The march to financial freedom

millionaire_in_training

Ali, you are doing so well. Everything going at top speed. Great news re car

Skinnylatte

Ooo, shiny new car, there's more than one way to skin a debt!!

Ali-OK

Good evening,

Had a lovely time at my friend's last night - we met at playgroup over 40 years ago when our mums took us there. She had made an 'Overnight Cake' so we celebrated her birthday with a piece of that and a cuppa or 2.

Had a disturbed night's sleep - weird dream of a cat with spikes (like hedgehog) being found in the house, only to get poked by a feather through my pillow and case and it woke me up with a start thinking it was this damn cat! :rotfl: That happened twice!

I started to worry whether I'm doing the right thing with having the new car and moving it to the business, as I've always kept the business in credit and took on personal debt to live on whilst I built the business up, which is what I'm left paying off now. It felt like I was taking a step backwards.

However, I've made a list of all the little bits of money due in and the things I need to do like car boots and the rest of the books, CDs, etc and am feeling more positive about things tonight about getting rid of this last CC debt. March through to May will be tight financially, but worst case scenario is I pay less off the CC in those months.

With the gas swapping over to the new supplier next week, I can put the claim in for the £17 cashback from the energy site.

Another good work day to round off the week, business banking done and then I popped to the garage to sign the car paperwork. It's all confirmed for pick up on Wednesday and I've negotiated a few freebies with it too, so saved about £150 on not having to buy those which is good.

Financials:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints - a couple more ads and up to 70 points
- Nectar search - will do some more tonight
- Nectar Canvass - nothing there today
- Nectard card value up to £41.64
- Inbox Pounds up to £17.85
- Qmee - hopefully that'll pop up doing some nectar searching

Not much planned for the weekend, hoping the sunny and warm weather continues. I got one washing load done and dried on the line today, with 3 more to do tomorrow.

I want to get the WD40 and replacement screw heads for the outside lights sorted if I can and all the batch cooking still to do. Alongside housework, dog walks and picking up a birthday present from Mum's, I'll be happy to just chill out and get Inbox Pounds up to £20!

Hope everyone has had a good day and here's to a frugal weekend :beer:

millionaire_in_training

What is an overnight cake?

I am very lucky and my group of friends I met when we all moved to a new school when we were 10. We're now 48 and even closer than we were then. There's 6 of us and they are my muckers. I'm heading off to Murcia with 4 of them in May and I cannot wait. Nothing like great friends xx

Ali-OK

Good morning MIT!

Overnight cake - she's going to email me the recipe - it's looks a bit like a crumblier malt bread and though it's a fruit cake, it goes brown inside. Lasts a week so great for pack ups.

You make up the mix, cover and leave it overnight. It rises, then goes into a loaf tin and bake. Was delicious. I'll post up the recipe when I receive it.

What a great group of friends that is to go on holiday together. We stayed close friends but went to different schools at 10, though we lived 5 mins away from each other and then she met her DH whilst we were out in the village where I'd moved to in my 20s - and now she lives here too! So it's great that we are still 5 mins apart, as is her Dad and my Mum still. She's a bad influence for expensive shoes :rotfl:

Ali-OK

I've never been good at fixing stuff and today is a good example :mad:

The outside lights - the ones I bought the lovely replacement LED lightbulbs for and managed to shear a couple of the casing screws.

Well today, I headed off to get some WD40 to loosen the few remaining in-tact screws and to replace the broken ones.

£6.99 for WD40 :eek:

Couldn't get a direct replacement for the screws, so headed off to Screwfix. Bingo - except I wanted 6 and the bag size is 50 and it has a hexagonal screw head, so included not the one required hex key, but a huge set of the things! £11.63 spent.

Get home, try one of the screws out - yay it fits, except the gap isn't big enough to use a hex key. And the other casing, I cannot get the rest of the sheared screw out of.

So, having spent close on £18 today, I am no nearer to fixing the problem. I have tried getting the sheared screws out with pliers - it's just diminishing what's left of the screw. The WD40 hasn't made a jot of difference.

