Ready For My Fresh Start

PurplePhoenix62

Thank you both 

Well, as expected, because I slept a lot yesterday and never got myself out of my night shift sleeping pattern I was still awake at 5am this morning. Slept between about 6am and 9.30am but I've made myself go out and keep busy to ensure I didn't repeat that, today. Helped my nan sort out upgrading her phone, she treated me to lunch and I picked up 2 birthday cards and got petrol so not a NSD today. I did however use my Chase card to get the petrol, so will get some cashback for that, did my usual squirrel of the round-up into my car insurance pot and also needed to put £5 in to my cousins birthday card so took £10 in cash, used it to buy the two cards, put the fiver in one and put the remaining change of £2.22 into my sealed pot   
One of the birthday cards could have been avoided but annoyingly it's one I'd brought alongside my mums at the end of December but they've still vanished off of the face of the earth so needed to replace it. I also hadn't realised my uncle's birthday was a big birthday this year so that was the second card. 

That should be absolutely all of my planned spends now paid out for, £119.12 spent so far on fuel. This is the first month I'm really tracking how much I spend on it, mostly because previous months I rarely filled up and just did the odd £15-20 a few times a week so I'm looking forward to seeing how much I actually use although about a quarter of the first tank covered my drive back from my dads. I might just scrape by on this second tank for the rest of my work journeys, but there will probably be a few stop-ins at my nans between those so hoping to not have to put more than £15 in at a push before payday. 

Time to sit down with my budget journal and add in my spends over the last few days, I definitely think it's making me more aware having it write it all down separately. But currently I've got about £75 'spare' with my grocery money sitting in a different account and hoping to have some of that left by the end of the month, even if it's only £1 it'll be the first month in probably years I've had anything left over, usually I've had to borrow money off family for a last bit of petrol or food but it's all on track so far. 

enthusiasticsaver

It sounds as if the budgeting and saving is  going well. Nice that your nan treated you to lunch. 

PurplePhoenix62

enthusiasticsaver said:

It sounds as if the budgeting and saving is  going well. Nice that your nan treated you to lunch. 

Thank you I feel like it is too

Rubbish with sleep again although slightly better than the night before. I ended up falling asleep at about 9.30pm but was awake again at around 2.30am. However whilst most of the world was sleeping I got around £10 of surveys done, some of which have been approved so cashed out £9.93 from Prolific and did the usual with it. Did a small amount of my other work, too. 

Now after falling asleep on and off I am just trying to persuade myself to get up and dressed, sort my car and then go to the tip. That's it. It's not a big job and yet I cannot make myself get motivated to get up and do it. I'm going to set a timer for 15 minutes and then just force myself to get it done. It's a well overdue job it just means sorting out the bags in the boots of my car and washing up a few tubs that have been in there a while. I also need to wash my uniform at some point today but it won't take long and will dry in time in the airing cupboard before I need it tomorrow afternoon. 

PurplePhoenix62

The boring job is finally done! Sunday is clearly a better day to go, the staff on were having a laugh, no one stopping you right at the entrance and more importantly no one demanding you open your black bags of rubbish to check what was in them. 2 black bags and an old pillow finally gone. I have a few bits in the boot that I'd set aside for charity shops, but I got an email from one of the doorstep ones the other day saying that are urgently doing collections this coming week so I'll just book that whilst I think about it and then just do it that way. To be honest I got some bits for Christmas that I can probably add in, too. 

Now that that's done, the rest of the evening is for relaxing and hopefully a bit of money making

PennysIntoPounds

Well done on getting the big boring job done, glad it was a more pleasurable experience than expected! 

PurplePhoenix62

Morning all,

Finally got a decent nights sleep and back into a normal sleeping pattern - just in time to go back to work today 🙄
I have emailed the new job about some days I need off in August, not sure how it works if you haven't technically started yet, I did give them two dates this year that I'd already booked off in my current job so I'm pretty sure they're sorted, this is just something else planned since I gave those on my interview. Fingers crossed no issues. 

I also swung by my old house yesterday to pick up a letter that had gone there, from the NHS, advising an appointment I had booked in for April has been cancelled. It's a 6 month follow up appointment after one I had last year where a broken toe hasn't healed fully/properly (it's been nearly a year at this point) and the April appointment was to take another look and if it was still the same they'd look to fuse the joint. Obviously I'll be moving to another county before then so I'm not sure if this can all be 'transferred over' somehow or if I have to start the whole blooming process again. I do want to get it sorted ASAP as I can't run without some pain in the toe, though I'd run through the slight pain if I was sure I wasn't going to do any further damage 🤔

I just need to make 26p on Prolific to be able to cash out another £5, I have £3 pending but it looks like that one is probably just going to sit there until the 21 days are up to approve. 

