The march to financial freedom

Ali-OK

Skinnylatte wrote: »

Glad to hear things are ticking along nicely, I'm amazed how many nectar points you've got, is that just from this year?

I think I started the year with probably £20 left on my card, but otherwise it's all been collected this year. £25 was from buying the house insurance from then, but mostly it's the Canvass surveys - can easily earn £1-2 a week. Adpoints was yielding 30-35p a week until recently and then there's been 100-200 bonus points (50p-£1) for signing up to stuff. Add in petrol points, Basics stuff I get, coupons that have been worthwhile using and also the online nectar shops and eBay. Odd Homebase survey for 50p too. I also have a Sburys monthly use and pay off CC, so that gets me quite alot of points as well - it definitely has all added up.

Target for this year is £120 - I am definitely going to reach that. Also hoping they do their double up for frozen desserts again as £5 worth of points equalled £10 and paid for the ones I needed for the big pre-Xmas family lunch (20 people).

It's akin to having a virtual moneybox full of change, except someone else keeps track of the total rather than me having to count it up when I am ready to use it.

Ali-OK

Evening Diary,

More spends today :eek:. Spent way too much in Dun3lm - £31.30 total. Nets were £8.96 as replacing the landing one too and realising I'd not got any Dylon whitener for the bay side nets, replaced those to go with the front bit.

A biscuit barrel (£6.99) for the office later, 2 x huge pillar candles at £3.74 each (75% off from £14.99) and a 50% off photo frame £4.99 for an Xmas present soon added up.

B&M is next door so popped in there and spent £3.96 - turkey foil, 2 more choc bits for DS's stocking and 1 item for Mum.

En route home popped into the garden nursery and picked up a box of 15 pansies for £3.39 - have put those in the pots by the front door. Great news that the owner has offered to help me design the borders for free if I take a photograph of the space and note down the size. Their prices are very keen too as cuts out middle man of garden centre. I may do the front garden border soon as that's ready to be filled and won't need many shrubs for that. Excited that I might finally have a decent looking planted area!

So alot of money spent in one day. On the flip side the change yielded more £2 coins and I've got £20 of those to bank this week. It's all going into the EF pot at the moment as Jan and Feb are usually quieter for work and I know there's going to be more spending on the garden front at some point. Staying steady with the CC paying off at £260 per month, but increasing the mortgage capital payment to £900 on 1st November.

Beef stew and dumplings was delicious and enough leftover for tomorrow night.

I've got a long list of To Do's at home now - 15 of them :eek: I've started with writing the cards I bought today, doing the gas/elec readings and entering into the spreadsheet, hanging the landing net, planting the pansies and putting the washing away from airers. Although I'm working from home tomorrow, I'm quite on top of stuff so I should be able to crack on with alot of it tomorrow and start getting prepared for Christmas present sorting, wrapping and card writing.

Just got to sort DS's stuff for tomorrow and that's the day done.

beanielou

Do you ever stop?

Ali-OK

Less often than I used to Beanie, the upside being I drink less tea and therefore buying less tea bags. :rotfl: Another saving!

Eager_Elephant

Have you seen the email about Nectar points changing from next year?


You only get 1 point instead of 2 for every £ spent in store.


It won't affect me too much, Sainsburys is my most local supermarket where I work and I mainly get top up bits and pieces and also use my extra points coupon till spits - hope they still do them!!

Ali-OK

Thanks for that EE - I didn't know about that.

Are they going to upgrade the value so 1 point is 1p like T3sco or is this a downgrading and saving. All that effort for half the value, have to question whether it will be worth it then.

beanielou

Ali-OK wrote: »

Thanks for that EE - I didn't know about that.

Are they going to upgrade the value so 1 point is 1p like T3sco or is this a downgrading and saving. All that effort for half the value, have to question whether it will be worth it then.

Exactly my thoughts.

Ali-OK

Just searched and found this that explains it (from April 2015)

http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/products-values/nectar/nectar-is-changing/

Bit of a cheek to say people re-use bags and don't take the point(s) so they're doing away with it. My experience is mostly the checkout staff don't ask how many bags and it gets forgotten!

Have to see how it pans out - the more frequent doubling up and the expanding the Christmas double up choices might make it worthwhile, but it is a downgrade.

Ali-OK

Ahh, late diary entry tonight.

Sort of worked from home today, but having got up to date by 9am, I cracked on with my list of 15 'At Home To Do' List and achieved lots. :j

All the grids for the gravel arrived too :j They'd split the 3 x 20 grids into 2 x 30, so 60 arrived as per the order. 80 in total now sat ready for the next gathering of the workers to lay it. Could be as soon as this Saturday, though rain is due...again. Apparently warm rain though!

Phone calls made to the GP surgery to chase Neurology appointment and for a copy of the referral letter. This apparently requires a telephone appointment with the same GP to tell her - earliest date for that - Tues 21st October. :eek: Crazy. I also booked a routine appointment for repeat HRT - first one was over 3 weeks away when I'll have run out :eek: so seeing a different GP next week. That's better.

Chased son's Podiatry referral. Apparently all referrals are now rejected, GP gets written to, they have to refer elsewhere. Ours got stuck at the old GP, so I have a telephone appointment to see if new GP has that letter and start the cycle all over again. Crazy.

I've deduced the NHS has gone crazily wrong. Those 2 phone calls alone took up 50 minutes. :eek: Well 3, as I had to phone back for an appointment - it's a different number to 'enquiries'. Fair enough.

Aside from that, my time was productive. Beds and towels changed, ironing done, new nets hung, birthdays transferred to 2015 calendar, admin pile all dealt with and either shredded or filed, some housework done.

I found all the paperwork for my very old ISA with ING (now Barclays) to transfer into a new one and went up there, but after 20 mins in the queue and 1 cashier on, I gave that up as a bad job. It's only £10 or so and can wait another day, week, month, or even year. Is everywhere slow these days? Traffic jams, queues, telephone queues....no wonder time flies by doing little but waiting. *Sigh*

I've a new list now - with 11 things on :rotfl: . Anything that involves queueing is at the end :rotfl:

Financials then
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked - see on their email P!necone are recruiting in 2 age categories. They pay £3-4 per survey if anyone is interested, the link is here for 18-24 yr olds http://freepostcodelottery.com/pinecone-18-24

and here for Over 25's http://freepostcodelottery.com/pinecone

- Nectar adpoints - not looked for this week yet
- Nectar Canvass - nor that
- Nectar Search - up at 32/100
- Nectar card value - up a tad at £119.38
- Inbox Pounds - up at £17.40
- Qmee - another 10p, 21p in the pot

Sorry for the ranty post . Back in the office tomorrow where I answer my phone within 4 rings

Eager_Elephant

Ali-OK wrote: »

I found all the paperwork for my very old ISA with ING (now Barclays) to transfer into a new one and went up there, but after 20 mins in the queue and 1 cashier on, I gave that up as a bad job. It's only £10 or so and can wait another day, week, month, or even year. Is everywhere slow these days? Traffic jams, queues, telephone queues....no wonder time flies by doing little but waiting. *Sigh*

This is why there was only 1 cashier in Barclays - http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2687614/Barclays-cashiers-community-bankers-armed-iPads-push-customers-use-machines-branches.html