Diary of a spendy cow

mooomin

Ali-OK wrote: »

Hope the AdPoints are on the up. 7 is better than 0!

I'm at a more respectable 57 now

Budget update time!

I am a NSD for the Weekly Spend Challenge, but I did spend some money from my food budget.

I spent £11.13 in Aldi which got me two bags of cat litter, milk, bread, garlic bread and chicken breasts (jambalaya for tea tomorrow)

My accounts are now:

Credit card: £129.78 (a reduction of £4.10 since yesterday)
Current account: £420
Food account: £193.72
Christmas account: £383.12

My bills account is ticking over nicely, and it's getting switched to First Direct in the middle of next month. They're offering £100 for switching and I've heard good things about their customer service. Once the switch is done I'm going to look at switching my various savings pots to them too, just to keep everything in the one place.

The next big job is to do mortgage comparisons - my payment has gone up by £70 this month as I have lost my staff rate (a rather lovely 0.5%) since being made redundant and am now on the SVR. I think a four year fix would still reduce my payments, so need to do some investigating about this one. Not tonight though - there are more Adpoints videos to watch

beanielou

Only got up to 51 today which is low for a Monday~bah.

The_Golden_Goose

GOTCHA! :rotfl:

You are a lot like me in, in terms of "all or nothing".

I'm a bit miffed that Valued Opinions don't recognise iPads when doing surveys and therefore I now have no ability to earn anything via their surveys unless I get a laptop and that ain't happening anytime soon.

Anyways, I shall return back to [STRIKE]stalking[/STRIKE] following your diary once again.

mooomin

Morning all (and a special welcome to our returning Goosie )

I seem to have done something weird with my Tesco credit card when I was working out how much I owed as it's sitting £10 in credit this morning, although apparently with a 98p transaction pending :rotfl: I have no idea what's going on there!

I'm assuming I'll be £9 in credit and will use that for my night out on Wednesday to try and keep myself on track for the weekly spend challenge.

I'm making pea and ham soup later which will do my lunches for the rest of the week - proper winter food is needed now the weather is getting colder

I did a few more Adpoints videos last night and this morning and my total is up to 141. I need to do something to earn Nectar points as I barely shop at Sainsbury's anymore and now that I commute via bus I'm using less than a tank of fuel a month (bought from Sainsbury's)

Great British Bake Off final tonight - EXCITED!!

slowlyfading

I'm looking forward to the final, though I have a feeling I know who's going to win already...

mooomin

Bake Off was excellent. I won't comment on the winner in case I spoil it for anyone but I had a lovely time. My friend came round - I cooked dinner and she bought cake, so I think I got the better end of the deal

I've spent £5 today on an entrance fee for a work charity thing on Thursday, so I have £15 left of my self-imposed budget. Tomorrow I'm aiming on having a night out/dinner for £9 which might be ambitious, but I'm going to give it a go. That leaves me £15 for another night out on Thursday - my colleagues are talking about having dinner but I don't want to pay for it. It's not that I can't afford it, weekly spend challenge or not, but I would rather spend the money on something else.

I paid in £35 to the bank today because I had some cash leftover from the weekend, so I've paid £15 off my credit card and added another £20 to the Christmas account. That's taken a minor hit today as I spent £68.95 (!!) on my dad's birthday/Christmas present. That's split between me and my brother though so it's not *too* bad. I got the fishing thingie he wanted with £25 off thanks to a sale on the website and will eventually get 10% cashback from Topcashback, so I've done it in as MSE way as I can :money:

The_Golden_Goose

Mooomin tell me how you manage on night outs when you have limited budget? Nearly all my friends are from the "split the bill" camp and sometimes it works out dearer than if I paid for what I had. Do you say firmly at the beginning that you'll pay for your own etc? Tbf I don't go out that often which sometimes makes it worse and more spendy as it's like "well I don't go out much so I deserve a treat" and take my eye of the spends which is completely not debt busting. Excuse me I seem to have become a rambling idiot recently.

Ali-OK

Well done on your Dad's birthday/Xmas present, that's a great saving and TCB too. I need to look at using that, used to be a Quidco fan.

* Notes down alongside hob nobs and jambalaya

mooomin

The_Golden_Goose wrote: »

Mooomin tell me how you manage on night outs when you have limited budget? Nearly all my friends are from the "split the bill" camp and sometimes it works out dearer than if I paid for what I had.

I'm not shy about being skint If we're going out for dinner and are splitting the bill I try to pick somewhere that's a little cheaper - Pizza Express often has cheap deals on like £13 for three courses. If I don't drink and everyone else does I point that out Tomorrow I'm out for dinner but we're going to a local pub so I should be able to get a main course and a diet coke within my £9 budget.

I'm going to have a drink on Thursday but come home to Mooomin Towers for dinner as I'll make chilli before I go to work tomorrow.

Ali-OK wrote: »

Well done on your Dad's birthday/Xmas present, that's a great saving and TCB too. I need to look at using that, used to be a Quidco fan.

* Notes down alongside hob nobs and jambalaya

TCB doesn't charge you to be a member like Quidco does and since they have made their website less 1980s-designed it's a lot easier to use You can get paid in Amazon vouchers or Clubcard points as well as cash, which is good as you can then convert the points to vouchers. I'm waiting for £26 cashback to get paid out from TCB. It's sitting as "payable" but not paid yet. I should be able to request it soon though.

mooomin

Morning

Credit card: £114.78 (Fully expect to have that under £100 by next week)

Food account: £192.32
Christmas account: £368.12

Not much to report this morning. I forgot to make my soup last night, so I'm taking a tin of soup to work for lunch (Oh, the shame!) and have soup bubbling away on the cooker this morning.

Happy hump day!