Getting FIREd up 😀

PennysIntoPounds

Oh that one annoyed me yesterday too. Ask it at the start then get on my nerves asking me to select elephant even though a bot could clearly detect the word 'longest' and then count letters or just measure the screen settings

edinburgher

I've forgotten SC, do Y Live email shortly into the following month when you're due a payment?

South_coast

I've forgotten too, Ed - just reached my second-ever payout this month, and it's so long since the first that I can't recall! I know they do it automatically, no idea whether they email and tell you though. Will let you know if I receive one 👍

South_coast

First of the month round-up….

It's been a busy month!

• 34x extra £50s this month, coming from bank account cashback, Vypr, interest, some tilly tidies, surveys, TopCashBack, receipt scanning, a tidy tax rebate, and the Govt LISA bonus 😅! Used the accessible ones towards the refurb, with the LISA bonus obvs staying within the LISA

• Pulled back the “debts to self” on payday to £0.00 🥳 I did have to dip into the extra £50s pot again in the final week, and only had 15 miles of petrol left on payday, but I made it! Now to stay solvent!

• Switched onto a new fixed rate for my electricity, saving £7-something a month. It's slowly coming down, but still just over double the £22 I used to pay! Also comes with the exciting name of “Next Gust”, as apparently it all comes from a wind farm

• Did a MASSIVE clear out in my underground store room to make space ready for things to go down there while the refurb is underway. I now have zero empty cardboard boxes (3 trips’ worth to carry the flattened ones upstairs to the recycling bins 😬), and only one basket of bubble wrap stuff 😱! As always with these exercises, still a few bits I didn't feel comfortable getting rid of just yet, but hopefully they'll go in the next cull. So much better down there since we shelved it a few years ago (BF did the power tools, I supervised/passed him screws/held the ends of bits of wood 😀). Was just a giant empty space before, can't believe no-one had thought to put shelves up in the preceding 45-ish years 🤷‍♀️!

• Managed to get We Buy Books to accept some items…and wished I hadn't got rid of all the cardboard boxes 🤣

• Had a week off work and went a bit Prolific-crazy. Also reached cash-out on Y-Live and One Poll. Finally getting close on YouGov again as well 

• Break seemed to fly by, was very sad to go back to work 🙁 11 more years!

• Claimed £60-worth of B&Q vouchers from Consumer Pulse/Shop & Scan. Used them to buy paint

• Jiggled my accounts around as suggested by BB, and now have £4k earning 7% interest

• Got all adventurous with my current pension contributions 

• Took out ANOTHER 0% credit card, mostly to help with the cost of the refurb. That makes 4 now, with a limit of £40k between them (plus another 2 non-0% cards I'm not using at present 😬). Looks like I'm eligible for quite a few decent balance transfer offers as well, which is good as the current cards start to expire next year

• Added the below three lines to my monthly summary, as I thought they might be interesting metrics to track over the next few years. Suspect they may not always look so rosy!

Daily interest on cash: £8.46

Owed on 0% credit: £8,033.60

0% neutral fund (including refurb savings): £12,833.60 (160%)

10.49 years to go….

South_coast

South_coast said:

I've forgotten too, Ed - just reached my second-ever payout this month, and it's so long since the first that I can't recall! I know they do it automatically, no idea whether they email and tell you though. Will let you know if I receive one 👍

Turns out they do 😀: 

edinburgher

Thanks SC, I got an email as well 

South_coast

Have just done a Prolific survey that I completely did not understand 😅!

LadyWithAPlan

South_coast said:

Have just done a Prolific survey that I completely did not understand 😅!

???!!!! Need to pop in and see this!

South_coast

It was flashing words at me and I had to categorise whether they were analogue or digital, and then in various rounds they included things like male/female, Northern/Southern etc. So a word could be either analogue, digital, Northern or Southern for example, and I had to click whether it belonged on the left-hand side or the right. No idea what the point was, or what the results will contribute to the sum of human knowledge - but I guess that's why I'm not an academic 😅!

South_coast

(It also followed straight on from a 20-minute survey about AI in the workplace, so I was already a bit frazzled. Though the two combined were worth £9.35, so I can't complain too much 😀!)