Earthgirl's Final Battle

beanielou

Hope you find your watch.

earthgirl

I didn't find my watch, and it's unlikely to be returned to me. Nevermind. I will get a cheap one for Christmas.

Today I will catch up on admin at work, do the weekly shop and organise the weekend for no spends.

I did a greta workout last night, but I'm not getting to the beach on the weekdays in winter. I should get there on Saturday and Sunday.

Karmacat

Hope you get to the beach over the weekend, that sounds so amazing.

earthgirl

Drizzly day today so I've given the beach a miss its due to be lovely the next few days so I'll make sure I get down then.

I have been asking the PEdept at a school I'm in a lot about the possiblity of using their gym (and possibly showers) and it turns out they already have free classes for staff that I could attend No gym membership needed and it should help me in winter so I'll try to fit it in. I've only got a few pounds to lose now, but I want a good cardio and strength workout at least 3 times a week.

I've been up and at the surveys today I think they bring in more extra cash than the other work I was doing, and scheduling it for half an hour a day really works for me.

I've been offered a flexibility with my job to work in the childrens units in return for hours off. I can accumulate these to be a day or two and this gives me flexiblity when booking trips away which can save me a lot of money. For example when considering this we looked at holidays returning on a Monday rather than a Sunday, and the saving was about £1000.

Housework is all up to date, so my focus is having fun with this weekend (sometimes I think I give myself so much to do that I/we don't get to have as much fun as I'd like!)

So today we are going to a community event (free) ds1 has a party, and I'm taking ds2 to an aquarium (free tickets).

Need to:

Wrap 3 presents (one for tomorrow) all from store
make picnic for ds2 and 1
Get ds1 party ready

Tomorrow
run on beach - starting couch to 5k eek!
Shop and scan
batch cook - humous, pasta sauce x 2, chicken for lunches, soup for date lunch.
Football run and party run

Have decided to do a lunch date with oh on a Monday, especially after a busy weekend, so I bought some part baked rolls and I'll make soup and a mug cake!

apple_muncher

Good news about those gym classes.



And the work flexibility.


And the freebies for today.

earthgirl

Things going well at work - looks promising that this job wont change much and I love it so it's worth a lot to me.

Went to a cheap fireworks show and bonfire last night, it was amazing and only cost £5.

I've done some surveys this morning and then was helped by ds2. Going to have to rejig 'again' as he is up most mornings and I can't work on OH's business. Either that or OH will have to get up and look after him!!But soon he won't want cuddles and I'll miss them...

I took ds2 to an aquarium on Saturday and it was a lovely day out. He was just a joy to be with and was so interested in everything. We had a lovely weekend and it was mostly free.

2 mystery shops completed yesterday, and some surveys. I'm finding the surveys are earning me more than I expected and I'll keep on going.

So this week I'd like to do a massive overhaul and catch up on admin at work, do some banking and check money is in the best paying accounts, have a look at our travel plans again to make sure we are planning on travelling at the best times.

I have a day out on Saturday to Glasgow with relatives, and I'd like to plan in a swimming trip and a museum/gallery trip with the kids too, so I need to organise that.

We had saved and budgeted for a trip away at new year time, but as an experiment we have left it to later to book. It seems like we would still have to spend a lot of money (3k) to get somewhere warm (and even then it's not guranteed and there might be bad days) and it wouldn't have a lot of charachter to it, just going to a resort somewhere, maybe Eygpt or Tenerife. It would be nice to relax together and for the kids to do sport/swim etc and have meals 'out', but I'm so undecided - what if we spend all that money and it's to cold to do that? I think I need to do a little more research.

Also - I'm going to get asked to do lunch club at Christmas soon and need to say yes - ie not go on holiday and put extra cash into the pot - or no and then risk not getting a cheap holiday and staying at home when I could have been earning the extra cash.

Sorry for waffling - bit of a brain dump!!

earthgirl

So I have decided that its best not to go away at new year unless oh really wants to - and I don't think he does. When I get asked to do lunch club, I'll double check with him then. I'd rather not spend so much on a holiday when I could put that towards a better holiday - for example £5k would get us a south africa trip with safari.

So I have entered into the world of swagbucks, and I'm doing as amny surveys as I can to keep the pounds building up. I haven't yet completed my work overhaul and admin catch up - will get into that today.

Karmacat

Earthie, honestly, I think thats the right decision, not to go away over NY - the airport trauma looks horrendous, and prices are really over-inflated.


SB - keep checking on the thread on here, its so valuable. And if you see and "instant" survey on your home page, do it right then - I don't think anyone ever gets rejected for them, and they're very fast. But the thread will tell you so many ways to get easy points. That said, the next mse thing I want to do is join Prolific Academic.


Anyway, have a good day, I'm sure you're as busy as usual

earthgirl

Thanks Karma, your post gave me so much peace about not going away. I am not here to holiday at all costs, rather we have a goal to travel and experience things with the money we have saved from working extra. I still need to plan this a little better, but this year has shown me that late deals to the sort of places we want to go don't really exist and planning about 11 months ahead gives the cheapest results and most choice.

Still not managing to get SB to work in my favour it seems to take me a long time, but I'll get there.

I was looking at extra jobs yesterday (actually for OH not me) there really isn't anything for him, but loads for me (service and retail). But I'm just not going to give my weekends and evenings up with the kids, there will be time for that when they are teenagers or older. It's reAlly hard to find things that OH would like. We have enquired about fostering as we have always thought we'd do this later down the line, but with oh at home it makes sense to look at it now.

Still not got ahead with my work admin despite an afternoon on it yesterday. I hate taking it home so I'm going to have to come up with a better way of working.

TO DO:
doctors appointment
surveys
housework catch up
exercise
organise saturdays glasgow trip
Banking
Organise travel plans roughly
clear work back log and reorganise admin systems

Karmacat

I'm glad it helped, earthie



SB - for someone with your earning ability and so time poor, I'm not sure it makes sense to go for it, honestly.



OH jobs: as a short term thing, listening to kids read, something like that? Service and retail for him? Or are you looking for a permanent something straight away? Not a good time of year for much to be on the market, as I'm sure you know in reality, sorry.