Take it to the Mattresses!

Grand_Benders

haha... pushing me for an update?

Worked till after 10 again last night (thank goodness we get dinner bought when that happens) and still a ton of work to do today. Proper update at lunchtime when I get back from the bank (because some clients still refuse to pay by bank transfer... although at least they're paying!!)

NewLeaf_2

paying is paying!

is it still raining?

Grand_Benders

NewLeaf wrote: »

paying is paying!

is it still raining?

Hasn't rained here for two days! :eek: It's a heatwave, I tell ya!

So - my update for yesterday/today.

Yesterday was our 5th NSD in July, so quite pleased about that. Spent lunchtime online and on the phone changing the last of our Direct Debits over to the co-op account.

Got home to mail from CCCS confirming our DMP and enclosing a note of the offers made to our creditors. It's not too bad (unless you're Lloyds TSB who were expecting my 7 year loan to be paid off in 3 months time, who will now wait 9 months for final settlement)

I was supposed to do some organising of the spare room to properly set up for taking ebay photos but we got home late and one of our kitties had decided it was far more interesting to poop on the solid oak floor beside the litter tray, instead of IN the clean, empty litter. :mad: No snuggles on the couch for her last night, but she got a treat this morning for two in the box overnight, so hopefully she'll remember!

Got some exercise today walking into town to get our free lunch from Delice De France (on O2 Priority Moments) and discovered that the Barclays branch next to our free lunch has closed, so then had an uphill walk to the other branch. That's the workout done for today! AND a free lunch! :T

This weekend we have to
* take car back to garage to get new nut and replacement side light (which the mechanic is doing FOC because he feels so bad about nearly killing us after leaving us with loose nuts!)

* shopping for kitties necessities. Food and Litter. Discovered that the £14/3kg bag Iams is giving kitty2 the runs, and the £4.99/5kg bag of Tesco dry food doesn't. :T Also discovered that Tesco basics 'light' kitty litter is almost indistinguishable from £8.99/10kg bag of Catsan, so we're going to try them on just that for a week or two. This should cut our kitty budget down enough to pay for insurance for them!

* sort out spare room as ebay photography studio, although this may be problematic as my sister is coming to stay for a few days! Maybe I can persuade my sis to take all the photos while I'm at work next week!

* replace scooter battery on OH scooter so if the weather holds this weekend we can get out for a wee ride on Sunday afternoon.

* ebay listings Sunday night

Might try and do some clothes sorting too this weekend. I'm in serious need of doing some decluttering, so clothes would be a good place to start!

NewLeaf_2

we can be fleaby "no mates" it's a solitary thing to have to do all the listing

Fun that you have a scooter. Too dangerous in London

grannyx2

Grand_Benders wrote: »

Hasn't rained here for two days! :eek: It's a heatwave, I tell ya! ...

Might try and do some clothes sorting too this weekend. I'm in serious need of doing some decluttering, so clothes would be a good place to start!

No rain for 2 days, I am so jealous.

Loved the kitty story

I feel your pain re the decluttering, I just never seem to get around to it either.

Gx2 x

Grand_Benders

NewLeaf wrote: »

we can be fleaby "no mates" it's a solitary thing to have to do all the listing

Fun that you have a scooter. Too dangerous in London

Actually, the listing isn't too bad if I plan it in advance. I try to get all the photos I need, and import them onto my iPad, then use the notes app to write the descriptions when I have a spare minute. Just pop in and out and do them, say, in the car on the way to work while OH is driving, and then (for the last lot) I lay in bed and did the listing on my iPad eBay app. Takes about half the time (although slightly fewer options, but nothing critical). Only problem with doing them in bed is that it was late, so they'll finished late at night and didn't have any mad bidding frenzy. I'm going to try and list this next lot at peak time.

Martin :money: has a scooter and rides in London. . It's actually more scary riding my scooter where we live now, in the countryside. Cars fly past you and on roads like the one we live on, which has a 60mph speed limit (although you'd think it was a 'recommended minimum' if the cars flying by are anything to go by) it can get a bit terrifying. I do love it though 100+ mpg too, which is a bonus. :T

NewLeaf_2

we have an ipad, I gave it to OH for Xmas. I refer to it as the "world's most expensive angry bird playing machine"!

