Teetering on the brink

EatingBeans

@house_buyer funny you should pick up on those areas as that is exactly what I thought someone might say! 

The present amount is so high because part of my agreed plan with my girls is that I buy them their last phone on their 17th birthday and the youngest is fast approaching. She knowns she will get £600 towards it and if she wants anything more she has to save too - yet another incentive for her to get a job. This was the deal for her older sister so I don’t want to go back on it.

Dog training amount is for dd to take our youngest puppy for training as part of her DofE (again trying to kill two birds with one stone!). It will only be for 3 more months and then that will stop as I can’t afford to train just for the sake of training. I was doing flyball with the older dog which he and I loved but that has been cut from the budget. ☹️

Mobile bills has already been cut this month. One phone is on contract, the other I’ve just taken out a sim only deal, but since joining this forum I have realised I might have been able to shave a couple of pounds more off - will review again towards the end of the month. 👍

And my answer to car maintenance is simply to sell the car! I barely use it so I’ve agreed to sell it to my daughter in June - the small amount in the soa is just in case something urgent needs doing between now and then. Tbh, I am expecting that money that I am putting aside each month to actually just go to paying off debt once the car is gone. 

Thanks for taking your time to pick through the soa - it is really useful to have another set of eyes on it. Just another reminder that the areas I am least likely to cut are always related to my daughters or pets so I have to really stop and challenge myself when spending on them. For now I am happy that sticking with these amounts are the right thing to do as I hate going back on my word, but I will definitely be more careful about what I commit to in future! 

EatingBeans

Summary of today:
Tried to convince my adult daughter to sign up to Topcashback and not only failed but subsequently got a lecture on e-safety! 🤣 Mum, you can’t just go signing up to something because some stranger on the internet told you it is a good idea. Think about your personal data! If it seems too good to be true it usually is too good to be true! Did you not learn from the scammers that took your car and held it for random… 😬 Yeah ok. She had me on that one. No refer a friend bonus for me. 😩 That said, looking on the bright side, I am taking it as a parenting win as clearly they know how to stay safe on the internet! 😁

Morrisons kindly delivered my shopping so I can now make meals out of the random things I had left in my cupboards. Nothing paid for delivery as I had already paid for a delivery pass. I checked when this is next up for renewal and cancelled that - no longer a luxury I will be paying for. Food budget still on track. 👍

And big news - I dared to step outside the house today! All wrapped up and only to go as far as the car so I could drop my daughter to work, but still, a big moment for me as I haven’t done so much as put the bin out in weeks. Thankfully, whilst I still very much knew I had done it, the pain in my face wasn’t too bad so I might try again later in the week assuming the TN doesn’t now get a lot worse. The car however had sat so long that the layer of dirt had built up to the point that I couldn’t even see through the windows! For just a split second I considered taking it to the car wash, swiftly followed by a “what the hell are you thinking” moment. Instead it got a few squirts of window cleaner and a rub with some spare paper towels left over from a previous (now forbidden) takeaway. No point spending out on a washing the car just to drop my daughter to work, it will only come back and sit gathering dirt again! 

The real plan for today was to get things listed on ebay. Sadly not as successful as I had hoped. I did manage some sorting and taking pictures of around 20 things but I had a massive headache and by the time I had packed things away I only managed to list one item. That said, it is one more than previously listed and now I have photos of the others I can more easily list the others over the next few days. 

Sadly no luck on the survey front with Prolific and YouGov having nothing for me today, but I did spend a while reading posts on MSE to look for more ideas and will now be looking to cook using up any oil things come in and cutting the ends of my cosmetics to get the last bit out! 😁 (sorry, I can’t recall which thread I got these from but they are awesome ideas!)

