Countdown to Part Time…

Spinayarn

Bought petrol today and paid for a train fare for a trip to London later in the summer. These were both budgeted for.

Spent £11.86 on some equipment for work. I won't be able to claim this back but it will help me lots so that will is an unexpected purchase.
PAD - £3.50 into EF

I don't think I will need to refuel my car again now until next pay day so that's actually about £25 saved from this month. It's probably because I had a week off work in this pay month.

Working online again this evening but finding it difficult to concentrate.

6 days till pay day and the budget resets!

ShyAndRetiring

Spinayarn said:

@jokono Thanks so much for commenting! I am planning on selling a few bits of my yarn stash although it will pain me to do it! But I have a few high end yarns that I know I definitely won’t use so may as well try to sell it. That’s a plan for when the overtime ends in a few weeks.

Hi ... just delurking to say not sure where you're planning to sell, but I belong to a few yarn destash group on FB and people seem to be pretty successful selling through those. Seems to work best if you can match up with someone local who can pick up though, so you don't end up caught out by scammers. I've successfully bought yarn, not been trying to sell any though *pats stash reassuringly*

Good luck with your debt-busting.

Spinayarn

@ShyAndRetiring thanks - I've actually been caught out the other way on FB - tried to buy a skein of yarn. Paid for it, never received it and never received any responses to messages   
I'm probably going to use instagram - I have a good network of knitting friends on there and I think they will spread the word for me if needed.

So today has been successful and not so successful. I had planned my dinner tonight around the fact that DH is out and I expected DD to be too. I had half a tub of fresh pasta and sauce in the fridge. Turns out DD wanted dinner too. I was so tempted to get takeaway or even go to the shop to buy some easy convenience food but instead I went freezer diving. I found some leftover meatballs and sauce that I defrosted. Added the tub of sauce out the fridge, cooked a mixture of the fresh pasta with dried and voila!

But I did send DD out to buy a bottle of wine for me to have later this evening - She returned with a £9 bottle of prosecco which is definitely more than I was planning on spending. I do have some cash in a cupboard I could pay her back with, but she's 18 so she doesn't "do" cash so it will have to come out of the bank. 

Positive - stopped myself spending at least £20 on takeaway.
Negative - spent £9 on wine.

Finished listening to the audio book by Rachel Cruze - Know Yourself, Know Your Money - which was really quite interesting and helpful. I've completed a couple of surveys today and this morning signed up to £co but I'm not sure I'll make any cashback from there as I usually buy from Amazon, ebay, Etsyor very small niche shops online.

I'm going to try to get in a couple of hours overtime this evening - so in fact, I had better get off of this site and open up the software to do this.

5 days till pay day - when I hope to still have some leftover money to add into the EF. Today I will PAD £1 into there. Better than nothing!

Blackcats

Hello @Spinayarn - quidco comes into its own for car insurance, home insurance etc.  that's where I've racked up some cash back over the years.  Sometimes there's  an email that says there's a cash back boost of £5 on any purchase through quidco.  Every little helps!  Over the years I've earned over £1000 from there but that probably says more about my spending than my money acumen 🤷‍♀️

I'd say that you are still £11 better off tonight than if you'd spent £20 on a takeaway (and you might have bought the wine as well as the takeaway).  Little changes to habits really help 

Spinayarn

Blackcats said:

I'd say that you are still £11 better off tonight than if you'd spent £20 on a takeaway (and you might have bought the wine as well as the takeaway). 

Thank you!  Yes you are right - I would have had both, and 5 days before pay day, it would have gone on a credit card.

ShyAndRetiring

Spinayarn said:

@ShyAndRetiring thanks - I've actually been caught out the other way on FB - tried to buy a skein of yarn. Paid for it, never received it and never received any responses to messages   
I'm probably going to use instagram - I have a good network of knitting friends on there and I think they will spread the word for me if needed.

Finished listening to the audio book by Rachel Cruze - Know Yourself, Know Your Money - which was really quite interesting and helpful. I've completed a couple of surveys today and this morning signed up to £co but I'm not sure I'll make any cashback from there as I usually buy from Amazon, ebay, Etsyor very small niche shops online.

Oh no sorry to hear that   it's a shame that something so simple like buying / selling a ball of yarn or two also involves the same scammer-dodging as if you were trying to buy / sell an iPhone etc. Glad you have a more reliable alternative! 

Book sounds interesting, will look that one up.

I use TopCashback as it includes Eb@y etc - the kickback is only pennies at a time but it soon adds up.

SaR x

Spinayarn

So this morning I took another look through my bank payments to see what can go. I have had a premium account with my bank for years as the mobile and travel insurance plus breakdown cover meant it was a good price. However, this is all covered with our joint account too so I don't need it on mine. This is going to save me £18 per month and I am going to add this on to the debt overpayment each month. When I added this calculation into the Debt Payoff app it reduced my time by a full month and saved about another £100 on interest. If I actually get a pay rise later this year (may or may not happen) I plan to add whatever extra it is onto the debt overpayment. If £18 per month can make this difference I can't imagine what a 5% pay rise would mean! (5% is the rumour that we might get in the autumn).

Credit K**ma emailed me today to say my credit score has gone down. This will probably be due to the fact I have opened a 0% CC to transfer onto plus opened the Monzo account so I'm really not worried about it.

Should be a NSD today - and I will transfer £2 to EF as my PAD.

Spinayarn

Evening all
A weekend busy with working overtime. There are still about 2 weeks of this seasonal work left so I have to crack on with it. Only trouble is I'm getting a headache from looking at a screen all the time. As I'm on the laptop a lot though I can keep Prolific open in the background and grab surveys when they come up. Think I'll have made about £5 on there this weekend. Not as much as last week, but it's better than nothing. Will withdraw whatever is there tomorrow.

Last night OH and I watched a film on Apple and had supermarket pizzas (from Ald*) instead of takeaway. I drank gin and tonic, using gin we already have. Did have to buy some cans of tonic water. We watched The Living with Bill Nighy which is definitely what I would describe as "gentle". (Honestly, a bit slow and boring but it seems mean to say anything horrible about it, given its subject matter!)

OH has ordered a too g00d to go bag from our local co-** this evening - I'm hoping there might be something I can use for my lunch tomorrow. If not, I'll be rummaging in the freezer later to see what I can find.

By the way - why does everyone write in code when writing shop names etc? I'm only doing it because I see everyone else doing it!

I had a look round some of the other boards today and saw the 1p a day challenge. I've printed off the payment list and thinking of starting it from 1st July. Debating whether to add it into a new pot or just add it into EF or Christmas. Do people literally transfer just pennies? I kind of assumed there was a minimum amount you can transfer? I guess if it's just in one bank and only transferring into a different account it might be ok? 

Oh and another possible saving - I'm really hankering a crochet summer bag for my holiday. I'd like to make one but not sure I have enough cotton in the right colours in my yarn stash - however I asked my mum if she had any and she's going to take a look for me at what she's got. It will be a double bonus - a no spend craft project, plus a trendy new bag for my holiday.

Hope everyone else has had a good weekend.

Floss

@Spinayarn the coded names for shops started years ago on the old forum, back in the days of supermarket geeks doing internet analytics. It's pointless nowadays and can get quite irritating!

Spinayarn

Floss said:

@Spinayarn the coded names for shops started years ago on the old forum, back in the days of supermarket geeks doing internet analytics. It's pointless nowadays and can get quite irritating!

I thought it must be something like that - trying to avoid phishing or spam or similar. Glad you said this as I will stop the stupid *** thing and be up front about shopping at Aldi!