Scuba's Saving the Ha'Pennies

scubaangel · 23 March 2018 at 2:31AM

Got a place on the long course, so I'll hopefully in a little over 12 months be the holder of an actual work related qualification (beyond the ability to smile while wanting to slap people and do a really good swan act while making my waiters run around fixing problems while I pacify organisers!).

Stressy and bully fish are still segregated, water change was done and stressy went straight back to listlessness at the surface for a few days. Will be going down to the shop I bought them from next week I think to see if they have any advice.

Money wise, some came in more left as usual. So pretty much in a holding pattern until payday.

scubaangel · 31 March 2018 at 1:53PM

Fish shops advice for the two fish was a bigger aquarium. While I didn't like the feeling that the guy was angling after selling me one while I was in the shop it does tend to agree with advice elsewhere online, but other suggestions were adding more plants - so I went to pets at home and bought two plants with roots which I've split in to four clumps and planted around the tank to break up sight lines - and adding some small schooling fish so I've also now got four Coral red pencilfish, and then released the bully fish.

So far other than a few small squabbles the Ram's seem to be behaving themselves, and being a few weeks older it's easier to tell them apart now and it does look like Bullyfish is male from his sleeker profile, while Stressyfish I think is female, as it's a little plumper with a pinkish belly.

In money news... well lets not go there. Between another two new tyres thanks to an inconsiderate neighbour using the carpark for joinery, the money spent on the fish, plants, new filter for the Betta, and doing three days out of work at other venues which I've not got my fuel money back for yet April is going to be very very tight!

scubaangel · 20 April 2018 at 4:10PM

I was right April has been horrendously tight money wise. But I'm juggling it reasonably well!

Fish have been pretty good, no issues in either tank (grumpy red idiot has another new filter thanks to the previous one failing the latest one seems to be more suited to his nano tank and preference for a low flow).

Money wise......

It was my birthday so I got cash from pretty much all my family, I bought three new sports bras, a pair of running capris and a vest top.

I've also bitten the bullet and reactivated an old mystery shopping account, not a company I particularly liked working for but fastest finger first assignments so I can ease myself back in to it.

I got a £20 sainsbugs voucher from a survey site a few weeks ago and decided that today was a good time to go do the top up shop I had it earmarked for. So loo rolls, tea bags, stain remover for my work shirts, dinner tonight and a couple of items which were on cash back apps cost me £20.70 in total, so 70p cash and I'll get £3.40 back from the apps.

One of our meeting rooms after a conference left had a pile of "Goals and habits" pads left behind, so I've brought one home and have set myself the tasks for next week. It has 3 goals, boxes for the steps to achieve it and a habits tracker with a line to write in what the reward is for those.

So for accountability. My three goals are
1. Get rid of some more of the books from my living room floor.
*scan them for ziffit
*redownload webuybooks
*charity shop proof copies
* bulk listing on local facebook, shpock and gumtree

2 Wardrobe clear out
* old work skirts to be given to a pregnant team member shes skinnier than me so they might fit her later in the pregnancy
* pull the box of belts out from under my bed, can't remember last time I wore most of them and throw out the really worn ones.
* pull out from under my bed my old military kit bag, its full of stuff that either doesnt fit or I cant remember why I have it. Work out what to keep.

3. Earn and cash out a minimum of £10 from survey sites
I'll concentrate on instant or near instant payment apps for this so
*qmee
*attapoll
*citizen me
*vypr
then at the end of the week if I've not hit £10 I'll cash out £5/£10 from swagbucks

My weekly habits
Swim 1500m - I've found it too easy lately to not go to the pool or when I do stop after 1000m, not good enough with the start of the o/w season!
Check the mystery shopping site daily.
Finish getting rid of the food products I bought as buy backs earlier in the year.

The rewards for now I'm trying to keep as cost free so improving my fitness, getting more work thus more money, and having more space and a tidier home.

I've started setting next weeks goals too but they're pencilled in to a list else where for now.

scubaangel · 7 May 2018 at 1:27PM

The goals plan is working quite well. But I struggle with weekly challenges as I spend so little time at home. The last two weeks I've been here for 3 nights, and only yesterday was a day off where I had no plans (although I went to work for a few hours overtime to help another dept).

