Old Hag Seeks Less Stress

savingholmes

Can you get a cheap cot/cot bed from a furniture re-use charity or gumtree or similar and just buy a new mattress?

Sancti

savingholmes wrote: »

Can you get a cheap cot/cot bed from a furniture re-use charity or gumtree or similar and just buy a new mattress?

I have set up alerts on Facebook marketplace! There aren't really any charities around me (nearest BHF is in London for example) but FB usually has some good finds. My only issue is I can't drive and live quite rurally so anything I do find, I have to organise someone to pick up, and most people aren't willing to hold for a week or two whilst I get someone to help! It's the biggest pain with anything of substantial size :mad:

Sancti

Good morning!! (ish)

Had a fab few days, everything seems to be on track. I am battling the cold FROM HELL, I had my whooping cough vaccine last week and assume I picked up the lurgy from the Doctor's surgery. Boo! Very much considering cutting my nose off, surely that means I can't sneeze anymore?

In other news, the first Littlewoods debt is P A I D :T I made a huge spreadsheet of all my debts and it was so satisfying to mark the last boxes as green and write the big old DONE at the bottom. Feels so freeing. I have £120 left to tackle by the 14th October which feels very manageable. I can then start throwing myself into hitting my savings targets and starting to pick up things for Christmas. I am making a few Christmas bits too which I need to start prioritising.

Had baby scan yesterday, all was healthy and well :j Went out with my Mum afterwards and picked out some house things I need. I broke my kitchen bin months ago, so have replaced that (the replacement is a pink sparkly "bling" bin from Dunelm, absolutely no shame). We went into B&M and I got a new laundry basket - I couldn't even tell you how long my old one has been broken and I'd been using the landing - which is huge and was discounted to £15 so was chuffed, and a bathroom storage unit that was discounted from £52 to £26. B&M have a mobile scanning app, none of the discounts were advertised but if you scan as you go, it will tell you how much the item will scan at when you're at the till! It is a little time consuming but I saved myself £36 with it yesterday so for me personally very worth it.

My phone contract was also up this month, I did want to swap to a SIM only plan but my current phone broke a few weeks ago. I wanted to cancel and go SIM only anyway and just "deal with it" but when I tried to cancel, I found out it was a 45 day cancellation policy :mad: and at the end of contract your amount paid per month stays the same! Plus I would lose my phone number. It used to be that once the phone was paid off, your monthly payment reduced to just your plan usage, but not anymore (with EE). Was going to be locked into £53 a month for 3GB of data! Spoke to EE, took an hour or so but the retention's guy found me a plan with a new phone, 60GB of data and the usual free minutes and texts for £51pm. It's an older model phone, and I had to get it in gold for a bigger discount so I will feel like DJ Khaled for the next 2 years, but at least it's sorted. I am annoyed I couldn't just go to SIM only and save some money every month, but even SIM only was going to be £26 for the minimum amount of data (bar 250MB which isn't enough for my usage) so I was kind of snookered. As I'm no longer working, I didn't want to risk trying for a different provider and being declined (no job + poor credit) so it was as good as I could get really. It is sorted though, and at least I can take photos of my little one now once she's here :j and I suppose if I really reach, I'm saving £2 a month.

Made some home meals and froze them, so that's pulled my shopping bill down for the week which is always nice. Trying to eat cheaply but with maximum nutrition for baby has been interesting but I think I'm picking up some good tips for when she's here. But fruit is so bloody expensive!!

Heating also back on in my house, will miss the super cheap energy bills but jesus, it's FREEZING!!

Off to do more eBaying now, can't wait for auctions to start ending. Hope anyone reading is having a good week :beer:

Sancti

Ooh also!

With the debt payments this week and throwing a bit extra into baby savings, my amounts have updated;

DEBT: £3922.75/£5500 (71.3%)
Savings: £350/£1420 (24.6%)

Almost at the 25% saved mark!!

beanielou

Blimey 51 quid a month for a phone!

Sancti

beanielou wrote: »

Blimey 51 quid a month for a phone!

