Cash for The Cupcake - £600 Savings Challenge

dalleDF

Jackie, you are smashing your savings target. I reckon you should raise it to £1k and push yourself even more!

juicyjackieb

I admit I have thought about putting my target up to 1k!!! Then I panic that something will happen and I will !!!! it up. I think I will see where we are at the end of March and review it.

I have done some positive things today!

First I'm in the process of filling in the paperwork to be a vote counter at the election. If everything is OK and I get to work it I should pick up £70 even on the lowest tier to go straight into the find. It will be tiring but interesting, I shall keep you posted!

Next, absolutely hillbilly that I am I bought some half priced valentines bits to put away for our anniversary in April. Yes. Utter cheapskate hillbilly BUT I REGRET NOTHING!!! MWAH HA HA!!

And lastly as I mentioned yesterday I'm going to start emptying my purse at the end of work on a Friday and I picked up a jazzy coin counter money box to put on my desk.

Well when I say jazzy I mean but ugly because it has sports direct splashed all over it but I'll soon prettify it. Yes no irony lost on me spending £4 on a money box but it's cheaper than Argos and counts it as I go and I really didn't want to spend any more money on something that's going to sit behind my monitor at work all day ignored. Yes I could have used an old sauce jar for free but no, not today thank you Satan. I need it big as I intend to fill it up! Let's move on...

juicyjackieb

Ok - Sunday night end of week thing

Not fab savings week, I was able to squirrel £26.06 left over from my wages and £1.61 from my end of the week purse pennies challenge. So I am almost kinda half way sitting at £260.05. Not too shabby.

I am pretty peeved because I am still waiting on payment for 3 items I sold last Saturday, one women bid on 3 for approx £30, I sent a combined invoice for her and messaged her asking about postage but I haven't heard a thing from her. I mean if she cant afford it fine, message me. If you cant pay just yet due to payday fine, message me. Just ignoring me is plain rude. I have filed a claim in the eBay resolution centre, I am going to have to wait till that's resolved to relist. RUDE!

I do still have a stack of big clothes to list which I didn't list last weekend or this. Too busy last weekend and too shattered this weekend. I am however back on my lovely 8-4 shift all week meaning getting home at a reasonable time so I will try to squeeze some in during the evenings.

I have also decided to leave my Nectar balance alone to build up for Christmas and will use my accrued money from my works moneybox for it too.

I have decided also that I still spend far to much on groceries and my cupboards and freezer are rammed. I am going to only buy the minimum I actually need and will start to work through my existing stash so that in 3 weeks my BF can do a massive online shop and fill it up again mwah ha ha! My budget has been set at £25 which I was able to stick to Saturday.

Coming up this week the dreaded £92 travel comes out and I will have to pay gym sign up charge of £25 unless I get a code tomorrow ***shakes fist at Bannatynes**** so this week will be very spendy but I do want to get that balance to £300 if I can... just because its end of the month and it ticks some of my mental tidy boxes.

Eating has been shocking this week so I am back to the diet tomorrow. Again. Sigh.

juicyjackieb

Quick update to say I took a final stab at contacting Bannatynes to get a deal on my membership; I tweeted them and got a callback and they agreed to reduce the £25 joining fee down to £10. Better than a poke in the eye! I did have to pay a month in advance but I expected to which is fine. I will have to tighten my belt this week to make sure I am able to put something away on Friday though.

Now I just have to go to the gym... pooop

juicyjackieb

Trying to clear my food mountain!

So I am a bit of a food hoarder. My Cupboards and freezer are always rammed to the point I can’t justify buying more but I keeping seeing bargains and buying it anyway.

Aside from clearing the stuff away I am trying to save money and be generally less wasteful.

So I am trying to clear the mountain we have, I am starting with cereal and the frozen meals I have cooked and saved. I swear to God I will scream if I see another casserole!!

I also have a little stash of low carb foods so I am going to have a spell of LC soon, maybe a week - ten days. I refuse to let the food or my money go to waste because my disorganisation or fussiness makes it inedible.

