Dreaming of financial freedom!

Jessy103

Oh no ch4rly!!!! How selfish of YBIL!!! Grrr I'm mad for your DH and you!!!
I really hope you find something even more fantastic for his birthday and narnas to YBIL! x

ch4rly2002

Afternoon all. I'm feeling a lot better today. YBIL facetimed DH to say he hadn't realised he'd upset him by booking the holiday to Hawaii (the in-laws had said something to him) and recognised that maybe they could have mentioned it to DH in case we'd wanted to make that the joint family holiday. So, DH and I have calmed down about the holiday / YBIL stuff and have decided to let it go and have a look at booking a holiday we can enjoy with the in-laws. YBIL and his wife are over in Paris the week after DH's birthday and have asked us to join them for a meal so I think we will do that with them instead.

Groupon is my friend at the moment. I've purchased a few vouchers on there, through TCB for extra returns, and have been impressed. For my Mum and DH's birthdays, I bought them a newspaper from the day they were born. Not a copy, a genuine original one from the day. I think it's really cool so I'm hoping they love them. (When Ynephew was born I went and bought a few newspaper on the day and asked the in-laws to buy some in America to bring back for me. I've been storing them safely and will buy a nice box to present them in for his 18th or 21st birthday). I've also bought DH an engraved pen. DH said he absolutely did not want me to get him anything for his birthday, but as it's his 40th I have to get some little mementos for him and I think these fit the bill without being overly costly.

The New York trip is getting closer and closer. DH have printed a calendar of the time we're there and have been writing in the places we have booked and planning where we want to go. I purchased a New York pass last night (through Groupon.com so no cashback, boo!). It is for 7 days and will let us into hundreds of attractions and use the hop on/hop off buses and the circle line boat. It was more expensive than the other New York passes at $259 per person, which is a lot cheaper than their website sells it at full price (they normally sell it for $379 but have a sale on at the moment so they're charging $284). We flinched at the price but we talked it over with YBIL and he said this is the best type of pass as normally you choose a set number of attractions (3, 5, 7, 10) and the cheaper ones don't include the big ticket attractions such as the Empire States Building and the 9/11 memorial etc. He also said the price is good because the entry fees and transport fees in NY are expensive so as long as we use it fully to visit a few attractions and hop on/hop off bus we'll be saving a lot of money. So, we winced and bought the passes but I'm sure we'll be smiling when we see how much we're saving.

In other news, I completed our tax returns the other day and printed and bound them, only to find I'd run out of expanding pockets. I went onto Amaz0n to order some more and thought they were a bit pricey at £7.99, but I checked on Ryman's website and they charge £12.79 for 5 and WH Smith charge £3.49 for 10 but doesn't specify how many sheets they will hold, so £7.99 for the type I've used before and know do a great job didn't seem unreasonable. Well, I was amazed when it arrived and there were 5 packs of 5! I had noticed it said 25 on the listing but I assumed it was a typo (I've had that happen to me before, but received less so I wasn't expecting this to be in my favour). I will keep 2 packs of 5 for myself and list the other 3 packets on FB marketplace to see if anyone locally wants to buy the others. I might be able to recoup some of the money and make them even more reasonable.

I'm trying to get into the habit of using FB marketplace myself recently. I need a couple of plastic placemats and I really don't want to buy new as I don't want to be funding the production of plastic items so I checked FB and someone is selling 4 for £1. I need one to go under our micro-server as it has black feet pads under it that tend to leave a black stain when it's been stood for a while, and I do not want marks on the inbuilt desk. I also want one to put under the cat's food bowls as he is a messy little thing, so we will have 2 spare now. I'm just waiting for the seller to confirm when I am able to collect them, but she mentioned her mum passed away this week so I told her not to rush and contact me when she feels able. It's not urgent at all so I don't want to intrude over some mats!

