PigginSkint's DFW Diary

bubbles0169

lol well done x

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am absolutely exhausted today! I was just as bad yesterday evening - DS went to his Dad's at 6:30pm, OH came home between 7:00 and & 7:30pm, I don't know exactly when because I was just falling asleep on the sofa at the time. I slept pretty much continuously until about 11:00pm when I got off the sofa and went to bed.

OH has got his maths test in less than 2 weeks time so he has spent most of the afternoon swotting. I have advised him to do another hour tonight and then he is planning to have another good session tomorrow.

I decided to set OH a challenge today - I thought rather than saying that he has to make a serious effort at job-hunting that I ought to quantify it. So I have told OH that it is the end of the month a week on Monday and that between now and then he has to find and apply for, including speculative applications, 10 jobs. He agreed that was reasonable. So far he has actually only applied for 3! Anyway, I have told him that if he manages it I will let him keep hold of the credit card (for now anyway - though he doesn't know that!)

I have also told him today that it is now 5 weeks until I break up for my holiday - I've got 2 weeks off. And as I said to him I would really like to go away on a camping trip - but we can't unless he earns enough money to pay for it.

I managed to get rid of the rest of Avon deliveries today. Apart from OH's mum's that is - she was here yesterday, left her money behind the clock on the mantelpiece, took a new brochure with her, forgot to take her delivery!!

I also managed to get most of my books in this evening - all bar about 2 or 3 so that is not bad. Tomorrow I will get them ready to go back out again and then put them out on Monday evening.

I think that is all for now. I hope I am feeling a little bit more with it tomorrow as there is a lot of stuff that I really want to get done.

Night all!

PigginSkint

Copied from the Make £10 a day in June Challenge thread - yesterday's post:

Hi All

I didn’t do any more posting on Amazon yesterday but what I did do was go up in the loft and fish out all the boxes of books that I knew were up there – there were far more than I thought. This means I have now loads that could be listed (or to go to charity if they won’t fetch anything).

I also had an email from Amazon over the weekend to say that my payment is on its way! I says 6-10 working days for it to reach my bank account, so with any luck it will in there in time for it to count towards this month’s challenge.

Oh, and I actually earned £1.50 from doing a survey last night – instead of being screened out which is what usually happens. I doubt I am going to get any reward vouchers to count towards this month’s challenge but at least I have given myself a head start for next month.

PigginSkint

Copied from the Make £10 a day in June Challenge thread - today's post:

Hi All

I started going through the boxes of books last night and managed to do the one small box and most of one large one (5 or 6 large ones still to go) so I have now managed my target of over 100 items listed on Amazon – now up to 110. Very pleased with that! I am hoping to do another box tonight. I was actually very surprised at how much I was able to list – obviously quite a lot of what I have got is quite rare. Oh well, will just have to wait and see if any of it sells!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Proper diary post this time!!

DS is supposed to be cooking at school today and only told me yesterday what he was cooking – pizza. This meant I had to go on a yeast search after work yesterday – Aldi (on my way home) didn’t have any and neither did our local Coop so I had to make a diversion into the town centre. Found some in Holland & Barrett so that was lucky.

As I was hogging the computer last night I downloaded and printed off the application pack for the job that I had found for OH to apply for. On the ‘current vacancies’ page of the company’s website I also found another, probably even more suitable, job for him to apply for. All being well he should be tackling both today.

Yesterday he was working (actual paid work – woohoo!) and also did Betterware so he was not exactly idle…for once! (Ooh! Miaow! Saucer of milk table 2!!!)

Because of listing on Amazon and playing free bingo last night (reminds me – must check my balance) I did not get to bed very early last night, so I am feeling very tired today. So I am hoping for a reasonably early night tonight.

Can’t think of anything else to report on at the moment (I am sure there is something but I just can’t think what it is).

Bye for now!!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am having a very frustrating day today! Grrrrr!! :mad:

I am doing battle with a timetable for some teaching that starts on Monday. So far I have only managed to finalise the timetable for that first day! The next teaching day is 3 weeks after that one and then every 2 weeks after that, making 6 academic in-days in all for the first block of teaching. As the ones for this first block are all through the summer I am having serious difficulties because everyone is taking annual leave. Because of the complicated nature of the timetable (I won’t bore you with the details) the number of swap options are limited anyway, and I appear to have exhausted them all! So much so that I have had to put pleas out to other staff members to teach sessions they wouldn’t normally teach. My life would be made a whole lot easier if people (a) replied to my emails, (b) returned my phone calls, and (c) had their diaries with them when I do finally track them down! :mad:

Today I amended my Sainsbury’s order which is due to be delivered on Thursday evening. Went to check it out again and discovered that I had lost my delivery slot. How annoying! Luckily I managed to get another slot on the same evening, only later, but it is infuriating that my shopping now won’t arrive when I wanted it to. I have used the ‘Contact Us’ bit on the website to complain! :mad:

Yesterday DS didn’t cook after all (he had to do ‘office duty’ instead) so I had to go on a yeast hunt for nothing! :mad:

At lunchtime I posted my book that I sold last night - £7.58 profit so that’s not to be sniffed at! :j

OH’s brother phoned last night to say that within the next month he thinks he might be able to get OH some work at his place – OH was out at the time so he is going to try to phone again tomorrow. It would appear that OH might have been tentative enquiries about work and not telling me. Grrr :mad: for not telling me, but hooray :j for doing it!

This evening I have got to go out and collect my Avon books back in again. Then I hope to get them ready to go back out, ready to put out tomorrow evening – I will have time to do it now that my shopping is going to be late. Humph!

