The Road to Financial Security

Pushkin

Bit of a spendy evening yesterday after my funk of a weekend with little of anything let alone shopping :eek:

Bought theatre tickets for the 3 of us at end of February to see a show in the West End - very disappointed not to order through a cashback site but I found tickets £10 cheaper each elsewhere so it made no sense.

They also did a dinner/theatre thing, we always end up going for pre theatre dinner when we go up to London and pretty much always struggle to find somewhere - not knowing the locale too well and finding most places are busy. So also booked dinner which wasn't a bad price (£18 per head for 2 courses) but led to a bigger outlay than I originally intended! Hey ho.

I also finally ordered a wipe clean tablecloth - after way too much deliberation.

On the income side however, the plate I had on ebay sold for nearly 3x its reserve price - we're still talking less than £10 here but hey I get very excited. Also have a bid already on the item I listed yesterday so am very determined to keep momentum. Target of listing 5 items per month so I have 2 more to do by end January.

After the horror of poor eating last week I've finally had a healthy eating day and made a conscious effort to take the dog on a slightly longer walk this morning.

I attended a 'energy for life' seminar at work and while its easy to be blase and think I know most of this I think I will make the effort to do some of these things more formally. I do however draw the line of dressing for the office when working at home which was one suggestion. No make up and comfy clothes is one of the main perks of working at home!

Pushkin

Was very pleased that DH took such an interest in the car breakdown renewal, the existing policy was in his name so I knew he had to lead the charge since we no longer sit on our hands and let these things auto renew. :j

Anyway he was as shocked as I that current company's renewal letter showed an increase of over £20. He was very proactive did an internet search, found a cheaper quote, rang them up to see if they would match. They didn't :eek: So he cancelled it right there :T I then bought the cheaper quote using a cash back site which will reduce the price another £15.75.

I won't spout on (again) about my views on these companies strategy (or lack of) regarding customer loyalty/client retention. Suffice to say I feel very satisfied to have ditched our old company.

Also had the annual mortgage statement through which I hate to admit I was really looking forward to (there's a first time for everything!). Balance is a little lower than I had estimated and interest is £20 a month lower than I was tracking so all good and I've corrected my spreadsheet.

Trip to the dentist which I hate since she told me I had bone erosion, I now have fear of my teeth dropping out at some point and feel the dentist is telling me off for poor teeth brushing skills. So spend of £18.50 and I booked a hygienist appointment for next month on the dentist's recommendation. That will cost £45 but cheaper than dentures if it stops my teeth dropping out huh :rotfl:

Pushkin

Manic few days at work so haven't been on here as too tired to think about looking at a computer screen of an evening. Think I am having withdrawal symptoms now though

Few bits of admin:

Pay day today and managed (by some huge miracle) to have a bit of money left in my current account - have transferred it to slush fund in preparation for February's gigantic credit card bill - would love to have added to savings but not realistic! This is how I managed to have surplus money isn't it - by creating a cricket score on my credit card bill!

Finally managed to book my car in to have the boot door repaired (been broken over a month ) so yet another car repair bill coming up next weekend.

Tomorrow we are going to Costco for our 2 monthly shopping trip - this will be expensive as we have run out of virtually everything we get from there; meat, toilet paper, coffee beans, washing powder.

New tablecloth has just arrived :j so am hoping DH is home earlyish so we can use it for the first time.

So looking forward to not having to get up at 6.30 tomorrow. Hello weekend!

Pushkin

Wowsers -still reeling from the £300 + spend at Costco. I actually worked out a budget of around £200 which is more than normal - I think the lesson is we will always spend more than I budget so I need to keep my budgets lower :eek:

I track groceries shopping on a spreadsheet and I think it will even out over the next month. We bought so much stuff it will reduce the weekly Sainsburys bill - thats the plan anyway! Just a shocker to spend quite so much more than estimated.

DH and I have a rare night out on our own this evening, we are going to the cinema. My company has a intranet discount site and I noticed that cinema tickets are now available so I have bought 2 e-tickets - total cost of £10.98. The cinema we go to charges £10.45 for an adult ticket so this is a really good saving. Still a little worried that they won't accept the e-voucher - maybe I'm too cynical! However if all goes well will be a cheap night out. :T

Pushkin

Well cinema worked out fine with a saving of £8 on the tickets so will definitely be using the work discount thing again.

Day of boring domestic jobs today. Have just made banana bread using frozen bananas - first time I've tried this so we'll see how it goes.

