The impossible dream

Tahlullah.H

Pay day, so have done the money shuffle.  All money where it needs to be ready to cover bills for the month.  Managed another £10 from Prolific, so have paid £50 towards my phone debt this month.  That's £45 in January and £50 in February.  I will aim for another £50 in March.  The Interest free period ends in May, so I should clear it with the help of surveys.  Really pleased with this.

Visa bill still operating at £0, paying it off immediately and collecting my Tesco points for when we can eventually travel abroad again.  Car loan coming down steadily as well.  Not making any extra payments as trying to focus what money I have towards the savings pot for the building work.

My savings account is looking really poorly - currently has £22.62 in it!  What is really sad is that I don't spend cash any more to save any coins, so any accidental saving has gone out of the window.  But Crystal have been in touch to tell me that my holiday money will be refunded soon.  Will buy more premium bonds with it until I need it for the house repairs.

Sad news is that my cleaner has disappeared.  She has no been for 3 weeks and is not answering texts.  Not sure why.  She broke a bedside lamp, who cares?  It wasn't expensive, but she didn't say anything.  She took her last payment, left and hasn't come back.  Looks like I will have to get the locks changed now as she has my door key.  At least I will have the money I had put aside for her next visit available towards the cost of a new lock.

TallGirl

Sorry to hear about the cleaner that is not right. Hope you find a new one or she contacts you. She shouldn’t keep the key. 

Tahlullah.H

Last working day of the month, so paid a final £150 into the mortgage.  Having problems with Holiday Extra, they don't like giving you your money back for airport parking!  Anyway, I have 2 vouchers that can only be spent on airport things and they cannot be used together.  Definitely not good for customer service or positive word of mouth reviews.  Just grateful to have got the majority of the money back.  Only lost £10 in total against the whole holiday.

Sold my previous mobile phone on ebay, so the money from that will go towards reducing the bill, so only another £60 to go, which will be easy to do over the next 2 months with the help of One Poll and Prolific.

I keep thinking about trying Vinted for all my spare clothing.  Must muster the enthusiasm to do something, anything towards selling and de-cluttering.

savingholmes

My DD buys and sells on counted. She has had great bargains

Tahlullah.H

Made my usual payment to the mortgage, and squirrelling away any extra money to pay the builder bill.  Builders getting me down, so will begin looking for another on Wednesday.  This is how long I will give my current builder to come back to me with a start date.  Just annoyed so much time has been lost.  I have an intense dislike of not knowing what my bills and outgoings are.  I am unable to plan and prepare when I am playing guess the bill.  I clearly prefer structure and clarity.  Hopefully, I will have a builder by the end of the month at the latest.  And I will continue to save for the event in the interim.

savingholmes

You've reduced your mortgage nearly £30K in 12 months of a pandemic - that's absolutely phenomenal!

Tahlullah.H

Thanks Savings, but I can't take credit!  I got a payment out of my pension when I got to 55 in August and put the lump sum into the mortgage.  If I had personally paid this amount, I wouldn't have been able to eat or live or anything!  But, it will go up again when the work needs doing because I don't have the level of savings needed to pay for the work that needs to be done, so up and down it goes.

Looked into getting another builder, and was told that all builders on the peninsular are booked for about 1.5 years and I won't get anyone in to do the work until then.  Tried several others, who all said the same thing, they are having to pass work to each other because they can't cope with the demand and meet targets that they agreed to previously.  So, I won't get my jobs done this year, even though I want to.  Oh well, it gives me a bit more time to save for the bill and to reduce the mortgage.

Paid my Tax bill today, so I am square with HMRC for another year.  Managed to pay another £250 off the mortgage, so feeling positive about that.  My surveys seem to be slowing down somewhat, so the phone bill is suffering.  Currently at £19.20 of £25 with One Poll and £5.64 with Prolific.  I still owe £57 on the phone, but still interest free for another month, so all is not lost yet.

I am regularly achieving 5 NSP per week, so money is going a bit further than normal.  Tend to go to the supermarket once a fortnight, so food shop has reduced, but spending on ebay and Amazon has gone up, but only on small things.  probably things I have no need for, but why not.  The bills are still reducing, so make hay while the sun shines.

Waiting for all the bills to come in for this new financial year, so I can set my outgoings for the month.  Biggest increase will be the Calor Gas bill, but that will increase in August on the anniversary.  Everything else, I can increase by what they say over the course of the month.  All positive otherwise.

TallGirl

Sorry to hear of your builder troubles maybe one of them will get a cancellation so at least they know you're keen. Best to wait even if annoying as you don't want some cowboy doing it. Small treats delivered by post is fine in lockdown keeps you going and is something to look forward to so just keep going. 

savingholmes

HI Tahlullah - still doing well. Sounds like you have a gorgeous home even if you do want some work doing on it. I too agree that little spends in lockdown are essential to maintain hope and some semblance of a normal life. Mine tends to be on naughty food and pretty journals.

Tahlullah.H

Got my Covid 19 vaccination on Friday - Astra Zeneca.  Have been lucky as I have not experienced any symptoms at all.  May be some time to the second injection, but happy that I have at least received the first one successfully and trauma free.

Managed to get another builder to come out yesterday, who very quickly provided a quote of £32k + VAT.  A bit more than anticipated, but not so far off that it was a shock.  Clearly I have a lot of saving to do to afford the work.  Luckily I will be able to borrow against the mortgage.  Not sure if I want to go with this builder, although he is the only one to actually provide a quote.  What he didn't do was give a time frame of when he could start.

I will send him an email tomorrow to get some perspective.  I wasn't keen on him telling me what would work best either.  I have a clear idea in my head of what I want, which is French doors and he has quoted of Sliding Patio doors because he says they won't leak as much.  To be fair, I don't want sliding doors, so I am feeling rather negative towards him as a builder.  No doubt his knowledge in this area is superior to mine, but his job is to make my ideas work, within the constraints of building and planning regs, not to tell me that I am not thinking this through and that his idea is better.

Anyway,  will see how I feel once I get the opportunity to focus on building works as opposed to employment problems which seem to dominate everything about life at the moment for everyone.  In one way or another, employment, employment security and employment satisfaction seems to be the over-riding issue of the Covid pandemic, once health, be that physical or mental health , is eliminated.