Ev's new MFW challenge!

EssexHebridean

Hi Eva - glad you had a good time!

evab_2

Ok so haven't had time to read all your diaries but will catch up.

We had some lovely boosts to the pot as follows:

* I took part in a really easy research project and got paid £50
* Changed some survey points into paypal instead of vouchers so £28 on it's way
* £2 saved from budgeted phone bill
* 15p from Quidco and next payments are due in next few days
* £29.80 from mystery shopping
* £8 from mortgage reduction

So an extra £117.95 to add to the pot bringing the total to £540.20 :T

I'm back at work next Monday so I need to work sort out childcare payments and extra fuel costs before I can look at what I can add to mortgage pot next. I'm going to be phoning the windows companies next week to sort out the quotes and will get back into doing more mystery shops.

Another bit of news was waiting for us when we got home, dh gets a pay rise from Jan 1st and child benefit has also gone up a bit.

Still some calculations to do r.e. tax credits and just generally tidying up finances for the new year.

Also in other news dh has entered us for Reading 1/2 marathon in March _pale_ so need to get put running in between all the other jobs.

Ev x

earthgirl

Great news!
Its amazing how the little savings add up!

evab_2

Plans for 2009

I don't seem to be able to get on my diary too much so I think a weekly update will be happening in future especially as will have more going on when back to work on Monday :eek:. I'm having Thursdays off as annual leave until the end of March so will probably stick to that day.

I have thought about what we want to achieve this year by sticking to small achieveable goals and anything extra is a bonus. So here are my plans:

* Reach the £1000 target for the mortgage - I'm hoping we'll be lucky and our payments will actually go down when the SVR kicks in in July, we'll stick to the same payment though to increase the overpayments.
* When £1000 reached then start attacking the secured loan part of the mortgage as this has no limit to overpayment. The better our LTV is then maybe we can be in a stronger position when we remortgage next April. I'll need some help from you lovely people as I want to do a spreadsheet to track the balance.
* Start saving for the bathroom to be decorated. I haven't worked out how much this will be and need to sort out how much I can put aside.

In other plans:
* Earn some extra money every day this could be by doing a survey, mystery shop or listing an item on ebay/Amazon.
* Sort out an area of the house every day, especially those cupborads that are never touched! Get rid of items either by selling, donating to charity or freecycle, or binning.
* Get out running - 13 miles by the end of March!

I think that's enough to be getting on with, see you soon.

Ev x

setmefree2

and well done on that growing pot of money

evab_2

Hello all, is anyone as cold as me? Blinking freezing up here!

OK to my update then:

Monday: Returned to work to find hardly anyone in the department, my line manager was off sick but got a lovely greeting from the next boss up (she was my line manager before), she brought me up to date with a lot of things including our completion of frameworks (qualifications) were below schedule due to the initial teaching sessions not happening. This meant that the team were threatened with 7 redundancies just before Xmas, boss explained that this was to scare them really but after talking to others it turns out line manager cancelled all the courses so hardly their fault!

Boss and I agreed that I would teach more courses than usual as not enough members of the team can teach so will do that for a while and won't have any NVQ candidates. She also told me that we now get paid the full teaching rate for every hour we teach instead of it being part of our normal salary :j.

Also had a phone call from head of community college, she wants me to teach every Thursday morning for them so extra 3 hours qualified teachers rate every week. :T

Tuesday: Line manager still not in and no-one able to contact her! Very strange.

Wedsnesday: Line manager still AWOL, rumours going round that she is stressed and talk of applying for her job. I would definitely go for this.
Had first quote for windows £839 for 3 windows :eek:, looks like I'll have to borrow money from other savings as it's freezing so need doing.

Thursday: Second window company came round, will get quote in the next couple of days - lovely family company and the bloke turns out to be my local counsellor (very handy).

I haven't done much else this week in terms of tidying up and earning extra money as Tom has had a rough few nights with painful wind!

Hubbies job still isn't safe so not getting too complancent, but my extra hours will help to build up savings. Email from my work to say our annual increase will be paid from this month including back pay from August 2008 to Dec 2008.

Nice to see my colleagues, but very tired due to baby but that will settle I'm sure.

Hope everyone OK Ev x

SmlSave

Hello and Happpy New Year Evab!

Your 2009 sounds good and good luck with the 13 mile running challagne :T

we now get paid the full teaching rate for every hour we teach instead of it being part of our normal salary :j...so extra 3 hours qualified teachers rate every week. :T

Sounds like a good week to be back at work :beer: Hopefully your line manager is ok...but it would no doubt be nice if you had a chance of applying for the job

Hope the rest of the week turns out well for you too.

evab_2

I hope she is ok too but too be honest she isn't my favourite person, she is very weak and she doesn't sort things out. She doesn't seem to cope with the job but she should say something not hide away! I discovered loads of things that I left her to check on whilst I was away, that haven't been done. It makes us look bad then.

SmlSave

I understand why she might get on your nerves! I often have a fume when I get back from a break and find things that haven't been done or even worse done incorrectly.

gallygirl

evab wrote: »

I haven't done much else this week in terms of tidying up and earning extra money as Tom has had a rough few nights with painful wind!

OK, Tom is the baby isn't he, not OH

Congrats on good news :T , has boss turned up yet?