Floozie's Lightbulb Diary

Intergalactic_Floozie

Oh my goodness. I'm just not used to having a credit balance on my current account. It's really confusing me for some reason....

DH's redundancy (£2450) went in yesterday so I have almost cleared my overdraft but I'm going to keep it because I will go overdrawn some parts of the month then back in credit again (if you know what I mean?) once my child benefit hits.

He's due to get his wage from his old company next week which I will pay May's loan payments out of and save the rest. Hopefully along with June's wage from old employer that I can save we should be able to have a good emergency fund so I wont have to resort to credit cards again.

Not sure when he will get paid from new company though? His contract came today along with a a big booklet which said he would be paid monthly in arrears but I don't know what that means? If their paydays are at the end of the month and he starts on 18th, does that mean he will get paid 2 weeks? I hope he does otherwise I think I will have to borrow out of the savings as I only have £462 to last a month, and as DH likes a nightly bottle of wine, and smokes, that wont last us.

It annoys me how he wont give one or the other up. He's agreed to 10 x cigarettes per day (£2.20 per day), a bottle of wine per day (£2.29) and a packet of tobacco (£3.05 which lasts two days) so that will cost us £185!!! He used to get £400 'spending money' although he had to get his own petrol out of that, but he thinks he's really hard done by now, and sending me 'guilt trip' vibes. Me - I've spent sod all! No new clothes, make-up, magazines, newspapers or shop bought lunches, which is where my money used to go.

1 of my pairs of jeans has a £2 bid, and the other pair has a watcher. The Wii game has 5 watchers, and has been bid up to £6.30 with them ending tomorrow so I hope they all get sales.

I'm going to pay my mum and dad back at £135 per month, which is the amount of the loan I have just paid off. It will take 83 months (6 years, 9 months) but I'm going to try and PAD to that....obviously I do have other loans, 2 of which will be paid off within 2 years so I will be able to snowball then.

My £97 from the tax credits people came on Thursday so I have put that into a savings account...I must get round to ringing them...I did try yesterday but just got "we are busy, try later" with no option to hold in a queue - charming!

I'm over my grocery target so far but only for a day as I wont need to go shopping! I think I may have finally worked out how not to overspend at the supermarket - hooray!!

Good news on the weight front, another 1.2lbs off this week making 20.2lbs which is very almost 10% of my bodyweight gone in 11 weeks. Bad news is that my favourite 2 pairs of jeans are now falling off me...I'll have to empty the suitcases holding my too small clothes and hunt for a pair of size 14s

moo2moo

Whoooooooo hooooooo Floozie losing 10% of your body wieght is truly awesome and Congratulations Mr Floozie!

If you have the cash available I'd clear your overdraft completely. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean they withdraw it but it does mean they don't charge you for having it. Several banks (First Direct included) allow you to go £250 overdrawn without charge. It would mean that you could save your overdraft fees each month and add them to your emergency fund.

Being paid monthly in arrears means his first pay day will be the 30th of the month one calendar month after he starts at which point he will be paid for the number of days he worked up till the 30th of the month. To translate to English if he started on the 18th of May his first pay day would be 30th June and he would be paid for the work done from May 18th to May 31st. After that he would get a normal monthly salary.

Men and booze and fags are most annoying. Mr Moo2moo doesn't consider himself to be a heavy smoker but left to his own devices will happily puff his way through 50g of baccy a week (£25) and at least a bottle of vino a day (two if he had his way). Have persuaded him to smoke roll up which has significantly cut down the fag bill from £6+ per day (£10 on a really bad day) and restrict his alcohol intake by buying a bottle on the way home if nagged. If he goes its two or more so its cheaper if I do it and if I'm daft enough to buy it at Mr Ts he'll drink everything there is as fast as humanly possible. Hes a bit like a kid with a selection box hence yesterdays 2am extraction from the bath.

Intergalactic_Floozie

Well, I'm still totally confused about having a credit balance!

Anyway I knew DH and I would come to blows about money and we almost did. He is fed up of smoking roll-ups (not enough to cut down on smoking proper fags though). So I said he could have £200 per month, and I added it up for him how much it costs: (cigs) £4.35 x 31 = £134 + £2.29 x 31 = £70.99, and pointed out that I am budgeting £220 per month AND STICKING TO IT to feed four of us, a cat, as well as buying toiletries and household things out of it, and that I didn't actually have ANY pocket money budgeted, so if he dared even ask in jest for some money before the end of the month there would be blood shed! I think he got the message. Hopefully after a few weeks of not being able to go for a couple of pints on a Sunday to see his mates, might make him cut down on cigarettes. This now leaves me about £540 per month for groceries, petrol and 'other stuff'. I hope I can manage. I think I've got this food budget and shopping addiction under control now. It's four weeks since I bought a single magazine and I haven't really missed them at all!!!

