TMWM

I am going to sum this last week up as being just bloomin exhausted!

Last weekend, my parents and I spent the whole weekend decorating the house from top to bottom, doing the garden and sorting everything out so it will look amazing when the estate agent takes the photos for it to be sold.

I’ve also been staying up late following up new crazy ideas or trying to be creative with my budget.

It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone. The fact of the matter is – I NEED MORE MONEY!

And the hours upon hours of me trying to think of ways to get more cash, I think it’s taking a toil on my health. I can’t explain it properly, but the need to earn more is so strong I can’t stop pursuing it. It’s like I’ve become obsessed.

The promotion I went for, I unfortunately didn’t get. I thought I had all the relevant experience to do the job, but I didn’t even get an interview 😦 … sad times. I have asked HR for some feedback though so hopefully I will receive that soon and can work on any areas of weakness within my application. It could be as simple as they want me in my role for a little longer than 8 weeks and of course I would completely understand that! Maybe I was pushing my luck a little two far with getting a permanent position and two promotions in four months 🙂

I am happy to stay in my current role though and work for it. Hopefully after a year there will be another position I can apply for at manager level. Unfortunately it does mean I am now stuck on this salary, which although is pretty good, it doesn’t help me in getting rid of the debt any quicker or paying off the new debt I will have shortly following the house purchase.

So back to the drawing board I go.

The truth of the matter is, I want to earn at least two full time incomes and I’m only one person. If I get one income for working say 40 hours a week, then I’d expect two incomes to be working 80 hours. Well, that’s impossible – sorry not impossible, as I’ve done it before pre-kid, however I’d probably end up really poorly and I would definitely not see my daughter, family or friends.

I just need to think of something.

I have shares which are set up to pay out a dividend income. However, I’m only earn pennies in income at the moment. This has always been a longer term income producing plan. And as it happens, I’m not making massive contributions to my Stocks and Shares ISA, just £25 per month as I’m saving most of my money for the house.

I have my blog, but this is also a longer term income producing plan and is still only earning pennies. Maybe I should get back into writing for my blog and researching areas I want to write about. I do enjoy that. Maybe I could combine my finance knowledge with my teaching experience and come up with SOMETHING where it would satisfy my need to be entrepreneurial and I’d potentially have the chance to have uncapped income.

I have thought over and over again about doing YouTube, but held back if I was going for a manager job. Maybe I’ll will consider this again. It would mean getting it authorised by work and that means telling people at work about my blog. I’m not sure how I feel about that because I like to keep things separate.

Do you have any money making ideas? Please let me know in the comments below.

And this is what I stay up for – my mind just won’t switch off!

Decluttering Update

As we are packing to move, the decluttering has become more intentional and we now spend each weekend at the tip, at a charity shop or listing things on Vinted or FB Marketplace. I have had some great wins with FB Marketplace this last week and sold a bike for £80, a barbie dream house for £80 and a few more bits on Vinted totalling nearly £20. I was so happy that the Barbie Dream House and Bike sold they took so much room up. Apart from the money I’ve made on Vinted which will be paid into my account, the cash I have received for the items I sold have been put in the pot for the 1p Challenge Sheet from Skint Dad. Still a long way to go though, but look at how colourful it is 🙂

You know how much I love a coloured savings challenge!

I had a little target to make £100 selling clutter in April, and although I only made £89.50 (as the rest was made at the start of May), I am still super happy with the result! I get at least a couple of Vinted sales a week so instead of cashing them in each time, I’m going to leave them until the end of the month.

Goals for May

The only goal I have for MAY is to SAVE as much as I can. I am hoping and praying that my wages for May has all of my tax back and I will have a good chunk of savings by the end of the month. I have paused the rest of my savings goals for now, including sinking funds as I plan to use all the money for the house if needs be. I have kept back £500 as an emergency fund and will continue to build that back up with £50 a month deposits. I’m also still investing £25.00 a month into mine and my daughters Stocks and Shares ISA’s.

House Costs

I am currently writing a detailed blog post on moving house, but as it is unlikely to be finished until I move in, here is a list of the costs of the house so far;

• Mortgage fee £320 paid
• Solicitors fee £1332.20 – paid £800 – £532.20 left to pay (Saved in full)
• House Reservation Deposit £500
• Stamp Duty £1219 (Saved £835 – £384 left to save)
• Savings for new lawn £500
• Savings for new beds £600
• Savings for new blinds £500
• Deposit £11000

As you can see, I’ve still got lots to save and still got lots to pay for!

What I Have Spent This Week

£10.38 Macdonalds

£74.48 Asda – Food and drink

£9.00 Halfords – Body Filler

£29.00 B&Q – Paint

£29.37 Morrisons – Food

£22.00 B&Q – Paint

£10.60 Library – overdue fines

Total £184.83

You can definitely tell we had a weekend at home eating and decorating! As I mentioned before, my parents joined us at the weekend and worked their fingers to the bone to get the house ready for the estate agent this weekend. So all those jobs I’d been putting off for years were done. I laid a lawn and painted the garden fences whilst they blasted through the house and painted all downstairs, stairs and landing and fixed anything broken!!

Obviously I fed them lol so that’s why my food bills are much higher this week. But other than the decorating costs and food bill, I think I’ve been pretty good this week. I’m annoyed at myself about the library books going overdue, I really to get my stuff together and stop forgetting to renew them or take them back!!

Looking forward to having a more relaxing week but you know what I don’t think it will be – It never is!!

Hope you all have a great week, thanks for reading, Heidi x