A Ditherer's Diary (again)

lucielle

All sounding good. Pay it off a card you haven;t missed it.
L

Naomim

Yes. I will. I'm hopefully going to go to the bank today, although I have just spent £20 on a new pair of trainers. Mine are about 7 years old and all the inside lining has worn out.  I really have worn them to death! 

Naomim

I've done my usual tactic, I know I've been spending and I stuck my head in the sand and it didn't look at the bank statement.  Today I have looked 😦. I've updated my spreadsheet. Groceries seem to have gone way over budget already, I have nothing left  in my petrol pot, my days out pot, my own monthly spending money.    My 15yo desperately needs new trainers, his are physically falling apart. I may have to take the money out of my emergency fund to get them.  My Tesco DD was £60 less than I thought and the bank account is still £1000 overdrawn.   I'm so angry and ashamed of myself. 

I need to get my big girl pants on and stop the willy-nilly spending, start tracking my spending and updating the bank account daily.  

Naomim

Naomim

Payday tomorrow! Can't wait.   I am following a diary on here and the OP is using the YOLT app so I've downloaded it. Nice to see all my balances in one place. I haven't set up the budgeting took yet.

I have my next four weeks of Tesco deliveries booked so this should help with managing the food budget.  During the original lockdown, I started getting Hello Fresh delivery once a month. Whilst I've really enjoyed it, it was £50 for only 4 days meals.  I've logged in and cancelled it. I have kept the recipe sheets so any that we particularly liked, I can try to recreate at home.

I have ordered a heated airer from Lakeland (via Topcashback). This may seem an extravagant spend but as the cold weather is coming I'm hoping it will save money on tumble drying. I try not to tumble dry too much, mainly towels and bedding but I'm fed up with an airer constantly being up in the front room all winter. I have no space to put it anywhere else.

Nothing much else to report on financially.  Hoping to have a very quiet month although do have MiL's birthday next week and 10yo's birthday at the end of the month during half term.  I have a birthday pot with more than enough in there to cover them both.   

Naomim

lucielle

I've heard lots of good things regarding the airers, don't have one myself.  Hope you have a good weekend
L

Naomim

Went shopping yesterday, £30 on new football boots for 10yo, £20 on MiL's birthday presents but still need to get another couple of bits. Also spent £30 on her birthday presents on FiL's behalf so he'll reimburse me.

We have had a plumber quote to put in one of those lovely tall radiators in the front room and move the small one that's already there. It's £395 plus the cost of the new radiator which is about £150 so the £550 is from my emergency fund.  I do see it as emergency spend as our downstairs is freezing in winter and MrM and I are working from home for at least next 3 months. There's only so many layers we can wear! 

It's a good job we're wfh too as 15yo has a girlfriend! His school is opposite so he's home by 3pm.  God knows what he be upto if as usual we wouldn't be home until 7pm.  Have told my boss I'm not coming back to the office 🤣

With regards to work, I'm optimistically looking forward to next March. The company I work for bought another company and it was finalised on the day of lockdown in March. Theres lots of merging teams , my boss has had a promotion and has indicated to us in his team our jobs are safe. I'm now hoping that as the team will be expanding I may get a small promotion too, especially as I'm studying for professional qualifications and already passed the first ones.  Also March is our bonus time and as a company have done well.  

Hope you're all keeping safe & well.

Naomim 

Naomim

MrM and I both got paid on the 25th but today is the first time I logged onto the bank account and updated my spreadsheet. I think it's because I have been quite spendy recently. Not necessarily big figures but lots... .and lots.. of little ones 😕.    Today has been an NSD, feels like the first in ages!  I've transferred over money to and from Monzo - like a money launderer but I find it easier to track.  I mentioned I downloaded the YOLT app and I like it but I'd like to add more categories or sub categories. I might have to try YNAB again.

As I was updating the spreadsheet I noticed my payment to Virgin TV had gone up by £10. I logged onto the website and our package was due to run out on 7th October, so I got MrM to call and renegotiate the deal. They're sending a wifi booster as we have superfast broadband but the signal upstairs is poor and we will be paying £5 less a month than we currently do so that's definitely a small win!

With all the spending I've been doing recently, I have been uploading my receipts to Shoppix and have already got my first £5 earned. I'm going to keep saving and try for £10 by Christmas and get Amazon vouchers.  Prolific sitting at £13 so far this month which is a little down on normal but some of the surveys have been very long and I just don't always have the time to do them. At least it's a £13 overpayment to a credit card.

My lovely friend's Mum died just recently. I've known her since I was in nursery and we're now almost 47.  Due to covid restrictions it was family only funeral so I made a charity donation in her name.  My friends elder sister runs a Greyhound Rescue charity so I donated to that in her memory.

I'm having trouble getting through to my course educators for my professional quals at the moment.  The uni I was studying with just aren't replying to my calls and emails and I'm starting to worry about getting the next module booked.  My company paid it all upfront so I need to crack on.

My radiator has arrived so just waiting on the plumber to let us know when he'll be round to plumb it in.  I've also started to use my heated airer. Put a load of washing on it today, trying to work out the best way to lay it all out. I put an old duvet cover over the top and it's all dry.  I'm easily pleased!

Keep safe and stay well

Naomim

GeorgianaCavendish

Sorry to hear about your friend’s mum, that is really awful  

Well done on updating the spreadsheets, it’s horrible going back to it after a bit of a break but you’ve done the hard part now. I know what you mean about “laundering” money through Monzo , I like to see the money going into my various pots even if it goes out again straight away! 

I haven’t heard of Shoppix before, is it any good? I used to use Receipt Hog for my receipts but it’s closing for UK users tomorrow so I need to switch to something new. 

I had an amazing few days on Prolific a couple of weeks ago and since then practically nothing. 

Naomim

@GeorgianaCavendish shoppix is great, and probably similar to receipt hog. You get 25 points for every receipt uploaded and 5 bonus points if you do it on the same day. Can only upload receipts from the past 7 days and can't do two receipts for the same shop in one day. You also earn online scratchcards for bonus points and some very short surveys for bonus points.  3200 points gets you £5 and 11,000 gets you £10.  You can't exchange for cash but they offer other retailers but Amazon suits me.

I do like prolific but surveys that are over 10 minutes are usually a no for me.  I think this is the lowest month I've had but I've already got £2.64 pending for November.  

I love my Monzo pots so transfer it all across into the pots and then have to send it back again for spends like petrol, groceries, etc.  I like to track it though.  

Hope you are keeping well.

Naomim 

sashybo

Hi Naomim 👋 de-lurking to say you can exchange your Shoppix points for Payp@l (£5 or £10) and then withdraw it to your bank, which is what I tend to do as I get my am@zon vouchers from other survey sites. 

Huyu is another receipt app I use although they only accept receipts from supermarkets, still worth doing but a bit slower than shoppix. There's also SnapMyEats, they take most receipts as long as you've bought food and you build up your rewards for vouchers. 

Hope the info's useful to you, I found these apps through this site, so only fair to share the knowledge. 🥂