Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

With what I have cashed in so far from prolific, qmee and opinion outpost, as well as what I currently have uncashed on prolific and qmee, the total is £49.04!

I'm pleasantly surprised, definitely going to keep up with them and going to add a running total to my signature, which I think I will update once I cash out. :j

EDITED TO ADD: Edited as I forgot I have 20p in my amazon account that was an additional reward from a Qmee survey

So I was doing well with Christmas, then my mum reminded me that an elderly aunt always buys us christmas gifts and I really hadnt budgeted to get her anything!

I nipped on my lunch break and got a rose plant, some fudge and truffles and some nice hand cream, grand total is £4.48, which I feel really cheap only spending that but it is a nice gift that she will like so there is no point spending unneccesarily.

I also needed hand cream, gravy, toothpaste and cotton wool pads so £10.91 spent.

Tonight I finished work at 4pm as the office closed early for the christmas party (which I'm not going to) so I booked in for my beauty treatments, £45 worth of treatments for £20 as I bought the half price voucher as my christmas gift from my grandma. I spent £3.19 on a christmas hot chocolate to take with me to my appointment :eek: It was really nice but such an unneccesary purchase.

OH is on his last shift before christmas tonight so I'm going to wrap the remaining presents then catch up on ironing whilst watching a christmas film.

Well I made it to payday (tomorrow) still with £20 in my account! Haven't spent anything at all since 21st December when I bought myself a £3.50 lunch deal from the supermarket.

I've carried on with surveys over christmas whilst we were (bored) at the in laws, I now have nearly £13 in qmee and have enough points to cash out another £2.50 in opinion outpost. I'm nearly at £60 earnt so far, so thats nearly £20 a month which isnt too bad! All will be added to the christmas 2018 pot.

Had a lovely christmas, spent most of it feeling guilty though. Guilty that I wasnt with my family, and guilty that we got so many lovely generous gifts and weren't able to be as generous in return. OH kept saying it isnt about that and his family would have been happy that we were there on christmas day, but I still feel awful because I really could have budgeted for extra gifts for OH's family but he insisted what he had got was all ok.

Once I get paid tomorrow i'm going to order a bunch of flowers to be delivered to them as a thank you for having us.

SIL has also saved me £97 today, as I was going to sign up to the new body coach 90 day plan at the reduced rate, I messaged her to see what she thought of it and she said she would put a plan together for me and email it to me tomorrow, at no charge (she's a PT). I would have never asked her to do that as I know she's really busy with her paying clients, so I really must spend some time finding her a nice thank you gift to send, especially considering how generous she was to us at christmas too!

We got a dunelm voucher from her which we used to purchase some new pillows for our bed which we have talked about getting for a while, they also had 30% off so were £17, meaning we had enough left on the voucher for OH to get a lint roller that he wanted!

We were also gifted a voucher for the view from the Shard followed by a 3 course meal from OH's parents, as we will be going to London in August for my hospital appointment, we will book the meal in for the day before. Just need to arrange a cheap hotel, but there is no such thing as cheap in London!

OH also bought me tickets for a show for my birthday, I've been saying for a while that I would like to see it, that is in May so we will also need to book a hotel in Birmingham for that, I have been looking and the travelodge is only £53, we wont get the 30% off deal that they're doing at the moment as the date is after the 12th April cut off.

Ah well, I'll book both hotels through TCB to get as much out of it as I can.

Off to bed now as I'm back to work tomorrow, OH is currently out in the city centre for the work night out, I've been very anxious about it and my stomach has been in knots for a couple of days, especially as he is staying overnight in a hotel that he's booked. I mentioned to him earlier how I was feeling and he said 'I'm only in the city with the work people, its fine'. I also spent the afternoon with my mums friend who we have reconnected with recently, we sorted through all of her paperwork as she wanted me to help her with her PPI claims seeing as OH has put in successful claims, it was a lovely afternoon, we had a cup of tea and a catch up and she also put my mind at ease that OH will be fine and certainly wont be sharing his hotel room (one of my worries, which is very silly!) I've then spent the evening with the candles lit, made a nice dinner, prepped lunch for work tomorrow and catching up with friends online. I've had a much needed chilled night, its been lovely. Off to bed now as I want to get up at a decent time even though I haven't got to be at work until 10.

After work we'll be going to my mums as she is cooking some nibbles and has bought a cake for my sisters birthday tomorrow. I dropped her gifts off just before christmas, she has a bag chock full of presents but I only spent just shy of £11! She didnt believe me.

Anyway, off to bed now, hope I can sleep and don't spend all night tossing and turning!

I am SO pleased that its pay day!! And my day off too!

