Dreaming of financial freedom!

ch4rly2002

Good news, I'm through to the next interview stage. This time it's a face to face interview. I'll be prepping for it this week. Wish me luck!

Just cashed in £3 from a Pinecone survey too. Prolific and OnePoll have been very quiet for months now so not much happening with those.

DH and I had a lovely weekend away. He's been collecting points from his hotel stays while he's been travelling with work, but since he moved to another customer site and has been staying in a different chain, he hasn't been accumulating points for that chain any more. He got an email saying if he didn't get some more points by the end of November to refresh his points, he would lose them all. So, we decided to book a reasonably priced hotel room to refresh the points (we want to use them for a trip to New York) and it did us some good to have some alone time and be away from work etc. Next door were noisy until 3am, despite us and the room the other side of them complaining to reception. In the morning the receptionist refunded the price of breakfast, so it made the stay a bit more reasonably priced. Thank goodness we were only staying for one night though!

themadvix

That’s great about the interview Charley! Good luck!

I feel your pain re the noisy hotel neighbours; been there, done that.

ch4rly2002

so, bad news and good news. I didn't get the job I interviewed for, but they have recommended me for another position and the hiring manager is someone who I have worked with before who was "delighted" to see I'd applied for the other role, so I'm really hoping she takes me on for her position.

Good news regarding the hotel room too. They have provided us with a full refund for the stay!

I've claimed another couple of Pinecone surveys and TopCashBack, and as they say "every little helps!".

My mum, DH and I are going to Norfolk this weekend to visit my brother and his family. It should be a lovely weekend

themadvix

All sounding good Charly! Sorry about the other job, but fingers crossed for the one you've been recommended for - that sounds really promising!

Have a good weekend - hope the weather is dry. I love Norfolk!

ch4rly2002

Thanks Vix We had a lovely time! I love Norfolk too DH and I had lots of quality time with our nieces, Mum was happy to spend time with her Grandchildren too as I know its something she really missed out on when she was looking after Dad. On Saturday morning we watched the girls have their tap and ballet dancing classes. They were practicing for a show and it was lovely to watch them having so much fun with their friends. On Saturday night my brother cooked us a lovely meat and potato pie then he went out for a 40th birthday and my sister-in-law went out to a hen party while we babysat the girls. On Sunday we went to Horsey Gap to see the seals. There were loads of cubs. We then went home and my brother and sister-in-law made us a fab Sunday roast before we went. It was really lovely and we managed the whole trip on one tank of fuel

Good news, I got the job! I will be working for such a lovely lady and there are some great people in her team, one of whom I will be working with on the account I worked on before I left. I will be doing a simpler job but earning more than I did when I left, so even though it's been a pretty rubbish few months, it's worked out well in the end. I am really excited to be working for my new Manager and with an old friend

themadvix

Great news all round!!

ch4rly2002

Still awaiting my written offer for the new job. I had an email from the recruiter yesterday saying they were awaiting an approval from someone in America, and she hopes to get the offer out to me on Monday. I'm excited to get started, but I don't know when the start date will be yet so I'm keeping myself busy around the house while I wait to hear.

We went out for a lovely meal last night with 4 of our closest friends. We went to a Persian restaurant in Nottingham and it was fab - great food and a really good price too. We will definitely be going back! We parked next to the St James hotel so parking was only £1 per hour, but two of our friends parked their car in the NCP car park nearby and it was £4.50 per hour :O We told them that we'd noticed last night that the cheap car park had installed CCTV as I think that was why they didn't want to park there, so hopefully next time they can save some money. One of the couples were quite sad that they had just had their MOT for their car then the handbrake gave way on a hill and has written off the car I really felt for them. In other news though, they are looking to foster and the reference questionnaire arrived today so DH and I will get that filled in this evening and send it off straight away so it doesn't hold anything up.

ch4rly2002

A wonderful thing happened today - I received my written job offer. I accepted it straight away and have provided all the personal information they requested for my clearance. I am now awaiting a start date, which hopefully won't take too much longer

In other news, DH and I missed an offer on a hotel a couple of weeks ago because we couldn't get hold of his family to find out if they wanted to include New York in the 40th birthday holiday. We were gutted that by the time they got back to us the offer had stopped as we were planning to have a week in New York and DH was going to use his hotel chain points on top of the offer of 30% off and breakfast included. Anyway, fast forward to the back end of last week and DH receives an email from the hotel chain saying they have a Black Friday offer of 40% plus breakfast included - we couldn't believe our luck! We looked on the Virgin site to see how much flights to New York in Premium Economy would cost (we are on the larger side so wouldn't be comfortable flying in economy - which is a shame because they had some cracking BF deals on economy). It was coming to £1600+ for the two of us for February, and that was when we wanted / needed to go because DH has been given special permission to carry over 5 days of this year's annual leave (due to him having his op and unable to travel) but he has to take it before the end of February, and it is also my birthday and our wedding anniversary at the beginning of Feb. So, both of us have accumulated quite a few points with Virgin over the years with our credit cards, flights and converting Tesco clubcard points. We have used points in the past to get good deals. We rang Virgin and they said we could get PE flights, both ways, for just under £800 for both of us, and it would only cost 70,000 points for the two of us, rather than 70,000 points each! We then looked at the hotel for the dates between the flights, and for 8 nights, with the special 40% off offer it came to £1,300 but with DH's points we only have to pay just under £300, most of which is city tax and doesn't have to be paid until we're there, so only £6 is payable now! By the time we travel, I will be earning again so that will help. So, all in all, we have a 9 day trip to New York, in the Novotel overlooking Times Square (we've gone for a high up room with Times Square view, which made it a bit pricier but the view will be great and it will be a lot quieter than the lower rooms) that should have cost around £3,766 for just over £1,000! I am very excited to be going to New York, as I have always wanted to go there, and we got a great deal too. I am really happy :T

I also just got us a good deal on Sky. We recently came to the end of our contract and I renewed on the best deal I could without going through retention's department (DH won't let me play chicken with them), then I saw on HotUKDeals that there were some Black Friday deals on that were available to existing customers. I rang Sky and we ended up paying the same amount (they offered us the same package for cheaper but there were some things we wanted) but now we've got a new hub with faster internet and wifi guarantee, plus Netflix is thrown in, which has saved us £8 per month. I am very happy with the deal :beer:

ch4rly2002

So, it's been confirmed that I start my new job on 6th January. I will be glad to be busy working again, and especially earning! It's been a tight few months so it will be a relief to start earning again.

I will try and do more updates in the new year too. Merry Christmas everyone!

ch4rly2002

Just another quick update...

Our home insurance was due for renewal and we received a letter from Aviva with a renewal price. I normally ring them and ask for their best price, and they give a figure less than their renewal price, then I do a comparison and go with the cheapest (which has been Aviva for the last few years). This year I rang Aviva and they said they wouldn't lower the renewal price. I did my usual comparison and I've got it for £150 cheaper, and also went through TopCashBack for another £35.40 that I wouldn't have got if I'd renewed. Nice start to the Christmas celebrations! :T