TravelGirl84's DFD

FootyFanDan

Hey

Yay to the saving on petrol, boo to the lurgy! I hope you feel better soon, it seems like everyone is catching bugs our office is like a doctors surgery lately with coughing and sneezing. Well done to the saving on the mobile, every £ saved counts right haha

Good luck with the challenges, i wonder how having to stick to these challenges can be motivational. I think this place in general is such motivation almost like a confessional. Its amazing how little amounts can mount up to a decent size by end of challenge though.

Use the trip as a something to look forward to and if you really want to do it then maybe look at some other stuff in the budget /plans as to where you can maybe lose a little to ensure you go on the trip, i mean we still need to enjoy life right?

TravelGirl84

Thanks Dan. Ended up being off today too but should be going back tomorrow. Then only 3 more days until I'm off until 6th January! :j
I was so impressed with the mobile saving. I know it's only £4 a month but that's two bills I've got down in December so I'm well pleased. Spurs me on even more!
We do still need to enjoy life, but I'm determined not to put it on credit. I'm currently in two minds because it would be alot off of my CC, probably about half, but I need travel. Tricky one.

I'm currently looking in to surveys and trying to put together a list of recommended companies. So far I have the following:
QMEE?
PA (is this Prolific Academic?)
i-say
Populus Live
Onepoll
YouGov
Also found one on Topcashback called Survey Spotter, looks like they pool together surveys from various companies
I don't really want to join all of them due to time, but at least ones I might get something decent from. My previous experience is a lot of surveys that I got screened out of or made very little money, and never got to cash out.
Does anyone know the rules on the tax man for surveys? I'm assuming I'll need to make mysef self-employed for it and do a return, which is what I used to do for Mystery Shopping, talking of which I need to make a list of decent companies for that too. So far I know of:

Grassroots
ESA Retail
Ipsos
React

Again, I'm assuming I need to think about tax?

Any help is appreciated. I need to go and look over on the money making boards aswell.

FootyFanDan

TravelGirl84 wrote: »

Thanks Dan. Ended up being off today too but should be going back tomorrow. Then only 3 more days until I'm off until 6th January! :j
I was so impressed with the mobile saving. I know it's only £4 a month but that's two bills I've got down in December so I'm well pleased. Spurs me on even more!
We do still need to enjoy life, but I'm determined not to put it on credit. I'm currently in two minds because it would be alot off of my CC, probably about half, but I need travel. Tricky one.

Every saving counts if you can keep chipping away at reducing outgoings it all helps. I do agree it is deffo going to be better to enjoy life without credit, also there is no guilt attached then either as you get to do something you love without the need to pay more back with credit/interest. It is maybe about trying to strike the right balance but you are doing so well right now so you will figure it out without too much damage.

TravelGirl84

I've just remembered that tomorrow is payday, and I have £62.31 left in the bank that I'm pretty sure is spare, so I have transferred it to my emergency savings fund. This is that money that I mentioned I was confused about in previous posts. So my emergency fund is now up to £112.92. Well chuffed with that, it means I am over a month ahead of building that up to £1k, just hope I don't need to use it!

As I mentioned before, I won't be using any of my January money until my usual pay date which turns out to be Christmas Day haha, but I'm going to move it around on the 24th as that is when my Monzo will re-set since Christmas Day is a bank holiday.

FootyFanDan

Well done on the emergency fund, it must feel so good to be adding credit to that and seeing the figure going up. The transformation from the start of diary to now is amazing and you are still fitting in fun stuff too

TravelGirl84

FootyFanDan wrote: »

Well done on the emergency fund, it must feel so good to be adding credit to that and seeing the figure going up. The transformation from the start of diary to now is amazing and you are still fitting in fun stuff too

Ah thanks! If you had of told me I'd have some savings and a different money mindset by the end of this year I wouldn't have believed it.