We did an online shopping order on Sunday night as we realised the money doesnt get taken until the delivery has been made, so the shopping delivery has arrived this morning, £126.15 spent :eek:

We had an £11 off voucher which we used, and it was so expensive as we had nearly ran out of toiletries, so we spent £35.18 on loo roll, washing powder, fabric softner, toiletries and cleaning stuff, as well as £4 on my razor.

At least we're all stocked up now and I've written out a meal plan for the rest of this week. Putting it all away, I don't think we have enough meat for the month but we have plenty of cupboard stock so shouldn't have to do another shop apart from milk etc for a good two weeks or so.

We finally got bonus payments this month, £198 for the quarterly bonus and £6 for the monthly bonus :rotfl:

I have paid £800 to the bills account, put £25 aside for my DD on 27th and put £60 aside to pay for the hotel on Saturday as we're off to charity event.

I have also replaced the christmas savings from the survey money that I had to use last month, and have rounded my account down to add £2.94 to the emergency fund.

I've reinstated my quidco account too, and have decided to also track extra funds from both topcashback and quidco, so I've added the topcashback earnings to my running total of survey income, and am nearly at £100 since October!! I'm so pleased. I have £27.50 in the christmas savings so only a little bit short of £1 per day.

Going to keep this up, but we have a few expenses coming up, and the weekend before last we had to use the CC whilst we were in London as although the accommodation was paid, we didnt think about car parking or tube ticket costs, and we had one less meal provided so we had to pay for two meals instead of one.

In all we put around £140 on the credit card, (we managed to street park for free in the end, but needed to fill the car up with fuel)

OH has paid that back to the card this morning, plus an extra £60, on top of the usual £140 per month payment.

I have said we'll sit down later and look at the balances and see what we can do.

We really need to get this CC down, I'm reluctant for him to take another 0% CC as he isnt great at managing them, hence why this one is back up to the credit limit!

We're just going to have to hammer it with as many payments as we can, but I am so tight on money each month because of how much our monthly bills are, we're stuck in a bit of a rut. Our rent has also increased by £10 per month again this year, we are happy with this as our rent is still a lot cheaper than it should be.

I have to pay £20 for my dads birthday on Sunday, then next week I have two hospital appointments, a concert and a charity event!

Exciting (and spendy!) week next week.

Monday - hopsital 12noon
Tuesday - off work, seeing LADY GAGA!! Hotel all paid for, have cafe rouge vouchers to use for a meal, should only need to pay for a drink each at the restaurant, plus a drink each at the venue, and fill the car up.
Thursday, back at work, 9am hopsital appointment!
Saturday - off to the charity event. Event ticket is paid for, just need to pay £60 on the day for hotel and OH will need to pay for a meal as mine is all included in the ticket cost.

Monday 13th - £10 deposit due for a place at the 2019 event.

We have a couple of hotel rooms to book for bits and bobs later on it the year, I have priced it up this morning and its £188 for all of them, (Birmingham x 1 night - May, Sleaford x 2 night - June, London Central x 1 night, August), OH has a 5% off voucher code and I can get 10% cashback through TCB so we will book that in March probably.

Have so much going on this year, its all exciting stuff and apart from the 3 hotel stays its all paid for.

I still have vouchers that I haven't spent that I had for my birthday, I'm saving these to use for holiday clothes for Italy in May.

Off to catch up on diaries, do a small bit of ironing then get ready to head to the train station as I have decided to have a wander round the city centre this afternoon, supposed to be meeting up with one of the ladies from the event at the weekend, but the train ticket is booked now so I may go even if she isnt able to meet, otherwise its £6 wasted, I won't spend any money whilst there as I'll eat before I set off and OH will pick me up when he finishes work.

In other news, I'm still sticking to my weight loss plan, I have lost 3lb so far, which I am pleased with as its 1lb per week. If i continue that I will have lost a stone by the time I go on holiday. Now we've been food shopping I can be more strict with it so hoping for at least a 2lb loss this week, although I do have the charity meal on Saturday!

Oh, there are also a few things that I want to get done around the house in February, particularly decluttering and sorting

- Declutter and sort wardrobe/drawers. Anything I didn't wear in 2017 should be sold or sent to charity. Put everything away properly so that its easier to find things!

- Declutter and clean all of the kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer. Write an inventory of what we have and plan lists accordingly. Order shelves by use by date.

- Find a cheap storage box/make up case and have a good sort out of make up and toiletries. Throw out stuff that is old and donate/sell stuff I won't use, clean all make up brushes.

- Sort through books, games, DVD's and blu rays. Sell/trade in anything we no longer use.

Hopefully the house will be more organised once that is all done, and it should keep me busy for February! Hoping to do one task per week, starting with the wardrobe which I will start today when I have done all of the ironing.