Grand_Benders

More DMP progress. Got a letter from Capital One yesterday accepting our reduced payment plan, and also defaulting us straight away. Good news for the credit file, as the countdown for getting it off our file starts now. :T

I hope all our other creditors are as helpful. :h

Grand_Benders

Cross posting this from my entry on NewLeaf's diary, cos it has too much useful info in it to not keep it where I'll find it!


Our garden guy didn't turn up this morning, so I suppose we've saved money there (although really just postponed because we DO need to get it sorted).

Two loads of laundry done before we came out this morning but because of the height of the grass we can't hang it out, so the dryer is on

However, other money-saving successes are:

* Deep fryer we were returning because of dodgy handle was accepted by Tesco, even though the cat ate the corner of the box (same day she didn't use the litter box... I think she's having a rebellion at all our late nights at work!), so £14.49 refund with two £2 coins in it for my pot. Plus, I'm sure our waistlines thank us (although I'll still get another one as it was to try and make our own 'chippy' fish suppers and save some cash).

* Took the car back to the garage, and our mechanic feels so bad about sending us home with loose nuts that he's replaced the missing one for free, checked all the others AND he replaced a dead side light bulb for free. Saved about a fiver on the bulb and probably the same again on his time for fitting it (took 10 mins cos it's fiddly).

* came in to town to spend a few hours in work. Parked up in the car park, so didn't have to pay or get caught up in the traffic jams caused by the Pride parade then wandered along to get another free lunch from Uppercrust (4.99 value including cold drink) through O2 Priority Moments. Also used a Cafe Nero offer and got a free iced moka frappe (£2.99 value) x 2 because we both have O2 phones. So £16 of freebies thanks to our already pretty cheap mobile contracts.

* spending the afternoon in work, so can't spend any money (technically, unless I get distracted online).

It's not going to be a no-spend day because we need to fill the petrol tank to get home, but we do have a 5p off a litre voucher for Tesco from when we did provisions shopping for work last week. We did some more last night and got another one, so that's this week and next week's petrol taken care of. We got a voucher in sainsbury's (shopping for work again) which gives us 5p off a litre of petrol if we spend £15 or more on toiletries. Since there are some toiletries that will cost pretty much the same wherever we buy them (and I'm not willing to compromise on brands by getting an equivalent at Aldi) then I'll just stock up for the next few months and get another petrol voucher. We can do this any time up till 14th August, so plenty of time to use up all this cheap petrol since we fill up once a week due to our lengthy commute.

Wow... this turned out to be quite an entry. I'm going to cross post it on my diary too, cos this is good money-saving stuff (if I do say so myself).

Happy Glasgow Pride Because we're at work, we're missing Joe McElderry on the main stage in George Square :rotfl: Lucky escape!

Grand_Benders

For anyone who's interested in our 'already cheap' mobile contracts. Both myself and the OH are with O2. We bought our iPhones through them when they came out (3G, nothing fancy) and both were on £35 a month 18 month contracts.

When we got to the end of our contracts, we called them and asked about their 'Simplicity' Contracts. They don't really advertise the fact, but there is an 'iPhone Simplicity 20' contract that gives the same minutes/texts allowance AND all you can eat data, for £20 a month. So I switched over to that, and the OH did too, but also got a Friends and Family discount, so hers is £14-odd a month. So now both of us have the same benefits of our original contracts, for less than the cost of one monthly contract payment we were originally paying.

Sadly, our phones are now a bit tired and slow (and mine has way too many scratches on it from constantly dropping it because I am a klutz) so we need to think about an upgrade. Struggling to find anything that won't mean we'll have to give up our great contract, but we'll keep searching and put up with them in the meantime. We're also going to have to use some of our 'food' budget to pay the difference on the new phone contracts, as our allowances in our DMP budget are at the already reduced amounts.

Also, if you're on O2, download the O2 Priority Moments app (for iOS and Android OS). They're literally giving away free stuff! We've had three free lunches and a free iced drink so far this week. There are loads of great offers for free or heavily discounted food, hotels, entertainment.