Five Year Fix, Five Year Plan

KajiKita

Yaaay for the DW!! 🥳🎉 Shame about the laptop, but like you say, 10 years is a good age for one! 

Where are you going this week - work or pleasure? 

KK

Merlin's_Beard

KajiKita said:

Yaaay for the DW!! 🥳🎉 Shame about the laptop, but like you say, 10 years is a good age for one! 

Where are you going this week - work or pleasure? 

KK

Bruges Christmas market, for fun.

Have also noticed while I'm doing my big catch up that my tv spy box hasn't given me any rewards for the last one or two months - not sure what's up with that. Have emailed them asking why. If they're not giving me Amazon vouchers I'm not letting them have my data!

Also trying to get my head around the Panelbase to norstat thingy changeover. Redemption process much, much more complex and involving about three different websites - download a gift card for another site that makes you go to another website to download another giftcard which then gets emailed to you and you redeem it. Do I want to carry on with this? Panelbase is definitely the lowest award thing I do at the minute (unless you count the tv spy box not paying I guess!)

killerpeaty

Oooh Bruges! I went there (nearly 20 years shh) and from memory it was probably the one that sparked my love of Christmas markets. I hope you enjoy it!

Glad to hear the dishwasher is now working and you have a new laptop. These things always happen at once.

LadyWithAPlan

Always lovely to have a new laptop and 10 was a good age ! Cost divided by 120 months is a great one!
My last one (macbook pro) had battery problems at age 7 - then I threw coffee over it twice in 10 mins .. so I cant login as old user ...suppose it may be useful as an extra screen but never use it ... the previous macbook pro was 9 years old... Course I have both of them still - need to take into apple to recycle..

Bruges sounds fabulous... didnt know you were a ynab person   No wonder you have done so well mse wise. - any tp tips on ynab for saving harder?
I am new to ynab  but loving the extra structure though after a full on night in London town last night seeing where I am having to move money around to cover my spending ouch ..

Good you can see the missing rewards.. it reminds me to check on my hali ones..

EF is looking fine!

South_coast

Merlin's_Beard said:
Also trying to get my head around the Panelbase to norstat thingy changeover. Redemption process much, much more complex and involving about three different websites - download a gift card for another site that makes you go to another website to download another giftcard which then gets emailed to you and you redeem it. Do I want to carry on with this? 

I'm not enjoying it either 🙁 I'm finding the actual surveys fine, but the redemption is really painful as you say. I don't really want to earn vouchers either, I much preferred it being cash. Oh, and I am yet to find out the purpose of the stars 🤷‍♀️!

Merlin's_Beard

@LadyWithAPlan - I think the best thing I read about YNAB was that while it definitely shows you hard truths (mainly that you've assigned the same money to about four different savings goals, for most people, definitely for me, and that you overspend on things that you think you spend barely anything on), it doesn't actually change your habits - you change your habits. Also, look at it before you spend the money, not after.

@South_coast - oh thank god. I don't know what the stars do either. I thought I was being stupid.

South_coast

Ooh, just noticed they now have a cash option - much better!

savingholmes

Glad your dishwasher is finally working. 

Harsh to have to replace a laptop this time of year - but hopefully it's whizzier than what you had before.

Enjoy your holiday. Bruges is beautiful.

Merlin's_Beard

Bruges was absolutely beautiful and I am absolutely exhausted. I was not MSE at all and had a fabulous time. Cost around £900 all in, including travel and accommodation.

In my absence, HMRC have paid me £1500 of tax returns - pension tax rebate, I assume. FD have also decided that I am allowed to touch the regular saver that has matured.

But this does mean that the cashflow situation is much, much better and I have paid off £3636.18 of student debt.

This takes my student debt down to £11,667 and my total debt (mortgage and student loan) to under a quarter of a million pounds for the first time (£247,500)

Fortune_Smiles

Well done @Merlin's_Beard - fabulous progress 🙂

Fortune x