Keeping on the Straight and Narrow...

savingholmes

Great news on the saving and the tax refund. Awesome!!

DancingInTheRain

How's the weekend treating everyone?

We had DH's brother, SIL & children around to visit yesterday. It felt a bit odd at first but the children absolutely loved seeing each other and were as good as gold. We've quite a large playroom and the rain held off for an hour so we manager to maintain a bit of distance with them as well as getting some fresh air. A truly lovely afternoon.

DH sold an old games console on Friday and used the proceeds to buy some decent hair clippers & a coffee machine for me. I'd mentioned wanting one a while ago and he spotted a good deal so decided to treat me 😊

Still waiting on the OnePoll money, looking back on my history on this account it seems to take about 3 weeks so just need to be patient.

Also hit the £3 Amazon voucher payout on Receipt Hog so just waiting for that to arrive and then I'll send £3 to savings to offset it.

Have used a little of the school uniform savings pot to buy DS1 a PE Kit and 2 pairs of trousers, need to double check what else he needs as I'm pretty sure he'll have outgrown his polo shirts & shoes.

Also bought my first Xmas gift 🤫 spotted an unbranded Lego set on offer - £5 for 600 bricks so got that to put away for DS1. Also picked up some cars for the same price to put away for DS2's birthday next month. 

Weekly shop done on Thursday night and, like a lot of others on here, I made a conscious effort to reduce the spends and buy only what we needed. This was still high at £110 but much better than the £150 we've been spending in recent weeks (we've been putting our 'fun pounds/date night' budget money into grocery spends to compensate) but still needs reviewed and brought down below £100 per week.

Hope everyone else is well, stay safe xx

DancingInTheRain

Also cancelled our half term break in October as I'm really uncomfortable at the thought of going to a holiday park this year, especially with the number of restrictions in place. I may have thought differently if the boys were older but they'll still only be 4 and 2 in October and I can't see it being much fun for them (and us) not being
able to run around freely. 

We may have been able to reschedule to a later date if I waited a little longer but I'm just ready to write this year's travel plans off, this is the final trip to sort out and quite honestly on this one I'm happy to cut our losses (£60 deposit), keep building savings and then book something in the future when either there will be less restrictions or the boys will be older & able to understand restrictions better.

We still aim to do a couple of day trips to something like a wildlife park or zoo over the summer but that's it for this year.

DancingInTheRain

Me again
My BIL has just transferred some money he owed us that we'd forgotten about (£40). As this came out of last months budget we've just sent it across to the CC so that's now at £4450  

DancingInTheRain

Hit the threshold to cash out £5 from vypr today, will add to savings pots when this arrives.
Other than that a quiet day, well as quiet as a 4 year old and an almost 2 year allow 🤣

savingholmes

Glad you were able to meet up with family. Nice when they repay their debts too. It all helps. I am with you on the holiday - I have no desire to go somewhere currently. Who knows who was in before you, how well it was cleaned etc and as you say what restrictions will be in place. For me half the fun of going away is cooking less which isn't really likely to be an option in the circumstances.

DancingInTheRain

Good morning all

The last few days seemed to have passed in a blur. DH has been heavily involved in a new project launch at work so has been working long hours, including an extra day yesterday.

I had a call to say I'm back to work tomorrow, in the office tomorrow then will work out a rota that sees me doing a combination of office and WFH days, had a little bit of CoVid19 H&S training to do ahead of my return.

DH & I have also both commited to eating more healthily and drinking less, our first weigh in is tomorrow. This was triggered by me having a consultation with a specialist regarding my blood pressure, have undertaken a number of tests & it's looking like there's nothing sinister causing it thankfully but more likely to be genetics. Have to have a couple of other tests in the coming weeks but basically the best thing I can do is to take good care of myself. DH put on a lot of weight with his knee problem but now that he's fully recovered he wants to tackle the weight gained.

In DFW news, the Receipt Hog Voucher arrived so I transferred £3 to savings. Also cashed out £5.60 from Prolific, again this went to savings. Listed a few more things on eBay, due to end tomorrow and looks like we might achieve around £50 profit.

Today I'm having a socially distanced catch up with some friends, really looking forward to this.

Then it will be time to get back in the old routine of preparing lunches and bags ready for us all heading out of the house at 8am tomorrow!

Hope everyone is well & safe xx

DancingInTheRain

So I've just had this offer from Costalot, if anyone wants to take advantage of this referral code then we both get extra points 😊🤞

Use the Costa app like me and get 300 (£3) free points to start, then 200 (£2) more when you first collect points with a purchase. https://swf3j.app.goo.gl/fN6uZ

Hope that's allowed and not too cheeky to post on here.

1st day back at work completed, feel like a new girl as all my routine tasks now have a little extra to think about on order to comply with social distance restrictions, I'll get my head around it but definitely a bit of information overload today.

savingholmes

Hope you settle back at work quickly. It will probably feel weird for a while and then feel like you were never away.

DancingInTheRain

Work days flying in so far, been in the office the last 2 days & will WFH today & tomorrow. This is likely to be the pattern for the foreseeable future so not too bad.

I can see too many chiefs but not enough Indians potentially causing issues for me and my colleagues but for now I can just get my head down and plough through the work.

Good couple of days on earning additional income -
Have cashed out £6.21 from Prolific.
OnePoll money has arrived, £25.
Hit the payout threshold for YouGov so £50 due in the next day or so.
Sold a couple of eBay items for much more than expected, approximately £80 after fees.
All going to savings pots for now.

Have found on street parking not too far from my office so not had to pay £4 per day for parking which was an unexpected bonus, I can never normally find a space here but with more people WFH there's been plenty of availability.

As usual being back at work means no time to spend so a couple of NSDs achieved. Have noticed 2 of my car tyres will need replacing soon, so need to look into that but nothing else really needed/wanted at the moment so the budget should hold out well until my pay day next Friday.

Our first week of consciously eating better and reducing unhealthy snacks and alcohol consumption has paid off, both DH and I lost 2lbs each.

Hope everyone else is well x