Can you still love your luxuries while defying debt? Let's find out...

SophieLoui23

Hi Misty Blue

I miss the luxuries I use to have when I was earning a good wage (and ignoring my debt!) so I'm really hoping that you manage to keep some forms of luxuries (albeit bargain ones!)

Who do you get your audio typing work from, if you don't mind me asking? I'm desperately looking for some sort of 'extra' income that I can do alongside an office job (as and when I finally get one!)

Good luck with the money saving and debt tackling :beer:

Misty_Blue

Hi SophieLoui, will send you a PM re: the audio typing.

Speaking of which, I picked up another 30 minute file today. There's more work available but I'm always careful not to grab too much at once, so I can be sure I'll meet the deadlines.

Rent and pet insurance came out today, so current account is down to £1634. OH will be paid in a few days.

Spent a bit of money this morning, but I managed to get some very good bargains. OH is a huge rugby union fan and has a collection of the official shirts from various countries. As it's his birthday in a few weeks, I had a scout around for any new ones, and was able to get two that he didn't have, with big reductions. One was £30, reduced from £59.99, and the other was £22.50, reduced from £59.99. Probably because they're about to change the strips, but OH won't care, as he didn't have either of these two. It also means I've spread out the present-buying over two pay days instead of doing it all in one go like I usually do, and sticking something on the credit card.

I've also decided to change the way I make purchases, wherever possible. Instead of buying on the debit card, I will pay with my Virgin credit card, and then transfer the money across from the current account, plus a little bit extra (even if only rounded up to the next pound). The reason is two-fold. 1) It will help chip away at the balance on the CC, and 2) I earn Virgin Atlantic airmiles for every pound spent on this CC, and I save them up until I have enough for free or upgraded flights. This will help me earn them faster and more efficiently.

EDIT: Forgot to say as well, that I bought the rugby shirts by using the Virgin Atlantic 'Shops Away' click-through, so I'll earn more airmiles for that.

thegreenone

Fingers crossed for the car (been there, got that t'shirt and the humongous bill) and good news on the winnings from Vegas.
I'm always on the look out for presents. I bought my son's girlfriend's birthday present back in March, her birthday is in September but I gave it to her last month as she was travelling and it proved very useful! She gave me a beautiful handwritten thank you card on her return.


Could I be cheeky too and ask which company your hubby does the mystery shopping with? Although I am a qualified secretary with a Distinction (doncha know!) in Audio Typing, I no longer have a proper keyboard unless I commandeer my hubby's laptop, which I could do during the day I suppose. If your hubs has a referral code, I would definitely use it. Thank you, very cheekily, in advance.

[Deleted User]

Good bargain hunting!

Might aswell buy it in when you see a good deal & like you said you benefit also from the airmiles.

Dxxx

Misty_Blue

Thanks, chaps.

thegreenone - he's signed up to all of them! That way, you maximise your chances of being offered suitable jobs, and you can also do what he's done today and put together a route where he'll do jobs for several companies at once. As it's the end of the month and he's gone quite a distance today, he's doing jobs all for increased fees and with travel expenses added.

Depending on where you are, some of the easiest / nicest ones to get started with are:

GFK - http://www.gfk.com/solutions/mystery-shopping/mystery-shopping/
ISC - http://www.internationalservicecheck.com/en
Grass Roots - https://www.grassrootsmysteryshopping.com/msw_pnlextlogon.aspx

A lot of people also sign up for Market Force, but their fees are notoriously low and seem to be going down all the time.

There's a mystery shopping thread on here, in the Boost Your Income section. It has a full list of all the companies, and there's also an alerts thread where people will post to let others know when a company has new work available.

lilian1977

Could i please have the audio typing details as well? Thanks!

Misty_Blue

PM sent, Lilian!

I've just been sent another audio file to be turned around tonight. If nothing else comes in for the rest of August, I'll have made £150 extra for the month, from the transcription work. I'm very happy with this considering that I was on hols for 2 weeks of August.

I forgot that I had upgraded my bank account with Natwest a couple of months ago. It's now some kind of reward account which pays 3% cashback on household bills. It costs £3 a month, but I worked out that it would pay about £10 a month, so worth it. I just checked the balance and there is £11 already there, with another £10.90 waiting to clear. This is basically free money (once you deduct the £3 a month for the account), for stuff I would be paying anyway. If I can, I will let it build up and leave it until Christmas. Should be about £60 by then, which will go towards presents or the Christmas food shop.

[Deleted User]

That's an excellent wee bit of extra income for you.

Anything extra at Christmas always helps so let that cashback build build build!

Dxxx

Bobarella

Oooo please PM me too Misty I am trying to make a bit extra to top up my contributions fo the household whilst my new business builds up. Thank you.

Misty_Blue

Urgh, last night's audio file was heavy going. Not that the recording quality was bad, just that I was super tired, and audio typing when you're tired is really hard. I got to bed at 1am, stayed awake until almost 5, and then was awoken at 8 by OH on the phone to the garage. The car is terminal. To fix it would cost more than the car is worth.

We live in a rural area and, although it's on a bus and train route, there's no way OH could get to work at all easily without driving. I don't even know if the buses and trains run at the times he would need to leave the house. We would also be unable to show our dogs without a car. So, we've bought one. :eek: I went straight online this morning and happened to see a two year old car with only 6000 miles on it. It's been someone's weekend car, and is in immaculate condition. Having older cars just hasn't worked out for us and we plan to keep this one for a lot of years. But of course, now the debt has increased quite a bit and we also have to clear the last of the finance on the scrapped Audi. In terms of monthly payments, the payments on the new car are almost twice what they were on the old one, but this will be covered by OH's pay increase from next month, with a bit left over. I'll just have to make the extra income work harder, to pay down the other debts.

In other news, a new audio file has come for tonight. I could do without it on so little sleep, but can't look a gift horse in the mouth! And it's only 20 minutes so should go quickly. OH has picked up more mystery shops for tomorrow and should make £80-£100.

I've also been wondering about PPI reclaiming. I had PPI on an Egg Loan which was paid off quite a few years ago. Egg no longer exists, so between that and the fact that I thought the claims were barred after 6 years, I never bothered with it. However, it seems that it's only that the firms have to keep the paperwork for 6 years, so after that it's very difficult to claim unless you have the paperwork yourself. I think I might have something about it, so will investigate this on Friday, when OH is out for the day and I've hopefully had a bit more sleep!

Also noticed in Martin's weekly email, an M&S credit card with 25 months 0%, plus £25 M&S voucher. I tried the eligibility calculator, which reckons I have a 70% chance of acceptance. Not tried OH yet, but this would be useful to shuffle some debt around to 0%, and we'd better apply now before the car finance search shows up on our reports. Will think about this and what would be best to transfer to it, depending on the limit.