Easter Gifts

It isn't even Mothers Day yet and I am already planning Easter gifts! I will be entertaining on Easter Saturday and I thought it would be nice to give all ofmy guests a small present. I am still not spending much so I will not be giving them very much. I have decided to keep things healthy and not go down the chocolate egg route. I will probably give the children fruit bars and a few small toys and maybe give the men some socks and nuts! I will probably do socks for the ladies as well and give them some sort of fruit snack. I am sure that my husband would love a Rolex Daytona as he has been looking at them but he will be lucky if I get a chance to buy him a gift at all! I will be getting a few wooden painted eggs and decorating a pretty branch with them and then buy some pastel balloons as my children love balloons. I guess I should really be thinking about what food to serve! I think I will probably do a healthy selection of salads and a fresh fruit salad for afterwards. Perhaps I will do a roasted vegetable lasagne or roasted vegetable tart to go with it. I am sure I will think of something!

Being Sensible with Economising

I often see people getting new wooden fences and then having to paint them each year, repair them and replace them every so often. I think that it is much better budget wise to have a brick wall or aluminum fence installation. It might be more expensive initially but once it is done, it should last much longer than wood and takes little or no maintenance. Although I am not a fan of spending money, I do think that getting good quality for money is really important and so this sort of thing is very sensible in my book.

Holiday Thoughts

I have been thinking hard about what to do for a holiday this summer. It would be nice to get away for a bit but I do rather begrudge the expense of a weekend stay away. I would really rather put my money towards the mortgage than a holiday but I think the rest of the family probably want to get away. I have been looking at some extended stay hotels to find out whether they might be a good option to give all of us a break without being overly expensive. It could work out but it just depends where we decide that we would like to go.

Gardening on a Budget

It is sunny today and the children have been playing out in the garden. We have just planted some vegetable seeds and it has got me to thinking about what to do with the garden. I have decided that by planting some Flowering trees then it is a great way to get a really good look without spending too much money. You get great coverage and a pretty flower in spring but also something which will look good most of the year. By buying something which survives through the winter you also do not need to worry about planting every year, which is not only great budget wise but also saves a lot of time.

Finding Ways to Save

I cannot understand people who are not bothered about looking for some auto insurance quotes. It is such a simple way that you might be able to save some money. Even if the company that you are with have been providing you with a great service, you may find that you can save loads of money if you use someone else and this could really help you to get your hands on some extra cash. You coudl save a lot of money and think what you could do with it. Last year I saved £70 and that was a great help towards paying back my mortgage early. What could you do with £70?

Dieting

One great side effect for dieting, for me any way is the money saving side. I know that healthy foods do tend to be dearer than some other foods, but because I am eating less then I am definitely saving money. I cannot understand people who take Anoretix or other diet pills because I do not believe in paying out money to lose weight. I find the money saving is another inspiration for me to stick with it and helps me to stay away from sweet shops and restaurants etc (well most of the time anyway!)

Playing Shop!

I don't know about you, but when I used to imagine what it would be like running my own business, when I was a child, I always liked the idea of having a POS system and serving customers. The reality is of course just dealing through Paypal! I suppose as a child, it seems great fun to be dealing with lots of cash but I would much rather that money goes straight into my bank account before I can spend it! Any money sitting in my account goes straight off the mortgage so it goes to great use!

Shopwiki

If you like buying things on line then you will like the shopwiki website. They are a great site and unique. If you want to buy a particular thing, say for example a health and beauty product such as a John Frieda hair products then you can search for that item and then it will bring up a list of every site on the Internet that sells that particular product by doing a search in a similar way to a search engine does. This means that you are far more likely to find the product that you are looking for and you can easily do a price comparison. I must admit that I then got very carried away looking at the sugar free chocolate links! It is so easy to use and to find all of your favourite products.

Pay Per Click

I have been so busy with my writingw ork lately, that I decided to stop doing most of the pay to click sites. I kept going with them until I reached the cash out level and have recently cashed out on Wordlinx, who pay within 48 hours and Neobux who pay immediately. I am only using Clixsense now as I a long way from cashout and as I fairly recently upgraded my membership, I want to get my money back before I stop using the site.

