Catching the bug, making use of the downtime

So I caught the flu bug rather inevitably (many, many are sick in the office and spreading germs knowingly without any sort of masks), getting sick disrupts my routine. I've a free movie night on Wednesday and I might have to give my tickets away and skip it altogether, we'll have to see. Then I have my work meeting today and being sick wasn't the greatest feeling before a major meeting! There's of course the visit to doctor's and taking medication, drowsy or not it'll mean more time for rest. When you have a family member who constantly leaves the TV (and the lights) on, it isn't a desirable environment to rest at all.

However, this is not the time to get irritated as it'll make things worse. This week will be all about resting, nursing back to health, and thinking about 2015.

I wrote about the credit card purchase "blips" last week. Those sort of stuff seemed to happen more and more, I recently ordered 5 items with the Single's Day discount but when they came, I liked none of it - what it meant was I had to pay for the return shipping to get my refund! These days shall STOP. I gave it a bit of thought the other day, after working for 3.5 years, my savings rate seems to be lacking far behind than my target (I don't think it's ambitious at all), and this is really a wake-up call. There's not much time to be wasted on dilly dally with flinging money injudiciously, I don't wan't to be "too late to do anything about retirement" (or anything at all, for the record). Simply put, I want a healthy relationship with money in 2015. This means reigning in every penny to be spent. I have added up the totals of foreseeable expenditures (not the everyday ones but annual ones), divided that by 12 and realized I have less than 50% left for savings, even without replacing personal stuff (clothes / beauty supplies). This is no good. 

In 2014 I've explored other ways of making money and it has been great for a while, but eventually put to a stop. I think I do need to give the company a call to check what's going on, I've done that before a few times, but don't want to be seen as pushy, but I really need that money. And I feel more productive during my free time when I'm working and earning money. (Edit: I sent them an email last week, hasn't heard back, now I'm popping in another message via text to see what happens)

In 2015 I doubt if I can find any new ideas of making money from side-hustle, so I am considering selling some of my possessions. It'll require a lot of prep work but at least I'll get some hard-earned cash back. This is all I can think of now. 

Goals for this week:

- Return merchandise to 2 retailers, obtain proof of postage for reimbursement

- Visit to the doc tomorrow

- Call up the clinic where I had blood test last week to see if the results came yet (called today: nothing)

- Track recent purchases with cashback site (after these are done, this will be the end of the online madness)

- Track cash out amount from cashback site

- Donate purged clothing items during weekend

- Fix dinner dates with a school friend who lives nearby (Monday/Tuesday)

- Go for a walk at the park

- Fix brunch date with a uni friend, fix a tea session with a guy friend on the same day, possibly dinner same night with one close relative

- Check with a uni friend to see how her house moving is going

- Contact a childhood friend to see how her leg is healing

- Consolidate a group order (list of items with specifics) for friends and arrange the money transfer

- Fix a day out with friend to go clothes shopping (I will abstain from this)

- Apply hand cream before bed every night

- Apply body lotion/oil after shower every night
- Top-up transport stored-value card for next month's commute