Lurker1972

just read your diary from cover to cover & am so impressed with how you've handled the rollercoaster of redundancy and still kept on track with control spending & weightloss

:T:T:T respect to the Floozie!

natsplatnat

Lurker1972 wrote: »

:T:T:T respect to the Floozie!

"Hear Hear!!" :cool:

mooomin

Intergalactic_Floozie wrote: »

Anyway I knew DH and I would come to blows about money and we almost did. He is fed up of smoking roll-ups (not enough to cut down on smoking proper fags though). So I said he could have £200 per month, and I added it up for him how much it costs: (cigs) £4.35 x 31 = £134 + £2.29 x 31 = £70.99, and pointed out that I am budgeting £220 per month AND STICKING TO IT to feed four of us, a cat, as well as buying toiletries and household things out of it, and that I didn't actually have ANY pocket money budgeted, so if he dared even ask in jest for some money before the end of the month there would be blood shed! I think he got the message.

Just had a similar conversation with my OH who gets £370pcm from the Student Loans folk and spends about £200 on fags etc. He has £100 to last until the 9th of June, and it's high time he quit.

I'm not being a nagging missus, just gently making the point, hopefully it will sink in at some point :rotfl:

Intergalactic_Floozie

I've started using my Tesco credit card as a way of collecting points again. I'm proud to say that I have done two transactions, transferred the cash from my everyday account, and then paid off the card straightaway. £10 on petrol, and £45 on some vouchers for a birthday in the office. I'm going to start buying groceries on it again now I can trust myself to be sensible.

DH should get his old company wage tomorrow so I will be able to transfer some across to my parents and start paying the mega loan off!

Still under budget for groceries although that may not be the case at the weekend.

Still can't get through to the tax credits place. Admittedly I'm not trying very hard but when I do remember to ring them, I seem to get a message saying "Sorry we're busy try again later" with no option to hold on to speak to someone!!! I've transferred todays tax credit payment over to my savings account ready to pay them back.

I ventured up town today to the shops, which is something I haven't done in ages. I daredn't go in town in case I spend money. Anyway I wanted to try on a pair of jeans in Dorothy Perkins. I had bought them in a sie 16 a few weeks ago and now they are too big so I wanted to see if a size 14 would fit.....AND THEY DID!!! WOOHOO....except now, I want to buy them! I didn't buy them today and tricked myself into saying if I really still wanted them tomorrow then I could buy them tomorrow....but now I really want them (boo-hoo).....I could be money-neutral about it as I have £19 in my paypal account and I am due a Quidco payment of about £6 at the end of the month (the jeans were £25) or I could use some of my luncheon vouchers, pay for groceries with them, then use my groceries money to buy the jeans, but "good twin" seems to be winning over evil twin. I do wear jeans all the time at home/weekends so I do get plenty of wear out of them....

Talking of e-bay am still waiting for payment of £5 for the bootcut jeans so I sent off a 'question to buyer' thingie asking if he still wants to go ahead with the purchase. (I had also sent an invoice on the day he won them). No one is bidding or watching on the boyfriend jeans though (2nd time around). I think I will have to re-list them at 99p if they don't sell again.

Thanks for listening, hope you are all doing okay x

Intergalactic_Floozie

Got my payment for the jeans, and it was £6 not £5. However the bloody wrapping paper must have made the package slightly heavier than I anticipated as I put £2.50 for P&P and it was £2.70 - GRRRRR. Paypal balance is now just a jot under £25 but ebay will have to take their fees from that.

Really wanted to buy the Dotty P jeans again today but have promised myself when I have lost another 5lbs I can have them. My weigh in is Saturday and as I lost the plot over the past couple of days I think I might have gained weight so it will probably take me longer than I thought to lose 5lbs LOL.

I've made my first payment to mum and dad today! (updated signature). I rang to get their bank details so I could transfer it, and they felt REALLY GUILTY!!!!!! My mum was like "oh love, we don't want you skinting yourself"!!!! Goodness me LOL. In the end I've made them feel better by pretending that they can consider to be looking after it for me just in case I do skint myself and need it back What lovely parents I have got. I wish I were half a good parent as mine have been to me.

I've paid off the A&L loan this afternoon too and cancelled the direct debit for it. So that is a really good feeling.

I've been trying to muddle my way through my current account (seriously, positive figures + available overdraft are really confusing me). It looks like I am £175 overdrawn after everything goes out however I do have £1200 in the emergency fund. I guess I should transfer £175 across but I don't want to (stamps foot petulantly) I think DH's old company must have given him his holiday pay in this wage because it was about £450 more than I was expecting. I think (hope) he's due about three weeks wage at the end of June, most of which will also go in the emergency fund.