Business Survival

I was talking to a local hairdresser yesterday, while getting the children's haircut about business and the recession. She said she is finding it tough as people are leaving more time between cuts, so it takes longer to cut the hair and so they can fit less people in or run late on their appointments. She said that anpother local salon is laying staff off but she is determined to battle through. She said that she hopes these hard times get rid of all the poorer businesses and the best will continue, but of course some of the good ones are bound to suffer as well. I alsoo know other small business holders and there are all doing well. Someone doing web marketing who is doing better now than ever and someone else doing dog grooming and selling dog supplies and running a Bed and Breakfast who is also doing really well. I am doing better now than ever before. I think that it just shows that it depends what industry you are in and how a positive attitude and determination can really pick out the survivors.

Getting Closer....

I had some more funds appear in the bank today so I decided to pay another £500 off the mortgage. We are almost below £80,000 now at £80470.82 and I have £18500 in the overpayment account. Hopefully I will be able to put a bit more in this month and get it below that £80,000. We will at least be 1/5th of the way there then.

Interest Payments

I was on the phone to the mortgage company this morning making the overpayment and decided to check what my interest payment would be, now that the rates have fallen again. It seems like it will be just over £120. That is a further £40 reduction. Amazing!!

Money Off the Mortgage

I had a bit of money hanging around in the current account that I have decided to put against the mortgage. I made the amount in the overpayment account a nice round number so that it was nice and memorable and it stands at £18,000. The amount left on the mortgage is just under £82,000. I am due a few more big payments soon and so hope to pay some more off this month too.

Luxury Spending

It does surprise me when I still see lots of adverts for things like best weight loss pills. I would have thought that in these difficult times, this would be the sort of thing that people would stop buying. I would have thought that with a shortage of money, people would not be able to eat so much food and so would be losing weight anyway! I guess that food is probably the one cheap luxury that gets cut down on last

Store Closures

Reading the news is not fun these days is it. With so many businesses going bust it makes me worry what the high street will look like when we come out of this recession. It seems like most companies have been effected and are worried about what might happen to them and some have already disappeared. I can understand why the Prime Minister is telling us to spend our way out of the recession as it would certainly help these companies to keep going and it will only be us that complain when we can no longer buy shoes in our size, plus size lingerie or clothes that we like because our favourite retailers have closed down. However, I think we cannot see past the short term and worrying about ourselves is always going to be a priority. I know that making sure I pay chunks off my mortgage while the interest rate is low, taking advantage of the fact that I seem to have more money than ever before and getting rid of that debt is the right move for me. I am afraid that the recession has been fantastic for me and although my shares have dropped in value I am taking advantage of buying cheap ones while I can as they are to fund my retirement not to use in the short term.

Saving Money

i do sometimes wonder whether at this time of year, when it is snowing and cold, I should be looking to get bargains on summer goods. I means things like discount ceiling fans and air conditioning units. I am sure that there is not much demand at this time of year and perhaps there could be some bargains to be had with buying products out of season. I find that I do not like spending money anyway and so buying this sort of thing when I do not need it, even if it is a bargain, is not something that I am likely to do, but it coudl be a way of some people saving money.

Book Sales

I am hoping that book sales might start to go up for me. With all of the snow we are having, a lot of people are at home, when they should be at work. I am hoping they might start getting bored and buying things on line and instead of doing work holdingthe fort at home, they are actually seeing it as an opportunity to relax! Book sales have been low since mid January and as it is still close to pay day I am hoping people will be in the mood for spending some money.

More Money Off the Mortgage

It is fantastic. I was able to pay a further £1000 off the mortgage this morning. It is such a great feeling that we are really starting to make some ground on this debt at last.

January Earnings

Pay to Blog - £309.49
Pay Per Post - £20.00
PayU2Blog - £12.50
Private Reviews - £476.99
Blogitive - £5.00
Writing - £461.16
Article Writing - £461.16
Other - £55.32
Link Sales - £53.14
Quidco - £2.18
Making a grand total of £825.97