My New Frugal Life

Newfrugallife

Just cashed out my first £20 from PA surveys! I will be adding it to my next months budget.
The budget resets next Tuesday and so far so good. I’m looking forward to see how much we will have left, don’t want to jinx it but if all goes to budget should have about £70 left over. At the moment all the surplus will be saved but as I get more confident I will start to over pay the mortgage... so fingers crossed!

Newfrugallife

Some great news! We finally managed to bring down our phone/internet/tv package. I’ve been fighting this battle for awhile but my husband really didn’t want to get rid of sports etc.. and there is a location issue that we can only have certain internet, as other providers can’t reach us. But I’ve been nagging and nagging and after a few back and forth phone calls they gave in and reduced it by nearly half! We get to keep our internet and phone and the sports package but getting rid of one box. The new price is £54 a month (still too much if you ask me but much better than £90 we been paying!)

My next task is to try and switch energy provider....

In other news, I thought our car insurance already been paid but it comes out on Monday so the total left over at the end of the month is £20.... Still we are not overdrawn and next month it will be better with the reduced bill and I’m going to do better with the shopping budget (so she keeps saying.....)

I’m very busy since giving up work and my days fly so quickly with the studying, housework, childcare and play dates etc... Still not missing/ not regretting giving up work and feel that it’s been a good decision for us! Would love a bit of extra cash of course but things are not too bad at the moment

Newfrugallife

My doggy that I was supposed to sit today has cancelled
Shame I was so looking forward to it! Also need to adjust my budget as already was working on the basis of extra money! Oh well...

My PA surveys have gone really quiet after I made the withdrawal.. I have emailed them to see what’s happening, as heard in this forum that they can black list you for no reason.

My OP surveys is building slowly but surely £15.75 - I need £40 to withdraw.
YouGov 800 points - need to reach 5000 to take out £50.

Yesterday I have cleaned the whole house and put up our Christmas trees! We have 2, one in the living room with silver and blue and one in the dinning room with red and gold! Looks very nice so far and the cats have been behaving ish .. I know it’s a tiny bit early but was so happy and in a Christmassy mood so decided to go for it! It took hours as had to dust and hoover them first! We didn’t have them out last Christmas as had a tiny real one... but back to fake this year.

I have finished Christmas present shopping, it’s coming around £300. Just waiting for last few bits to be delivered and then will pay off the credit card out of the Christmas and birthday pot I’ve built up while still working. The task will be to replenish this for next year!

Waiting to hear back from my third uni assignment (aiming for more than 55 mark this time!). And just about ready to submit my 4th.

angela110660

newgirly wrote: »

Just found your dairy and wanted to wish you luck with your new journey. I was also a SAHM when I started here in 2010 and dh was not in a great wage, I'm still pretty part time though to be honest it gives you plenty of time to make savings you otherwise might struggle with.

In the past I've been more frugal to try and create a surplus to op the mortgage with - making gloop to wash clothes with for example, baking bread, making everything from scratch food wise, surveys, bank switching. Frugal blogs are a great resource, some can be a bit preachy but there are often good tips. A few suggestions are:

Frugal queen

Jack monroe

Mortgage free in three (not currently posting , but a really great blog and worth reading back through.)

Mr money mustache


Anyway, I hope I haven't stated the obvious as if you have cleared debts then you probably knoŵ all of this

I read all these intermittently and MFIT is back blogging again recently -yay! But has anyone else been struggling to find Frugal Queen in the last week or so like me? Really miss her updates.

Newfrugallife

Little update

I have received my assignment and got 79! Very happy with that. Submitted my next one and I have one more next week... but I haven’t started on it yet, oh dear, so a bit behind now and really need to get myself motivated!

The one due next week is the last one before Christmas so I will have a little break, I’ve not even looked at the work yet though, so need to get a move on.

I’ve been quite ill for the past few weeks, still functioning but did sleep a lot and my mood has been low. I have something called neuralgia and the only way I can describe it is sharp shooting pains in one side of my head/ear. On and off pains literally just go straight through you as so painful and sharp, and the medication doesn’t really help, it’s weird but the only thing that helps is a hot water bottle! It is much better now though and I believe I’m coming to the end of it now.

In terms of food budgets, I have been a lot better at sticking to it. Went yesterday and spent £56 which is brilliant! But other weeks can be a bit higher so I’m still allowing up to £70 a week all in, but it finally looks more under control now.