Bloody tell me about it. My plan is actually £89 a month, almost fell out my chair!! But thanks to various discounts they managed to get it down to something that didn't at least turn me completely grey. I'm still annoyed about it now but I need to just get over it really :rotfl: consoling myself with the fact it has a decent camera for baby photos (I don't own an actual camera) and has all the capabilities for my freelance work and any studies I take up (I don't own a laptop or tablet either, just a desktop and a phone). I don't have the cash to buy a new phone outright either way so just bit the bullet and took the cheapest I could get! I'll definitely be way more prepared when the contract is next ending though, expensive lesson to learn!

Sancti

So I've been stewing over what to do with my other debts whilst I'm saving/buying things for baby. I'm worried about letting them all vegetate and getting complacent about them, and I want to set up some good habits. Debts stand as this currently;

Littlewoods #2: £120 remaining (14/10/2019)
Credit Card: £460 remaining (monthly interest payment, £20)
Overdraft: £750 remaining (monthly interest payment, £20)
Water Company: £243.21 (monthly repayment £28)

Littlewoods will be paid before the deadline. Water company agreed to a repayment plan as mentioned before so that will begin to decrease from the first payment on 1st Oct.

My overdraft is a weird one. I owe £750, however I'm charged £3.50 per week interest whether I owe £1.50 or £750. For that reason it's the final debt I will tackle, as my credit card interest is balance based.

I've been looking for manageable ways to tackle the remaining credit card, but with low thresholds for now whilst my priorities are shifting around (if that makes sense). I've been hunting on the DFW boards and found the 1% challenge. Whilst I can't commit to the full blown challenge right now, it has inspired me so I paid my cc down to £460 this morning, and have broken it down in my spreadsheet into 1%'s. I have financial routines for savings/bills every Sunday evening, so adding in to my routine to pay off 1% of my credit card each week. If I have more, I'll pay more, but always in multiples of £4.60. Okay, it doesn't move the earth, but does mean by the time baby arrives I will have paid off at least £87.40 and I will have formed another not terrible habit. Hoping to keep this up until it's cleared, and then clear my overdraft in a similar way!

Sancti

Quiet couple of days! First few things have gone up on eBay - completely forgot how time consuming and monotonous eBay is!! But so looking forward to more money in the savings pot. Sold my first thing on FB marketplace too, so another £10 went into the pot yesterday.

Mothercare have restocked their baby event sale, I managed to pick up 6 0-3months bottles for £12 (usually £33) so I was chuffed with that. I did have to get the patterned ones but I'm not bothered at all, all do the same job in my eyes. Maybe the baby will enjoy the giant pink cloud staring her in the face :rotfl: I also got 2 baby towel bales for £7.50 each, down from £15, so that's me now fully stocked for bottles and towels. I got a 4 pack on bottles a few weeks ago 2nd hand from marketplace, unopened, and I figure 10 bottles is enough for a newborn to start, especially as I'll be mixed feeding. Big ticks on my checklist! Picking up things very slowly, but it's starting to take shape.

Starting to get over the cold from hell. Got some freelance work to do today, it's quite a risque article about the "s** positive movement" and hilarious as I'm writing it in my pj's eating hobnobs. Can hardly contain the glamour.

I have to get my food shopping online, PGP combined with not driving (nearest supermarket is just over a mile away from my house) means going myself isn't an option. One of the few situations where Batbag was actually useful! I've been using Tesco but I think swapping to Morrisons may be cheaper. Only options around here are Morrisons, Tesco or Sainsburys, no other supermarkets within 10 miles (mental) and those further afield don't deliver.. Badly wish we had an ASDA!! No clue where to compare supermarket prices but this will be my job over the weekend.

Hope you've all had a good week xx

Drawingaline

I loved morrisons when we used them. I didn't want to swap, but hubby got a job with a different supermarket so now we get discount with them. I used tesco years ago when they first started delivering where we lived then as I was without a car for a year.

beanielou

Great news on the bargains