From Aldi To Harrods » Personal Updates

Some good news!

emmaglet — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:30:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted about having to leave my job and raise a tribunal case (which I hasten to add is against my former employers and not against me; not that it should matter). At the time I had no idea which direct my life would go in – I spent a lot of time focused on online money making and doing some behind the scenes stuff to improve this blog as well as applying for a lot of jobs and attending interviews. I also carried out a lot of research on The Open University funding, and I am very pleased to announce that I have a new job!

Not only do I have a new job, but I work for a great company that is somewhat new in the marketplace, at a very exciting time! I’m working as a Website Administrator, which is something I really enjoy doing and certainly have a bit of knowledge about!

The posts here will keep coming and the background work will continue – I’ve got some exciting changes planned and can’t wait to implement them.

Eeep – now I’m jobless

emmaglet — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:30:00 +0000

This is a really difficult post to write, but for those of you who follow me on Twitter or perhaps know me ‘in real life’, you may know that I’ve left my job. There’s a whole host of reasons, and I really can’t go into them publicly due to a tribunal claim I’m submitting, but it was the right decision to make, albeit a tough one. Things are definitely scary as Tony, my boyfriend, is out of work too. We’ve also recently booked a holiday to Florida that we will lose money on if we don’t go – thankfully it isn’t until November so we have some time to save for that.

I have to say that I’m very excited for what the future will hold. It has only been three days so far, so I’m not entirely sure which route I’m going to end up taking. I have five interviews in the coming week or so, one of them being a second interview. I’ve also learned that I will be eligible for financial help from The Open University, perhaps allowing my to complete my degree and go into teaching. As a friend of mine says, the world is my lobster!

Another thing I’m very eager to do is to overhaul this website. I think it is about time I stepped away from a premade template, and actually made it a ‘job’ to blog more often. I’ve got so many money making schemes going on and things that I’m testing out, I cannot wait to share them with you all. There just aren’t enough hours in the day at the moment.

Being out of work is going to take a lot of self-motivation to stay on top of things; to ensure an income is coming in and also to ensure that I don’t become lazy. My plan at the moment is to have a set number of tasks I must do every day, and treat each day as a working day, working my way through each task as well as researching new projects.

Wish me luck on this new venture!

Happy November!

emmaglet — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:45:00 +0000

Happy November everyone! November means the inevitable panic, wondering where the past year has gone and panicking about the run up to Christmas. Yes, we can officially start muttering the C-word now.

With just two months left of 2011, it’s time for me to start really putting some effort in to achieve all that I want to get out of 2011. Therefore I’m making two “simple” goals for November: lose 10lbs and make £20 per day on top of my normal income. I do enjoy a challenge! £20 a day is going to be quite difficult to achieve, especially as eBay and car boot sales seem to have dried up and aren’t as fruitful as they once were – or perhaps I’ve sold all the good stuff and am only left with the crap that no one else wants! I’ve made a good start by having 120 auctions on eBay at the moment (as I mentioned, a lot of crap) and I’ll be doing lots of surveys. But apart from that I feel completely out of ideas, which is a first for me!

Is there anything you’re eager to achieve in November? How are you going to go about doing it?

Hatton Gardens Metal – Cash For Gold

emmaglet — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:09:00 +0000

Something magical happened though. I was clearing out my room the other day and I came across some scrap gold – a few broken necklaces and bracelets, a couple of old rings and some coins – and I sold them to one of those “cash for gold” places. I would have been happy with around £20. In fact, £50 would be “beyond my wildest dreams” for some crap old jewellery. I checked online, and after reading reviews, decided to sell to Hatton Garden Metals.

Yes, you read that right, £698.82! £75 of it was for my colleague, but I was so impressed. The money was in my bank the day after posting – not even 24 hours after posting off the gold.

Baby You Just Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

emmaglet — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:13:00 +0000

I’ve just finished parcelling the last remaining items from the last free eBay listing weekend so I’m now happy to announce that my total for May is…£562.90! My original target was £465 so I’m thrilled to have not only hit it, but almost add another £100 to that. Amazing.

Lately I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated by my situation. Florida seems like a distant memory and I’ve lost sight of why I’m working my arse off to earn extra money. Over the weekend I got really upset about the size of my box room and went in to some sort of meltdown. It wasn’t a nice place for me, but the result of it is that I’m completely motivated for June. I therefore am setting myself a massive target of £750 in June.

This target absolutely terrifies me if I’m honest. Broken down it is a massive £25 a day. Excuse me whilst I go and pick myself up off the floor, dust myself off, recall my goal and fall over again. But then I look at May’s total and think…yes…I can do this.

I seem to have fallen into quite a nice little earner for myself in selling things for my neighbour. I’m working on commission and I sell her items all over the place – so far I’ve taken items along to a boot sale and sold a few bits online for her. Within a week I’d made her £70 for nothing and I’m really hoping this expands into something bigger. Selling online yourself is so easy, but there seems to be a whole generation who haven’t got the interest, time or knowledge of how to do this. It won’t make me rich, but now with my afternoons free it gives me something else to fill my time with…something that earns me a bit of cash. My next plan is to expand this by advertising in my company newsletter for clients and seeing how it goes from there.

