Giving every £ a job

[Deleted User]

Lovely idea blackcats!

Amazing a 2 day week until end March!

and well done on the savings as a result of the BM

im also of the view that cutting/sensible spending can help in matching/beating inflation as obvs savings rates just don’t 

Blackcats

Thank you SA; SH Lucielle and Rebecca Oearson.

we had some friends visit yesterday evening as a mid point stop for them on their way home from holiday.  They said they didn't want a main meal so we made a buffet meal.  The spendy me would have been straight over to marks n spensive to buy lots of pricey nibbly bits, however, as we still have lots of Christmassy stuff in stock, we made up a cheeseboard, defrosted a prawn ring, cooked up some frozen sausage rolls, opened the anti pasta meat platter and cooked up a part baked baguette.  We opened (and finished) a bottle of red and a bottle of white.  So no new spending and a lovely evening.

this week's tedious task ....
I pay £2.49 for iCloud photo storage except I somehow attached the extra storage to my iPad instead of my phone where it is needed.  I tried to cancel it but it's still being paid .... I just need to bite the bullet and do it otherwise it's very hypocritical of me to roll my eyes at OH's subscription that we have finally cancelled.  Wish me luck 😵‍💫

savingholmes

Best of luck with sorting it. I hate things like that!

Well done on skipping the spensive.... 

Blackcats

Thanks SH.  The thought of coming on here to report success spurred me on with my 🍏 related task.  I have completed part 1 which involved lots and lots of verifying etc etc.  now I need to make sure the wrong payment for the wrong device's storage has definitely been cancelled.

Blackcats

🍏 task appears to be fully completed.  I will know for sure next month when/if  the payment isn't taken.  Although it was quite tedious it does feel satisfying to have stuck to the task.

Inevitably there are plenty of tasks ready to move up the list but tomorrow is another day.

Blackcats

Feeling very pleased with MrBC today ...
 at our financial summit we agreed we would try to maximise "unearned" money e.g. vouchers, cash back and interest etc etc.  this will help now that I have semi retired and earned income has reduced.

to be honest I thought he was listening but not necessarily in receive mode so I was surprised/impressed and pleased when he told me today that he had accumulated £95 in nectar points and could convert these to m and s vouchers.  He's been maximising points for a year and bearing in mind we don't shop at sains has used petrol purchases, e bay purchases and diligently entered the codes printed on the back of the daily mail each time we visit my dad who has that newspaper.

so this afternoon we have had a spend up at marks - a couple of birthday gifts, some needs and some wants.  I went through £co, used my 15% off sparks voucher and am feeling very pleased with our haul.  I found it interesting though how much I enjoyed the shopping experience and I'm not sure whether that was because it was "free" or because I still like shopping.

Anyway I made MrBC a cup of his favourite coffee, served on a tray with a milk jug and a couple of fancy biscuits (leftover from Christmas) as a thank you

lucielle

Well done on the shopping. I didn’t know you could change nectar points to M&S how do you do that?

savingholmes

What a fab win. 

SueP19

Love your title, not a YNAB fan are you?

Blackcats

@lucielle - I have interrogated MrBC and his nectar optimising technique goes something like this.
check nectar app for offers - he picks up 500 points on some petrol purchases and double/triple points on e bay purchases
he registered with the mydailymail app.  If you do this and scroll through the various offers it comes up with using 1000 nectar points to buy a £5 m and s gift card.
we had to download 19 £5 gift cards but once we got into the swing of it we became quite efficient. 

thank you SH - we were very pleased with ourselves.  I'm going to transfer the £32 "free" money that I spent on presents to the gift pot.  This will give me some leeway this year to buy some "just because" gifts for family/friends which I love doing.

hello @SueP19.  I like the theory of YNAB but just couldn't get on with the online tool so I use olde worlde paper and pen.  I am getting better at giving every £ a job though and not frittering and giving £'s a job that do t even belong to me but belonged to the bank or credit card.

I tried to confirm my state pension forecast today to see if I need to top up NI contributions to buy extra years.  The online checker says that this tax year is the last year I need but as the option to do this ends in April I wanted to be doubly sure.  After 59 minutes on hold listening to terrible music I got through to someone who said she couldn't confirm and gave me another number.  I grabbed a cuppa to fortify myself and tried the next number which just cut me off after about 3 levels of "press 1 for, press 2 for ".  I gave up.  Will get back on it tomorrow.