A pound stretching maternity

MrsSave

I'm shattered tonight. I'm so pleased I'm only (very much) part time at the moment.

I've just realised that today has been a nsd! :j Actually I was waiting for a refund to come through, which has been processed today. That's £14.99 to add to the accounts. I'm keeping it for Friday night. Dh and I are having a rare night out. A meal followed by a film at the cinema. We have £30 Tesco vouchers for the meal, and the cinema tickets were paid with Tesco vouchers :rotfl: The only thing we'll need to pay for are our drinks with food and if we eat anything at the cinema. The plan is to be so stuffed after food that we won't want any silly price cinema food.

I've done a couple of surveys today. Prolific is starting to speed up a little again. It was so slow over the holidays. I'm also slowly building up my onepoll surveys. There's a long way to go before I can pay out though.

I had an M&S credit card through the post today. Basically I signed up for it to get a £25 M&S voucher in time for Christmas. I've also got a voucher for an extra £5 worth of points when I spend £5 or more in store. I may just pick up my fruit from there instead of Tesco one week.

Despite loving the part time work, I need to contact my supply agency tomorrow to give them a little kick up the bottom! I still don't think I'm set up properly. The baby will be here before they get round to it!

My mum is having ds tomorrow morning. Apparently to give me a break, but I think it has more to do with the fact she hasn't spent time with him for a while without me there, and she wants to take him to school! It'll be her first time doing the school run! I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet in the morning, though, and will pick him up from school at the end of the day.

[Deleted User]

Yay to being part time....go girl!!

Love the frugal date night, that sounds a great time to be had.

Enjoy your peace and quiet whilst your mum does the school run lol

MrsSave

My relaxing morning has meant a little more Christmas shopping (online of course), chasing up my supply company, emailing hr to see what's the deal with my maternity pay and to ask where I send my matb1 to and sorting out envelopes for 'extras' we've got coming up that aren't in our budget.

I have 4 envelopes at the moment. We have 2 big birthday parties to attend so ds's will need something to wear and we'll need money for drinks (possibly food for one of them). For one of them we'll be staying overnight so will need lunch one day and breakfast the following day. The hotel has already been paid for. I've also got a 'Christening' envelope to pay for dc2's christening, which will probably be at the start of next summer. As well as that we're going away to Center Parcs next May (taking ds out of school for the week......tut tut!). The holiday is pretty reasonable as it is in term time but I have an envelope for 'treats, extras and activities' for when we're there. The plan is that any overtime I do (if I manage to get any) and if Dh gets a bonus (he usually does every 3 months) as well as topcashback payout etc, the money will go straight to these envelopes. The christening is going to be the big expense! I'm hoping as well that I get a little extra in my maternity pay for the first few weeks (there's a chance I won't though) and that extra can be split between savings and the envelopes.

The Christmas shopping this morning was 3 books from Amazon. One for my Grandfather, and 2 for ds (1 welsh and 1 english). I realised that I hadn't bought any books for ds for Christmas, and always like him to have at least one. The 3 came to just over £10 with free delivery. I can now officially say that I've finished ds!

I've finally spoken with the company that will pay me for any supply agency work. The agency sent the things through to them this morning, despite them telling me they done it last week. Grrrrr! The rate of pay they quoted was wrong, though the agency insist is the pay company's fault! I'm not so sure. Hopefully that will be sorted now and I can do a little extra work next week!

I've priced up everything I have left to buy for Dh for Christmas and his birthday (his birthday is soon into the new year). I'm quite impressed by how much he's having thinking we had a budget, but I'm wanting to give him it all for Christmas now! I will have to decide which ones he'll get for his birthday.

hannahroberts1985

Sounding very organised. Well done. It's really helps planning ahead. Loving the envelope idea. Maybe I should have done this instead of having the 8 bank accounts I have and the bank moaning at me haha!

MrsSave

I used to have loads of bank accounts, but found I got confused when moving money around accounts and dh didn't have a clue what money he could spend on what! It was made worse by the fact that I couldn't name the accounts. Lots of banks let you, but not mine! I actually closed down accounts a couple of weeks ago!

hannahroberts1985

Maybe the envelopes are the way forward. We have a sealed pot in the kitchen where any spare £1's and notes after days out/new pocket money allowance goes and we use it for holiday spending money.

Do you think your really done for DS's Christmas? My 3monkeys order turned up all of it was great. I think I have enough for DS now but I know I'll still be looking out for bargains on the sites! I can't help myself!

MrsSave

I've got everything written down that I've bought for him, and how much I've spent, so I know he has plenty! I do want to get him something from the baby when he arrives. Trying to figure out what though!

I'm pleased the 3monkeys things were good. I'm looking forward to mine arriving now, though it doesn't show that it has been dispatched yet!

Eyebright

Another busy day organising for you MrsSave!

I currently have a few online saver accounts that I have named for different things, but when I do the new budget, some "categories", will make sense being physical money in an envelope in the house.

Fingers crossed the agency works starts coming in, now that the agency have pulled their finger out a bit xx

MrsSave

Today's spends were:
Amazon: £10.57 on books
Co-op: £3.09 on chocolate (luckily I had almost £5 in the treat fund!).

I've completed 4 different surveys. They're slow but I'll get there eventually.

Ds asked for a lollipop after school, so instead of heading to the shops we headed home to the freezer. :money:

Today is the 1 week anniversary of not using the tumble dryer! I've never gone this long without using it before! I did one load of laundry once ds was home from school, and will have another 3 at least to do tomorrow. Wednesday is the big laundry day!!

We need to pop to pick up a couple of cards for a bereavement and a christening, but think that will have to wait until Thursday as we are supposed to be having furniture for the nursery delivered tomorrow (at last!!!). It will probably work out cheaper to buy the cards in Tesco when I shop Thursday night, instead of making an extra trip into town to the cheap card shop (it's almost 10 miles one way). Actually, I could just pick up the bereavement card Thursday night and get the christening one again as that's not for another week and a half!

MrsSave

I slept through the night last night :j I did wake up to a leg cramp, but I guess we can't have it all ways :rotfl:

Other than the school run, we'll be staying home today. I've got lots of laundry to do (again), and we've got a furniture delivery at some point. I've got lamb tagine ready to go into the slow cooker for dinner tonight. There should be enough for tomorrow as well.

I'm aiming for a nsd today. I've checked my Tesco credit card this morning and it is at £590. I've got 2 food shops to do before the next statement and will need to put some petrol in the car. That will come to another £120 ish. The aim is then to keep it under £800, which is possible as long as I'm careful!

My eBay toys have been dispatched so will hopefully get them by the end of the week. Yay!