Realistically I'm going to swing by Tesco on the way to work to get something to eat at work. My landlady appears to have a guest round downstairs it'll give me enough anxiety just to have a shower and make some toast with someone in the house so I'll save cooking off my chicken for some wraps for tomorrow when everyone else will be at work. The noodle things I like are still on offer in Tesco so will pick up some of those and maybe some bits for a chilli which will do dinners for work for the next few days. 

PurplePhoenix62

Morning all!

Hit the £5 on Prolific yesterday but didn't squirrel it knowing I wanted to get a few bits in Tesco so it wouldn't impact on my month too much. I also discovered my new favourite thing about not wasting all of my money... my nan occasionally asks me to order her a few bits on line and ordinarily at this point in the month I wouldn't have the money spare to do it. However, still enough in my bank account to order her around £30 of bits with no issues, even if it hadn't have been in my bank account I would have had the money to shuffle around from pots. She'll give me the money back when I next see her but again I've got that extra floating around so I'm not penny pinching until then. Nice feeling to have. 

I'll be glad when this cold snap is over, though I am grateful for not having to start work until 1pm when it's actually the warmest part of the day, and having my windscreen cover so I don't have to de-ice my front windscreen at 10pm when it's (or was last night) -3! Although I did have to fight with it yesterday with how windy it was. 

Will be a no spend day today, I plan to do nothing before work other than cook up what I'll be taking in for my dinner for the next few days, catching up on diaries and keeping an eye on Prolific. I should also get at least a few quid in cashback from my Chase account whenever that gets paid for purchases this month. 

Yesterday was 1 month until my last day in my current job, it's going by much quicker than I thought it would. I really need to dig out one of the big clothes bags I've got and just bag up everything I won't wear before moving which is probably about 2/3rds of my clothes and get a few bits in boxes so I'm not getting stressed in the lead up to the move. I've sweet talked one of my brothers into visiting my dads before I move the same time as me so he can put a few bits in the back of his work van. 🤣

Cloth_of_Gold

PurplePhoenix62 said:

Morning all!

Hit the £5 on Prolific yesterday but didn't squirrel it knowing I wanted to get a few bits in Tesco so it wouldn't impact on my month too much. I also discovered my new favourite thing about not wasting all of my money... my nan occasionally asks me to order her a few bits on line and ordinarily at this point in the month I wouldn't have the money spare to do it. However, still enough in my bank account to order her around £30 of bits with no issues, even if it hadn't have been in my bank account I would have had the money to shuffle around from pots. She'll give me the money back when I next see her but again I've got that extra floating around so I'm not penny pinching until then. Nice feeling to have. 

I'll be glad when this cold snap is over, though I am grateful for not having to start work until 1pm when it's actually the warmest part of the day, and having my windscreen cover so I don't have to de-ice my front windscreen at 10pm when it's (or was last night) -3! Although I did have to fight with it yesterday with how windy it was. 

Will be a no spend day today, I plan to do nothing before work other than cook up what I'll be taking in for my dinner for the next few days, catching up on diaries and keeping an eye on Prolific. I should also get at least a few quid in cashback from my Chase account whenever that gets paid for purchases this month. 

Yesterday was 1 month until my last day in my current job, it's going by much quicker than I thought it would. I really need to dig out one of the big clothes bags I've got and just bag up everything I won't wear before moving which is probably about 2/3rds of my clothes and get a few bits in boxes so I'm not getting stressed in the lead up to the move. I've sweet talked one of my brothers into visiting my dads before I move the same time as me so he can put a few bits in the back of his work van. 🤣

A useful bonus as a result of your efforts!

PurplePhoenix62

Definitely @Cloth_of_Gold

I meant to come on and post last night but the last two nights I've gotten in from work and been nodding off whilst on my laptop. Nice to be getting decent sleep again! I did make the dinners for work for last night and tonight and bought a few bits in Tesco the other night for the cupboard that I can take in if I do forget to make anything. 

I got a nice little surprise in the post yesterday, I was really delayed in cancelling my TV License from my old address but I got a cheque for £26.50 from them because of that. I've scanned it in on one of my banking apps and should clear tomorrow according to the app. I thought about paying it off a debt but then thought all of the good work this month has been towards squirrelling money away and making sure I have savings, so I think I'll finally name one of my pots accounts as an emergency fund and pop it in there to start it off. The debts are all defaulted anyway and everyone is happy with my monthly payments so I may as well have a few months of building up some savings across the pots whilst I'm saving for moving money then go into making overpayments from there. 

February is looking like it might be a bit spendy social-wise, lots of people wanting to do things before I move but I'm going to try and keep it all as cheap as possible or at least set aside a certain amount from my disposable income and not go over that so that it's sort-of budgeted for. 

Time to catch up some diaries then slowly get myself ready for work one last full shift today of this set, then a few hours overtime tomorrow evening. X

Aimingforthegoodlife

Sounds like you are making good progress and there is a lot going on! Good luck with getting ready for the move!