So that’s my food plans for the next month, crazy weird dinners, minimal spending and probably daily indigestion.

dalleDF

Bring on the elk curry and the sprout casserole!

juicyjackieb

Okays... time for my weekly thing and my monthly goals for March

I had a good savings week, I squirrelled £47.40 into my savings this week, the total now sits at £307.45 SMASHED THE HALF WAY MARK AFTER 7 WEEKS!!!

I also added quite a bit from my purse into my penny jar Christmas fund, which now stands at £8.89. If I carry on at this rate my 2015 Christmas is gonna be brilliant! This is a much more subtle and honest saving but I like it because I know come autumn I wont have to start panicking.

In addition to that my Nectar balance is being left alone to pay for booze and food for Christmas. I know it sounds silly to be even factoring it in, but I do shop primarily at JS and I do take advantage of deals and staking points where I can - £8.52 so far, maybe get to £50 by the end of the year?

I totally sucked at my ebay, none done for the last 2 weekends in a row, I really dont want to do any today as I feel like scrap but I will do at least a few bits, maybe spend an hour on it. Sigh, I am zapped... again.

BUT I am now thinking about March, new month and all that!

Not gonna lie the start of a new month and spring coming is invigorating my motivation and positivity. So why not think about some goals?

- Read 3 books about whatever I fancy

- Add at least £100 to my savings fund

- Clear the upstairs of all potential ebaying or give away to charity… I will tackle the loft and downstairs throughout the year!

- Do At least 12 workouts

- Build up my running endurance again and be able to run 1k straight without stopping

- Drop 10lbs of water weight - KEEP IT OFF

WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS? I would love to hear your March goals.

juicyjackieb

I also want to put some extra pennies aside for a couple of things I want in the next month - I need to renew my xbox live - for around £25 for the year and the big one, I want a slow cooker. The one I like is of course really expensive at £55, but I have a £15 argos voucher to use towards it.

I best get ebaying!!!

juicyjackieb

Currently there is a £1 coupon online for New Covent Garden soup, its selling for £1.17 in Tesco. It can be frozen.

Print. Print. Print.

Lunch for weeks for 17p a pop.

A loaf of bread for £1 for the week

Boring but not a problem :-))

juicyjackieb

It time for my end of week thing!

Savings
I managed to tip in quite a bit to my savings this week, I added £46.49 bringing it to an even £350, which is my mid march target reached! £50 to go over 3 payday fridays toot toot! I have also topped up my piggy bank at work for my christmas fund and I now have £14.73 after 3 weeks, at this rate I will have £200 for christmas which would be perfect.

Deals
I got myself a £1 off Covent Garden soups which meals cheap lunches for a few weeks - GET IN.

Other good news is that my chubby cat Large Marge has been selected by Hills Foods to get a 10 weeks free diet plan with food supplied. Its nice to get it free of course but I do worry about her as she is nearly 11 and I love her despite being a cantankarous old sod.

And also after calling Virgin with the intension of reducing our package by ditching the Misters sky sports, after a chat and a bit of haggling they dropped my bill by £11 per month and let us keep Sky Sports! The mister is chuffed as yes we are trying to save money, but we are also trying to fund his newly started singing lessons. If we can so this without increasing our outgoings then we are very happy with the trade off.

Spends
I did well with my groceries keeping it well under £50, I am working through the food stash. I am very much looking forward to warmer days when I can start having protein smoothies for breakfast again and crack open my protein powder.

I did get my nails and eyebrows done, £20. Yep I am a shallow bint, lets move on.

I also did renew my NUS card which was £12.99 plus I paid £3.99 for a Gourmet Society bolt on for a year which I will recoup many times over.

Failures
I had planned to take Friday off and get my ebaying done, but because I was so busy at work I agreed to drop it to a half day which actually ended up with me doing a full day and then working over 15 minutes. I suck. But I do have Sunday to get some done. Sigh.

I also didn’t get around to complaining to Natwest about them rejecting my claim. Apparently this is normal and I will probably get a payout if I challenge it. It is on my to-do list!

And some sorta kinda possible scary exciting news…
I may be buying half a house!! Well mortgage anyway. More later when I know more!