Dreaming of financial freedom!

ch4rly2002 · 12 April 2017 at 11:12AM

Love reading your posts.

Thanks Thistle

I thought I'd check out if you have a diary :eek: Two diaries, both huge! It's going to take me a while to get through those, but I have already read the first few pages of your first diary and I'm hooked so I will make it through... eventually

Both survey payments made it through to PayPal yesterday. I am very impressed with their speed. PayPal seem to have taken some of it as a processing fee, but it's not too terrible and it means I can get paid so I don't mind. The £15.17 is now safely banked in my FD account. Prolific is already back up to £8.15 payable and £5.30 pending. I am really impressed with them. OnePoll is up to £28.50 but seems to have gone quiet for a bit. Fingers crossed it will pick up a bit next week.

Yesterday I took my Grandma shopping again. I set off earlier than usual, and the traffic was quieter (I think it's half term here), so we got to ASDA at a very good time. It made such a difference, the aisles were about as busy as usual but there were a couple more members of staff about and when I asked if they would open the wide aisle checkout they did so straight away and with no issues. Apparently, it is better to be disabled prior to 7:30 - that extra 45 minutes makes all the difference

Afterwards I unpacked her shopping and we have a nice cup of tea with a slice of Bakewell tart that my Aunt had brought up for my Grandma and me. All in all, a good shopping trip and visit to see my Grandma. As I was leaving she got out £40 and insisted I took it. £35 for helping and the petrol, and £5 for some flowers she had asked me to get for my mum. again, I told her it was too much and that I enjoy taking her shopping, but again she insisted. Very kind of her, so I accepted gratefully as I think it upsets her more if I try and refuse it. That will go into the FD account as well to help make up my FD RS target.

We went round to the in-laws last night when I got back from Grandma's house and discussed car boot sales. We decided to try a table top sale instead as it will be indoors and they will provide tables and chairs so we can fit more into our cars. We have a location in mind, and just need to find out details for stallholders so we can get it booked. We're thinking about having it in a week or two so it will give us time to round up the last few bits and bobs then we can prep the pricing too.

I had another small win today, this time from Topcashback... 20p for getting a second chicky egg

I used to think I had no luck but I seem to be winning a bit more recently. Again, only a few pennies but I am chuffed for the little extra.

I got a money jar from HomeBargains recently. It was very cheap and so pretty. I'm going to put in any extra coins I find, either round the house (they seem to turn up in random places when DH empties his pockets), outside, in any old bags or purses etc. I don't often get spare change as I work from home so I don't buy lunch or coffees and any shopping or meals out are paid for using card, but at least when I do find some I now have a place to put it. DH and I are going to try to go for a walk every day to get out of the house and get some fresh air so I will keep my eyes peeled for coins.

That's about all I have to say for now, so I'll leave you with a little running total of my regular saver target and will start thinking about which leftovers to use for lunch. Have a good day

£300 FD RS Target for April:
£125 FD welcome incentive
£15.70 survey payout
£40 cash from Grandma
£180.70 / £300

Jessy103 · 12 April 2017 at 12:12PM

Well done with the survey payments ch4rly, it is nice to know that you will finally be rewarded for answering all those boring and long-winded surveys! Lol!

I find pennies all the time when out walking the dogs, I can't believe that people just chuck pennies anyway because it's only a penny but as the saying goes 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves!'. I did once find a £5 note laying on the path on my way home from a walk and there was no one around so admittedly I took it, I felt awful afterwards though and end up giving it to the british legion man that was selling poppies in the local supermarket! x

ch4rly2002 · 13 April 2017 at 10:42AM

Absolutely Jessy, it's astonishing. When I was at school one of our teachers stood up at the front of assembly each year with a jar of money. He explained that all throughout the year he would pick up any coins he found while walking round the school grounds at lunch and break times (we had a tuck shop in those days so I guess that was the main culprit). I was always astonished when he said what he'd managed to collect. I'm not sure what happened to the money but I think it would have bought the teachers a round down the local!