Pondering alternative ways to bring in cash I remembered a large tub of coins I have floating around my house back from a short lived interest in collecting coins. Yes, having a collection of all the lovely designs of 50ps is very nice and all, but actually I could probably be better served by them being in my bank! Not quite sure the best thing to do with the old pound coins though. 🤔 Anyone know? Maybe a question for the bank. I am assuming they also still give out coin bags at the counter? It has been so long since I dealt in cash I genuinely have no idea. 😬

As I sit here now I am part way through cooking our one meal of the week where I still cook for all of us - a scrummy chicken roast. Even with this meal though I can see traces of my old spending habits - spending more on the kids! Rather than use up the cheaper chicken breasts that I bought in bulk, divided up and froze, I have been and bought slightly more expensive chicken breasts specially for the roast as my youngest dd thinks the cheaper ones don’t taste as nice. They are both just chicken breast! 🤦‍♀️

Andyjflet

EatingBeans said:

I am really starting to feel like this is doable and actually beginning to enjoy it!
 

Told you!! Gets addictive, I think it works because however dire the situation, having a plan, any plan, reduces most of the worry and anxiety. Cognitively you are attacking your problem with positive intentions, well done, don't lose sight of the goal and look forward to you shouting when you have paid off "Very" and closed down their horrible account. Hateful customer service. 

Back in the days of debt I got into trouble with Next, my wife hid her spending, it wasn't until later that I found the letters and the Default. They were very unhelpful, so today, I still refuse to shop there. Petty huh :-:wink:

EatingBeans

Thought I would start the day with a few surveys:

- Nothing available on Yougov
- Two available on Prolific, yay! But then one full and the other I forgot to copy my code so couldn’t complete. 🤦‍♀️
- Actually completed a few on Swagbucks but mostly it just said thanks, you aren’t what we are looking for. Total of 15SB collected.

So not the most fruitful start to the day, but maybe I will have better luck tomorrow.

If nothing else I have replaced a lot of my morning game time with something that might eventually bring some money in. 😁

Andyjflet

Andyjflet said:

EatingBeans said:

I am really starting to feel like this is doable and actually beginning to enjoy it!
 

Told you!! Gets addictive, I think it works because however dire the situation, having a plan, any plan, reduces most of the worry and anxiety. Cognitively you are attacking your problem with positive intentions, well done, don't lose sight of the goal and look forward to you shouting when you have paid off "Very" and closed down their horrible account. Hateful customer service. 

Back in the days of debt I got into trouble with Next, my wife hid her spending, it wasn't until later that I found the letters and the Default. They were very unhelpful, so today, I still refuse to shop there. Petty huh :-:wink:

Think I meant to say Fluid, not Very. Its early. 

in_need_of_direction

Do you get the 6 sb available each day for playing free games? I find SB hard work but stick at it and do a withdrawal if I get a swag up from a team challenge. £5 vouchers maximise the swag up though I think you can even go as low as £3 with the big river company.

EatingBeans

Feeling productive today! 

I ventured out the house again before work, this time as last minute dash to get the girls to college on time as the bus drove past them. 

So, since I had been out anyway, I decided to wrap up warm and walk the short distance into town to run a few errands over lunch.

Picked up my medication ✅

Cancelled daughters gym membership ✅ (Technically this doesn’t save me anything as my daughter reimburses me for it, but it will mean she now saves £28pm as she hasn’t had time to use the gym in months.)

Asked bank about old £1 coins ❌ So apparently all three branches I could have previously used have now closed down and I had no idea. Quick text to daughter to pop into the branch near her college and ask for me, so that may still be on track.

I then got home and in digging through my old purse to dust off the card for the bank account soon to become my burner account, I found an unclaimed Amazon voucher. A spare £45 I didn’t know I had! Best of all, since I use their subscription service for a lot of the pet essentials every month, it works out as good as cash as I would be spending that on Amazon anyway. 🎉

Not bad for a lunchtime dash!

EatingBeans

@in_need_of_direction Thanks for the tip! I hadn’t realised I could get a daily SB bonus for playing games. Since I always spend some time each day playing, I might as well be earning from it, even if it’s just a tiny bit. 👍

BadBookkeeper

Martins show tomorrow 8pm is about getting out of debt usually has some great ideas and might be worth a watch? 

EatingBeans

I am indeed eagerly awaiting Martin’s show tomorrow although I have to wait for it to go on catch up. I hadn’t heard of it until last week and I have been busy watching the back episodes to see what I can learn. It has been my go-to programme to put on the tv! 🤣