Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

themadvix

Hi All,

Finally got around to following Martin's instructions on Oyster card refunds only for the page to 'have an unexpected error'.... I'll try again tomorrow - now I know what I'm doing! Only £8.30 in there (on my cards), but better than nothing. Expect DH has more to offer on his!

Nw Loyalty Saver open and has last year's tax savings in. Made a start on tax return yesterday (the easy bits only!) - a first for me, normally it's January!

Another £3 survey yesterday, so have claimed the money - when it arrives it'll go into the OP fund. Should cash out on SB tomorrow, but it's been painful finding surveys on there today! Also resurrected my yoursaypays account yesterday - it's at £8-something, so will work on getting that to cash-out point too.

Didn't have any work yesterday so got on with some other jobs - including getting a certified copy of some ID so that my mum can transfer some shares to me. Seems a ridiculous amount of faff for 51 shares! Work busier today, fortunately (it's rare these days that I have more than a day without anything), but I have managed to write a list of other bits and pieces to do. Money related ones are:
- Pay change into bank
- Complete tax return
- Drop share form off at Mum's (and wait ages for sister to get around to completing hers!)
- Sell gold (only a tiny amount and I'd rather sell it as what it is, but not brave enough to ask a jeweller what caratage it is and then not sell it - this has been on my to-do list for 4(?) years, I write it down here in the hopes it will shame me into doing something about it!:o )
- Oyster card refunds - mine/DH
- Persuade DH to let me list the ZX Spectrum we've 'inherited' - it doesn't work, but I think it'll still sell!

Think that'll do for now.

themadvix

Not quoted before, so not sure how this'll turn out, but here goes:

themadvix wrote: »

Hi All,

Work busier today, fortunately (it's rare these days that I have more than a day without anything), but I have managed to write a list of other bits and pieces to do. Money related ones are:
- [STRIKE]Pay change into bank[/STRIKE] Done £7.22 to OP fund.
- Complete tax return
- [STRIKE]Drop share form off at Mum's[/STRIKE] Discovered Mum can send it back separately to sister's so shares should be mine soon!
- Sell gold - Not done, but been to jewellers, and now know what I can ebay it for. Very pleased with this outcome - he was a very nice, honest and professional guy. :T
- Oyster card refunds - mine/DH
- Persuade DH to let me list the ZX Spectrum we've 'inherited' - it doesn't work, but I think it'll still sell!

Think that'll do for now.

Will keep on at the rest over the next couple of days. Oyster website seems not to work, so will have to ring them next week.

Have a good weekend all!

themadvix

Hi All,

Had a super weekend - we took our mini to do the London to Brighton mini run. Have never done it officially before (have tagged along and parked elsewhere once, and another year didn't have the car on the road but did have a ticket, so took a different car - not as much fun!), so really enjoyed the experience, even if sleep was hard to come by!

On the MF front (weekend was definitely not money-saving, but it all came out of our treat fund), I've been working on my to-do list:

- [STRIKE]Pay change into bank[/STRIKE]
- Complete tax return - Have started this but really confused about how I classify my pension - so might need to ring them up.
- [STRIKE]Drop share form off at Mum's[/STRIKE]
- Sell gold - bracelet listed on eBay for an exorbitant amount (why not?!) Will lower price when it doesn't sell - at least I know what my minimum is now.
- Oyster card refunds - [STRIKE]mine[/STRIKE]/DH - rang them up and money has now arrived in bank a/c and been transferred to OP fund!:T
- Persuade DH to let me list the ZX Spectrum we've 'inherited' - it doesn't work, but I think it'll still sell! - Haven't even broached this yet - getting the car ready for the run absorbed all our energies last week (it hadn't been on the road in 4 years, and only briefly then after a full rebuild).