Been a touch spendy too, all on the credit card, paying for event entries for this summer.
So I'm now all signed up for the three lake swims at my Reading venue - Doggy Paddle, Full Moon, and Small Fry (all 1500m swims), The Greater Manchester Swim (a mile in Salford Quays), Hard as Snails, and Harder than Snails (10k train runs), The Breakfast Run (11.6k trail), a local 5k Prosecco Run with a friend which is this week), two more Brutal trail runs, and of course as I paid for them earlier in the year The Royal Parks Half, The Henley Classic, Mile, and Club to Pub swims.

All of which I pretty much bought with special offers and discount codes while they were available.

scubaangel · 7 May 2018 at 1:35PM

scubaangel wrote: »

So for accountability. My three goals are
1. Get rid of some more of the books from my living room floor.
*scan them for ziffit
*redownload webuybooks
*charity shop proof copies
* bulk listing on local facebook, shpock and gumtree

2 Wardrobe clear out
* old work skirts to be given to a pregnant team member shes skinnier than me so they might fit her later in the pregnancy
* pull the box of belts out from under my bed, can't remember last time I wore most of them and throw out the really worn ones.
* pull out from under my bed my old military kit bag, its full of stuff that either doesnt fit or I cant remember why I have it. Work out what to keep.

3. Earn and cash out a minimum of £10 from survey sites
I'll concentrate on instant or near instant payment apps for this so
*qmee
*attapoll
*citizen me
*vypr
then at the end of the week if I've not hit £10 I'll cash out £5/£10 from swagbucks

My weekly habits
Swim 1500m - I've found it too easy lately to not go to the pool or when I do stop after 1000m, not good enough with the start of the o/w season!
Check the mystery shopping site daily.
Finish getting rid of the food products I bought as buy backs earlier in the year.

The rewards for now I'm trying to keep as cost free so improving my fitness, getting more work thus more money, and having more space and a tidier home.

I've started setting next weeks goals too but they're pencilled in to a list else where for now.

So to update this.....

Books.

Something of a fail. Ziffit only wanted £3 worth of the books sat there.
Webuybooks only £2.

I have however read and donated two proof copies so they're out the flat even if the over all pile of books on the floor has grown.

Wardrobe.
I gave my colleague two of the skirts, I've kept a couple in case I need them as the turn around on dry cleaning the new uniform is 3 days.
I didn't touch the belt box nor the kit bag.

App earning.

I actually achieved that one quite easily as I reached 100 questions on Enlightly, so got the £7.50 bonus as well as the earnings from questions.

I also reached 10k points on vypr so got the £5 from there and a couple of £1 cash outs from qmee.

As for my others.

I didn't have time to swim - the one evening I had off the pool was closed my regular session time.
Not coming home I couldnt check the ms site daily as it wont let me log in on my tablet.
I did empty a couple of the buyback products when I was putting the bins out as there was space in my food waste bag but not all of them as I don't want to use all my compostable bags on the buy backs.

scubaangel · 10 May 2018 at 4:42PM

Went for a swim at the nearest lake last night, felt so good, did 1200m and really enjoyed it, unlike my last few pool swims where I've been bored within the first 400m. Just need to maintain my enthusiasm for getting over there since its a bit of a pain traffic wise in the evenings unless I've been at work.

Going to do a 5k run/walk tonight with my friend, she wants to work on her fitness and decided she fancied it so I'm going too - not sure from the info on the website if its laps or one loop, if its laps am tempted to run my 5k then go around again to catch up with her, if its just one loop I'll just do it with her.

Of course none of this has been free. But it hasn't cost me too much, the swimming came out of my tips purse, and the run from money in paypal.

scubaangel · 26 July 2018 at 2:58PM

I definitely need to make more of an effort to keep up todate on here!

Work has been busy, studying has sucked up alot of my spare time and I'm still trying to keep up with instagc, swagbucks and goodness knows how many survey sites to keep the pennies rolling in to pay off the debt!

During the heatwave I've mostly been struggling to stop my flat smelling bad, because I'm not here all the time it just seems to be constantly stuffy and stale smelling - I can't leave windows open as when I am here it sets off my hayfever and obviously open windows in a virtually always empty flat is a security issue.