In not-so-MS news, problem with the printer. I have realised that DH, Mum and my work laptop can no longer print as even though the printer is connected to our personal PC, which is on the network, you can't print to it via the network unless the printer itself is connected to wi-fi. so, my plan of eeking out a few more years of use have been scuppered. I have purchased a new one from PC World (as it's for work use as well as private, I need to buy new to make sure it works properly and will last as long as possible). I did go through TCB and got it discounted, so I'm quite happy with that. It cost £39.99, and doesn't print A3 like the old one did, but I only printed A3 once and this one will print doublesided without me having to manually reinsert printed pages to print the back, so I'm happy with that as I will now set it to automatically print everything double-sided and save more paper I will list the old one on FB as well, and state that it works perfectly fine when connected using the USB cable.Again, I'm hoping to make a bit of money back towards the cost of the new printer.

In-laws have come down for the day. They've taken mum out for lunch at a local cafe and are staying for tea. They like to come down occasionally, but we have plans this weekend so they're happy just to pop down for the day rather than staying over. We already have everything in, so it won't cost any extra and it's something I know they like

I am going to join VB today. I'll add that list to my daily rotation in the hopes it might eventually build up to a bit of money. I haven't had a survey from OneP0ll in almost a year and Pr0lific was been very quite the last week. I also haven't had a Pinec0ne survey in ages either. It's a bit odd, but I'm hoping they will pick up again soon.

Right, that's my break over, time to get back to work!

ch4rly2002

Gosh, I've just posted and realised how long my previous post was! Oops! Well done if you made it to the end :rotfl:

themadvix

Funny you should mention the plastic placemats, as I’ve just posted on my local Freegle to ask for one for my cat! No response yet - will check out FB!

ch4rly2002

Well, if you haven't found any by the time the lady gets back to me, I can send you the couple of spares

themadvix

That would be very kind of you! Let’s see!

ch4rly2002

We had a lovely meal at Sat Bains. The food had quite an unusual twist on it and was a bit more hit and miss than last time we went, but we really enjoyed the food and experience as a whole. We sat at the kitchen bench so we could see the food being prepared and talked to the chefs a lot. They explained what they were doing and a bit about themselves (where they'd worked, who they'd worked for, where they were from etc.). It felt like being on an episode of Saturday Kitchen. It was very nice of mum to treat us (we tried to contribute but she was just having non of it). She really enjoyed herself and it's a birthday she won't forget.

I bought mum a weekend trip away for the two of us. It's a murder mystery weekend and she loves that kind of thing. She reads a lot, and enjoys things like Murder on the Orient Express etc. I got the deal through Groupon (there a few all over the country), and I went through TCB so all in all, we should have a great weekend away and managed to get a fab deal too.

In other news, I've sold my printer on eBay for the price of my new printer. I'm happy with that result. The buyer is coming to collect and will pay cash on collection so no p4yp4l or postage fees either. Pr0lific is at £2.94 and VB is at £4.16

Really looking forward to New York. I will try and post some photos when I get back

Jessy103

Ooo have fun on the murder mystery weekend!!

