Now I know I've got some catching up to do, but some of the backlog is by design.. yes, honestly.
With some of these tasks I wanted to have something to show for them so I've delayed detailing them to enable me to put the task and any immediate results in the same place, rather than trying to flick backwards and forwards to see how it all went... SO
Month 3 - Bite 8
When I pruned the plastic lurking in my purse, wallet and other locations I was a bit shocked to find a number of credit cards. One or two were well past their expiry dates so they've been carefully disposed of, but there were a number of others that I seemed to be using in a very random way. Today's research needs to look at what exactly each card gives me (as I usually pay them off in full so don't need necessarily to worry about APRs and all of that).
Once I'd looked into it I only needed to keep three. One I only use on holidays abroad (fingers crossed that can happen again now). It's because it doesn't add a surcharge for using it in Euros (or whatever) and the exchange rate back to sterling isn't bad at all. That left me with two. It didn't seem to matter too much when I shopped equally in both the supermarkets that issued them, as the rate at which I could earn vouchers was the same as was the value of the 'points' or 'rewards' they gave. Now, though, I use one far more than the other so it's time to use that one solely to gain the maximum value in vouchers.
Month 3 - Bite 9
In amongst the bits of plastic was an old Oyster Card for travelling in London. Not something I do anymore! I thought it still might have some cash stored on it so dug up the account details, logged on and voila! there was nearly £15 just sitting there. One phone call later and it was winging it's way into my 'extras' account. That led me to double check on the other bits of plastic that I'd weeded out only to find odd bits and pieces on other cards and subscriptions - no prizes for guessing what I've done there...
Month 3 - Bite 10
That led me onto survey sites. At one time I used to idly complete surveys while I was working away from home and browsing while in hotel restaurants at breakfast time. The next task was to track down all the survey sites along with any account details I'd squirrelled away. That led to listing what they gave as rewards, which were worth pursuing and which not to waste time on. While in the midst of this I discovered enough points to claim a cash reward of £5 and a voucher for £25 - yes £25.. how did I miss that?
Obviously that means that the next step is to reboot the survey taking to add to the hoard. I now know which sites to visit (from re-establishing contact the previous day some email invitations are already appearing. I don't use my regular email address for these. I've always had a separate one for competitions, surveys and giving out an email address in shops that can't lead anyone to my work or personal emails. I'm now going to allocate the period of time between my coffee and breakfast as survey time. A finite period that won't use too much time and yet should provide more for the extras stash.
Month 3 - Bite 12
Finally (for now), I need to award myself time to gather all the information on savings that I possess. There are a number of little sums in odd accounts scattered about - I'm talking £2-3 at a time. These would do better in one savings account with as decent an interest rate as I can find. That's that job for today's list!
None of this has proved very interesting in a photogenic way, so perhaps it's time to confess to another reason or two for not driving the keyboard so regularly of late...
There's this...
and this..
and then again...
Well, you wouldn't expect anything less from my distracted thought processes would you? Mind you, the last photo is of a purse for a birthday gift card so it's not quite as random as it appears at first.. really..
No comments:
Post a Comment