So close, we can smell mortgage freedom!

savingholmes

Woohoo. The question is will you carry on with them? I get the impression it takes forever?

Karmacat

Congratulations on cashing out!  I carried on because its really good value compared with mystery shopping, ymmv.  

But ooh, ice skating and fondue!  I've had fondue about twice in my life, and omg, its sooo good.  Have a great weekend.

debtfreeoneday

Well done on YG. I don’t mind that one actually. Rewards feel decent and most of the surveys are fairly interesting. 

themadvix

Evening all,

Thanks for the congrats on cashing out! I'll certainly continue with YG for a long time to come - I don't mind that it takes a year or so - at least you get a decent amount for the time given and I find the surveys quite interesting in the main. Also a big fan of YG safe and their new direct surveys - seem to be very easy money.

Karma - fondue, ice skating and excessive socialising are next weekend. But we did go to the Emirates yesterday for the Arsenal v Utd WSL match (sadly the Gunners lost, but Mr MV was quietly cheering next to me as he's a United supporter). We did buy food there (but at £10 for a vegan pasty and a pint of cider at a venue in London, it's not bad value - and the pasty is really good). I bought a couple of bags of chocolates at Mr T's before we went it - saved quite a bit on the price of those there. And snacking on them probably saved us from the lure of post-match dessert, which we were tempted by.

Today our friend has finished welding my car - cost was £140 plus a facon sarnie and some bread pud - very reasonable! For those waiting with baited breath, the Richmond facon was ok.... better than it used to be, but unless I'm missing something, not especially bacon-y - but the meat eaters seemed to think it wasn't bad. Cost all met from my car maintenance fund.

I made the aforementioned bread pudding with the last of the leftover bread from my Olio collection. Was very pleased to use my brain. Nan's recipe said to put in one dish and bake for 1.5 hours..... I thought, 'I'm not putting my oven on for 1.5 hours just for that', so I popped the batter into silicon cupcake trays and they cooked in about 25 mins. I also made a batch of red onion marmalade using some of the red onions I collected from Olio. Only two and half jars made in the end, despite a large saucepan full to start with. So we'll keep the partial one and the other two can be added to the gift pile. I did use my own blackberry vinegar in place of balsamic in the recipe, so I felt very self-sufficient!

The laptop manufacturer finally got back to me after I requested a refund... apparently the chassis isn't compatible with Win 11 (despite being listed as available with it pre-installed on their website), so their 'solution' is to run Windows 10.... would I still like a refund now they've 'solved' the problem?? Ermmmm yes! I can't quite believe that they think the answer would be anything else! Annyoingly I paid for it on my fancy Avios card to get the points needed and I've since cancelled the card as it cost £20/month.... so I will need to ring B'claycard tomorrow and see what they suggest re a refund. It's going to get complicated with my accounts too. In the meantime, I've bought a new laptop from JL which had £240 off and seems to be a slightly better spec (at the original price it would have been out of my price range, so that's why I hadn't seen it before). It should be arriving tomorrow! It's a huge relief to finally know there's going to be a solution to this whole saga and I'll actually have a laptop that works at last. The replacement is £200 cheaper than the returned laptop, so that will go back in my business savings and may be used for a new-to-me phone in the NY - it's OK at the moment, but the software isn't supported any more and it's an Iphone 7, so fairly elderly. I've never thought about business expensing a phone previously, but actually I use it a lot for work.

In other news, I won £25 of vouchers from the RM survey prize draw - have only ever won the odd £10 before, so very pleased with this! Currently planning on using these for the furniture from Argos.

I have not.... done any ebaying, despite the 80% off FVF offer... or worked on the thermal window coverings.... (On the Ebay front, I sold a job lot of football programmes the other day - 36 in a batch for a particular club for £15 - had message from buyer to say one was for a different club and could I offer a reasonable solution? Yes, I've offered a 42p refund for the one that either was missing or I've miscounted.... some people, honestly!)


I think that's all for this weekend! Have a good evening folks

savingholmes

Good news on the car repair and the survey. Liked your bread pudding solution. You are on a roll. 

newgirly

Hi Vix, could you do bread pudding in the slow cooker instead? I did a tea loaf the other day that usually goes in the oven for 50 odd minutes and it was fine 🙂

themadvix

Morning all,

Good question NG, but I don't have a slow cooker, so no idea I'm afraid. My IP has a slow cook function but I've never used it - fast and at high pressure is more my style! 

Thanks SH - after a bit of a pants week last week I feel I'm beginning to get more on top of things at last. I don't think I'd realised how much the laptop issues were weighing on my mind. I've chatted with B'claycard this morning and the refund will go onto my downgraded card (I think there may be a slight delay) - so all spending to go on that for now. Managed to pay for new one on Amex, so will have to do some juggling there, but at least I've been able to action the refund from the old laptop manufacturer.

Not sure if I mentioned, but our battery is being fitted today! So hopefully we'll be mostly paying 7p/kWh at most for our electricity from now on. (Not sure how feasible this is in reality, but we'll have the car and battery (5.2kWh) charged overnight, plus whatever we generate during the day). 

Lunch is going to be a soup to use up some bits from the fridge - not sure what sort of soup as there's pesto, pepper and celery to use.... Dinner may be toad in the hole as we had the leftovers of spag bol last night, so feel we missed our Sunday dinner.

R'ford delivery coming on Thursday - it's my Christmas pudding kit (very excited and slightly scared by this!), plus some carrots and potatoes (we're down to the tiny ones now from the ones I grew, so limited for uses) and a couple of bunches of greens for Fareshare through their new collaboration with them.

In less good news, have just been out to collect some bits from Halfords for Mr MV on a click and collect order and my phone wouldn't connect to the Internet on data.... it did this several years ago and had to be sent off to be fixed... that new phone may be sooner than expected.... did it hear me threatening to replace it?!

MS things:
* Ebay sale (will gain postage money)
* Clicks done (10p on HW)
* YG survey 
* Contacted cat client about key collection - this is for the 3 months of cat sitting that my friend and I are taking on - still need to arrange insurance (know where I'm getting it, just need to do it)


Gratitudes:
* Car should be finished today ready for re-test tomorrow - and bargainous welding from friend
* Mr MV working from home today (so I have a car should I want to go anywhere but more importantly it's nice to have company)
* Laptop is arriving between 1.30 and 2.30 - excited about this - I hope it's a pleasure unlike the last one!

This week I really need to get my head around Christmas presents....

Have a good day all!

themadvix

Just dropping in to say hi from my new laptop which doesn't crash when you wake it up from sleep! I am sooooo happy with it! And the refund is being arranged by the other retailer. Good ol' JL - and it has a two-year guarantee too of course. (And it conveniently arrived at the same time as the football is on, so I have the excuse of setting it up whilst watching the football).

Karmacat

Woo hoo!  Congratulations!  Gotta love JL  

savingholmes

Glad your laptop is resolved. Sounds like it has been a right saga.