The march to financial freedom

ragstoricheswannabe

:beer::beer: Yippee to being under £11K:beer::beer:

Ali-OK

So lovely to come home and to read your messages - thank you, that's made my day :T

I feel I've become a bit of a spreadsheet geek and spend ages checking and changing and fiddling to find pence and odd pounds, but it's all in the pursuit of debt freedom and it's working. :j

Miz - LED Hut via Quidco have got a 15% off voucher code as well as the 15% cashback until 24th Feb I think it is - so a very good deal and their prices are the cheapest I've come across for the quality of bulb with the 5yr guarantee. Worth looking into as I'm not sure the initial outlay is going to get much cheaper than them at the moment. That clinched the deal for me. Checkout things like Lumens and beams and brightness first though - the higher the better the lighting of the room will be.

Talking of which, I now have my dozen new lightbulbs to go and install as the delivery arrived today :T

Old energy supplier have emailed me - they have an agreed switchover date for gas of 12th March. Yay! :j:j Here comes £18 saving every month for the next year. That's being added to the debt payment! For staying with them on electric, they want to increase the DD by £6 a month....no way, I'm going to be paying £2.50 less than at present - overall saving on electric going forward £8.50 a month :j

On the downside, pension increase No.2 has come in the post - an increase from £95.60 to £97.13 on 1st March. No.3 is due 1st May I think.

On a roll...car insurers, you're next :rotfl::rotfl:

beanielou

All looking good :j

Ali-OK

More lightbulbs replaced today - the trial mini GU10s in LED for the bathroom arrived and they work fine - so down from 150w to 9w. A trip up the loft to change the 60w to a leftover 9w and put some more 'stuff' from the study up there has been done too. Could say I'm having a few lightbulb moments lately

Weekly meter readings done and submitted - we're still running at 25% below last year on gas and 22% below on electric. Not bad considering it's only 4 months since my dedication (or obsession) with reducing usage started. .

Financials:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar Adpoints - no advance on 78, last weeks points still to be credited to the card account
- Nectar Canvass - DS added to the pot by completing an 80 pointer this morning, but it's not showing up correctly on the survey history. Email fired off. They have sorted the 2 for 60 point ones now and credited those.
- Nectar Card value up to £39.34
- Inbox Pounds - nicely rising and now at £8.71
- Qmee - earnt 16p last night, a bonus considering it was whilst searching as part of the Inbox Pounds tasks! Have moved that to the bank account already - £1.15 to date.
- Quidco - I've emailed their Support as 3 purchases from before Christmas which had estimated payment dates have now gone to awaiting confirmation from the retailer and no payment date. Since I've got one of those still from 2007, it's not looking good. Want to find out why it happens and will stop using the site if it's not going to pay out. At the moment, there's nearly £30 to be paid.

Had Mum's home made apple crumble for pudding, a lovely treat and chilli is defrosting for dinner tonight from a batch.

Menu plan for the week:
Sun - Pork steaks and roast trimmings
Mon - Spaghetti bolognaise
Tue - Toad in the Hole, mash and veg
Wed - HM Burgers in buns with hm wedges
Thur - Cottage Pie and veg
Fri - Scampi, chips, peas/sweetcorn - brought forward from yesterday as we had the YS pizza instead
Sat - Chilli, rice and garlic bread

Got a long To Do list to follow today, so going to crack on with that - after a cuppa :rotfl:

mizmir

Brilliant results on the energy consumption - not only :money: but environmentally savvy as well. :T:T

Sounds like you are on top of everything & your meals sound lush. I haven't had Toad in the Hole for ages - used to be my favourite when I was a kid. Must plan to have it one of these days!

mizmir

just wanted to say thanks Ali for the heads up on the LED bulbs. Looks like a no brainer so will order some today for kitchen and bathroom. Just need to double check the type.

Ali-OK

You're welcome Miz - I hope you're as pleased with the savings and light from them as I am. Keep your receipt in case any fail within the 5 year guarantee.

Have changed the garage one today - another 60w down to a leftover 7w (one of those horrid curly CFL things!). Tried to do the first of 4 outside lights, but they have the screw fitting not the bayonnet, so I now need some more! Just those and the hall and landing to do and that will complete the changeover, including bedsight lamps. Really pleased as when I first wrote about them here, I think it was @ £300 to change and cost is coming in @ £175.

mizmir

That's excellent. Am going to start with the GU10s as they are the most annoying ones for going and we have about 12 of them around the place. Plus they are the lights that are on most (in the kitchen). Have energy saving in all our other lights so will look at replacing them over time as can afford it. The prices at LED Hut are very competitive even without the extra code.

mizmir

Oops - good thing I checked - they are GU5.3!

Ali-OK

Ahh, back to normal tomorrow with work and DS back to school. We are pretty much sorted and ready.

Got lots done at home today - I allotted an hour to each task and each one I got finished within the hour, rewarded myself with a cup of tea . Certainly motivated me to work through my To Do list.

I ran all the leftover books through Zapper and webuybooks again - up to £7.79 but need to find £10 worth to make it worthwhile. Still loads sitting in piles that they won't take, so going to sort those into give to charity and car boot pile to get them out of the study.

Sports car has been woken up for the season. Battery all charged, engine turned over and covers off (yes it gets old duvet covers to keep it dust free in the winter ). Wasn't quite the spring day I wanted for giving it it's first proper run of the year, so will wait until another day for that. There's a Nectar voucher for 250 bonus points at BP in my e-update and since it's the same price as the local SB, I'll fill up the sports car there and use that.

Financials
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints - no idea what's going on there! There are 140 points in the summary for last week which I definitely didn't earn. 78 for this week.
- Nectar Canvass - no advance on my query
- Nectar Card - £39.34 still
- Inbox Pounds - small steps up to £9.30. The £20.24 request gets processed on Wednesday coming so hoping to see that cheque arrive in the post in a week or so.
-Qmee - another 10p earnt whilst doing the Inbox Pounds tasks, which I've moved to the bank acount. £1.25 to date. Doesn't seem to throw much up on the normal searching I do, but its a bit more towards debt payment when the March statement shows up online.
- Quidco - Another £1.89 tracked from the lightbulbs purchase today.

Last week of the month for work, so hoping everything booked in goes ahead. If so, I should be paying myself £50 below my average months wage on Friday which is very good for a 3 week month. Fingers crossed.

This week coming I need to:
- buy the car tax
- post 1 birthday parcel off
- buy a new baby card and pressies for baby and Mum. My friend had a baby boy yesterday :j Both are doing well and can't wait to go and visit them.

Hope everyone has had a good day.:)