So far my other plans for money making in June include overtime and doing on call for work, a boot sale or two, eBay listing (free listing weekend again this weekend, start preparing now), I’ve listed items on Amazon and Play (and already had a sale!) and then I’m fresh out of ideas. I’m both confident and scared about such a big target. Here goes.

Florida Round Up

emmaglet — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Hey guys, I’m back! Sorry I’ve been so quiet, I often opened my browser up to blog but I felt weird talking about how amazing Florida was and how much money I was spending when this blog is about saving money/making money, but whatever.

I had the most fabulous time ever in the history of the world. From start to finish the holiday was amazing but I’m so glad to be back home now. I spent money like it was going out of fashion and “only” ended up going £30 into my overdraft which I’m obviously thrilled about.

I’ve got over 400 of my own photos, not including Rose’s photos, so deciding what to upload was hard. Here are a few of my favourites.

Rose and I outside of Heathrow. We’d both already been awake a ridiculous amount of hours with many more to go!

Me in the most unflattering top ever (it will be eBayed!) at Downtown Disney. I adore Disney.

Compulsory Disney photo.

America was full of coupons for everything – there was very little that we paid full price for. This dress is one example of that – spend over $50 and get $10 off AND buy two dresses and get $10 off. I spent more money than I’ve ever spent on clothes ever but I managed to get a pretty dress for a friend’s wedding and this lovely dress. Whilst trying to make the decision as to whether to buy them I remembered all the hard work I’d put in over the past months – all the eBaying, bootsaling, etc and justified getting them.

So I get that Walmart is basically Asda, but at Walmart you can buy Twinkies and guns, amazing. We visited most days.

I looked forward to Seaworld so much and I wasn’t disappointed. We managed to get onto some rides with no queue as everyone had started with the main ride at the entrance. We saw a pet show which just made me miss my cat, then what I’d been waiting for – The Shamu show (with no whale actually called Shamu). We sat in the soak zone and got totally soaked with salt water which put a downer on things for us. But still, it was amazing. I’d like a whale please.

At Busch Gardens we stumbled upon a “feed the kangaroos” section where we got to, you guessed it, feed the kangaroos! I reckon I fed about 8 of them by hand. They were so friendly and I definitely want a kangaroo now. Plus I’ve saved myself the £££ for a trip to Australia!

My colleague had told me about Rainforest Cafe so we had to do. We dressed up and off we went. I adore themed restaurants.

We went to Red Lobster one night and the food was amazing! A meal with prawns, scallops, lobster and a starter cost around £20 – it is worth going to America for the savings alone!

Me at Magic Kingdom trying to pull a face with the weird faces outside Haunted Mansion. This dress was possibly the best thing I’ve ever bought in my life!

On our return trip I heard our names over the tannoy – when I approached the desk I was told that our names hadn’t been called and I’d made a mistake. Cue me spending ages telling Rose that I had heard our names, I’m not going insane. A few moments later we were handed these. First Class was lovely – it was only the connecting flight but still lovely. We sipped free cocktails – they cost economy class $7 so, so I actually made $14 by having two cocktails, right?

We did so much that it would take way too long to tell you everything. We visited every theme park, saw fireworks and shows, ate some amazing food, bought some lovely things (and me being me, I even bought a load of stuff to resell for some more pennies), swam loads and just did so much.

Basically I love America. Everything was lovely – the weather, driving, shopping, eating, theme parks, etc. I did have a sneaky look at jobs whilst I was there so who knows what the future holds. I’m so pleased to be home now though and ready to tackle my next money making goals. I’m so insanely proud of myself for being able to afford this holiday without going into debt (cos £30 of an overdraft isn’t really “debt”). All the hard work has been worth it!

I Still Don’t Know How I Do It

emmaglet — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:57:00 +0000

March’s Money Making Marathon -£541.56/£500

I have no idea where this weekend went. Well I lie. Yesterday I spent possibly 80% of my time playing Sims 3, and the other 20% of the time having a massive wardrobe clear out and photographing items. It was worth it though, I made over £50 from today’s sales alone and have a few more bites so fingers crossed.

I’ve also managed to somehow smash my target of £500 – I will never cease to amaze myself, especially as I decided towards the start of the month to go a bit easier on myself and not spend every waking moment trying to earn some extra money. I also have a few outstanding things such as the rest of my TSUK post, a lottery win to collect (£7, not millions), a music magpie cheque, being on call this weekend, some babysitting money and finally some money a colleague owes me (not too sure whether to include this as I don’t think I’ll be getting it).

I think the driving force behind me this month has most definitely been Florida and thinking about moving back to Chester. I feel as though I really want to start setting up a proper home. Chester is a very long way off though, possibly next summer by the time I’ve saved enough to do everything I want to do before I move and having paid off my debts, but every £1 I make now is £1 closer to that happening.