This is turning into a mad old week – the exams for the postgraduate course that I look after are on Friday, which means I have been spending a lot of time this week getting everything ready for them - still a few things to do. This has reminded me that the vivas and exam board are looming very close so I need to finalise the arrangements for those – so I have sent the invitations out to the examiners and have started to think about what catering we will need.

Anyway, I suppose I had better try and get a few more things done before I go home today.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

In Money News Today....

I made an extra payment to my Amex Blue card account the other day and that has now gone through – which means the balance has dropped to below £800 and will stay that way because I paid off enough so that when the interest is added it will still be below £800. A much needed psychological boost! :j

The balance on my other Amex card is a little over £1500 now that the interest has been added. However, as I am planning to make my next payment on Monday (in time for it to count towards my 1st July figures), that will drop below £1500 again. :j

My latest balance transfer from my Egg card to my Halifax card has gone through and because of some extra payments that I have made to the Egg card, it is actually £6 in credit! That will change soon I am sure!

I sold another 2 books on Amazon last night, within about half an hour. Both reasonably high priced items and one of those is a very small and light children’s book which I have sold for £6.50. Excellent!

I am having another mad day today but things seem to coming together now – I hope!

Anyway, I suppose I had better do some work.

Bye for now!

embarrassed_about_my_debt

Well done Piggin, :T

I find the smaller targets/levels make a big difference!

My recent one was getting below £10k, it made a huge difference to me!

Well done on the book sales aswell!:cool: Sold a few bits on Amazon but not alot

PigginSkint

embarrassed_about_my_debt wrote: »

Well done Piggin, :T

I find the smaller targets/levels make a big difference!

My recent one was getting below £10k, it made a huge difference to me!

Well done on the book sales aswell!:cool: Sold a few bits on Amazon but not alot

Thanks! These small victories make me feel a whole lot better.

As I have just mentioned on the Make £10 a day in June Challenge, because the postage was quite low on these items (42p and 90p for 2nd class) I made quite a nice profit from them and I have made nearly £40 from Amazon sales in June alone – though I won’t count it until it actually hits my bank account.

The other thing I just mentioned in the challenge thread which I forgot to mention in my previous post is that I am none the wiser on my Littlewoods cashback situation – I got my paper statement yesterday and the box where the amount of cashback earned is printed was just blank. Who knows!!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Friday was a very busy day so I had no time to update and I have spent all weekend feeling absolutely exhausted so feel like I have done nothing – of course I haven’t done nothing, I just haven’t done nearly as much as I wanted to get done.

My first attempt at the make £10 a day challenge has gone quite well – managed a total of £185.39 which I don’t think is too bad for my first time. It’s all guns blazing for July! July is one of the occasional months I get when I will be placing 2 Avon orders in a month so I will have 2 lots of commission to count towards the challenge – so that will help.

July is going to be an interesting month and no mistake. This is the month when the money will finally run out and there will be some definite changes in the PigginSkint household. Currently the situation is…

Money left in ISA: £149

…but this is unlikely to last long!

I have been able to view my Halifax account online (finally sorted out the glitch with Egg Money Manager) and I now know when the next payment is due and the amount - £186.24 by 21/7/08. Regulars to this diary will know that this is the bill that OH is meant to be responsible for paying (because it is all his debt) but I ended up paying last month because he didn’t have enough money. This is not the first time this has happened. I have already told him that there is no way I can do it again for the next payment because I simply won’t have the money so it is up to him to work out what he is going to do about getting the money to pay for it.

Today is also the deadline I gave OH in my ultimatum for serious job hunting or else I take the Egg card off him. He hasn’t managed the 10 applications I wanted him to do but I know he has been seriously looking (at long bl***y last), he has seriously curtailed his use of said card, and he does have his maths test on Friday this week so he has been working hard towards that. So I think I will give him a reprieve…… for now!!

Today he got asked to go for an interview for a job he applied for – it's on Friday. Because of his maths test he can’t go. He said he was free on Wednesday but they got back to him and said that was no good, but could he do Thursday. Unfortunately he can’t do Thursday because he has got to do his duty day at his agency and it is too late to change it. Monday he could do but that is no good for them because they are doing 2nd interviews on Tuesday. Oh well, I suppose it can’t be helped and at least it shows that his application was good enough to be shortlisted. I have suggested to him to get on and look for similar jobs and even do some speculative applications as well.

Sometime today or tomorrow OH’s brother will be phoning him back, hopefully with details of an interview he is trying to arrange for him. Fingers crossed for this as if it comes off it should be starting soon. It is not the ideal job but beggars can’t be choosers – we need the money too desperately! It has some points in its favour as far as OH is concerned – it is not in our home town (OH really didn’t want to do any non-acting related work in our town as he is worried about the effect on his profile), it is nights and OH is something of a night owl anyway, it is 3 days on and 3 days off so he should be able to work other commitments around it as necessary, being nights the pay’s not bad, and the place is located right next to the railway station so transport would be easy. I am really hoping this comes off – we might even be able to consider a holiday!! It would certainly stop me panicking anyway.

I didn’t manage to get any more books listed on Amazon – just too tired! However I have sold another 2 over the weekend which I will post tomorrow.

I have nearly collected all my Avon books in now, but haven’t totted them up yet so I don’t how much money I will have made this time. Last week I decided it was time I did some recanvassing – I have not been to some houses for a long time. I decided to recanvass gradually so it is not too time-consuming. Also there are some houses I won’t be doing as it is only fairly recently that the owners have told me that they weren’t interested. Anyway I did 4 houses last week, when I went to collect the books on Saturday they were all out on doorsteps (very helpful for me!)… and one of them was an order! Woohoo!!

Anyway, I think that is all the news for now. If I think of anything else I will post again later.

Bye all!!