Sold one item on ebay for around twice what I thought I would so chuffed with that, next auction finishes this evening - have a few watchers but no bids not really expecting it to sell. DH also has an old pc monitor he's agreed I can try and sell so will post that later but will have to be local collection only. Determined to list 5 items a month so need to find something else to list today as well.

Pushkin

Well tumble dryer broke down yesterday afternoon - I can't complain as it was nearly 15 years old but spent the rest of the day rotating dry washing round the radiators to try & get it dry.

New machine ordered yesterday evening which will be delivered tomorrow. They say these things come in 3s and that was the third unexpected expense in the last month or so (issues with both our cars as well).

Excellent service from AO although they pi**ed me off today when they rang supposedly to confirm the details and then slipped into the script that they had enrolled me for a 'special warranty, repair service' at a charge of £4.99 per month - the last bit was nearly lost within the blurb they were throwing at me.

When I clarified they had auto enrolled me and would be charging me each month I cancelled immediately. Wow this is something worse then companies not being interested in retaining business and keeping customers loyal. Companies hiding additional charges among the weeds on the basis that a doubtless significant percentage of people won't notice and will end up paying.

Just my soap box two pennith worth.

Managed to sell both items I had listed on ebay this week - one for a lot more than I expected (in fact the buyer could have got the item new for very little more but I will not shout about that too much). However cocked up yet again on postage charges and ended up spending £10 more than I had charged across the 2 things. Must do better.

Have 2 more items listed - one is local collection so at least I can't underestimate postage there.

Have just split my trousers - New Years diet not going well!

Feeling cold, tired, fat and very Mondayish. The only positive I can think of is that it is very far away from the next Monday morning now!

gallygirl

Pushkin wrote: »

Well tumble dryer broke down yesterday afternoon - I can't complain as it was nearly 15 years old but spent the rest of the day rotating dry washing round the radiators to try & get it dry.

New machine ordered yesterday evening which will be delivered tomorrow.

I hope it's a :smileyhea tumble drier with internal light :smileyhea .

Sounds like you're selling quite bulky items? I use this site: http://www.interparcel.com/ to get a quote - usually much cheaper than Royal Mail.

Pushkin

GallyGirl - thank you - I've book marked the website and will check it out next time I send something bulky. I obviously need to check postage much more carefully than I have been doing. Trouble is the low value items I worry postage or same or more than I'm selling it for will stop it selling.

Better day today, well feeling more positive anyway - new tumble dryer is here but I somehow doubt DH will want to install it when he gets home at 8pm.

Pushkin

Woke this morning with a scratchy throat and have been feeling steadily worse as the day progressed - really cross. It's only about 2 weeks since I managed to shake off the last cold now it looks as though I'm getting another one.

Am in full hibernation mode - I hate winter, even doing all food shopping on line - haven't been near a supermarket this year!

Everything seems to have stalled and I'm struggling with finding the time or energy to chase up:

Still waiting for the 2 dining room chairs they didn't have in stock and the swap they need to do to switch out the white chair for a black one
Need to speak to a gardener about some work we want doing late March
We have also decided to get fitted furniture or at least a fitted wardrobe for our bedroom.

Before DS was born (13 years ago) we knocked the wardrobe out of his room and plastered it over thus creating a double wardrobe in our room. I say double wardrobe but half of it is really a rectangular hole in the wall with a hanging rail in it.

We do want to (finally) get it sorted this year -but its daunting. The carpet is same age so would also need replacing and then the walls redecorating. It's not the money actually that puts me off but the dread of having to totally empty out the room - 15 years of clutter - yikes. Although may well find more items to feed my new ebay hobby

Pushkin

This morning was a royal pain in the !!!, had to get up at 6.15 to take dog out and was somewhat annoyed to see the layer of snow - understatement I spent the drive to the dog walk swearing and ranting :eek:. Then drove to garage for 8 to get the boot fixed. Dropped car off, walked to hairdressers for my appointment there at 8.30. Mum picked me up after and we went for coffee until I had the call to say my car was finished.

Had an email with a video of my car being repaired - now thats something new!

They say there's a first time for everything and the cost of the car repair was actually less than I had estimated - £191 instead of the £300 I had thought. I have been very good and transferred £100 to my NISA savings. :T Did it before I could have second thoughts.

Really feeling rough with this cold so haven't done anything since I got home. DH had an electrician over to assess & quote on the work we want so he is going better than I.

DS &DH have gone over to Decathlon to suss out the ski gear, need to get an idea on price before I start looking on the internet for stuff. Having never been skiing I have no idea about it.