Blinking in the brightness of the lightbulb moment

Cat2011

March Tally of savings.
Saved £269.33

£10.00 Mystery shop
£16.00 Mystery shop
£2.65 Bank round down
£0.23 Interest
£2.24 Interest
£20.00 Mystery shop
£11.00 Mystery shop
£80.49 ISA Interest
£7.75 Interest
£7.00 Mystery shop
£1.42 Bank round down
£1.73 Cashback
£66.00 Carboot sale
£7.74 Interest
£36.00 Mystery shop
£3.66 Bank round down
£1.47 Bank round down
£1.70 Bank roll down

Cat2011

Cat2011 wrote: »

Progress so far:

• List at least 30 items on eBay. - listed 4, one of which I sold at the car boot. Will put some more of the higher price stuff up this eve, like the Lipsy dresses I have, but will probably save the rest for the car boot, so doubt I'll make 30.
• [STRIKE]Investigate car boot sales - see if I can go to one tomorrow morning (for all the crap I can't sell on eBay) [/STRIKE]Done and dusted. £66 profit
• [STRIKE]Buy a year planner so I can write in my races for the year to persuade me to train [/STRIKE]Done
• Put the bins out
• [STRIKE]Go for a long bike ride (>30 miles) [/STRIKE]- Off in a mo for a bike with my friend
• Mow the front lawn (it's horrific...)
• Take recycling things to the tip.
• Sort car insurance renewal

Failed to do the bins, so will try and sort them out tonight and take most of the recycable stuff to the tip, as it'll be 2 weeks before it gets collected from home. Front lawn is still horrific. I won't get home in time this week to do it in daylight, but can have a go at the weekend. Also need to re-seed the back lawn... Oh and some cleaning - the house is looking grubby again :S

Oh - and went out for a lovely ride with a friend round the coast. We covered 32 miles, then stopped for a burger before the last 6 miles home. So 38 miles. Very chuffed with that as felt really good all the way round, and I've done hardly any bike training recently.

Cat2011

Finally managed to renew my car insurance with 11hrs to spare . Car insurance companies are so ruddy flaky! My car insurer, initially said your renewal is £460, then sent me another letter saying its £414, then I rang up and said it'd be £393.

Checked out the AA as well. They've sent me several letters saying they can offer me a wonderful quote of only £660! Hell No I thought. Applied on the website and they said £460. Applied on a comparison site and the AA said £395!

Grr! What's wrong with just giving me your best ruddy price first off....

At least its done now for another year. I can now concentrate on getting my IAM certificate, and joining the IAM insurance next year, as its a fair bit cheaper. I didn't have a chance to sort it out before my renewal.

Useful chat with my insurer too - I asked about protecting my no claims discount as its at 4yrs now, and they said they only protect over 5yrs, which initally put me off. But then said if I did claim I'd lose 2yrs, not all 4yrs and my discount would be moved from 67% to 60%, rather than losing all the discount - so not really worth protecting at the moment.

Cat2011

March Tally of savings.
Saved £276.22

£10.00 Mystery shop
£16.00 Mystery shop
£2.65 Bank round down
£0.23 Interest
£2.24 Interest
£20.00 Mystery shop
£11.00 Mystery shop
£80.49 ISA Interest
£7.75 Interest
£7.00 Mystery shop
£1.42 Bank round down
£1.73 Cashback
£66.00 Carboot sale
£7.74 Interest
£36.00 Mystery shop
£3.66 Bank round down
£1.47 Bank round down
£1.70 Bank roll down
£6.00 Mystery shop
£0.89 Bank roll down

Cat2011

PAYDAY! :j

in March I saved/paid off £379.26

My new total savings are £13,957.37, bringing my debt down to March payday = -£3,553.85

Pretty disappointed with that amout, but I guess its a bit like weightloss, you can have a whopper one month then loads less the next. I paid out £340 for dent repair and £393 for my car insurance this month for which I only had a bit saved up so guess that really hit the coffers.

To pay it off on July payday I need to save about £888/mth which should be doable.

I think I need to go back to a spending diary as my spends are creeping up again.

On a brighter note, I've got a really nice breifcase on eBay listed for £110, and there's 5 watchers, so hopefully one of them will be kind enough to get into a massive bidding war for it :cool:

Cat2011

Briefcase didn't sell . Will relist with a lower price. A brand new organiser from 1984 sold - My parents never throw anything out!. Posting tomorrow. Printed off pre-paid postage on paypal for the first time, so hopefully that'll make life a little easier - no holding up the queue in post offices!

Had today off sick . Spent lots of time sleeping, but managed to clean a few things up for the next car boot sale. I have lots of little figures made from beeswax which might be popular. They were covered in dust, so needed a good clean. Might be able to do a car boot on Saturday or Sunday. Also bought some super cheap jewellery boxes to display my jewelery in. Hopefully that means they'll sell better than last time.

Cat2011

April Tally of savings.
Saved £19.50

£12.00 Mystery shop
£7.50 eBay

ZTD

Sorry to hear you're sick - get well soon!

Cat2011

April Tally of savings.
Saved £52.00

£12.00 Mystery shop
£7.50 eBay
£32.50 Mystery shops

Cat2011

ZTD wrote: »

Sorry to hear you're sick - get well soon!

Thanks . Feeling a bit more life like today. Lots of sniffles, but am alive