I’ve also made a fantastic discovery – when you buy clothes that don’t fit/you change your mind about, you can return them. I always felt really embarrassed about it but during this last fortnight I’ve tried it out, and guess what, I didn’t die of humiliation. I’ve returned about £100 worth of clothes I bought for Florida that didn’t look right, fit well or, embarrassingly, I had actually bought the week before…exactly the same item. It feels like free money, which I know it isn’t, but this is such a revelation to me.

I’ve got one more full week at work until Florida, then the following Monday in the office, Monday and Tuesday at school then Florida on Wednesday. I’m rather apprehensive about my last day at school to be honest. I’ve lost track of which parents I’ve told about my redundancy – I’m not blurting it around but those who I babysit for regularly need to know that I’m still available. I’m also interested to see how my last day will be – whether an announcement will be made to the children or if I’ll just…leave. I’ve told a few children when it has come up in conversation but I doubt the reception age children would even remember.

Onwards and upwards to my last full week at work. I’ve got a feeling its going to be a busy one, wrapping up projects, making sure we have enough literature and forms to last the month that I’ll be away, writing my daily task instructions for colleagues, researching something else Florida related and possibly a bit more babysitting.

March Update

emmaglet — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:59:00 +0000

March’s Money Making Marathon:£325.65/£500

I am far too tired to even be functioning right now. A day after I decided upon March’s challenge I realised that I didn’t need, or want, to go full throttle at selling everything I own and working myself down to make as much money as possible, that I actually had enough for Florida without running myself ragged.

I thought I had been taking it easy, but obviously I haven’t. It is only day 7 and look at my total, isn’t that amazing? I’m utterly exhausted right now and I’ve no idea how I got to this stage.

My total is made up of a little eBay session (£61.19 with a little more to come once payments come though), lots and lots of babysitting (I even had a child come and stay over at my house this weekend in hopes of making a few extra pennies) and cashing in an old NS&I account I didn’t even know I had (£28.08). I don’t really get where the rest has come from – according to my spreadsheet it has been from selling things.

Seriously, my bed is calling!

Redundancy

emmaglet — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:05:00 +0000

Oh guys, this is the hardest entry I’ve had to write. If you don’t know much about my situation I currently work in an office in the mornings, then travel to Cambridge to work in an After School Club, where I’m finishing my Level 3 NVQ in Playwork and where I really see my career going. My manager is planning on moving abroad and the idea was that I’d either get a promotion to deputy manager, take over running the club paid by her or I’d buy the club from here. I adore my afternoon job, I adore the children there and couldn’t imagine not seeing them everyday.

I was informed on Monday that I’m being made redundant from this position. I’m 23, I’ve never experienced leaving a job, never mind being made redundant. All jobs have naturally ended by moving to University, etc. I quit one job in December 2009 and a week later I was working for another department within the company so I haven’t left at all. I don’t do leaving jobs. This came as a massive shock, I thought I’d be asked to work fewer days per week, not be made redundant.

There’s a whole host of emotions that come with this. Fear of the unknown, rejection, worrying about what my colleagues will say and how they’ll react, worrying about how/if to tell the children and parents, etc. Please don’t mind me when I blow my own trumpet, but I’m amazing with those kids and don’t want to leave them, but fairs fair and last one in should be the first one out. I’m also concerned about my NVQ and what to do about completing it – I’m half way through it now.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though, it has to be said. I currently spend £50 a week on petrol and this is constantly rising. If I can work full time at my office job then I’d be £220 per month better off than I currently am, and whilst I’m on my money making mission I could certainly do with getting home 2 hours earlier than normal. I will also receive my untaken holiday pay when I finish, meaning a few £100s more for Florida spending money.

I wanted Florida to be a catalyst in changing my career – I knew I couldn’t go on spending that amount of money on petrol, having to clean toilets at the end of sessions and not getting home until 7pm. I’ve no idea where life is going to take me but the first thing I need to do is secure working full time at the office for the time being. It might be useful to be working full time when I’ve got lots of work to catch up on after Florida!

It’s my Birthday (and there may be tears!)

emmaglet — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:31:00 +0000

Happy birthday to me! I had a great day at work yesterday with lots of cake, chocolate, cards and presents, then I ditched Zumba to come home and consume take away. I woke up super early this morning as I’m obviously still 12 so I made a start on my chores, sorted out travel insurance and a pre-paid card for spending, until my Dad finally woke up to give me lots of money for Florida and off we went shopping.

I grabbed some great bargains and also managed to successfully buy both my checking in bag and a hand luggage bag for £60 (reduced from £130!) and then the store also had a 3 for 2 offer so we bought a £20 sauté pan, for free! Except when we got home, 25 miles away, we realised that my Dad left one of the shopping bags behind in a store. Cue lots of ringing them, me feeling like poo and finally going back myself to see if the things were still there. They were still there and I ended up buying a few more bits as a little birthday treat to me.

eBay kindly let me know that it’s free listing weekend but I’m having problems logging in. I’ve raided everywhere for new things to sell so tomorrow’s going to be a combination of shopping in Cambridge, eBay listing and nothing else! I may not even have time for a wee.