The Last Leg; 6 years later, debt free in 2021

greensalad

Another bit of web work, £100. Going to complete it over the weekend so should get paid next week (he always pays quick). 
At this rate I am probably going to go over £1000!

Kakiste

Wow! Well done you- massive amount of extra income. 

greensalad

Another £5 from selling an old photo frame BF had in his office.
Sadly a few more items I had for sale on FB marketplace aren't successful so I'm freecycling them instead. I have a big pile of stuff that I need to get rid of. Sell, Freecycle, Charity, Tip. I'd rather avoid tipping anything but if the charity aren't accepting donations and I can't shift it on Freecycle it's got to go somewhere!

greensalad

Just got £23 cashback for doing our house insurance through Quidco. Cashed it out as Amazon vouchers for a little bonus. We're always needing something.

greensalad

First foray into town today. I was mooching for half an hour while BF got his hair cut and popped into a couple of shops. Just New Look and Waterstones.

I realised how much shopping seems to have become a boring, hollow exercise for me recently. Having struggled with shopping addiction in the past (the £10k credit card was the one that took the brunt of that), and even now still enjoying a bit of a shop... lockdown seems to have really changed my priorities.

I had a look at a few clothing items in New Look and everything seemed so crap and polyester and unuseful. I considered a plain black hoodie that was on sale... as I do wear more warm comfy things in the day now... but it just didn't seem worth it. I'd rather save up for a nicer quality one or spend double the money on fabric but make it myself and now it'll be exactly to my specifications. 

I went into Waterstones. I do really miss just browsing the shelves and choosing something. I get nearly all my books from the library on Kindle now and I have a huge list of books I want to read, more than I can read in the next few years... so nothing to purchase really. Though I have decided this year for Christmas/birthday I'm going to ask for the Penguin Clothbound Classics of a few of my favourite books. I have been trying to reduce the amount of stuff we have in our house, and have got rid of looooads of crappy fiction books, but I think having classics is really nice. To lend to friends, or for future children to enjoy. I have a handful (2 or 3) of the clothbound classics and they are lovely books so makes sense to have a selection of my favourites (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights etc) plus they range for £10-£20 so perfect things to ask for as gifts from family who always like to spend about that much. 

Today I cleaned the majority of the downstairs. I just need to dust the mantlepiece and hearth. Tomorrow I want to clean the upstairs fully so I can relax knowing it's been done deeply for the week and then just spot-clean throughout when needed. I've been trying to get on top of a cleaning schedule and now I'm back at work (though still WFH) it's a bit easier to have a routine.

Anyway, enough rambling. I'm hoping to get a £70 refund via Amazon for a dongle I purchased and then returned because my company sent one out to me. That'll be a nice chunk of change as my bank account is looking very empty indeed and it's only the 11th! 2 weeks to go until payday!

Kakiste

The clotthbound classics sound lovely. I was bought a really fancy full series of y favourite books last year to replace my slightly tattered, dog eared paperback copies, all with different cover designs. Looks much nicer. 

Mumoffourkids

I agree, the cloth bound classics sound amazing. I might ask for them for my birthday and Christmas. I love the classics. I think my favourite is Far from the madding crowd. In fact I might buy myself one to read again now.

greensalad

Far From The Madding Crowd is on my reading list! I am doing the 52 book challenge, so 52 books in one year. I failed last year, but this year I'm still going on quite well. A little behind, but I'm on my 24th book and more than halfway through a historical book I pick up and read in between others. Currently reading Replay by Ken Grimwood (the inspiration to Groundhog Day, though it's a little different).

My aim for reading was:
a) Read everything on my shelves that's unread. I still have around 10 books purchased spontaneously or given to me as gifts that I've not read. I want to read them and donate them (unless they enter the "favourites" realm, in which case they stay, and possibly get replaced with the Penguin clothbound ones at some point).
b) read everything from the BBC "Big Read" 100 favourite books. I've read about 25 of them just generally but am planning to target read a few more
c) Read more classics. I just finished my first Austen (P&P) and enjoyed it. Emma and Persuasion are on my list.
d) Read more of the back catalogue of my favourite authors. I've been reading more Atwood recently since The Blind Assassin went straight into my favourites earlier this year. 

All this means I have a looooong reading list, enough to last me a fair few years!

greensalad

What I actually came on here to write:

This morning BF baked bread and we had egg sandwiches for lunch. Tonight we're eating food out of "the bunker" and having a sausage and bean casserole. When lockdown hit we stocked up on a few more tins than we usually do, and are now eating through this as food isn't as hard to get hold of as it was then. 

We just put in an Ocado order coming on Thursday. This whole week we've been doing "cupboard surprise" for dinner to try and get ourselves back on track. We did a £50 Ocado order and we've got another £50 in the groceries budget, which works out great for our regular Thursday orders (we get paid on the 28th). We'd have been too broke to do a full shop this week so forcing ourselves to eat from the cupboard and the freezer has been good. 

I'm about to go finish my cleaning upstairs for the weekend, then get on with cutting out a few more fleeces for my boyfriend. Cut out one for myself last night.

Here's to a new week!

greensalad

Didn't manage to finish my full cleaning over the weekend. Bedroom and bathroom still need doing, though I did get all the bedsheets washed and made. So tomorrow my challenge to myself is to get those two rooms done and still keep everything else tidy as possible.