Fire Fox's Debt-Free in 2009 Diary

Fire_Fox

First purchase of the new month £13 (cashback vouchers and free delivery) on books from Amazon. Hopefully these will inspire me to reduce our supermarket bill: Jocasta Innes 'Paupers Cookbook', BBC 'Storecupboard Suppers' and BBC '101 Budget Dishes'. :money:

Tonight's meal is battered cod with roasted potato slices and veg, then rhubarb/ blackberry Brown Betty for afters: made with the crusts from last night's bread and butter pudding, raspberry jam instead of orange juice, golden syrup instead of brown sugar, cinnamon and desiccated coconut instead of ground ginger!!

I have been quite the domestic goddess today - instead of shopping online I have cleaned the fridge out and washed all the windows. Not quite hitting the same spot as shopping tho. :rotfl:

Fire_Fox

End of month accounting:

Income £860 + student loan
Essential outgoings £337
Non-essential outgoings £230

Paid into savings £ absolutely loads!!
Decreased overdraft by £500
In my purse £100

This is actually an impossible task as I have transferred money right, left and centre, received my student loan (nil net effect), still have one cheque outstanding and a lump sum in the system somewhere.

However ... the overall result is that I am unofficially debt-free! I have £9930 of debt, £9900 of savings and enough money in my current account to not go overdrawn at all this month.

So ... I have two years of cash ISAs maxed out (£7200), and £2700 in other savings accounts. Goal is to transfer £250 a month into my regular saver, i.e. another £2500 by April 2010. This will give me a total of £5200, sufficient to max out a new cash ISA next financial year! :T

This is quite a tall order as it doesn't allow for the fact that my building will have a new freeholder in the summer. No doubt they will look to recoup some of the disputed service charges or, at the very least, expect payments going forwards. At present this is £110 a month which research shows is not reasonable for the property or area. :mad: I am absolutely willing to pay a basic rate for a basic service, or the present premium rate for a premium service.

Fire_Fox

Today's spending £6.50 on two bottles of shampoo and two canisters of dry shampoo, £4 on a peeler and small sieve, £7 on my prescription (asked doctor for two months supply; used the last £5 from a gift card).

Mr. Fire Fox has paid me back all the money he borrowed since his cards were stolen, and this month's rent. Decided to pay £100 into my savings account so that I have the full £10k! :beer:

Fire_Fox

Just spent £70 at Maximuscle (buy four get one free, 15% cashback, free delivery). This has reduced to 5% cashback with Wepromiseto which is the kick I needed to defect to Quidco! I haven't done a lot of cashback since January as I got a bit disheartened when several larger transactions - e.g. £20 Alliance and Leicester twice - didn't track. :mad:

The surveying is very slow as I often don't qualify; Global TestMarket and StudentPanel particularly are not going anywhere. I either I need to have a bash at joining bingo sites for cashback or reading up on matched betting or mystery shopping. I am doing a fair bit of overtime at present as we have a member of staff on long-term sick, but my hourly rate is low and I am impatient for my savings to grow!

Fire_Fox

Another three bottles of New Zealand white wine for a tenner at Tesco (usually £10 a bottle; used £6 of Pinecone vouchers ).

Fire_Fox

Haven't bothered cooking properly all weekend - seems to be a bank holiday theme! Mr. Fire Fox bought us a curry, which doesn't count cos poor students don't pay for takeaways. But tonight had a freezer special: a carton of egg fried rice, a handful of jumbo prawns, mixed veg and garlic. Tomorrow is turkey drumstick, but not sure what to do with it?

Finally received notification of the Valued Opinions survey that was supposed to take me over the magic £10 barrier, but it crashed halfway through. :mad: It's been four months and I am getting impatient!

Fire_Fox

Had to go to Asda to switch the wrong items from the last online shop, and got my money back. Then decided to get a few bits which turned into a full shop of £72. :rolleyes:

Expensive items were:
£2 on four pints of organic milk
£5 on four mini bottles of red wine (offer)
£2 on two bottles of squash (which we didn't need!)
£5.50 on five bars of Extra Special dark chocolate
£5.50 on five multipacks of crisps (offer)
£2 on two boxes of breakfast cereal (offer)
£4.30 on a massive salmon fillet
£2 on two mackerel
£3 on two huge packs of strong cheddar (offer)
£3.50 on two packs of healthy cheese
£5 on two packs of Yorkshire sausages
£3 on two packs of bacon (offer)
£3.50 on frozen southern fried chicken
£2.40 on two bags of oven chips
£2 on frozen raspberries
£2 on Granny Smith apples.

It's one of my worst efforts yet I think - I didn't get enough milk or cereal, and clearly way too much expensive meat ... most are processed not even just meat! :eek: It's terrible that we have eaten £10 worth of just crisps and chocolate in ten days. At least I bought cheap chopped nuts for baking instead of pricey almonds which I just end up eating.

AND when I got home I threw away:
two rotten plums
some leftover cous cous
the soup I made last week
the chicken off the carcass. :mad:

I did at least bake a ginger cake over the weekend with three suspect bananas and have frozen three more. I am thinking of making sticky 'chicken' with the turkey drumstick - honey, soy sauce and chilli marinaded overnight. That means sausages for dinner tonight, which is good as my feet are killing me!

Fire_Fox

Turkey drumstick is marinating away, tho Mr. Fire Fox thinks the sauce will burn whilst cooking such a large piece of meat. I am determined to prove the chef wrong! Having it with stir fry veg and brown rice noodles.

Also cooking rice, mushrooms and onions for a no-pastry quiche to use up some full fat soft cheese and Whoopsie eggs. The cheese was 'free' since I have been refunded by Asda for the wrong item. :T That will be me sorted for the next few lunches!

Located the source of the tiny flies that have plagued us recently and it wasn't our permanently stinky kitchen bin (it is bleached regularly). Nearly bought some bin deodoriser powder in Asda yesterday but it was £2 something, then I remembered I had Neutradol powder leftover from when I moved in two years ago. :money:

lollypopswater

Just wanted to say hi FF and that your Drumstick sounds nice to me!!

Fire_Fox

Thanks Lollypopswater - what an unusual username!

The drumstick was absolutely lovely, moist and tender: will definitely cook it that way again as the marinade was really easy! The quiche wasn't too shabby either, then again I was so hungry by the time it came out of the oven I scoffed half.

The £85 cashback for the Legal and General stocks and shares ISA has been reversed! :mad: I think this is because I cancelled my direct debit whilst I decide how best to utilise my money this financial year. I have raised a ticket with Wepromiseto AND e-mailed L&G.

AND ... my laptop screen has started jumping so need to make some telephone calls this afternoon, as it is still under warranty.