Well, DH's car looks to be jiggered (technical term!) and it will cost nearly as much to fix it as it is worth, but DH is still paying off the loan as we took out extra to cover some work to the house. That's just over £500 a month for the next 5 months

We're now weighing up our options. Peugeot took a week to look at it, but just came back with "it needs X, Y and Z fixing but we can't do it, it needs to go to a body shoppers". He's going to try and get a price from a body shopper tomorrow, if he can find one open. If it's going to cost as much as Peugeot says, we can either ring the insurance company and explain what happened and that we didn't ring right away as we wanted to see if we could sort it without going through insurance (not sure if there are time limits on these things), or he could try and part exchange it. He was thinking about getting a CRV, but we were thinking in a year's time, not now, so he could save up some money when the loan stops. As it stands, the existing loan makes it a bit tricky as it is a bank loan, not a car loan. Not sure if they'd still settle that as they would a car loan. Anyway, lots to think about. Step 1) try and get a price for the work, 2) check out some cars over the weekend and get a part-ex price, step 3) repair, insurance or replace. Oh the joys of car ownership!

Thanks to KK I have learned of a new way to sell books etc. through Ziffit. I hadn't heard of them before but they will take some books that MM didn't want. Hopefully I'll be able to clear some of those to make some space and a little bit of extra cash.

We're going out tonight for a meal with the in-laws, and MIL's aunt and uncle who we love. MIL and her uncle have birthdays fairly close together so they're having a joint celebration. It should be a good evening, but it will be tinged with sadness too. MIL's mum was rushed to hospital a few days ago and is very unwell. They may have to perform an op today. We're really hoping that she gets better without the op (low chance of survival for this kind of op at her age) or if the worst does happen that it's not on her birthday. I'm sure we will all be thinking of her tonight, and she will be missed as she's always loved going out with the family. I just keep thinking please don't let anything happen to her on MIL's birthday or every birthday going forwards will be bitter sweet and it will ruin it a bit for her.

To end on a positive note, I finally have the information I need to resolve an issue at work that has been causing a lot of stress, so hopefully the clouds will start to lift a bit

ch4rly2002 · 17 April 2017 at 11:58AM

Well, it's certainly been a busy Easter weekend. We unfortunately found out on Thursday that DH's grandma has wide spread cancer. As she was fully tested before her PEG was fitted less than a year ago, and there was no sign of it then, it looks as though it's fast growing. We've been told that it's only a matter of time now and she will go back to the nursing home for palliative care. It's very sad. BIL flew over from America on Friday and will be over here until Wednesday. He's going to get as much time with her as possible. I don't want to sound morbid with this, but as it is the MFW forum, I think it deserves a mention that we found free car on street car parking so we can avoid the £3.50 per visit that it cost last time she was in hospital, but of course we would pay anything really to visit her at the moment.

Some good news in amongst the terrible. We learned of a baby on the way in the family, which has cheered us all up. Better start budgeting for card, wrap and gifts for when the little one arrives

DH was told it would cost about £2k for him to pay to fix his car, which is worth £3.5k in good condition, so we went to get some part-ex quotes. He went into the garage and explained the spec and colour of car that he would ideally like. This was of course a long shot, which he realised, as we'd prefer a slightly used car after the value he lost on his current car, which he bought brand new. The salesman looked on his system and there was nothing close so said he's have to price up for a new one, but that he was off work the day before so he'd go and check. Out of sheer coincidence, the exact spec he wanted had come in the day before. Less than 6 months old and only 7k miles on the clock, but £10k cheaper than the new one. Then he offered us £3.5k part-ex for DH's car. We asked if he could throw in a service pack and they've thrown in 4 years free servicing. We couldn't believe our luck and signed up then and there. It is about a year earlier than we wanted to trade in the car, but it's saved us the initial layout and he has the exact car he wants, so I'll consider that an overall victory.

£11.90 requested from Prolific - held up by the bank hols, and I have £30 to pay into the bank tomorrow - another step closer to the monthly RS target. I need to find a table top sale soon to get me to target

Enjoy the last day of the Easter break, and hopefully don't make yourself sick from yesterday's chocolate

themadvix · 18 April 2017 at 10:08AM

So sorry to hear about your DH's grandmother - that's very sad news.

I'm glad there was news of a baby on the way to cheer you all up a bit though.

It sounds like a win on the car front - that was lucky!

ch4rly2002 · 19 April 2017 at 11:49PM

Thanks TMV. It is very sad, but she has been wanting to go for a while now. I don't think she had much quality of life and she's just had enough so hopefully she will find peace soon.

It was a total win on the car front. We're so pleased not to be having to fork out half the car's value for repair when we would have replaced it within the year anyway. It feels like we've got off scott free from the bump, which is very lucky and very welcomed!

