A new royal start

QueenJess

Bargainhunter30 said:

Have you thought about Matched betting and casino offers for some extra tax free cash? I use Team profit and TeamCasino websites to guide me through but my friend uses ProfitAccumulator. They work the same and tell you step by step what to do. I've made over 3k since November (people make loads more with extra time and effort, I haven't put loads of either in). Definitely worth a look at. Its funded our home improvements and OP's this year. Good luck and enjoy some time off x

Been there, done that and got the t-shirt. No accounts left now.

Bargainhunter30

Oh no. Several sites are partner friendly. My oh has just started opening accounts which has also been very profitable 😂

QueenJess

Bargainhunter30 said:

Oh no. Several sites are partner friendly. My oh has just started opening accounts which has also been very profitable 😂

It's not an option for me.  It's fine.  I think I'm doing ok and I'm fine with making tiny inroads.

QueenJess

Today I managed to tick a few things off the to do list:

• Washing done and hung out
• General tidying and all clean clothes put away
• Finally emptied the rest of the dirt into the back border of the garden (from digging a front border 2 months ago!)
• Some deadheading and weeding
• Emptied one half of a veg trug so it can be relined.
• Picked loads more cherry tomatoes from the garden.
• Planned meals for next week and wrote the shopping list (not quite as short as I’d like..)

I also managed to do a few surveys.  Almost able to cash out again.  I cashed out a couple of other things yesterday, so I’m only £12 from my next target.  I will definitely make this before the end of September.

Lunch was the last of the tomato soup.  Dinner was roast beef, yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots.  Yum!  Pudding is fruit salad and yogurt later when/if I can squeeze it in.

A fairly successful day in all!  Lots of time spent playing with DS and also some time with my feet up relaxing.

QueenJess

Another work day today.. only 39 days before I am officially jobless.  Feels very weird.  I am quite independent and hate relying on someone else for money.  I’m trying to offset that by managing the joint finances as best I can and get some of this mortgage paid down.  Will carry on earnings bits and pieces online as it all helps.

Got the large October nursery bill through today and it is exactly the amount I had planned for, which is all good (although you always hope it will miraculously be less!).  

DH did the shopping today as he has meetings tomorrow.  It came to £70 to my relief.  We now have £89 left on the gift card for next weeks shopping.  Fingers crossed it’ll cover it and then I’ll fork out for another months worth at the start of October.  I’ve added up our shopping this month and it averages out at £80 a week.  I’m actually pretty happy with that as it was £120+ previously (yes, it was outrageous), but all I changed was going out of my way to waste absolutely nothing, changing one day a week to a veggie meal and trying to make more flapjacks to reduce DS & DH’s reliance on expensive snacks.  I think that’s a pretty impressive reduction

I don’t think it is realistic to get it much below £75 (this is groceries and cleaning products etc) given we only go once a week, it isn’t the cheapest supermarket and no yellow stickers when DH goes.  I have half thought about using a cheaper supermarket online to do a bulk order of all the usual cupboard stuff once a month and then just do the fresh things/things we’ve forgotten to buy once a week in store.  Will have a think about whether that will actually save much as we hardly ever buy anything branded and I think the expensive things are usually the fresh meat anyway.

Lunch today I used up the last of the creme fraiche with pasta, smoked salmon, rocket and asparagus (a nice little treat).  Dinner was leftover roast beef stir fry with noodles.  Pudding is fruit and yogurt as we have a ton of both to use up.

Also had to fill up the car with petrol and I transferred the rest of the unused petrol pot to my car service/MoT pot as I still need to find another £100 for the service next month.

Managed to cash out more money and am down to the next bracket.  Now at £88,182.31.  Next aim will be to get below £88,150, which could be doable for this month.

Feels like the end of the month already, but still another 1.5 weeks to go.  Not looking forward to October as will be my last payslip (although it will be 4 months pay in one!) and lots of expenses coming up!

QueenJess

Finally was getting someone in to fix the kitchen back together this morning (long, long story) and then there was a massive power cut across 80 odd postcodes.  Of course they couldn’t finish and so are coming back tomorrow morning.   Obviously the power went on 5 minutes after they gave up and left.  In the meantime I have a washing machine and dishwasher in the middle of my kitchen which I can’t use…  Will be directing DH to do the washing up later  

Not too much achieved today.  Instead of tidying the worst out of all the rooms, I thought I might try tidying whole rooms at a time so I can see the difference.  Started with my bedroom and nearly done, but I am 4 hangers short in the wardrobe.  Need to see if there is anything else I can get rid of in there that I won’t want to wear.

Stupidly I am a bit worried about getting all the things on my list done too quickly as then I won’t have anything to do!  I think if I actually just got on with it all, it would probably be all done in a week.  Not quite as much to do as I thought and I am about to have a lot of time on my hands!

I put one item for sale on Sphock as a trial.  I feel like eBay is a bit dead at the moment, but hoping it will pick up as we get closer to xmas and if people are in various stages of lockdown they might buy out of boredom.  Need to list more things, but not very motivated as I have only had one sale this month, it had been listed for about a year and I had actually forgotten it was even on there!