Made some flapjack this morning and used up some honey that was no longer runny instead of syrup - tastes yummy and I keep telling myself it's 'unrefined and therefore healthy'! I'll believe anything!:rotfl: Trying to meal plan, but running out of lots of stuff now - cupboard clear out a few weeks ago and the lack of a supermarket delivery in a while are conspiring against me. Had a desperately expensive lunch today - local Coop is shut for a refurb, instructed not to use car by DH (needs looking at tonight), went over road to bakery, realised I had no cash, tried to queue in PO for some (alternative is cash machine that charges - free cash is inside closed Coop!), queue RIDICULOUS, so being quite hangry by this point I walked up to the garage to buy a £3 sandwich (and get cash out - don't ask - wasn't going back to the shops!). Massive MS fail.... will do better! (At least I got loads of Shell points for buying a sandwich - apparently equivalent to 50 litres of fuel!). Off to Waitrose when DH arrives with car.

Have a big project work-wise between now and end of June (on top of regular stuff), so potentially won't get tax return done until after then. Will try to maintain meal planning and surveying though.

Think that's enough waffling from me for now. Hope all's well in the world of MFW with you.

themadvix

Hmm... Was dropping in to write an update for the weekend, but have just noticed that my end-of-month post didn't post last week

Upshot of it was that OP fund was at £347.68 (sig update obviously worked!), with £5 to come from SBs still. Still waiting for that.

DH and I had a bit of a heart to heart end of last week, about not being sure how we can get to where we want to be - financially and house-wise. This was partly prompted by a huge cc bill and him deciding not to spend anything this month. In the end, he's owed £500 expenses from work, so it's nowhere near as bad as he thought (which was what I kept saying - he's been away lots recently with work, so I thought there would probably be quite a bit to come back). Anyway, as a result of his feeling that we're getting nowhere fast, DH looked into matched betting at the weekend and has so far made about £15 :T I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, but I'm all about words and he loves numbers and spreadsheets etc!;)

DH also reclaimed £26.50 from his Oyster card and agreed to selling the ZX Spectrum as is. Listing that is a job for this week. My gold bracelet sold for £38 last week, so that was another chunk for the OP fund. And pretty much everything ticked off the to-do list! (Tax return in progress).

Have also decided to maybe get back into some mystery shopping - I did a lot when we were saving for wedding/house and work was nowhere near as full time as it is now. We'll see how that goes - I'm not haring around the country for virtually no recompense (which is what some companies seem to pay), but a few free meals here and there would be nice. We'll be going for quality over quantity. Signed up for the Royal Mail survey thing too and seem to have been accepted - very excited about this, not sure why?!:rotfl:

Weekend was very cheap - bought some milk and cheese and that was it. I got my Christmas present (a pasta maker) out for a trial run and we had a yummy lasagne (if I say so myself!) and have made some tagliatelle too. It was relatively straightforward and didn't take as long as I expected, so think I'll be doing that more often! Simple pleasures Intended to buy another hanging basket for some leftover plants, but glad I double checked first as there was one in the shed. No bracket, as I wasn't going to spend £8 on one from garden centre when I could wait and have a £4.57 one from B&Q. I don't mind spending more if I'm supporting a small business, but this is a nationwide garden centre chain - they should be more competitive.

Our neighbours gave us their old garden bench the other week - it's now half sanded and painted a lovely cheery blue colour. Will try to get that finished this week.

Off to the pub this evening to a classic car club meeting -- we've not been before, so hopefully will make some new friends. Eating before we go, so just need to buy a couple of drinks.:beer: Hopefully the sun will stay out!

themadvix

Just a quick update to say my £5 from SB has come through. OP fund now at £352.68 - only £150 to go!

In worse news, we discovered that my car has a fuel leak yesterday, so DH has taken Friday off to look at that.... yay. Not.

