Flying gleefully into 2009 - One Fresians adventures in debt-busting

mooomin · 13 February 2009 at 6:13PM

My new hoover is now sitting in the hall looking accusingly at me. I will use it this weekend, honest

I went for a nice cuppa tea with The Boy which was fun, and as I was in town anyway I went to the theatre where the Shaolin show is playing. I got my Early Bird tickets for £13 each and no booking fees. Take that Ticketmaster!!

mooomin · 13 February 2009 at 7:55PM

Having played around with the Open Office stuff I downloaded earlier, I now have two spreadsheets - one for my PAD money and one for my normal spending.

In the PAD one, I have set up monthly tabs, but for my month - 23rd of the month (Payday!) until the 22nd. I have a front sheet (I'm not good enough to make the other tabs feed into this, but that's ok!) which has a note of these months and when I input the totals it updates with how much I have paid this year

I'm not including my loan payments until I pay off the overdraft and Barlaycard, so excluding the loan I have paid off £421.03 since 1st January 2009 (That total is in the column entitled Big*ss Total!)

The other spreadsheet, entitled "Budgeteering"

, is where I will note down what is coming in and what is going out of my account each month. I have set it to calculate my surplus and also have a tab for my "other" spending, which I will update daily. Again, this is sorted into months. I did look at Eager Learners sheet, but it looked too much for me! My spreadsheet is doing what my notebook did, but with added maths!

I had better go and get ready - the parents are down this weekend and we're off to Makro (Whoop whoop!) so I'm going to stock up on kitty litter and loo roll. I find it hard to do the maths on the "bargains" normally, so I'm going to try and behave :rotfl:

Silaqui · 13 February 2009 at 9:43PM

Hi Friesian,
If the Open Office spreadsheet is anything like excel, if you want the totals from the months to automatically feed into your front sheet try this:

Your total payments for the sheet named 'january' are in cell B6 (example).

In the cell where you want this total to appear on the front sheet, type (without quotes) "=january!b6" and the same number should appear. It will still total up as it does anyway, just saves you typing it out and updating it!

You can also use a similar thing to carry forward end of month totals to the next month.
Hope thats helpful

Enjoy Makro I always come back with lots of penny sweets from there!
xx

mooomin · 13 February 2009 at 10:59PM

Fag_ash_lil wrote: »

Is it 2 cats that you have ? ...... What are their names ?

Hope you are feeling alot better today .....

Enjoy the rest of your day off ....

terri x

I have two cats - Bert and Ernie

Big fat softypusses the pair of them, I might even post pictures one day!

I am feeling a bit better, but still quite tired and with an overwhelming feeling of Blah. Hopefully I will be better soon though, I think I'm just knackered!

My day off has been good - been for tea with t'other half (Cuppa, not dinner), got tickets for Shaolin goodness while sticking two fingers up at Ticketmaster (profiteeringsonsofb*tchesmuttermutter), had nom-some burgers from M&S for dinner - at 99p for two very MSE - and got to go to Makro with parental units too. They bought me lots of meat - I only have to pay them back for the cat stuff I bought. I feel quite guilty about this as they took me loads of mutton for the freezer from home as well, so I think I'm taking advantage, although I know they would be horrified if I suggested it.

My grocery budget for next month is going to reduce though I think - I now have three bags full of chops, lamb shoulder, haddock fillets, lamb gigot, 1.8kg of mince (!) 1kg of stewing steak and sh*tloads of sausages (It's a culinery term to describe LOTS of sausages

) Methinks I shall be batch cooking like a fiend when they go home :rotfl: I'm definitely going to make soup again, and will make bolognaise sauce with half of the mince. Ooh, decisions, decisions!

Ooh, and thanks for the tip Silaqui, I will play with the spreadsheets in the morning and see how that goes

I downloaded the Office stuff to the PC and I use the laptop at night so t'other half can [strike]kill zombies with his friends [/strike] do his college work. I won't get to play with them till morning. I'm going to wander off and make sure I have spelled your name right now...

*edit* Woo! Go me, I can spell!!

tomtombeanie · 14 February 2009 at 8:53AM

glad you had a good shop! i love going to costco, but we only head there when we are prepared for a large total at the end...

i went to bed just before 8pm last night (!:o!) so i know how you feel. i don't think the wine and bubbly i had at lunch time (40th celebration lunch out for one of my closest friends) helped

, but i just couldn't carry on supporting my head in an upright position so sloped off to bed without even having or making any tea. i don't think OH was overly impressed but i feel miles better today.

first day of our lazy school hols week. have a good weekend x

Hopeful1 · 14 February 2009 at 9:39AM

Oh f_f you sound so organised. Will you please stop putting me to shame lol!

i used to use a sheet Martin put up which showed your debt reducing as you entered payments. I think i'll dig that out now. I certainly need to tighten up after the mess i seem to be falling into over the last couple of months.

I have a cat too. He used to be very active and the ultimate rat / frog / fish catcher and bringer homer! Thankfully he is becoming increasingly lay with age and spends most of his day snoozing :rolleyes:

Happy pet hair vaccing!