Now that it is nearly clear I would love to have a large plant in the corner and maybe a couple of small ones and small photo frames for the sides.  I can’t do it right now though as I have to get rid of the house/garden fund deficit and save up for a bed for DS yet.  Either a next year job or maybe I will decide what I want and add it to the birthday/xmas list.

Toying with making an online food order to bulk purchase DS snacks again.  Some of them are cheaper again, but then it will ruin my attempts to make my food budget neutral…. Maybe I will hold off until next week so it goes into October.

Dinner was the last of the leftover roast beef with a sauce I made up, rice and broccoli.  It was so nice and everyone liked it, so I’ll be making it again  For pudding we are still wading through kiwi, melon, pineapple and the yogurt (or ice cream for DS).

QueenJess

Wahoo!  My kitchen is finally back together and I can walk around it without stubbing my toe on a piece of wood, or walking the whole way round the kitchen to put plates away from the dishwasher.

Woke up at 1am with a migraine.  I mean what was the point?  I could have stayed nicely asleep and not noticed!  Anyway, I got up and took a paracetamol.  Knackered now and have a headache, so taking it easy today.  Hoping it doesn't come back again.

Managed to book myself in for a flu jab, but apparently they don't have them in for 3 year olds yet, so I'll have to keep checking until I can book one for DS.

Veggie night tonight and DH absolutely insisted we have pizza again this week.  So homemade pizza and salad for us and jacket potato and beans for DS who won't eat pizza (I wonder if he will grow out of that?!).  I think he isn't keen on cheese, so I might have to disown him    I love cheese so much... Anytime we go abroad I spend lots of time trying different local cheeses.  France and Italy are my favourites of course!  Pudding was ice cream for DS and DH (apparently they are both children  ) and I will finish the last of the pineapple with raspberries and a nice dollop of greek yogurt later.  I'm still stuffed from dinner.

Spent £7 on DS today.  Bought some stamper pens for him and an activity book.  I know he'll love them and I like to encourage him to do more craft stuff.  Sadly he's never interested in colouring and just says "mummy do it".  Lazy child!

Hazelnutty

Great to read your updates, QueenJess. I've been moving between FB, Shpock and Gumtree with selling stuff. Sometimes something that just won't shift on one platform goes immediately on another, so worth a try. I've given up on ebay for selling as there are so many stories about sellers getting done over by unscrupulous buyers knowing ebay will back them regardless.

Also a massive cheese fan here! In fact we're generally a dairy-obsessed household!

QueenJess

Hazelnutty said:

Great to read your updates, QueenJess. I've been moving between FB, Shpock and Gumtree with selling stuff. Sometimes something that just won't shift on one platform goes immediately on another, so worth a try. I've given up on ebay for selling as there are so many stories about sellers getting done over by unscrupulous buyers knowing ebay will back them regardless.

Also a massive cheese fan here! In fact we're generally a dairy-obsessed household!

I'm a bit wary of Gumtree as it seems to attract a lot of dodgy/unreliable people (based on my previous experience).  I've done well on eBay in the past and everything I sell is below £10 really, so the risk is smaller.  I think I once set up my eBay so it only accepts buyers with a certain star rating, but it's so long ago I can't even remember how I did that!

I'll probably try Shpock for a while along with eBay and then branch out if I still get no takers.  I'd like my pile to get smaller as it's starting to clutter up the room and annoy me!

I'm glad to find a fellow cheese lover.  I once went to a cheese restaurant in France where each course was based on cheese.  It was a dream come true! 

QueenJess

Just realised that after next month I will need to find another £124 from the budget to pay for childcare as PILON won't include childcare vouchers.  In theory I will get paid the amount I usually sacrifice in my PILON amount, but I guess I then just lose whatever the tax is on that.

36 days until redundancy...

I am almost into the next £50 mortgage overpayment bracket, but am currently 39p short!  So annoying! I would love to get to £75k by October 2021 when we remortgage, but not sure how achievable that's going to be.  Going to give it a good try though!  Got a similar October budget to September and then am hoping I will be in a better place for the joint account and can reduce the budget for November to allow for some more overpayments.

Eaten far too healthily recently, so I made and iced some fairy cakes.  Ran out of fairy cake cases and finding it impossible to find any reusable ones online.  Apparently people only make cupcakes or muffins these days and not little fairy cakes.

Also accidentally discovered you can make your own iced ring biscuits.  That will definitely have to go on the list of things to bake in the following weeks.  I used to love those as a child.

DS was so excited to find his sticker activity book had arrived.  We spent about 20 mins playing with that, so lots of pages left for him to work on.  When he also got a fairy cake, I was informed that it was "the best day ever" 

Lunch was pasta, tomato sauce and rocket for me and DH (with the leftover pizza sauce from last night - no waste here!).  Dinner was cod kedgeree and pudding was a fairy cake for DS and will be fruit and yogurt for me/DH.  I made it through all the pineapple, but still have half a melon, 6 kiwis and lots of frozen fruit.  I am also only halfway through all the yogurt.

I hope my post is food based enough for everyone!