Ready For My Fresh Start

PennysIntoPounds

Excellent prolific-ing.

Glad the whistlefish recommendation was useful, always good to have a small stash when cards are good value to save on having to get one for £3 or more multiple times throughout the year. I'm being strong and resisting browsing there for now as I have a pile of bargainous beautiful vintage-style cards to use first! The guy who runs the vintage company (his own small business) has said he thinks this will be the last year of selling physical cards so no doubt I'll stock up again if so.

You're most welcome to join in on my diary any time, that's the good thing I find about these boards- people have differing outlooks and ways of doing things and it can all be helpful. I'm always up for input/encouragement/'mate are you mad, why would you do that' 😁

PurplePhoenix62

Not much to report today, I hate moving onto early shifts from lates it's the worst shift change and made worse by picking up the extra late shift on Thursday. Very cranky today due to being tired, being cold and wanting to spend all the money on all the things - I think it's just because it's the last slog until payday with a bit of tendency to self-sabotage any progress thrown in for fun. 

Spend £1 at the tuckshop today at work for some snacks due to said crankiness. 13 stubborn pounds pending on Prolific and not been any more to pick up this evening. 

On a forced positive note - I won't have to worry about that shift change when I moved as they do it completely different, it'll be warmer tomorrow and I still have spare money in my accounts and all of my lovely savings. 

To do before I go to bed in a couple of hours:
- wash my work uniform, dress down Sundays thankfully gives me a chance to wash the grand total of three tops I have 
- make something for dinner
- have a shower - ideally I want to do a face mask and tint my eyebrows but feeling super unmotivated to do much right now 🤣

PennysIntoPounds

Pampering is meant to be nice, not a chore, if you're not feeling it then use your time however would be most pleasing to you

PurplePhoenix62

PennysIntoPounds said:

Pampering is meant to be nice, not a chore, if you're not feeling it then use your time however would be most pleasing to you

I felt more in the mood for it once I’d eaten, i think i was a bit hangry too 😂

Nothing to report again today, Prolific still has the same amount pending and I’ve been too tired to try and make any extra money after getting in from work. 

I’m two for two on having to drive in storms this year! Thankfully the rain held off until after I’d gotten home. 

I’ll need to get up a bit earlier to factor rush hour traffic into tomorrow mornings journey, so just a flying post. X 

PurplePhoenix62

Evening all

My early shifts are done and I am so glad they have totally wiped me out which is why I didn't get round to posting yesterday. 

I did have to dip into my house savings but it's not money I've outright spent or wasted on something, next weekend I'm going somewhere with my family for an early birthday thing and it needed payment on booking so I've done that and they'll all be paying me back in the next week or so, so it'll go straight back into there. My dad did offer to book it but he's got loads going on at the moment as one of their dogs had to be put down the other day so I didn't want to add any more to his plate so to speak. Just like with ordering the bits for my nan, it was actually nice to know I had the money there to book it before there weren't any spaces any more. 

On a good note, some of my Prolific finally cleared today (£10.32) and I used my Chase card to book the evening out so I got £1.40 cashback from it, too. 

On an even better note someone at work mentioned we'd be getting our extra payment in this month's pay, when I asked it's something to do with if you do overtime you're meant to accrue holiday but they do an annual payment instead based on what you would have accrued. Shockingly, I looked at my previous January payslips and yep, right there in black and white, extra money. Last year it was over £200 as I'd done a good chunk of overtime that year and I didn't even notice. £200 just gone without me even noticing there was extra and I have no idea what I spent it on. Not this year!!

Will be breaking my Dry Jan tomorrow, going out for dinner with some family friends that are like an extra lot of parents to me and me and my extra 'mum' so to speak always share some wine and I look forward to it. 

Next month's social spends should actually be far less than I though, as there's now rail works and no trains when I'd planned to have my leaving drinks and I'd say 99% of people would have had to travel by train so likely to have to cancel that now. They are having team drinks at the end of Feb which are after I've left and moved but the general suggestion is to try and come down and go out with them then. We shall see  

PurplePhoenix62

8 days without posting! I didn't realise it had been that long. 12 hour night shifts over the weekend really wiped me out and today's the first day I've been up at a reasonable hour and actually gotten out of the house. 

Much tighter budget than I expected this month I've only been paid about half my overtime I did so I need to raise that when I'm back in tomorrow, but I won't get it until the end of next month but that sort of helps in a way as with that and the small amount of leave I won't be taking it'll take it closer to about two thirds of a normal months pay rather than the half I would be getting for leaving mid way through the month. 

I'll update my signature shortly but I've got £1000 in my moving pot, £126.70 in my car insurance pot, £25 in my EF, £96.57 in my Christmas pot and £28.93 in my sealed pot. So still good numbers considering. 

Also, the project work I do self-employed is rather unexpectedly ending within the next month so I'll need to find something else to pick up on the side - and crack on with doing more Prolific. 

On some positives, I made an extra £109.76 this month between surveys cashback and a few odd bits, I still have quite a generous £100 for 'spends' per week but hoping to keep those low at least a couple of the weeks and use the extra for savings or debt and really managed to cut down on my takeaways/tuck shop/mindless grocery shops spends

Cloth_of_Gold

You are doing really well!

Aimingforthegoodlife

@PurplePhoenix62 you are doing really well, those savings are looking good! I remember the shift work, nights used to destroy me as well! Be kind to yourself on those days, they are tough!