Teetering on the brink

EatingBeans

Note to self: Stop using random things as door stops! 

So, for a long time now my house has had neat little piles of stuff just dotted about. The rooms are clear and clean enough in the bits we actually live in, but there are odd bits generally around the perimeter of rooms where either my mum has gifted me a few boxes of things she no longer wants (she is forever acquiring random things and then decluttering, and I like to be helpful 🤦‍♀️), or it’s random bits that have just never been unpacked since moving in. 

After a while you just stop seeing it. 

However, since the rather embarrassing revelation of finding out my Tupperware door stop was actually full of cash, I have started to see more of the little piles again. 

Today I spotted a smallish, but heavy, Amazon box by the front door - clearly been used to prop the door open at some point. The box can’t have arrived in January since I have not ordered anything, so it puzzled me. Still sealed. Addressed to me. Hmm, I wonder what’s inside it…? Turns out to be six more tins of dog food, a pack of dog chews and a new 3month supply of dog poo bags! At least £40 worth of stuff, still just sitting in a box unopened. Needless to say the pups were very happy to see the return of their much loved chews, (I am going to alternate with carrots each day to make them last longer), and I was delighted to find the poo bags! 🤣 I’ve clearly reached new levels in things I appreciate in life, right?! The truth is I had just put a box on my Amazon subscription order to be delivered in February, and now I get to take it off again saving £10.70! Result! 

The next random box I am eyeing up is an older, clearly repurposed box that must gave come from my mum at some point. This one has ‘projector’ handwritten on it in big black letters. Never know, that might have something in it worth selling? 

That’s a job for tomorrow though. Now, it is definitely bed time. I feel like I could sleep for a week. 😴

Nintud

I’ve just caught up with your diary.  You’re doing so well. I like the idea of the 1% steps to break down the debt repayments into celebratory chunks. I thin I’ll try that with my Nationwide cc. It’s just below the £400 mark, so I’ll be doing victory laps around the living room fairly frequently during February!

DrunklMunkee

Bless me, oh Heavenly @EatingBeans, for I have sinned.

There I was, walking the Path of the Righteous. A skip in my step and whistling a merry tune. When, who should come forth and interrupt my virtuous journey? None other than, Beelzebub & all his pointy-eared little helpers. He placed temptation in my path, and menacingly steered me through the Alleyway of Iniquity. Namely - the cake aisle. And verily, he did place upon my shopping basket a cheesecake of NewYorkian proportions and yellow-stickered dimensions.

I strayed! I strayed straight to the checkout and failed the Test of Temptation. Forgive me, Beans, for I am weak. 

Only joking, no forgiveness needed. IT WAS DEEE-LICIOUS 

DrunklMunkee

So, 

I am all caught up.

I am so pleased your return to the office went well and you enjoyed it. I know exactly how you must have felt, when feeling so tired after it. The mental drain can be just as exhausting as the physical effort - which people often overlook. So, please, DO be kind to yourself - You don't have to tell yourself off for taking it easy on the Debt-Free trail. Look on it as a way of re-stocking your drive and ambitions. 

I know what you mean about expensive lunches at work. Over the years I have worked at similar places and as they have a pretty captive clientele, the prices were on the higher side. But again - you are allowed to enjoy yourself - and if the occasional catch up with your besties are going to cost x pounds - then let's budget for it and remove all feelings of guilt. woo-hoo.

Althoughhhhhhh, you could see both besties on the same day and cut your costs by half 🤣

I am off to do my month-end budgeting and spreadsheet-shuffle to work out how many cheesecakes I need to budget for in February. Is it wrong to wish the days away in order to see your monthly updates?? 

Oh, and also a good time to reflect on the things that went well over the last month. Time to give yourself some hearty back-slaps and vigorous hand-claps.

DrunklMunkee

It did make me laugh thinking about your new-found poo-bag appreciation. It's like Karma now fully understands the new you and has rewarded you. 

Who wudda thought poo-bags can bring such joy

EatingBeans

Nintud said:

I’ve just caught up with your diary.  You’re doing so well. I like the idea of the 1% steps to break down the debt repayments into celebratory chunks. I thin I’ll try that with my Nationwide cc. It’s just below the £400 mark, so I’ll be doing victory laps around the living room fairly frequently during February!

🤞for you for February! At this rate you’ll be wearing the carpet out! 🤣

EatingBeans

Hi @DrunklMunkee 👋 Nevermind the cheesecake, how were the Wagon Wheels? Hope you had a good time. 😁

I don’t feel too bad about the lunches with work besties. Like you say, I just need to think about them when I am looking at my budget. Fortunately, Bestie no. 1, who I go to lunch with most often is also conscious about not spending too much money. In fact, I shared with her about the TooGoodToGo app and she reminded me that she had told ME about it 6months ago. Doh!🤦‍♀️ At least she will understand if money is tight one week and will just go for a walk instead. 👍

Poo bag order cancelled, £6 taken out of Prolific via PayPal and door stop money finally made it to the bank (just £128.50 today as I kept some 50ps back that might sell for more than face value). I too can’t wait to see the final tally of the month!

