Taking it slowly, but doing it well.

wishingthemortgaheaway

SeekingFlight wrote: »

Thanks for the warning about the protein yoghurt, sending good wishes for you and slightly stealing the phrase cleaner proof the house because i love it

At least it's one where it ends up being free, rather than reduced.

Feel free to magpie my cleaner proofing term, it wasn't that onerous last night as hubby is still away.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Another nsd today, and feeling a bit better mentally so all good.

Had a friend of a friend round tonight who wanted help with cv and job application writing, something that my friend thought I was good at, and reccommended me. So the lady came round with her waffle filled personal statement and we started making it more concise.

Tomorrow has the potential to be a nsd, I need to find bake off baking ingredients from what we have in the house. We have no icing sugar which could be a challenge. We shall see.

Looking further forward to the weekend. Hubby is teching for a food festival nearby. We usually go to the food festitbut it's never very money saving. I always seem to hand over ten pound notes (and never get much change)
My plan is to earn (from surveys etc) my spends for Saturday.
Pa has tipped over the £20 fee free cash out value, so I'll leave it in there and see what we have by the end of the week.
Just applied to cash out £5 on swagbucks.
Qmee has 56p
The ziff1t payment should be in my account by the end of the week too (and no deductions from what they said I would get)

We'll see what we can get too.

Updates
Monday
Didn't write a to do list yesterday, so nothing to report.

Tuesday
Return pickle's library boooks
Bake off baking
Babysit pickle's little friend for an hour.
Host bake off bakealong

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00
£60.20/£150 TT from utility YNAB pot.
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc
£25.41/£30 (Shopm1um: £8.10, Qme3: £2.31 vo; £15 voucher) no change
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10

The weight loss challenge 24 days left in September which is why everything is out of 24 (when I started)
1) no snacking unless it grew 8/24

2) Maximum of 2 slices of bread (or equivalent) 8/24
3) No hovering Pickle's left overs. 11:24
Breakfast: none
Lunch: cheese & tomato Pitts, crisps
Dinner: Shepherd's pie.
Other: Diet Coke, , chocolate digestives.

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Not a nsd today because I [STRIKE]needed[/STRIKE] wanted, icing sugar and butter for tonight's bake off cake. (Caramel week is just too sickly, can't face any more cake!)
Shopmium paid up the cashback if applied for and swgbcks sent me my £5 PayPal both of which have been put aside for saturday's food festival. I'll cash out pa on friday. Hopefully get it to £25 cleared.

The bacon subscription arrived today and that's the last one for this month so another £18.10 to the mop pot. The amount in the mop pot, at the moment is in excess of the interest applied to the account. Next mini step on the way to my £150 overpayment is £113 ish to take me down to a nice round thousands number and allow me to colour in another square on my countdown house.

Tomorrow will be spendy I think. Going to a friend's uncle's jewellery shop to have some of my jewellery (inherited from my grandma) valued. Some I know is costume jewellery, but the rest I just don't know. There are a few bits I'd never sell and just need an insurance valuation for and some I'll seriously consider selling.
Baby group volunteering in the afternoon then a nice, early night.

Updates below

Tuesday
Return pickle's library books✅
Bake off baking✅
Babysit pickle's little friend for an hour. ✅
Host bake off bakealong✅

Wednesday
Find watch to be valued
Deliver bake away boxes
Have an early night.

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00
£78.30/£150 emptying bacon subscription pot.
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£35.06/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £2.31 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10

The weight loss challenge 24 days left in September which is why everything is out of 24 (when I started)
1) no snacking unless it grew 8/24
Bake off!!!!!
2) Maximum of 2 slices of bread (or equivalent) 9/24
3) No hovering Pickle's left overs. 12:24
Breakfast: none
Lunch: Leek & poato soup
Dinner: Slowcooker chicken casserole
Other: Diet Coke. Bake off!!!!!!!

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Yesterday went by in a blur, I was so tired. Today isn't much better, Pickle is teething so his sleep is up the swamy, not that he's a great sleeper at the best of times. Today has been a bit of a fug... here's the highlights from the last two days..