I should just leave stuff like this well alone :rotfl: The upshot I suspect is my electrician friend may need to come to the rescue and replace one of the lights, leaving one with a 60 watt bulb in, and the other I did manage to successfully change to LED and not break all the screws.

What a morning! Going to return the hex key set and bag of screws - no point in keeping them - and hopefully get a refund.

Enjoying the sunshine though, all the washing is done and been drying out on the line. The heating is off and letting lots of lovely fresh air into the house.

I've submitted the latest gas and elec readings - the gas one won't take (guess that's to do with me leaving them next week) and though we used 10 kwh less, the price has gone up as our deal ended and I'm worse off than before. Thank goodness the new elec meter goes in on Wednesday afternoon and then I can begin the swap to another supplier.

I'll catch up on financials later. Now to decide if it's housework or cuppa time. Suspect the latter will win out

Ali-OK

Electrician is coming to my rescue as predicted :rotfl: But it means paying out @ £10 for a replacement outside light, got to be done though as currently have a carrier bag tied around the bulb and bracket to keep any rain off :eek:

All upstairs and most of downstairs houework done, washing put away with just DS's school shirts to iron.

Dinner was batch chilli, rice and garlic bread. Now fancying something sweet and there's nothing in the house!

Tomorrow has to be batch cooking and visiting my Mum.

Financials then:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints - still at 70 points
- Nectar Canvass - a 40 pointer completed
- Nectar Search - up to 25/100
- Nectar card value at £41.64 - only £5.36 away from the XXL turkey for Christmas :rotfl:
- Inbox Pounds - so close at £19.25
- Qmee- a little 5p added - total £2.23

TV evening tonight, might end up baking cake though :rotfl:

millionaire_in_training

Looking forward to making some overnight cake.

I'm the same when I try to 'fix' things. It ends up costing me money.

I did some batch cooking today. I made 2 nights worth of tandoori chicken drumsticks. Unfortunately my carnivore son ate nearly 2 dinner's worth himself !!

Ali-OK

Still awaiting the recipe from friend. I've done some batch cooking this morning which will keep us going for a while:

- 4 cottage pies
- 4 batches of bolognaise
- 8 potato cakes

Returned screws and hex key set for a refund and purchased 3 new outside lights @ £9.99 each. Can't get the same style in the colour we have - flippin' typical. However, all will fit the new LED bulbs I have (that would be the last straw if they didn't!) and let's hope they last a lifetime :rotfl: Electrician will love me (not)

We're off to the cinema shortly (on a lovely day - how daft am I :mad:) and using the 2 for £11 I bought back in January and have to used by next Sunday.

Then onto Mum's. Then home and make the roast dinner.

Hope everyone is enjoying a lovely sunny day - someone is cutting their grass nearby - here we go, no Sunday lay-ins until autumn now :rotfl:

Ali-OK

Evening diary,

Well today has flown by and glad that I've achieved quite a bit today with the lights and cooking this morning, followed by cinema this afternoon and then onto Mums. Remembered to take bottled water so didn't buy snacks at the counter, though got a voucher for free popcorn or drink next time.

Picked up my birthday present from Mum - it's a cordless hedgetrimmer! I managed to cut through the cable on the last trim of the season last year, so it was something I needed and was going to have to replace myself otherwise. The other pressie is a stairs hoover (mine broke at Christmas time), but I've got to choose that and Mum will pay for it. I'm very happy and grateful for practical pressies - I know how to live :rotfl:

Financials for today then:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints - no advance on 70
- Nectar search - 36/100
- Nectar card - up to £41.84
- Inbox Pounds - reached £20.07 :j so can request the cheque and only took 3 weeks.
- Qmee - another little 5p, total £2.28

We were back a bit too late to have a roast dinner, so will do that tomorrow night and push everything back on the meal place. Had fish fingers, chips and peas instead.

Got a few things to do to get ready for the new week and then an early night. Bad headaches and tiredness have returned this weekend, but battling on with painkillers. Don't really want to end up at the GPs again, it's only been 3 weeks since I was last there

Hope everyone has had a good day.