I’ve topped up my petrol in the car so each month I can run from full tank to full tank to see how much I have really spent on petrol in the month. Since I fill up at Tesco I did print the receipt to see if I could do their survey but nothing on it so maybe the receipt has to be from in the store? I will try and remember to look next time I buy anything there. 

Existing bank for the burner bank account has now sent my a message about the transfer - I am not sure why I am finding this process so exciting - the direct debits are all nicely showing on the account ready for transfer. 😁

I decided to use my water and gas/electric direct debits and associated ‘pot’ money for the burner account. Since I have been through and cancelled pretty much every other direct debit they seemed the most logical to choose since for these two direct debits in particular, I pay a set amount into the pot each month and then the actual direct debit (different amount) goes out. At some points in the year I am paying in more than the bill and at other times vice versa but over the year it pretty much cancels out. It means I ‘pay’ water over 12months instead of 10, and I build up a gas/electric money buffer in my bank account over summer, rather than the energy companies bank account. I much prefer it this way as it means my dd for the gas/electric is set based on actual usage. No nasty surprise bills for thousands of pounds when they finally realise they’ve accidentally been taking too little money for years! 

Anyway, the reason for explaining the gas/electric/water saga is it means I have moved £200 from the overdraft/pots account to the new account, taking the overdraft account balance in the wrong direction. The important thing however is the owed overdraft is still going in the right direction, now down to £1025.40 from £1349.90 at the start of the month, woop, woop! 🎉

DrunklMunkee

LOL,

The evening of Wagon Wheels was a great success. Not only did we put the world to rights - we also conducted ourselves in a very DFW manner. I had a 50% discount voucher for food and I also had a voucher for 25% off my drinks round (thanks to a recent birthday). Plus (and I was going to mention this to you at some point), through my work - I have access to something called Choices, which offer their staff various discounts. Well one of the discounts is provided by Mitchell & Butler - which happened to be part of the chain we visited, Basically, if I pre-load money onto a discount card, then I get a 10% discount. So, if I load £100 on the card, it only costs me £90. 

We all had a great night, and cut over £50 from the bill.

Oh - and this will make you laugh. One of the party, who was decidedly uninspired by the dessert menu, decided to pop to the shop next door and got a choccy bar for their pudding. Despite, it being a Wispa & not a Wagon Wheel - It did make me laugh to watch them eat it in secret, whilst hoping to not get caught by the landlord.

So - not sure if you will have access to Choices, with your employer - but well worth a look if you do. I have used discounts with M&B (as above), 6% discount on an ikea sofa, 10% on a body shop order & 6% discount with Currys. Ooooh - and Primark do a similar thing with a pre-loading card as above, but the discount is slightly smaller.

DrunklMunkee

Also, great news on the bank transfer front. Hopefully that will soon generate a healthy £175 profit to go along with your £128 door stop money. 

And having fallen foul of energy companies and their billing methods in the past - I am with you 100% on the gas/electric DD front

Then it'll be nearly time to do do do do do do do, do do do do Do the shuffle  ( 🤣 I know the song was Do the hustle - but I have the tune in my head now)

I told ya this debt free wannabe life was fun

EatingBeans

@DrunklMunkee
Haha! You are right, I totally love the fact that rather than go without desert and have something latter, your friend chose to actually nip out and grab a choccy bar, come back and eat it! 🤣 I fear I might have given the game away if I was there as I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from giggling!
And cutting £50 from the bill was super awesome! Well done you for thinking ahead! 🎉

I am not sure my work gives us access to Choices as I am sure I would probably have heard about it by now, but that said, it has been a while since I checked out our rewards section so I will have a little gander tomorrow. Good idea. 👍

This evening I am having another go at picking up a TooGoodToGo bag from Aldi. Fingers crossed it is still available this time. 🤞

I was going to order some of my food shopping through Just Eat this evening. I’ve never done this before but since Just Eat sent me a £10 voucher with a minimum spend of just £15 I figured it must save me money right? Er, no! I decided to compare the same items bought through Morrisons directly rather than Morrisons through just Eat and not only are the standard 2for1 deals not available but the actual price of the items have been marked up buy A LOT! So, by the time you add their fees on, the £10 off basically takes you back to where you would have been if you had just bought directly from Morrisons! What a scam. Thanks but no thanks Just Eat.