Jewellery valuation - pretty much as expected, nothing that requires itemising on the house insurance, but the watch that I had to find (see to do list below) is worth more than I ever thought. Not that that matters, it's the only item in the whole collection I actually love. So, it needs photographing just in case.
1 high value item is never sell.
1 high ish value item that I'll look into auctioning (at a proper auction, not 3bay)
A few bits of costume jewellery to get shot off on fb or shpock.
Some gold chains to weigh in when gold prices rise a bit.

Friend paid for lunch, I'll pay on our next adventure.

Today: the local charity run children's centre run a job club with free crèche spaces. Pickle played for 2.5 hours and I cracked on with writing a job application form, it's not finished, but it's a heck of a lot further on that's it was.

After nap time it was the food shop. Not done a brilliant job this week as I was tired and fed up. Both nappies and wipes were on offer so I stocked up. No Shopmium purchases, but I did do 2 roamler tasks, one has paid out already, I hope the other ones does too (£5)

I've cashed out £25.87 from PA. going to focus on swagbucks tonight and tomorrow and try and get that up to £5 then I'll have over £70 for saturday's food festival. I'm hoping I don't spend that much as I'd like to top up the mop pot.

I'm hoping to have an nsd tomorrow.
Don't even ask about the 'healthy eating' pickle's sleep and my resulting exhaustion put paid to that!

Wednesday
Find watch to be valued ✅ and worth more than I thought.
Deliver bake away boxes ✅
Have an early night. ✅😭 But Pickle had a3 hour overnight party 😭

Friday
Washing
Tidying
Sausage cassoulet for tea.

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00
£80.50/£150 TT from grocery/household pots
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£60.93/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £2.31 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5, Pa:£25.87)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10

The weight loss challenge 24 days left in September which is why everything is out of 24 (when I started)
1) no snacking unless it grew 8/24
Nope
2) Maximum of 2 slices of bread (or equivalent) 10/24
3) No hovering Pickle's left overs. 13:24
Breakfast: none
Lunch: Leek & poato soup
Dinner: Super noodles (my vice, don't have them often, but it's cheaper/healthier than a dominos)
Other: Diet Coke. G&t, celebrations, banana, strawberries, satsuma.

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

I don't know what happened to yesterday's post, but it seems to have disappeared into cyber space.

But on with today...
Between the Ziffit box, surveys and shopm1um cashback I had £70 to spend at the food festival today. (And £5 already in my purse) I took cash so I wouldn't over spend. Well, my total!! Spends for the day came to £10.50. I am delighted. I've had a lovely, cheap day out.
So.... I've done some YNAB juggling so the cash in my purse is now from the grocery, spending money and restaurants pots and have added the surplus from today to the mop pot. My £150 target for this month is now within reach.

I wonder what I can do this week. It's not looking like a high spends week as we are escaping to mum and dad's for the first half of the week. There is enough fuel in the car to get there and back.
Tomorrow Pickle and I are going out for tea with two other families, but it's a spoons so cheap.

I'm going to set myself a challenge if not using my card this week, even for the grocery shop on Thursday/friday. £60 should be enough, if I'm careful.

I really can't wait for the end of the week and the budget roundup & reset.

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00
£145.06/£150 underspend from food festival
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£61.75/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £3.13 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5, Pa:£25.87)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10

The weight loss challenge 24 days left in September which is why everything is out of 24 (when I started)
1) no snacking unless it grew 8/24
Nope
2) Maximum of 2 slices of bread (or equivalent) 10/24
3) No hovering Pickle's left overs. 15:24
Breakfast: none
Lunch: Ostrich burger crepe lemonade
Dinner: Somerset pork, to follow
Other: crisps, lemonade.

Wish

wishingthemortgaheaway

Today, on paper, looks like a bit of a financial disaster, but all will be fine.

This morning hubby asked if I had any cash he could have for his work spends today. I can't say no as he's funding us totally, so I gave him £30 from my purse.
Then we decided to use the spoons app to order tea to our table, which has come out of my account. I will get the other's share back, but also need to contribute to a friend's birthday gift so £10 for that.