Quick rant - just got my new service charges for my building. They are charing over £200 a year extra, working out at about £18 a month! Honestly. I thought it would go up but £18 a month?! Grrr!

2nd Quick sort of rant / worry: Monzo had another glitch today. Peoples pots were disappearing and I checked mine, they were still there so I moved some savings out and then guess what, the pots disappeared! They came back pretty swiftly, but it's quite scary. I'm now in the process of deciding what to do. I love how Monzo works in terms of budgeting. I swear it has saved me since opening it and since then, other than one holiday I booked on a CC, I haven't gone over budget, into an overdraft or used a credit card once. I love how I can use the app to track spending and know exactly what I have left. However, I also know that I need to have my money somewhere a bit more established and secure. So I'm thinking of doing the following:
- I already have my wages go in to and bills come out of a separate bank, which I have no plans to change, but I've moved my emergency fund in to this bank aswell
- Move pots to separate savings account in another bank where I can open multiple simple savings, same as the pots in Monzo
- Use that bank also as my spending allowance
- Continue to use Monzo for food and petrol budgeting, which means I am limiting what is in there should something go wrong but I can still budget

It's so disappointing, but hopefully I can use what I have learnt from Monzo but do things in a slightly different way, and hopefully be able to go back to Monzo at some point.

FootyFanDan

Wow I could literally have written the Monzo paragraph myself haha. I am getting a little nervy with them at the moment. I must say as of yet I am yet to have any serious issues with the exception of a £32 DD being taken twice which was quickly resolved. I LOVE the way it works but hearing a few stories like this makes me nervous as this is used really as where all my finances go through which as worked well in keeping budgets. I think I am going to look to change everything back to my halifax & lloyds accounts and just use Monzo for a few things.

TravelGirl84

FootyFanDan wrote: »

Wow I could literally have written the Monzo paragraph myself haha. I am getting a little nervy with them at the moment. I must say as of yet I am yet to have any serious issues with the exception of a £32 DD being taken twice which was quickly resolved. I LOVE the way it works but hearing a few stories like this makes me nervous as this is used really as where all my finances go through which as worked well in keeping budgets. I think I am going to look to change everything back to my halifax & lloyds accounts and just use Monzo for a few things.

I'm really getting quite nervy! Just had my second bad Monzo moment! I took out money at the cash machine fine, paid for something in the shops fine, went to pay for a food shop and it kept declining it. Wouldn't take my pin number and I was definitely putting the right one in. Luckily I had another bank card with me but it had no money in it, so had to pay with it and quickly transfer over. They've been declining payments a bit lately but usually it goes through on the second try, Seriously considering closing the whole account now and using a separate bank for food and petrol Just need to find the pin number for it.

FootyFanDan

TravelGirl84 wrote: »

I'm really getting quite nervy! Just had my second bad Monzo moment! I took out money at the cash machine fine, paid for something in the shops fine, went to pay for a food shop and it kept declining it. Wouldn't take my pin number and I was definitely putting the right one in. Luckily I had another bank card with me but it had no money in it, so had to pay with it and quickly transfer over. They've been declining payments a bit lately but usually it goes through on the second try, Seriously considering closing the whole account now and using a separate bank for food and petrol Just need to find the pin number for it.

Yeah, I have two other accounts so I am going to not bother with the Monzo. I have not had a bad experience but I am getting very nervous about the stories. My Halifax lets me open an instant access saver and open 5 pots along side so I will determine what I want these to be and do that.

TravelGirl84

FootyFanDan wrote: »

Yeah, I have two other accounts so I am going to not bother with the Monzo. I have not had a bad experience but I am getting very nervous about the stories. My Halifax lets me open an instant access saver and open 5 pots along side so I will determine what I want these to be and do that.

I've ended up closing my Monzo account. I've moved everything over and opened as many pots as I am allowed. Unfortunately I'll have to track some of the sinking funds in a spreadsheet as some are now combined, but better that then worry.