Wishing on an ickle star

icklehelen

Wish we could have more Bank Holidays in the UK!

Had a fabulous weekend catching up with family & friends, eating yummy food, hunting for eggs, eating yummy chocolate and spending time with my DH and DD. DD won the village egg hunt and made me so proud when she shared her prize (a big bag of mini eggs) with everyone who took part. We ended up hiding eggs all over the house (several times) for her to search for too!

Did spend a bit though Took advantage of the wine offer with Mr T and treated ourselves to 12 bottles of our favourite red wine which was half price plus the extra 25% off. Also bought my new phone which cost £3.90 in real money.

Telephone and BB are due to change over to new supplier tomorrow which lowers our monthly DD and also means we can order our new SIM cards and reduce those bills too.

Freezers have been sorted, cleaned and contents list updated. Shopping tomorrow at @ldi with vouchers from the paper so will restock freezer to get my spend over £45. :cool:

icklehelen

Regular DD OP gone so updated spreadsheet and signature - another month closer to being MF

Shopping list done - time to go shopping

icklehelen

Shopping came to just over £60 after discounts and vouchers. Freezer and dry store fully stocked as well as normal weekly shopping.

Had a quick look at budgets this afternoon. Tax credits have changed and with the reduction in a couple of DDs it seemed a good time to play around with them. Have started a new column in my spreadsheet for annual bills (this used to be a separate account last year but interest rates mean I'm keeping everything in my 123 account) This will help with Christmas and Birthday presents and insurances, tv licence, etc

Looking forward to a family day tomorrow - this week has been rather miserable so hoping for a nice day!

icklehelen

So after a serious of tension headaches and migraines I went back to the Dr. He prescribed a higher dose of tablets, two weeks off work (minimum) and to do things I enjoy!

I'm starting my time off with getting the house sorted . . . housework is definitely not something I enjoy but having a tidy house is. So far I have sorted my desk and gathered up all the paperwork from around the house and filed it. This in turn has started the tidy up of the spare bedroom - this will take a while but Rome wasn't built in a day! :rotfl:

I've also managed to start on the end of year for the shop, although it's now end of month 1 so have paid staff but got the rest of the paperwork and money sorting to do.

Having time with DD is nice - we had a lovely afternoon yesterday playing with some toys we found during the tidy up. She's gone to my dads this afternoon as a reward for being good.

So as I have the afternoon to myself a little list of jobs is in order!!

• [STRIKE]staff payslips[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]shop money transfers[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]order mobile SIM cards (need to sort this before the next contract bill)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]order new recycling bag (ours blew away!)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]household money sort[/STRIKE]
• cats to vet (again) They're too clever and disappeared at the right time!! :mad:
• [STRIKE]contact some friends to arrange a catch up[/STRIKE]

Lunch first then I'll crack on!

Goldiegirl

Sorry to hear you've been suffering with headaches.


Hopefully the time at home will give you a chance to relax:)

icklehelen

If anyone is reading this hope you had a good long weekend?

DH had a project to do for the shop which involved saws, glue, screws etc ..... something he enjoyed doing so in turn the planned bathroom DIY didn't happen :mad: He has promised me it'll get done on the next bank holiday . . . . . . .

I've cleaned some kitchen cupboards, tidied up my shelves in the garage and planted some free bulbs in pots to cheer up the front of the house.

Also spent some time checking interest rates on accounts as have had notice that some of my accounts will be changing soon. So nearly all money is now in one account (after having 6 accounts as online piggy banks this feels rather strange!) as this has the highest rates. This also meant I had to play around with my spreadsheets and add some new columns

icklehelen

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Why is everything so complicated and frustrating?????????

Switching deals to save money is something I do regularly with everything I can but this year things are not going in my favour!!!

Power switched and got £30 cashback but still waiting for final bill and approx £100 I reckon I'd paid over what I'd used. The switch completed on 26th Feb.

Tel/BB switched but old supplier still billing me over a month after - have spoken to them and am due a refund ..... at the beginning of JUNE!!!

Mobiles - in the process of switching. Has taken nearly two hours on hold as the online order I made went wrong at their end. I'll still have to call to sort out the billing tho as they had another issue with that!! SIM cards have arrived this morning - normal size not micro as I ordered!! GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

On the brighter side DHs renewal for his car insurance was much better than any on the comparison sites so found an 0800 number and put it on the credit card (0%)

Just had the renewal for the shop insurance as well which seemed very reasonable. Went through a comparison site and the same company quoted nearly 3 times the renewal . . .

In the time on hold to the mobile company I entered countless competitions, uploaded the S&S barcodes and receipts, added some items to CP, did Pinec0ne, GfK and a few other surveys so it wasn't a complete waste of time :rotfl:

icklehelen

Had a lovely evening with some mummy friends last night at a local restaurant. Two course meal cost me £9 and I drank water as I was driving!

A bit tired today but pushing myself to do things rather than mope!

So I have spoken to old power supplier and had the most unbelievable experience!! The account is in credit of approx £250 and meter readings from new company are on their system so she could see no reason why the account has been 'blocked'. I was given a complaints reference and a number to call if I haven't seen my money in a few days (I'll wait a week!)

Don't think I have the strength to sort the SIM card issues today so housework it is!

icklehelen

SIM cards are turning into a saga!! Rang to get micro SIMs and mentioned credit to the account that they were going to add. Got put through to compliance who couldn't find any note of this so now have added a note and I need to call back when the bill arrives!! So much for a quick and easy switch!! :mad:

Have been signed off for another 3 weeks and have new medication as the previous one turned me into a zombie (my DH said a grumpy one!) To have a day with no fuzziness/headache etc is a distant dream but hoping that these might make it manageable. I am under a consultant for the root cause (TMJ/TJD) but his solutions so far have been useless

My sister and I will be meeting up for a day in York in a few weeks - haven't seen her for ages so really looking forward to it. Will be setting myself a budget tho as she can be a bad influence (she's much younger than me, has no responsibilities and a reasonably paid job so shoes/bags/makeup/dresses etc etc are what her money is for!)

Time for a cuppa and some surveys/competitions while DD naps.

icklehelen

Just done a little check of the credit card spends for the year to date and had to give myself one of these!


I check the balance of my credit cards (both 0%) on a weekly basis which goes in my spreadsheet and I stooze the cash in an account at 3%. I haven't really thought about how much I was spending because I am stoozing it for when the time comes to pay it off.

Now I need a reality check so far this year I have spent nearly £1400 on them. £400 of this is from the 'annual spends' pot but that leaves nearly £1000 spent - double what I was expecting

So I have given us £100 per month budget (excluding 'annual spends') and I plan to use this diary to keep myself on track!

So May spends:
Total £239.73
Annual £173.78
Budget £65.95 (£34.05 left)