With the surveys my PA ones have completely dried up! I have emailed them but no reply, I have heard they can sometimes black list you and maybe I have messed up a survey or something like that. Since I’ve not had a survey for weeks now I have withdrawn the balance from it (there is a small charg3 if under £20). I had just over £5.
OP surveys, I’m up to 17.25 - need £40 to take out
YouGov I have 1000 - need 5000 to take out £50

On my dog walking venture. Had a last minute booking for Thursday/Friday. A lovely old boy staffie, really nice boy but because of his old age he seemed a bit stressed and sad and not really eaten much at mine. Was worried about him and spoke to the owners, they tried to speak to him on the phone but said that’s how he gets, poor old thing. I had him from 10am Thursday to just after 8pm Friday, they actually wanted to leave him one more night but because of his eating I wasn’t comfortable, maybe I’m too soft as they weren’t too worried. That’s £30 extra coming my way.

Have another booking for next weekend, but not looking forward to that one, when they came for a meeting before booking the dog was just crazy and tried to rip/ eat my cushions etc... I think this one will be exhausting
I’m hoping he will behave for me as I had similar before, very high energy overexcited doggy when the owners are there and calm right down when I’m by myself. I also do the obidience training as soon as the owner leaves and I think that makes the dogs realise that I have different expectations of them. But we will see, I might eat my words and he could destroy my lounge. This would be £20.

There is another potential booking for January, and I’ve met the dog/owner, they are so lovely. But I have a feeling they will cancel so not counting that one yet.

I really need to go now and clean/ tidy/ study! Will be back with further updates soon.

Newfrugallife

Spent all weekend studying and just submitted the assignment! So no more until the next 2 are due 18th & 25th of January. I have to continue study meanwhile, but at least the pressure of assignment is off, I have “cheated” a little bit as only done the bits needed for this assignment, so will also need to go back and through the material I skip read. But the pressure is off..

Also I’m not 100% sure that computing is for me oh dear..... even though my assignment marks are better for the computing side of my study, I feel more comfortable with the business studies side. Will need to decide what to do as might need to change paths. That’s the good thing about the open University that I could pick and choose different modules if I need to. The important thing is not to lose heart and give up!

Newfrugallife

Got another one of my assignments back and a score of 67, so quite pleased with that, even though it’s a pass 3 but a strong 3

So so far I have these scores:
Computing - 96; 79; waiting for another I submitted this week
Business - 55; 67

Studied quite a bit today and already had a look at what is required for the next assignments which are due in January. They do look very difficult especially the computing one, but for some reason I seem to be getting better scores there!

I’ve mentioned earlier that I’m not sure what I will do with my qualification yet and whether I will continue with this particular path, I just don’t know, feeling a bit lost to be honest. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a passion for the subject I’m studying and the type of career I could potentially have afterwards? I need to do some soul searching!

Newfrugallife

I have done a lot of soul searching and looked at my options. The best thing is to change from computing and business to just business with a little mix of psychology/ sociology. I have spoken to uni and it’s ok to do so and have substituted my next computing module for a management one. Phew... it’s like a load of my mind. All I need to do now is get through the rest of this current computing module and then I won’t have to deal with it again. At the moment I’m doing scratch programming and algorithms which just seems so bloody hard for me! And learning how to build and test programs etc... it’s just too much! But I will get through this module, I believe 3 assignments left....
At least when I’m learning business studies it all mostly makes sense to me and I understand it!
I know maybe to other people it all sounds so pathetic, I want to do this, then changing to this etc etc... but I see no shame in admitting that I took on too much and doing something about it. I need to do this degree for personal self development as well as other reasons, or if I even only do one year to get a diploma or two years to get a foundation degree, it won’t be time wasted in my eyes. It would also make such a big difference to my self esteem and also will help plug my employment gap, as well as giving me new skills and an actual degree for my future employment! I need to stick with this and see it through.

Thistlewhistle

Hi there NFL

I've been reading your diary with interest. Will subscribe!!

One thing i do to keep food bills down is to shop every day. I decide what's for tea and go and buy it. I was wasting huge amounts of food it was untrue but no longer!!
Realise with family this may not be practical but it certainly helped me slash a £200 monthly bill to less than £100. There's just me though.

Good luck

T:)

Newfrugallife

Thistlewhistle wrote: »

Hi there NFL

I've been reading your diary with interest. Will subscribe!!

One thing i do to keep food bills down is to shop every day. I decide what's for tea and go and buy it. I was wasting huge amounts of food it was untrue but no longer!!
Realise with family this may not be practical but it certainly helped me slash a £200 monthly bill to less than £100. There's just me though.

Good luck

T:)

Hi T
Thank you for popping in and reading my diary
Yes that’s exactly what my initial instinct was to go shopping each day, but for some reason we didnt stick with it. I’m so glad it’s working for you though! We fell back to weekly shop at the moment, but I might go back and try daily again. Just makes so much sense!