I've got the front door open today with my tower airer in the door way drying towels and bedding, which is letting some air move around the place but I'm currently battling an unidentifiable smell in the bath room with bleach, havng scrubbed the sink, loo and bath last night, it smells as bad today so I have a couple of unscented tea lights sat on the loo seat with the door closed in hopes of burning out whatever the smell is.

My bedroom has been thoroughly dusted, window is open and my little fan running now the sun has gone from that side of the flat.

The living room and kitchen I'm yet to tackle.

Whilst doing that I've got toolbar tv running for sb, engageme tv on my tablet for insta and am periodically checking my phone for app surveys. I'm also refreshing onepoll like a mad woman as I've 85p away from the £40 to cash out (and then lower my next cash out target to £25).

scubaangel · 27 July 2018 at 4:07PM

Second consecutive day off with no plans which is rather lovely.

So far I have achieved not a single useful thing.

Went out to the car to collect the rubbish I knew had accumulated, to find that when I came home from work on Weds night I left the interior light on. Result. Flat battery. I joined the AA last year after another flat battery incident but although I thought I'd added it I didn't get home start so I've asked the male to come to mine later in his car so we can jump it - annoyingly this means I can't finish decluttering the prosecco I opened last night until he reaches me - usually around 10pm as I'll need to take the car out for a drive to fully recharge it.

I'm debating chucking another load of washing in - but I don't have a full load that needs doing so can't decide if its worth it.

Need to get a move on and find a sb survey to get me close to the first goal then I can concentrate on insta as I'm 230 points away from the £50 amazon target I set myself - although I think it's better value to cash out for paypal or mastercard esp as I don't need anything from amazon urgently just now.

Although I have discovered that my old Fire HDX has started to suffer from a distorted back - I suspect the battery is swelling due to the combination of use, charging and the ridiculous heat lately, its 4 years old so having to replace it has been on my mind probably as a Christmas request, but while it still works I'll keep adding amazon vouchers from sites where thats the best value to cash out so I can use anything else towards debt easing.

Once I've peeled myself back off the sofa I want to try to get some small stuff listed on gumtree/shpock/faceache - although some bits I need to be a bit careful about listing as theyre things I've been given as gifts but will never use (they've been sat in my living room since Christmas as I thought if they were in view I might use them, I haven't, it's just collecting dust).

Had no surveys at all on onepoll today and am down to 75p to earn.

pennywisepoundstupid · 27 July 2018 at 4:22PM

All sounding good Scuba.

I also have a couple of unwanted presents that I want to list, but worried I might get caught out by the people that bought me them.

scubaangel · 27 July 2018 at 6:52PM

pennywisepoundstupid wrote: »

All sounding good Scuba.

I also have a couple of unwanted presents that I want to list, but worried I might get caught out by the people that bought me them.

It feels terrible doesn't it, but lovely as they are I don't need them (set of brand name hand creams) or in the case of one of the others its a DVD I already had on bluray. But I really do need to declutter the flat, feels like with not being here more than two nights a week most of the time I just come in drop stuff off and then leave again, so its not only smelly but dusty, untidy and cluttered worse than ever before!

Still I've got four listings on shpock, will copy the listings to gumtree later on.

Debating with myself about one of the items I've got to declutter - its a very small fish tank, its almost all plastic I'm sure can be recycled but I don't really want to put it in the recycling if its not, and I'm not sure I should try to sell/give it away because its simply too small for anything bigger than the tiniest of fish but has nowhere you can safely put a heater nor a particularly efficient filtration system - I've had it since I was a student and wanted fish and had no space for a decent sized tank nor the knowledge to not having my fish keeping be slightly cruel

Reading that back I've pretty much decided it needs to be disposed of not reused. So when I go down stairs later I'll have a proper look at the plastics to see what can be recycled or removed to make it recycle friendly.

After my discovery of the car stupidity the male and I have concocted a plan which sees him coming to mine after his run this evening in the car to jump mine, he'll go home and turn himself in to a human again, I'll take the car for a run up and down our local bypass (12 miles total) which should hopefully get enough juice in to the battery to get me to and from parkrun and then work tomorrow. If it won't start when I plan to go to parkrun I'll run home instead and get the train to work and he'll put the car on charge when he's home from work at lunchtime.

Scuba's Saving the Ha'Pennies

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free