The expenditure is meaning ynab is looking tight for the week but:

There's £33 in groceries on ynab.
I have £35 cash
I'm owed £20 from friends for tea
I'm going to mum and dads for two nights from tomorrow so should spend very little.

I'm not updating my goals tonight as very little has changed and I'm too tired.

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00
£145.06/£150 underspend from food festival
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£61.75/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £3.13 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5, Pa:£25.87)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10

The weight loss challenge 24 days left in September which is why everything is out of 24 (when I started)
1) no snacking unless it grew 8/24
Nope
2) Maximum of 2 slices of bread (or equivalent) 10/24
3) No hovering Pickle's left overs. 15:24
Breakfast: none
Lunch: Ostrich burger crepe lemonade
Dinner: Somerset pork, to follow
Other: crisps, lemonade.

Wish[/QUOTE]

wishingthemortgaheaway

It's been a busy morning financially already today, so popping in with a quick finance update.

Key things are:
Child benefit has hit the bank. The odd £2.80 added to the mop pot as Pickle's 'rent'
Cashed out £1.92 on Qm33
Friend from dinner yesterday has just dropped round the money she owes from tea last night.

So....

MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00✅
£150.60/£150 this is the Qm33 cashout, the child benefit shrapnel and a TT from yesterday.
For the rest of the week I'm going to try and get this to £153.something which will give me a nice round mortgage amount at the end of the month.
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£63.67/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £5.05 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5, Pa:£25.87)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10 today has the potential to be a nsd, we'll see.

The £20 from friend will go in my purse towards the grocery shopping and spends this week. There's only £33 left in the YNAB spends categories until The end of the month, but add that to the £55 in my purse and we're laughing right?

Betterthanever

Loving "pickle's rent"!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Betterthanever wrote: »

Loving "pickle's rent"!

It doesn't cover much of what we spend on him over and above the child benefit amount. But it helps with my urge to Tilly tidy everything.

wishingthemortgaheaway

So, I've reached the end of the day, Pickle and I are now at my mum &dad's and he's been a right Pickle this evening. He didn't go to sleep until 21:20. Which is VERY late for him, he's normally asleep by 7.

Financial news in addition to this morning's whirlwind:

Found £7 in old £ coins in the swimming bag (you can never have enough coins for the lockers apparently) I've added this to the money in my purse, but transferred £3 from the grocery YNAB pot into the mop pot. (Leaving £30) the other £4 I'm leaving as bonis find unaccounted for money to do with as I please.

This makes the mop pot £153.60. This would bring the mortgage down to £35,960.36. So my mop pot targets between now and the end of the month are:
1) £0.36
2) £10.36
3) £60.36

1) is ridiculously easy (already 12p I can. Ash out of Qmee)
2) should not be an issue, £62.00 in purse, £30 in YNAB should be more than enough to last the week
3) this is a huge ask. The only way I think I will make this: (assuming I've reached the £10.36 target I'll need £50)
Swagbucks: should be able to get £5 from here by the end of the week
Qmee averages about £1 a day - £5 for end of the month.
Roamler: £12.00 payable now (but would incur a cash out fee) there are recurring tasks on a Thursday that last week netted me £10, but I think they are specials, so let's say £15 from there total.
Interest on savings account: about £1
£14 to find.....
Bring on the challenge.


MSE SEPTEMBER GOALS

1) reduce mortgage capital by £445.00✅
£153.60/£150
2) cash out £30 on surveys/mystery shopping/cashback etc✅
£63.67/£30 (Shopm1um: £12.75, Qme3: £5.05 vo; £15 voucher Swagbucks:£5, Pa:£25.87)
3) 30 lots of decluttering/organising
10/30 nothing today
4) 10 nsd in September
8/10 can't really claim today as I booked my parents a trip into the executive lounge at the airport for their next holiday. This is their joint birthday present for this year. I did book it through a cashback website. So £5.00 pending there.

Teally tired now. Sleep well everyone.