Speaking of cars, the car insurance is due for renewal next week. I did all the usual price comparisons (will even get cashback for it), and range my current provider to ask what their best price is. Our current provider has now applied a loyalty discount and it came in at less than last year's insurance. The thing that really annoys me is that we're on auto-renewal so if I hadn't rung we would have paid an extra £100 for nothing, cheeky beggers! How many people, especially older people, who aren't necessarily online or computer literate, get stung by that?!... it's a real bug bear of mine. Anyway, all the quotes from other providers were way more expensive, even factoring in the cashback they were offering, so I have renewed our existing policy. At least it hasn't shot up, which is what we were expecting.

It's been a fairly cheap couple of days. The in-laws kindly had me over for tea last night after DH and BIL and I got back from visiting 'old woman' (her nickname from her cheeky grandson) in the hospital. DH had to dash straight off to drive down to Norfolk but I had tea with them and then we went into the conservatory with coffees and they're aunt and uncle came round. It was lovely evening and was way better than going back to an empty house. Today I've been using up freezer items and this evening I've been round to my mum's house for tea. She wanted to get rid of my dad's hi-fi system as she will never use it and it's just taking up room in the flat so I went round to pack that up. She also needed a new wireless keyboard and mouse, which she wouldn't have a clue about, and needed a coax cable putting in so she can use the inbuilt freeview. She's cancelled her Virgin subscription, saving £45 a month, and can get the free communal wifi on her computer now that we've moved it to the other side of the living room (hence why she wants to get rid of the hi-fi system), and has all the channels she watches through the inbuilt freeview on the TV. She doesn't have a landline any more but she has a mobile phone contract that costs something like £5 per month. She's very happy to be saving all that money. We seem to be a family of MSEs now

I'm really happy with how the surveys are going. OnePoll slowed for a bit but is now past the £30 mark. Less than £10 to go! Prolific is racing along, and I find the surveys interesting, so win-win! I must admit that I haven't listed anything new on eBay for a while. I'm going to take the opportunity tonight while DH is away. Got all the items ready for a table top sale / boot sale, and the gala table top sale

Jessy103 · 20 April 2017 at 11:15AM

Hi ch4rly. Sorry to hear about DH's gran.

Glad you've got some good news on the car and insurance though! We had the same thing with the insurance. We are with hastings, we got their price for automatic renewal, we did a price comparison for £200 cheaper! DH called them to cancel and told them how much he had found It for, they then said they could price match it and then they knocked a further £20 off!!! Like you said cheeky beggers! If they can do it for that price then why don't they!!! Grrrrrr!!!

Nice to know your MSE habits are rubbing off on your mum!
Take care x

ch4rly2002 · 21 April 2017 at 3:05PM

Glad I'm not the only one who gets annoyed about it Jessy!

We picked up the new car today. It's lovely! I just thought as well, DH's MOT and service were due in a couple of months so it's saved us that as well. Not ideal timing, but I am so happy with the decision we made. My MSE ways seem to be rubbing off on DH too as he removed the rubber boot liner from the Peugeot before we took it in today and wants me to put it on eBay. Might only get a couple of quid for it, but it's better than nothing! Now I just need to post off the slip from the V5C to let the DVLA know that we don't own it anymore, and there should be some road fund tax returned as well

I went into town yesterday to pick up DH's birthday cake and I parked in the shopping centre as I was only going to be quick and if you're there for less than 30 minutes they only charge 50p (less than the on street parking). I picked up the cake and paid in some money to my FD account (now only £40 away from my monthly £300 RS target in that account now), and then dashed back to the car park. They've removed the card readers and I didn't have any cash on me so I ran upstairs to find the nearest cash machine before it jumped up to £2. Luckily there was a cash machine in the shopping centre so I punched in my pin and asked for £10... they only had £20s. A bit annoying as I tend not to keep cash on me as it's easier to spend and lose track of, but beggers can't be choosers. I raced back down to the machine to find it doesn't accept £20 notes

