Blinking in the brightness of the lightbulb moment

Cat2011

• [STRIKE]Order online food shop (fridge is completely bare!)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Put dry clothes away[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Laundry - wash and hang[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Tidy room[/STRIKE]
• 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!!

Managed to do my Tesco shop online yesterday, and all arrived ok this morning. It cost £75, and should hopefully last me most of the month, with a few top up shops for vegs etc. I'm going to try and cook out of a cookbook that my friend gave me for my birthday to introduce a bit more variety into my diet! When I cook dinner this eve, I will do another batch cook, so I have plenty of lunches to take to work.

I've been thinking about signing up to one of those Veg Box delivery services e.g. Abel and Cole. I've got a voucher where the 4th box is free. I can pay £12/box of fruit/veg and that should last me a week, and can have it delivered to my garden shed - I don't have to be in. That way it's always fresh, I don't overbuy so that it all ends up going off, and I don't run out of fruit/veg and end up buying crappy food from the local shop. Think I'll give it a go once my current stack of veg has gone down!

Also - Am I the only one that doesn't have PPI to claim back??! The forums have been full of it for ages now, I guess I wasn't taking out financial products during the time it was massively sold...

I have now managed to massively tidy my room. Basically moved everything from the floor onto my bed - and didn't stop til my bed was clear - took a while! I have finally bought some marigolds, so I can give the loo's/bathroom a good clean - and the carpets need hovering. But that will have to wait for another day....

Essay time...

Cat2011

The heating has finally been put on . Tenants on the top floor were complaining their radiators didn't work, so I went round and bled them all, which was an interesting job as i've never done that before! I knew I had to wait for air to come out, then when water came out to screw it back up... I was half expecting water to pour out, but it was only a little drip drip . I did the last radiator, let all the air out - then no water came out?? Got quite confused, but did it back up, and went down to the boiler which was flashing up a big fat F . After much searching, I found the manual for the boiler (really must put the manuals in a much better "safe place"). F means fault and the number flashing (which I thought was the temperature ), meant "Low Pressure". Right - manual said fill the boiler with water. How the hell do I do that?? Get the kettle out and pour it in the top??? After having a good ganders at the boiler, with all its pipes and levers, I noticed one lever had "filling loop" hanging off the pipe - so I very very nervously turned it - heard water pouring... somewhere - hopfully in. I turned it on an off a few times, and eventually the fault went away . But then it started flashing FH - which apparently means it's purging itself of air. Damn boiler is too clever for it's own good. I ran back up stairs and redid the last radiator, and this time after lots and lots of air, water finally came out. Ran back downstairs and it was flashing F again, so filled it some more....

When the plumber man came to look at the bath, I got him to have a look at the boiler too. Apparently there is a pressure gauge, and I had to fill the boiler till it said 1.5 on the gauge. So I had kind of been doing the right thing

Really wish there was a man of the house sometimes. Tho tbf most of the men I know wouldn't have had the foggiest...

So - I learnt something new. And can now add "Bleed radiators and refill boiler" to my list of "DIY shizzle that I can do".

I do like learning new things, and would never want to be completely reliant on someone else - but I do miss having someone to share this stuff with

ZTD

Cat2011 wrote: »

The heating has finally been put on . Tenants on the top floor were complaining their radiators didn't work, so I went round and bled them all, which was an interesting job as i've never done that before! I knew I had to wait for air to come out, then when water came out to screw it back up... I was half expecting water to pour out, but it was only a little drip drip .

It's like a little tap - if you only open it a little, you only get a little coming out. I have heard of people unscrewing them so far they dropped out. I'd bet that was hilarious for bystanders... :rotfl:

Cat2011 wrote: »

Really wish there was a man of the house sometimes. Tho tbf most of the men I know wouldn't have had the foggiest...

You must know a bunch of right 'nanas if very few of them know how to re-pressurise a central heating system... :eek: ()

Cat2011 wrote: »

So - I learnt something new. And can now add "Bleed radiators and refill boiler" to my list of "DIY shizzle that I can do".

I do like learning new things, and would never want to be completely reliant on someone else - but I do miss having someone to share this stuff with

Well they are out there.
"Do you know how to bleed a radiator?"
"Err...yeah."
"Get your coat love, you've pulled."

Cat2011

ZTD wrote: »

Well they are out there.
"Do you know how to bleed a radiator?"
"Err...yeah."
"Get your coat love, you've pulled."

Lol - love it. Will try that next time I'm out

Cat2011

October Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £1030.19

£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
£13.55 - Mystery Shop

Cat2011

:j yay for payday. And I've done very well this month. I completely skipped the 6k mark, and dived straight into the 5 thousands . But there was quite a helping hand from extracting my money from the bookies. I'm also over half way!
Will have to try hard next month to get a good total.

September payday Balance = -7,420.20

October payday balance = -5,681.72

Paid off a whopping £1,738.48!!


This brings my new DFD to payday in July 2012

Only another 9 months to go.... Assuming I get into medicine - that only gives me a further 2 months of being debt free to save up for my course - not nearly long enough... New DFD is assuming I just have money saved from my pay, so I reckon I can aim to be debt-free in less than a year after my LBM - so in May 2012 - if I include mystery shops, selling things, and a 2nd job in the new year. Here's hoping!

Cat2011

Just realised I've been a bit of a twit . I was thinking - "Yay, I can fill my ISA next month" - but I've got some money from the withdrawing from the bookies sat in my Co-Op current account! Have now transfered that out, and once that has cleared I will have filled my ISA this year!! :j . I've had an ISA once or twice before, but never been anywhere near filling it - so chuffed!

So - now I need to find some more savings accounts! I've worked out a plan - Going to open the First direct current account for the £100 bonus. Then going to open regular savers at 8% and 5%, and also open the Santander normal saver at 3.1% for any overflow money. I should be able to save enough to make all the payments to the regular savers ok, with the extras going into the normal saver.

So in just a few months, I've gone from 1 crappy low rate savings account, to having FIVE savings accounts!

Cat2011

Off to a cracking start with November savings, as 4 mystery shop sites have decided to pay me today

November Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £106.42

£39.87 - Mystery Shop
£17.00 - Mystery Shop
£36.00 - Mystery Shop
£13.55 - Mystery shop

Cat2011

Had our monthly project meeting today - and I had very little to show. I realise I have become very distracted at work - checking out my finances, or medicine type things. I've also been told that the project which funds my work is likely to be scrapped in April - The project funds a few different things, and they only want to get rid of one aspect, so I will probably be able to get funded through a different source. But that means I really have to knuckle down and get some serious work done to show that the project and/or me are worth keeping. I read a lot of Earthgirl's diaries, and she's always said that she works really really hard at work, taking on extra things in order to make herself an asset - and therefore less likely to get made redundant. I need to do that now.

I seem to have got quite lazy with my Masters as well - so I need to stop phaffing around and get on with that too. Think I'll put aside a couple of specifc evenigns/mornings per week which are "masters study time", rather than just pottering through my evenings, occasionally thinking I think I'll do a little work.... it needs to be properly scheduled in.

Reading forums for finances and medicine - although interesting - are going to get me poor marks and at worst lose me my job. My masters and my job are priorities. I need to treat them as such.

I now consider myself offically told off! . I'm off to the lab!

Cat2011

Oh pants. Just applied for a First Direct account to get the £100 bonus, and also the 8% regular saver and I got declined! Never been declined for anything before . I guess it's all the 0% credit cards finally hitting my credit report. Oh well... plan B.... ummmm.