He's being sent on a training course in June and then they are going to send him out installing VOIP and Blackberry servers so once he has been doing that for a few months hopefully he should be able to ask for a payrise.

Groceries are still under budget - I may need to go tomorrow but for the moment I'm a good 2 days in front of my target (or is it behind?). Mind you it's school hols for the next week and two growing lads eat me out of house and home.

In my everyday fund I have £368 to last me another 23 days. I estimate £100 on petrol and £161 on food (hopefully less) so that's £100 for 'other' stuff. I'd already withdrawn some money and put some change aside for my weekly newspaper bills, and the kids don't have footy practice until the beginning of August.

I spent quite a bit last week though as I hadn't decided to give DH pocket money so I was funding his cigarettes & wine, and also we bought a concertina door to try and keep the living room warmer so I'll be pleased if I manage to last until next pay day with my everyday money.

However I have had to turn the heating on a couple of days to get clothes dry that were needed urgently the next day. I had to dry my coat on Monday so the heating was on all night, then DH wanted his jacket-thing dried too. The boiler blew itself off in middle of night so when I got up at 5 this morning it was still wet, so I turned it back on and he promptly forgot to switch the heating off when he went to work, so it was on all day until 4pm with no one else in the house - to add insult to injury as it was sunny he decided not to even wear the damn thing!!!

Just read the meter and we've used 25 units since I last read it two weeks ago so that's not very much actually (although it could have been less!)

Checked my Quidco account and have received another payment, which will take my next pay out up to £21.22 however there isn't much else 'tracking' or needing validating so it will probably be my last payout in a long time.

Just checked e-bay and boyfriend jeans have no bidders and no watchers with two days left to run. They're really NICE, why does no-one want them?!

DH reckons he's been told he's going to get paid next Friday. He said the director's PA was hassling him for his bank account details and P45 so she could give them to the accountant when he comes in to do the wages next week...that'd be nice, I could pay off the overdraft with it I reckon.

God, haven't I waffled!!!!!

Intergalactic_Floozie

(21 days to get through until next pay day, £311 left)

GRRRRR - jeans didn't sell, so I have relisted them at 99p + £2.70 p+p. Anyone who gets them is getting a bargain.

Earned an unexpected £50 today as I got a text from a colleague who was working saying my boss had asked her if she thought I fancied coming in to do some overtime. Well, I didn't need asking twice so went in for four hours at double bubble. I'm in for quite a decent amount of overtime in my July wage, and cut off point for it isn't until 15th June so I might be able to squeeze another weekend in at £100. I'm in tomorrow too, just for five hours (double bubble again!).

I've been keeping a spending diary to see where my money is going and reached the end of my first week on Friday (well, it was 8 days). I've forgotten to put in the grocery totals for this week, but I'm keeping them for next week.

£20.18 - money given to DH (before I decided to give him pocket money).
£20.00 - DH petrol.
£16.59 - concertina door (to try save fuel bills).
£3.30 - newspaper bill (local paper x 6 + delivery).
£3.30 - (as above) paid for two weeks
£3.00 - oldest son football subs
£3.00 - youngest son football subs
£3.00 - youngest son football tournament.
£2.00 - chips for oldest son at footy tournament
£2.00 - lunch for myself one day when I wasn't organised.
£2.00 - sponsor money for a lady at work who is doing a 6 mile midnight walk in aid of local hospice.
£2.00 - Lotto subs.
£1.50 - breakfast club for youngest son.
£1.18 - 2 x birthday cards
£1.00 non uniform day for youngest son.
£1.00 - 30th birthday collection at work,
£0.65 - cornflake crisp bun for myself one day.
£85.70

Hope everyone has enjoyed the first truly hot day of 2009 - I know I did! We had our evening meal out on the decking (why is salad stuff so expensive, by the way!).

Intergalactic_Floozie

20 days until next payday, £295 remaining...is this what the rest of my life is going to be like, counting down the days until I next get paid??

I put petrol in my car yesterday and that should last til next payday. I estimate £141 on shopping, and £65 in DH's car so that'll leave me just under £90 for everything else, however there's going to be a £20 Quidco payment, and I have a fiver in my purse. I'm very confident I will get to 15th June with some money leftover!

Nice surprise in that the interest charges for the Natwest Overdraft that I still count in my monthly outgoings has gone down from £15 to £7.97 for this next month. Hopefully next month there shouldn't be much in the way of charges as it's paid off, well from nearly £1700dr back to £175dr (nearly). So I moved the £7.03 over to my everyday money. I was also really shocked to see the interest rate on the overdraft was an enormous 29.6%!!!

I listed some expensive moisturiser/toner on ebay last night and they have accumulated £9 of bids so far with 6 days left, hopefully it might end up higher.

I also did five hours overtime today, my July wage is going to be quite healthy!