Silaqui · 14 February 2009 at 9:51AM

No probs hope it helps! Well done on the spelling too hehe.
With the batch cooking, if you don't want to do it all the time have you thought about portioning up the meat before you freeze it? I will usually split a 500g pack of mince into 3, then when I make something with mince (say spag bol) I use one of the portions, a whole tin of cheapy tomatoes and whack it up with lots of veg and stuff and it usually does two meals anyway (we usually eat some for dinner than take the rest for lunch the next day). Works for me as I don't have a very big freezer for freezing the batches of meals, and means you don't have the same thing every day. Partly through necessity my grocery budget has been about £30 so far this month and I'm only gonna be spending about another £10/20 MAX on it, and we've eaten fresh stuff pretty much every day. Just a suggestion I guess. I do like cooking though, chills me out after work and I do it every day!

Enjoy your week off TomTomBeanie I'm looking forward to mine but have a list as long as my arm of things I've got to do anyway! Might enlist the b/f to do some laminating while I get on with the other stuff lol
xx
xx

mooomin · 14 February 2009 at 9:57AM

Hopeful1 wrote: »

Oh f_f you sound so organised. Will you please stop putting me to shame lol!

It's a carefully crafted illusion...:rotfl: If it makes you feel any better, the hoover is still in box and the kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it. I'm meant to be going to town to meet my mum and am still in my dressing gown

See, all an illusion

Silaqui - I tried fiddling with the spreadsheet and couldn't get it to work, but I am a total dolt when it comes to spreadsheets, so unless you fancy a wee trip to Edinburgh to fix it with me.....:rotfl: I'm just happy with the fact that I've figured out how to get it to add up a column of PADs tbh

Plans for today? Not a lot really in terms for MSE, but I suppose my morning list would be a good idea to keep me on the straight and narrow:

Do dishes
Have a shower and go and meet mum in town
Follow her round while she tries to restart the UK economy. Carry bags.
[strike]Make PAD[/strike]
Go out for dinner with t'other half and my folks, yummy!

That's about it really. I haven't really done a full day at the shops in a while, so I am going to try and be really good and resist spending any money. Partly because I'm doing the £100 clothes challenge, and partly because any money I spend will be coming from my surplus funds and therefore from my PAD. I'm going to fight off temptation today!

Fag_ash_lil · 15 February 2009 at 12:30AM

flying_fresian wrote: »

I have two cats - Bert and Ernie Big fat softypusses the pair of them, I might even post pictures one day!

What great names ....... that has made me smile all day ! .....
I think you should add some piccys on here

..... if you ever get a free moment !
Good luck with your spreadsheet .....
Excellent news that you managed to get your Shaolin monks tickets direct to save on the booking fees .... blo*dy booking fees are a right rip off :mad: .....
Enjoy the rest of your weekend .......

Silaqui - I agree that the poor kitty picture does look like he's wearing baby Uggs

terri x

mooomin · 15 February 2009 at 12:31AM

flying_fresian wrote: »

[strike]Do dishes[/strike] I've not done all of them, but there's a bit more space in the kitchen than there was...

[strike]Have a shower and go and meet mum in town[/strike]

[strike]Follow her round while she tries to restart the UK economy. Carry bags.[/strike] That woman can SHOP - in the end I went home and had a nap before dinner :rotfl:

[strike]Make PAD[/strike]

[strike]Go out for dinner with t'other half and my folks, yummy![/strike]

Evening all!

Have you all had a lovely day? Have any of you been celebrating Valentines? We haven't

We did go out for dinner, but only because my parents were down visiting and we would have gone out with them anyway. So a nice romantic dinner with my family was the order of the day - nomtastic Chinese food, and red heart shaped balloons everywhere. I hate Valentines :rotfl: My parents have celebrated it once in their relationship - and they have been married for 31 years now, so it must work

Well, I went to the shops with my mum, and carried many bags for her. She also bought me two pairs of trousers which I feel very guilty about. I am trying so hard to do things myself at the moment and I feel somewhat as though I take advantage as I know that she will buy me things if I ask (Or if I don't in some cases) I do know that she likes to get me things though, so I take the nice clothes and try and push down the guilt...

I have set my budget for next week (The final push until payday) and have allowed myself £30 for spending. I don't think I will need this - we have been to Makro and Asda in the last couple of days, so won't need more than milk or bread. I don't need to buy anything, and I need one more NSD (Hopefully tomorrow) to reach my challenge target for the month.

Tomorrow my plan is to be a Domestic Goddess - I'm making soup again and also cooking some mince I can't fit in the freezer at the moment to make some bolognaise sauce. I'm going to do the dishes, and organise some storage space. I need to do washing too. I have a lot to do! This should stop me from leaving the house and spending money. I'm going to get t'other half to pitch in as well (He will be pleased!) as otherwise I will end up asleep on the couch before Lost starts, and we can't have that

Going to go and read some of my book now. Enjoy what's left of your night everyone!

Flying gleefully into 2009 - One Fresians adventures in debt-busting

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