ch4rly2002

I'm back from New York. We had a great time but it's good to be back The weather was much the same as here, lots of wind and rain with a couple of dry days in between. We got loads done and made the most of the New York passes I bought, but sadly the hop-on-hop-off bus was only valid for 1 day trip so we ended up having to buy an additional 5 day pass. Bit of a shame, but was totally worth it and we fully made use of it. We did the night tour twice, the Brooklyn tour and the Bronx tour and did the standard uptown and downtown tours quite a few times. I always like to go on the tour buses when I go somewhere new. We first went round the whole circuit listening to the info on the first trip round, then after that we used it as transport and always sat upstairs (even in the rain) to see all the sights. We went to the top of the empire State Building (amazing!), Circuit Line boat trip round Manhattan, 9/11 memorial pools and museum (it's worth paying to go into the museum), Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Central Park, the Friends apartment block, the Ghostbusters Fire station, the Natural history museum and loads more. It was a great holiday, but sooooo expensive and everyone wants to try and get that bit extra money out of you. We went to the Intrepid museum which has a submarine you can walk round and a large aircraft carrier ship you can explore and look at planes on etc. but they also have a concorde there, which I was really interested in as they stopped the concorde programme before I got chance to go on one. Sadly you couldn't just walk around it like everything else, you had to pay an additional amount. It wasn't much, something like $6 each, but still it's all about getting that extra bit of cash. Sadly we had dinner plans for my birthday so we couldn't go in it as they had set times. We got accosted by someone outside our hotel selling tickets for a comedy club. They wanted $25 each for tickets, and we didn't know what our plans were so kept saying no (plus, I wouldn't have paid that much). In the end I told him I only had $20 on me (which was true as it was our first night and I only had a bit of walking around money on me) and he said that's fine so I gave it to him so we could go in and get some sleep! Turns out there was also a 2 drink minimum, and the drinks weren't cheap, but it was a really fun night so it turned out OK! There were lots of beggars on the street too. Some of them looked in a real state so we bought a couple of them something to eat on the first few days but after the first couple I said to DH that we really should stop or it's going to cost us a fortune and seeing how many beggars there are, I'm glad we did as you just can't help that many people alone. Times Square on a night is also full of people trying to get your money. So many people came up to us with CDs saying they'd recorded their own music against racism and violence. We didn't have cash on us but they didn't believe us and didn't want to let us move on, but we just kept walking and then someone else did the same - we said we'd just had someone else offering the same and he called us racist as it wasn't him and not all black people look the same. I think he'd misunderstood us and thought we said he had just tried to sell us the CD. Again, we were polite but just had to keep on walking. They have some great pizza in New York, and good for a reasonably priced meal. Sadly, we didn't realise you can get free tickets to watch programmes being filmed and it was too late by the time we did as they sell out in advance. If we go again I would definitely apply in advance to watch the late show being recorded. If anyone is going and interested, you apply through 1iota. also, if anyone is wanting to go to the Katz's deli from When Harry Met Sally, be aware it's in a bit of a sketchy area so make sure your belongings are safe and not on show. 

DH's 40th birthday holiday is booked now as well. YBIL finally admitted that they were pushing for August as they'd also booked a holiday with their friends and didn't have the holiday allowance to go any other time. We went ahead and booked a holiday in St Lucia and told them they are welcome to join us, but it doesn't look like they will be able to. Very disappointing for DH It's going to be fairly pricey, but we got a great deal. We went into store and the lovely assistant added loads of discounts. DH had his heart set on this particular chain of 5 star hotels, and we had looked elsewhere and on their site directly so we know the savings are genuine. In all, it is going to cost £5500 for the two of us, but that's a lot less than it would have cost if we'd booked elsewhere (could possibly had got it cheaper if YBIL hadn't messed us around until the last minute, but we're not going to think about that).

In amazing MSE news, when we got back from New York, DH had a very nice letter waiting for him. HSBC had reviewed his PPI claim (he didn't even realise they'd added PPI to his student account and credit card until I was scanning his old documents and told him!). They've paid him £4,800 in PPI refunds for the PPI they added to his student accounts. Woohoo, that's almost as much as his birthday holiday! We've decided to save £2000 of it (£1k in each of our premium bond accounts) and put the rest towards the holiday / credit card bill from New York spends. It's come at a great time! Many thanks to MSE and the resolver tool for making it so easy to claim. 

Work is going well too. I have just been paid a second time and it's drastically different from the first, and doesn't have my pension contributions on it yet so I reckon it'll be another couple of pay slips until everything settles down to normal and I can set a budget. I have also set up additional student load payments of £50 and that has come out. The plan is to pay off my student load then use the student loan money to overpay on the mortgage. I'm going to overpay by at least £50, but when I know my budget I will pay as much as I can. 

ch4rly2002

Also, forgot to mention - I'm not a fan of the new forum Hopefully I'll get used to it and figure out how to use it properly.
also, I won £25 on the premium bonds
The printer I sold before my holiday was collected too, so I have the £40 back that I paid for the new printer, minus the £4 eBay charge. Happy days!