Striving to save and stay solvent!

MeandO

Self Assessment done and I owe just under £80 in tax which needs to be paid by the end of the year. Wll pay it as soon as the business picks up a bit in the next few months (always busier nearer Christmas), as there's no rush.

I have the day off tomorrow as the first of the outstanding building works is commencing. It should be done in a day, but then obviously my savings account will diminish dramatically as it's just over £2k worth of work! :( Oh well, it will be nice to finally get it done and at least I'm not putting it on a credit card.

I need to source a shower and shower tray next week as that work is due to be done the week after. Those may have to go on the credit card so that I have enough cash to pay the builder for the labour when he needs paying, we'll see. I'm hoping to get a shower and tray for as close to £100 as possible. I've found a good tray for £49, I'm hoping I find a sale of the century on electric showers this coming week! :rotfl:

I have taken photos of the few items I have to ebay/list on gumtree, so I need to get those done this weekend too to raise a little bit of extra cash.

Grocery order is being delivered tonight, so I will draft a rough meal plan tonight or tomorrow.

I don't have any plans for the weekend, but I'm hoping to make it a no-spend-weekend. We have plenty of food in, have a pass to a local wildlife attraction do may go there for a bit, and possibly have movie evening with DS if he'd like to.

Chandelier.

That's great MeandO. Every little helps

MeandO

Chandelier. wrote: »

That's great MeandO. Every little helps

Indeed it does Chandelier! X

MeandO

97p transferred to the OP pot from a tidy of the business account & £20 sent over to the savings pot. If there's any more left over after the postage of parcels I'll pop that to the OP pot too.

£3.42 from Quidco is on the way to the bank account which I'll tidy to the OP pot when it arrives. They've conveniently ignored my message from last week about an ongoing missing claim of £60. :mad: Quidco really have gone downhill these days, I'm converting to TCB. Saying that, I've just emailed TCB about a claim that's not tracked correctly and not been updated when it should have been!

MeandO

Just completed a survey for a whopping £10 and then one straight after for £2.10! Once it's been credited, that will be another £20 to put towards the bathroom savings.

Just waiting on the grocery delivery, it seems it came in at £50.58 according to the pending amount in the bank account.

Honeysucklelou2

Hope the building work goes smoothly today.

MeandO

Thanks HSL2, it's been ongoing since 9am, I'll be glad to get my house back...

I've filled the car up this morning, budgeted £45 and it took £42.07 so the bit extra can go to the OP pot. I'll transfer it later tonight and update totals.

I popped to the supermarket whilst getting petrol, I only needed to pick up a few bits that OH asked me to pick up, and I ended up spending £23 of which, probably £20 was non-essential. I really have to avoid supermarkets. There is about £45 left in my grocery budget for the month now which should be fine. As long as I avoid supermarkets...

MeandO

Building works took a lot longer than planned as there hit a few problems, but it's 99% done now, they just need to come back and finish a bit off outside next week and then it will look a million dollars (or £2.1k at least!). :rotfl::eek:

Flooring I ordered hasn't arrived today as it should have, so I've emailed them to try and find out where it is. If it's not here tomorrow I won't be very happy. :mad:

I have had lots of surveys drop into my inbox today so I will attempt to catch up on those tomorrow morning.

TCB claim has been sorted and I can transfer the £12 from there in 72 hours time once my bank details have been verified. £10 of that will go towards the bathroom fund, £2 to the OP pot.

Quidco money still not hit the account and no reply from them regarding the ongoing missing cashback issue. :mad:

Happy weekend everyone xx

chevalier

MeandO wrote: »

Oh, and DS came home with a huge (unfixable) rip to his coat yesterday too so will need a new one.

On a plus, I've sorted a couple of items of clothing to return which will bring £21 back into the account. Guess it will have to go straight in the savings pot.

If it is a school coat do they have second hand at school? If not how bout a trawl of the charity shops, it doesn't HAVE to be new....

I think you are doing really well, and you seem very organised. Re losing the weight. Is there time in the day when you could do an exercise video type thingy, after ds has gone to bed? Re the SW or WW idea, would they really mind if DS sat quietly at the back with a book? obviously i don't know how old he is, but that is what is did as a kid when my mum wanted to do classes, I sat off to one side and read a book or did drawing. Just a thought. Your health is important too. Added to that I found that the smaller plate idea does work. If you look at a 1960s dinner plate it is actually smaller diameter than modern ones. So maybe use a side plate instead?
good luck with your savings

MeandO

Thanks Chevalier, some great suggestions.

The coat doesn't have to be a school one thankfully, but I managed to find an old waterproof mac type one he had which I thought he'd probably grown out of by now, but tried it and it fits just fine. He has a bigger warmer one in my wardrobe which is brand new but was a bit big for him, so I'm sure it'll fit by the time the cold weather returns.

Caught up on the surveys this morning, screened out of all of them, but at least I'm up to date.

I've listed one item on ebay and a couple (of OHs bits he asked me to sell) on Gumtree. I have some more ebay stuff to do tonight once DS is in bed.

We're off to buy a shower and shower tray shortly if we see both reasonably priced.
As I've been typing this the postman has delivered a card from my Dad with two B&Q gift cards in and £5 for DS for a treat. He is such a sweetheart.

I've used the £20 survey rewards to pay for a new doorbell as ours has broken and a new house number for our house. They were a bit of a nightmare to use tbh, I won't be requesting payout in those prepaid cards again.

Still not received the Quidco money or survey funds, keeping an eye out for them as want to top the pots up a little more.