gingernutbizkit's dfb blog

gingernutbizkit

I've got a few items on ebay now - old fridge/freezer, some stools and a stone garden bench. I'm hoping that they will raise £60 to go towards our holiday in july..... any more would be a bonus

gingernutbizkit

so far so good..... the fridge and freezer have made £75 on ebay

gingernutbizkit

Had some good news today. For the past year anytime I have worked a bank holiday my employer has paid me double but then taken a days annual leave off me. They have just admitted that this breaks our contracts and they can't legally do it (amazing that I work for local government and they can't get the law right!). They are backdating bank holiday pay for 5 years
I've only been there for one year but that's still about £300. One of my colleagues is owed £3000

gingernutbizkit

Just been to Asda to do some stocking up - can't believe how much cheaper it is to Tesco's. On the advice on this site I bought 2 of their 4p jar of curry sauce's. Unfortunately managed to drop one when I got home and now my whole kitchen stinks of curry!!!!!

gingernutbizkit

hi all,

Sorry it has been so long since I posted last. So much has been happening that i'm afraid I have taken my eye of the moneysaving ball and need to re-assess and refocus.

Fostering.
We had our first 8yr old boy move in for a 2 week placement in august which went very well - so well that they are talking about moving him in permanently but this will take some time to get in place. This weekend we are having another boy move in on a short term placement for just weekends and school holidays. Unfortunately this means only being paid for 3 nights per week.
So for the past 2 months we have only earnt approx £700 instead of the £2500 I would have earnt had I stayed at work. I know that it will pick up as things progress. We're not in this for the morning but this is simply not enough for us to live on - especially with children's mouths to feed now too!

House Renovations.
Our new conservatory, porch and shower room is progressing slowly..... very slowly. The builders are approc 10 weeks behind schedule. They are over budget too but fortunately we agreed a fixed price. The only extra is the £650 plastering work which we thought was in the quote but it turns out was not :mad: I'm now hoping that they taken even longer to finish the job so we have the chance to save some more money to pay for it

Money Plans for the Next Month.
My OH's money pays the mortgage and loans. It's my earnings that pay for everything else. We are expecting to be paid £600pcm for our current fostering placement. The hope is that we will get an extra placement (we have 2 spare bedrooms) and this will bring us to £1800pcm which will allow us to start to pay off extra on our loans again.

In the meantime I need to start earning some money in other ways and my challenge this month is to earn as much as possible from some of the tips on this website and also to save as much money as possible too. Here's the plans:

1. Sell anything that's not wanted.
2. Sign up with agency for some temping work
3. Return to paying for items in cash as our credit card spending is getting out of control (we are making our repayments and earning cashback but I'm sure we are buying more because of having it).
4. Earn money doing online surveys
5. Look again at cashback sites.
6. Ask the credit card company to send our cashback to us.
7. create meals from the freezer and cupboard - which could probably feed us until 2020!!!

any other ideas anyone????