down
£30.00 - Mystery shops
£22.65 - Amazon sales
£20.00 - Mystery shops
£4.20 - Daily round down
£3.46 - Daily round down
£60.00 - Mystery Shops
£0.74 - Daily round down
£4.23 - Daily round down
£2.53 - Daily round down
£1.97 - Daily round down
£2.86- Daily round down
£1.90 - Daily round down
£34.74 - Mystery Shops
£7.62 - Amazon sales
£4.01 - Round down
£1.15 - Round down
£6.00 - Mystery shop
£1.12 - Round down
£100 - Co-op account open bonus
£70.50 - Matched betting
£353.94 - Matched betting
£270.94 - Matched betting

YAY! Need less than £300 from my salary to make my target, and will manage to smash that on payday. Looking forward to updating my signature on payday