Did manage to find him a whiteboard for the garage in a charity shop yesterday - he's been after one for ages to make lists/notes on, so that sweetened the 'you've gotta fix my car' thing. Unfortunately we didn't make the car club last night, but in good news, my Mum (whose house I was at when car started to leak) paid for Chinese for us Apart from white board, I bought various plumbing bits so DH should be able to crack on with the cloakroom plumbing this evening (he knows how to live).

themadvix

Have decided to challenge myself not to buy any bread this month and still make sure there's something for DH's lunches (and mine, but I can make something at home). I try to bake it anyway as I avoid buying things wrapped in plastic - that means when I do buy it it tends to be more expensive and when I haven't baked it lunches are more expensive! So far I've not bought any this month and yesterday I made two loaves, so so far, so good.

DH had a trip up with the matched betting last night - he got confused by something someone had posted on a forum - and lost 50p! More annoyingly it meant he lost out on the free bet. We live and learn and at least it was only 50p from his profit.

Window cleaner here now - at £10 every two months it's an extravagance I'm prepared to pay for! Especially as the first time he came it showed how dirty the insides of the windows were!:eek::eek: Having paid for quite a few new windows last year, I'm happy to pay to keep them clean.

Have just booked train tickets for a night out tomorrow - covered by our birthday/Christmas present 'treat fund'. Used Quidco, railcard, cc for flying points and hopefully bonus flying points as booked through Virgin website - for Virgin East Coast, so not sure whether I will get the points for this. It seems to be getting close to the point that they might as well pay me to travel with them!:D

Need to call Nest (pension provider) today as I have a query about completing my tax return. Once that's done I can finish the tax return and get everything allocated and what's left over into my pension.

themadvix

Just a quick update to say I've cashed out £4 from a survey company, so that will go straight to OP fund. Keeping up with surveys generally, which should lead to results soon eventually (cash out at £50 is a long way off, but perseverance is the answer!). Missed out on what would have been a really convenient MS earlier - I'll have to be even quicker next time.

Had to 'top up' TSB account this morning as finally have got balance to less than £2k as money has transferred over to regular saver. Pleased with this as I should be able to keep adding £250 for the foreseeable future.

Completed tax return yesterday (a first to have it done before November!) and have filled up pension for this year - annoyingly I'm at the max now, so will have to wait until next year to put the rest in - fortunately they're removing the contribution limits from next April, so I won't have this problem again. Considering opening a TSB joint account to put the leftover money in until I can send it to pension, but then wonder if it would be more useful for other money... so many pots, so little interest.

Have had a really productive couple of days with regard to to-do list, but today, with no car and a headache, I'm just going to do my work and the minimum, as I don't want to be exhausted for evening out tonight.

themadvix

Just submitted my first MS report in 4+ years. I'd forgotten how stressful trying to remember everything could be! It worked out fine though - mainly because the sales people didn't ask much of what they were meant to - oops! I also didn't have to go out of my way at all, and so it didn't cost me anything in terms of mileage. I've decided to transfer the net profit from each shop straight to the OP fund - otherwise in the end of month shuffle I'll forget to ring-fence it for OP. So £6 to the pot!

Had a great night in London last night doing the London Underground treasure hunt with DH and some friends - it was a Christmas present from my sister. Excellent time and we came 2nd out of 20 teams - result! Terribly touristy LU merchandise divvied up satisfactorily among team (ours are mainly destined for a children's lucky dip fortunately!).

Looking forward to the weekend now!

Busy_Mee1

Love the sound of the London Underground treasure hunt - sounds like great fun. It also sound like your MSE plans are going well too.

themadvix

Thanks for dropping by Busy Mee1! Yes, the treasure hunt was excellent fun - one of the additional points challenges was to get a photo of 5 people on a train smiling (and it couldn't be your team) - fortunately we had an American in our group, so we let her charm some commuters!

I'm not sure how well the MF plans are going to be honest - there just always seems to be so much to save/pay for! (e.g. new boiler/expensive holiday next year, which we put off this year). We just keep on keeping on. I'm obviously not posting enough about our setbacks here as everyone seems to think we're doing well!