Blinking in the brightness of the lightbulb moment

Cat2011

Really don't feel like I'm saving much this month. I haven't brought any money in for over a week, and have instead spent about £45 on clothes/shoes! Admittedly that was a jumper, 2 tops, 2 skirts, a dress and a pair of heels including postage, so a pretty good bargain.

Guess saving will slow down quite a lot in the run-up to Christmas. I missed the free listing weekend on eBay due to trying to write essays. I can't wait for January when I'm free again from studying .

Haven't heard a sausage from the uni's about my application. Which I suppose is a good thing - no rejections so far. Will hopefully hear from at least one of them by Christmas.

Cat2011

November Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £275.93

£39.87 - Mystery Shop
£17.00 - Mystery Shop
£36.00 - Mystery Shop
£13.55 - Mystery shop
£11.00 - Mystery Shop
£3.81 - Amazon sales
£1.81 - Round down
£3.99 - Round down
£15.00 - Surveys
£8.00 - Mystery Shops
£5.00 - eBay
£8.00 - Mystery shop
£10.00 - Mystery shop
£70.50 - Matched betting
£26.49 - eBay
£5.91 - Cashback :j

Got my first ever cashback paid!

Cat2011

Had an almighty day at work. So tired! I got into work super early as I had 2 experiments to do today. I did the first in record time, went to use the machine to measure my results, and the damn thing just would not work. Eventually got it fixed, and then finally managed to get on with the second experiment. Got all the results to analyse tomorrow - fun times...

Filled up with fuel. Mpg dropped a bit, guess it's the winter lights/heater. Noticed my tyres are looking a little soft too, so will get those inflated. Don't want to spend more on fuel than I have to! The light bracket for my bike has finally been posted, so when that arrives I can get the light sorted for my bike and try and do some cycling to work.

I bought a freezer at the weekend. My housemates all said they wanted more freezer space - as did I, as we only have one drawer each, and it's not easy to batch cook with so little room. Not one thing has been put in the freezer so far!! Guess I ought to wait til they've all been to the shops first, hopefully it'll get some good use. If the housemates don't use up the space, then I'll just have to! .

Feeling quite proud of myself tonight. Firstly managed to avoid the quick shop/takeaway dinner which I fancied due to the hard day and late finish. Instead cooked up a bean+carrot stew type thing and some sweet potato "chips", seeing as that is pretty much all the food I have left. Now the only thing in the fridge is half a block of cheese... I have no idea how I've managed to resist that cheese - normally a block lasts about 2 days, not 3 weeks! . Must do some more shopping tho - not sure whether to shop online or pop into the store to check out the bargains. Think I'll write a list of what I need - I have enough carbs to sink a battleship... so don't need everything.

Also - got my first assignment back for this module and got 70%. :jVery chuffed. Now just have to finish the next assignment....

Off to my best friends/god son's for the weekend on Firday - it's also my friends mothers birthday, so need to think of something for a present...

Cat2011

November Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £289.33

£39.87 - Mystery Shop
£17.00 - Mystery Shop
£36.00 - Mystery Shop
£13.55 - Mystery shop
£11.00 - Mystery Shop
£3.81 - Amazon sales
£1.81 - Round down
£3.99 - Round down
£15.00 - Surveys
£8.00 - Mystery Shops
£5.00 - eBay
£8.00 - Mystery shop
£10.00 - Mystery shop
£70.50 - Matched betting
£26.49 - eBay
£5.91 - Cashback
£10.00 - Mystery shop
£3.40 - Round down

Cat2011

November Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £424.30

£39.87 - Mystery Shop
£17.00 - Mystery Shop
£36.00 - Mystery Shop
£13.55 - Mystery shop
£11.00 - Mystery Shop
£3.81 - Amazon sales
£1.81 - Round down
£3.99 - Round down
£15.00 - Surveys
£8.00 - Mystery Shops
£5.00 - eBay
£8.00 - Mystery shop
£10.00 - Mystery shop
£70.50 - Matched betting
£26.49 - eBay
£5.91 - Cashback
£10.00 - Mystery shop
£3.40 - Round down
£133.00 - Refund for birthday present
£1.97 - Round down

Cat2011

So it's payday again. I've struggled this month, as I've not done much mystery shopping, and been a little naughty with buying things, but still managed to keep to my entertainment budget which is good.

The major issue is that I completely forgot that I had £835 of deposits in my ISA - i.e. money that is not mine, and I've been including it in my totals for the last few months, I can't work out when I stopped including it .

So in November I saved/paid off £1,316.61 :j

But, as I need to exclude £835, my new total savings are now £8,429.04, bringing my debt down to November payday = -£5,200.11.

So - annoyed I was an idiot and forgot about that deposit money, but I still (somehow??) managed to save loads ths month . Will need to work out how this affects my DFD.

December is going to be quite an expensive month, with Christmas and driving home (£60 on fuel!), but I do have a little put by for that. Not expecting big totals tho.

Cat2011

New DFD is June 2012 . Hopefully can crank it up in the new year, once my ruddy essays are out of the way.

On the studying Medicine front, I got a rejection from one of the universities I applied to . One down, three to go...

Cat2011

Finally got essay number 2 handed in! Now just have to write essays 3 and 4 by Christmas :eek:, Got my mark back for essay 1 and did well:) . But have to do even better for the other essays as I'm right on the boundary for a Distinction.... have a horrible feeling I'm going to average 1% under, which is going to be seriously frustrating!!

No more news from uni's . I've been good and not done any mystery shopping for a couple of weeks, have resisted constantly checking the sites... will get straight back into it in the New Year.

Filled up with fuel today, it's evened out at about every 2 weeks. Got the 2nd highest fuel economy since I started tracking in June . I had 2 longer journeys - think that really helps the mpg. Almost got under 11p/mile... Glad they've scrapped the Jan fuel duty rise.

Work is pretty busy at the moment, have a monthly meeting tomorrow which I spent most of today preparing for. Will be interesting to see if anyone is on strike tomorrow, don't think any will be - can't afford to lose the day's pay!

Cat2011

December Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £60.77

£34.00 - Mystery shopping
£22.88 - Mystery shopping
£3.89 - Daily round down

Cat2011

December Tally of savings.
Need £1,300. Saved £210.77

£34.00 - Mystery shopping
£22.88 - Mystery shopping
£3.89 - Daily round down
£150.00 - Cashback

Woo! Got my super cashback from changing my Broadband - finally :j