10 years to go .... maybe, with a fair wind

PiggyBankShaker

Lauraebrad said:

 I do all my spending on the CC then pay it off in full every month, and rarely use cash or bank transfer (upto £100 per month usually) so this does represent nearly all my spendings. 

Just popping into say hi! And wondered if you use a cashback credit card? Especially seeing as you spend on it and clear it every month? Lloyds and Santander have both get decent cashback credit cards at the moment. I don't know how much you spend but I worked out that DH could get £120 a year back for his normal CC spending.

Lauraebrad

PiggyBankShaker said:

Lauraebrad said:

 I do all my spending on the CC then pay it off in full every month, and rarely use cash or bank transfer (upto £100 per month usually) so this does represent nearly all my spendings. 

Just popping into say hi! And wondered if you use a cashback credit card? Especially seeing as you spend on it and clear it every month? Lloyds and Santander have both get decent cashback credit cards at the moment. I don't know how much you spend but I worked out that DH could get £120 a year back for his normal CC spending.

Hi, thanks for reading @PiggyBankShaker Yes, I have a barclaycard with rewards which I use to get vouchers.   Not sure how many I get per year to be honest, but always seems to be a reasonable amount!  I should probably have a check-in and compare it though.  Mostly use the rewards either for shops I'd be using anyway, or for shops that I can buy gifts in .....

coldcazzie

We have an AMEX card which pays us 1% cashback on purchases, but charges a membership fee of £25 pa. I think after the fee we usually get approx £140-150 a year, which is very nice indeed. Last year I OPed that amount, and I might do the same this year.

savingholmes

Interesting to see how others are using points cards. Not sure I fully trust myself - although I have got points cards now...

Lauraebrad

Finally pay day after the longest month ever .... so 9.21 am and I've already given the banks a headache sending all the little pots of money flying around.

There's no council tax or water bill to pay in Feb so that bulks out the OP - made it up to £150 with a few bits and bobs from pr0lific. 

January was pretty tight as I challenged myself to spend no more than £400 on the CC.  Managed £436 as needed fuel and a few other things I'd forgotten - but pretty pleased still.  Although I do owe the small one £23 as he used some of a Christmas voucher on a new coat in Dec@thlon which I said I'd pay him back for (he's only 9 and it's not unreasonable that I still buy his coats!!).  

January successes from my 'January Jobs' list include finally getting a new curtain pole up in my bay window, which is not something I ever want to have to do again.  I did manage it but don't think I've done a great job.  Unfortunately re-sealing the bath will have to roll over to February.

Starting to think about the garden plan for the summer ..... the last few years my potatoes have been scabby despite rotating the bed that they go in, so I think they'll need to go in pots this summer.  Which leaves me the option of finally repairing my raised beds without having to worry about doing it before the spuds go in.  I've still got chard going, so definitely having more of that this year - but I think I'm over trying to get decent pea crops.  My mum always starts loads of tomatoes and courgettes in her heated greenhouse so we'll have plenty of those as usual.  Still eating last summers - as I froze loads of roast tomato sauces in little pods for emergency use!

Off to start Friday.  Happy OP'ing all.

savingholmes

Veg growing sounds positive. I need to start again.

Lauraebrad

An unexpected email from Quidc* to tell me cash back has been paid for my house insurance renewal from last summer.  I admit I'd completely forgotten about it so that was a nice surprise!  Went straight away to cash it out but I never remember it takes a few days to land so not actually got the £32 yet.  Whilst messing around with my various little apps though I managed to squeeze £10 from a combination of Sh0ppix and Pr0lific so that's gone to the mortgage as a mini bonus whilst I wait for the other money to come through. 

I've recently had a small promotion at work.  Well, actually it was temporary and has now been made permanent.  Not loads more money but scope for further increases in the future.  I think my brain's run ahead of me though and I've mentally spent way more than the increase in salary every month!  Actually, realistically all it does is help soften the blow of all the various cost of living increases........ Does make me think though whether now is the time to challenge myself to further promotion either to (a) speed up the mortgage overpayments or (b) to enable a bit more spending on things that are fun.  The second point is very much on my mind at the moment as the holiday fund is seriously lacking at the moment and all the talk around me of people planning holidays as the world opens up is giving me ever such slight FOMO. 

Lauraebrad

....... and so finally the £32 from Quidc0 arrived so made another sneaky £30 OP.  That's a total of £290 so far this year which is really good going, although I know it'll slow down soon enough.

Off to eat up leftovers from Tuesday's tea as the small one is at his dads so I only need 1 portion - perfect.

Lauraebrad

Well the world's looking a strange old place right now but the OPs continue nonetheless..... 

It's a gloriously blue sky day here for 1st March - and looking forward to pancakes later with the small one.  This month's overpayment is another fairly chunky one as there's no Council Tax or water payments due in March so I've used those.  The investment pot has gone up by another £100 too although the fund looks pretty poor when I log in to check due to all the stock market challenges.  I'm telling myself that this is just a blip and over the course of the 8-10 year period it'll all even out!

So I'm setting myself a 'mood boosting March' challenge, as I can quite easily feel myself becoming stressed, angry and overwhelmed when I don't take enough time and space to look after myself - and that isn't good for me or the small one.  Today's mood booster is going to be as simple as a walk by the river at lunch time (combined with a tiny trip into L1dl) then some pilates later whilst the small one is having some screen time.  The other thing that I'm hoping will help is giving up Instagram for lent.  Goodness how many more hours that will free up in my day - maybe enough to finally list some items for sale on V1nted or EBuy........  we'll see!

Good luck to all planning thrifty tasks for March

Lauraebrad

Nearly the end of March.  Pr0lific has been good this month so I've squeezed in a couple of small extra OPs.  In my usual way of over-thinking I've been trying to decide what to do with my back pay once it comes through.  This is 2021/22's 1.75% pay increase which has finally been agreed so all 12 months should come in one go this Wednesday.  My first thought was to put it all straight to the mortgage, but I feel like sometimes that's where all the spare money goes and there's not enough leftover for fun, once all the bills are paid (not to mention the increasing cost of living).

So, I've decided it can all go into the holiday pot, and I've bought an Interrail ticket for the small one and I to use for some exploring in the summer.  Sort of MSE (!) as there was a sale on to celebrate Interrail's 50th birthday.  I'm hoping it can get us to Rome via Paris and Munich .... 

I've been semi pressured into applying for a promotion at work.  Not particularly something I wanted to do, but there doesn't seem to be anyone else willing to take it on.  I expect ultimately it will mean I lose my remaining child tax credits, so it wouldn't be as large a net increase in take home pay as it looks like on paper.  However, it would make me more self reliant, and I've never really felt I should be entitled to the Child tax credit.  Hoping that if I get it it'll help to ease the cost of living a little, and mean I'm able to carry on making OPs at my current rate - not necessarily bigger OPs!

Hope that the sunny weather has helped people's outlooks as we move into spring!