Just as I was about to go running back up, a lady came through the door from the car park so I asked her if she had 2 £10 notes for a £20. She took a look, but couldn't change it for me. A lady also came down the stairs at the same time so I asked her, but she couldn't change it either. I was a bit gutted that I'd have to buy something upstairs just to get change as I'm trying not to make any unnecessary purchases for the time being. I was chatting with the lady who first checked to see if she could break my £20 for me while we were going up the stairs. We were talking about people not carrying cash any more and I warned her about the machine not taking 20s so she could plan accordingly and she asked how much the machine needed. When I said 50p she seemed quite shocked at all the effort this was taking just to pay 50p and told me not to break a £20 note just for that and handed me 50p. I couldn't believe how kind that was of her. I was really touched that this sweet lady would rather give me 50p of her own money so I didn't have to go and buy something just to break a £20 note. To her it may only be 50p but to me that made the world of difference. It meant I had a bit more time to sit with my dad, which is where I went after picking up the cake, and I managed to keep my goal of no unnecessary spending, and most of all, it reminded me that there are some lovely people out there who are still willing to help strangers. It put a big smile on my face!

I have finally started to get some OnePoll surveys through... £31.60 - so close to pay out! I'm doing well with Prolific too. That's up at £10.80 confirmed and £14 pending. I'm going to wait until I get to £20 so I don't have to pay the PayPal fee to withdraw.

Freezer lunch for DH and remaining couple of hot cross buns for me. Nice easy and cheap lunch

We have friends round this weekend though so we'll have to stock up the fridge tonight. I suspect this won't be a cheap weekend, just from the extra food shopping alone, but it should be lots of fun to see them. That's the problem with moving back home and being 80 miles away from friends... we can't just have a quick casual visit now, but I'm looking forward to see them so much

Have a great weekend everyone

Jessy103 · 21 April 2017 at 6:38PM

Great news about the car and what a lovely lady!! Hope you have a great weekend with your friends! x

ch4rly2002 · 25 April 2017 at 10:45AM

We had a lovely weekend with our friends. It was really nice to have a catch up with them. We did end up going out for a meal on Saturday to an Italian with a Michelin star chef. His previous restaurant had a Michelin star but as this place is a fairly new place and doesn't have a star it was only £30 a head and the food was beautiful. Although it wasn't the cheapest meal, I consider it a bargain for food that quality. Our friends were thrilled too as they love Italian food and really enjoyed their choices.

We had the BIL round for tea last night. I had some baking potatoes that needed using up so I did one of my favourites - bake the potatoes, scoop out the insides into a bowl, add diced onion and cheese then scoop back into the potato shells and put back into the oven until the cheese melts and the tops brown. It's one of my favourites that mum occasionally makes and I've only made them twice myself but I love them sooo much! We had those with some salad and some chicken so a pretty cheap but delicious meal. For afters we used up the rest of DH's birthday cake and ice cream. I love use-ups as I used to throw so much away, and it feels really good not to throw 'cash in the trash' as they say. Afterwards we watched a couple more episodes of Legion. It's quite strange but we're all enjoying it. Only two more episodes left.

My mum sold a load of my dad's records for £350 and has kindly shared it out between my brothers and me. That's £100 more towards the upcoming holiday, which is very much appreciated. The BIL in California has said that if we transfer £s into his English bank account, he will give us dollars at the best exchange rate, which will beat any conversion we could get ourselves. He's happy as he gets to top up his English account for when they travel over here and we're happy to get a good rate so win-win!

I have some items on fleaBay, a couple of things I wasn't sure would be of interest to anyone but I have watchers so fingers crossed they'll go. My mum has also asked us to get rid of my dad's hifi system and the glass stand it was on, and said we can keep anything we make from it so the stand will go on the Bay as collection only and the hifi system can be taken to a car boot as I have no idea how to list it online - I don't even know what half of it is/does!

I found a pound on the floor a couple of days ago. I rarely find anything more than a 1p or 5p so I got really excited

OnePoll is up to £32.15 now. Progress seems to be painfully slow now, but that could just be because I'm getting impatient! Prolific is up to £17 but I want to wait until I get to £20 to avoid a PayPal fee. Again, I am a bit impatient and there are some studies that have been waiting weeks to be approved so it feels like slow going, but in comparison to OnePoll it is racing ahead. I must try to be more patient!

I'm going to put in a load of washing now and I will then put it in the drier for a quick 'warm air' cycle just to take away some of the water and fluff it up a bit, then hang it out to dry. I found that my clothes were a little on the crunchy side if I hung them straight out from the washing machine, but I wanted to save electricity so didn't want to fully tumble dry everything. By putting it in for a quick warm air cycle then hanging it out I've found I get great results and still save a lot of electricity, so a little win there too

Have a good day everyone!

Dreaming of financial freedom!

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