Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

Quick one whilst I wait for my work system to reboot. Got confirmation on one of my TCB outstanding claims, which is over £40. Once that becomes payable it can go towards the boiler. Have also decided to "commit" £600 to it this month, then see if there is anything else spare at the end of the month.

mfmaybe

I've done something very odd. I usually transfer money to our joint account on 1st of the month, due to trying to save my overdraft for as long as possible. But I've just done it today, because I had the money :money:. Even odder, I've just paid my credit card early :eek: (was going to put £600 into joint savings re boiler, but to minimise the to-ing and fro-ing between banks I just did that transfer out of the bills account in the same bank, and paid the credit card bill that it was meant for out of my bank - you follow?!). Anyway the reason I paid it a full 11 days early was so I could update my signature :rotfl:

It looks a bit odd now, only have £500 left for basically an entire month. However all big bills paid; rental income comes in on the 1st which covers nearly all DDs; so the £500 goes towards various required horse expenses, lunches, any entertaining etc. If all goes to plan my budget has £130 surplus, plus hopefully another £100 or so out of my (generous) lunch budget. This could all go towards the boiler, but I want to leave it for now in case I have any unexpected bills. Oh for example I've just remembered I've asked the farmer to do a bit of field work. There - that's what the surplus is for

This could be a very long and boring month in diary land. Oh I do hope so, it would be nice not to have a surprise £1k bill for once :eek:

In other news, just discovered clicksnap. I seem to keep missing the dates though - for instance I bought red onions on Saturday, but have missed the time period and the offer now applies from yesterday. I obviously need to be quicker off the mark.

in_need_of_direction

You can also keep an eye on snap & save on the rival cashback site. I get so annoyed if we miss the window but totally love if I can get cash back on something whoopsied.

mfmaybe

Thanks - didn't know about that one. :T

mfmaybe

Friday, yay :T

So first DD of my month has come out, all to plan. What didn't go to plan was lunch yesterday, spectacularly failed on meals this week so no leftovers. Had to buy lunch, then bought a coffee for me and my boss. £6 needless spend. Never mind, just need to make more effort with lunch etc next week.

Got the small dividend payment I was expecting so put that against the boiler. My aim is to pay off over half of it this month if I can. But I know next month will be very tight (flights on credit card) so I'll maybe have to leave some cash aside.

Just discovered that the few measly airline miles I have (on a random airline we flew as part of our honeymoon) are now convertible to Amazon vouchers. Could get a £10 voucher so might just do that. I doubt I'll be flying them again soon.

Other than that there is very little to update on. I need to have yet another thing repaired in the flat and I'm convinced the tenant broke it. Shouldn't be too expensive, I hope! Beginning to think a new tenant would be more cost effective in the long run though :cool:

cazmanian_minx

mfmaybe wrote: »

Just discovered that the few measly airline miles I have (on a random airline we flew as part of our honeymoon) are now convertible to Amazon vouchers. Could get a £10 voucher so might just do that. I doubt I'll be flying them again soon.

Oooh, not Avios or Emirates Skymiles is it, by any chance?

mfmaybe

No, Etihad. We flew part of our honeymoon with them and I have something like less than 3k miles. I am unlikely to fly with them again before the miles expire so may as well cash them in I reckon.

We have a lot more than a few Avios, and these are a key part of our holiday planning - we work that system well :rotfl:

Edit - if you have useless Skywards miles they can go towards an Easyjet flight apparently.

cazmanian_minx

I've got just about enough for a single EasyJet flight at the lowest price they go for! Unfortunately the dates I'm away visiting mum didn't have any rock bottom flights available by the time she'd decided on a date. If I lose them, I lose them, it's not the end of the world

We're saving Avios for our next trip to Mauritius - it's going to be a while....!

mfmaybe

Today isn't turning out to be the most productive day. I slept late (thought it was about 8, turned out to be 9 :eek: ) and have just been pottering about getting bits of jobs done. And lots of planning via Pinterest

I need to go food shopping. Didn't do a very good job of the planning last week so need to put a bit more thought into it. Have had a look at snap and save and clicksnap, but there is practically nothing on there I'd be buying. I'm also going to have to use a different card. Normally fuel and food goes on an Avios card that we pay off monthly, but it was cancelled due to suspected fraud and I have to wait for the new card to arrive. I'll have to remember to pay that off immediately as I don't want my 0% card increasing with these type of expenses.

Oh and I need to buy horse feed but should be a small amount as I'm running them down to small token feeds now.

I have a ton of other things I should be doing but just can't quite get started. Not quite sure why, but I'll start a list here of things I need to get done and see if it motivates/guilts me:

[STRIKE]Food shopping[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Buy horse feed[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Clear out litter trays[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Empty dishwasher[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Give hoover a mini-service[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Hoover house[/STRIKE] DONE
[STRIKE]Next horse rug in to wash (don't tell husband!)[/STRIKE] DONE
Check if DVD player works then list it on Gumtree
[STRIKE]Wash old trainers to see if fit for charity bin[/STRIKE] DONE
Stitch handles onto crochet bag

I think it's because Mr Maybe is off working all weekend and I'm bored and the house is too quiet! So will turn on itunes and get the food list started. It's all rock and roll here :rotfl:

mfmaybe

So I got a few dull things done yesterday and a couple that weren't on the list. Food shopping was err expensive. I kind of knew I hadn't planned the cheapest meal options for a start; but last week felt a bit disorganised and we both spent the week saying "I'm hungry" so I planned some nice things. However, just at the end of the supermarket I went to see if there were any decent wine offers and spotted Bombay Sapphire Gin down £7 - cheaper than duty free price - so I bought it, plus a bottle of wine. Thought I'd break it down a bit

£27 meat/fish - about £5 worth for the freezer
£23.50 alcohol
£14 fruit/veg
£17 milk/bread/cheese/pasta/teabags/jams etc

Lots of the meals I have planned this week have a lot of components which is probably where I went wrong. Although we are bad for not eating enough fruit/veg, so I don't begrudge that. But it's quite a pricey meat week. I'm not going to be winning any frugality prizes. If I could grow any fruit and veg that'd be an awesome start. I've a few seedlings on the kitchen windowsill so will have to see if I can manage to keep them going away from the slugs! And although the teabags will last ages for example, there were no cleaning products either. Without the alcohol it woudn't be too bad, but we always have a GnT or two around the weekends so it has to be bought at some point.

I might have to try to switch meals about a bit and see if I can make the food stretch a bit further. Our salad drawers are full so I better not let any of it go to waste. Soup is requiring made today for a start.

OK that's quite enough waffle about our eating habits :rotfl: Today is miserable, so better again get the itunes on and get to it. Had another look at flooring for our bathroom again (the previous sample I thought I'd chosen ended up looking way too plain and beige in the room) but still not sure what way to go.

No spends planned today, I hope it can stay that way.