Smart Mart's 2009 diary...

Smart_Mart

Hi there and welcome...:hello:

I've decided to start a brand new diary to go with the brand new year. Happy 2009 everyone...:D . It has come with the realisation that at forty years of age, my life is good in some places and sadly lacking in others. The determining factor in most things is money hence this diary's position on the forum. I have nine goals which I'll briefly go into...

Sensible decisions. No more "taking the wrong option" when deep down I know it's wrong. Take the correct, honest way and there can be no complaints if it goes belly-up.
Money organisation. I reckon I spent more than £1,000 this year on sweets, crisps and cakes not to mention wasting so much more on banal rubbish. This could easily have paid off five or six of my debts instead.
Aim to double business. I am self-employed with a fair bit of spare time that is under-utilised. I could easily double my turnover using that time which would make life much easier.
Reduction in weight. For my height, I should be fifteen stone. For my weight, I should be eight feet six tall. One of these is achievable in 2009...:D
Targets. I've set two already up there, more will follow around debt levels and exercise too. A top diarist on this very forum sets herself targets and they obviously work for her so here goes...

Move house. I live in a three-bed semi owned by a friend who I also work for too. The rent is reducing in June but I need to make the right decision if I have to.
Act on problems when they happen. No problem ever got better by ignoring it. Sort it asap then it can be put to one side...
Re-train. I write articles for a football programme and I have just had three pieces published in a football book last week. I'd like to explore this further in 2009...
Talk to friends more often. I moved away from a lot of them ten years ago. Though Facebook and the net have helped, more contact with them is my final aim.

There you go. They won't all be that long, my posts, but I'll calm down shortly.:rolleyes: I'll post an SOA later on so you can see where I'm going wrong. 2009 must be a year when difficult decisions will need to be made for all of us, me more than most. Enjoy seeing me take that path and feel free to butt in and comment.

Happy 2009 everyone! :beer:

Fire_Fox

Check you out!

:cool:

Lula-Hula

Hey & welcome,

sounds like a plan Good Luck & Best Wishes

Lula

Smart_Mart

Right, here's the statement of affairs. I receive housing benefit and working tax credit due to the up-and-down nature of my income. My HB is being assessed at the moment so may well alter after the assessment but these is the most up-to-date figures I have....

INCOMINGS ( all figures shown are weekly )

Housing Benefit £72
Working Tax Credit £45

I have four main customers that provide income. I have worked out what their business means to me per week but in reality, one of them only employs me four times a year for a month each while another uses me ad-hoc.

Client A - £80 ( another courier firm, this is about six hours a week )
Client B - £78 ( six separate paper rounds, total of 700+ papers )
Client C - £50 ( a catalogue delivery company, working Jan, Apr, Jul and Oct )
Client D - £25 ( a solicitor, ad-hoc working 12-15 times a year )

TOTAL INCOMINGS - BENEFIT + CLIENTS = £350

OUTGOINGS (all figures shown are weekly)

Rent - £150
Housekeeping - £25
Council Tax - £15
Gas - £10
Electric - £10
Water - £10
Virgin Media - £12 ( includes TV, internet, mobile and landline phone )
Car insurance - £8
Car repairs, tax etc - £9
Fuel - £60 ( this varies wildly over a twelve month period )
Maintenance - £15 ( this too will be going up shortly, based on an old assessment )
Football (season ticket, training and match fees) - £18
Debts - this I will cover tomorrow on my debts post. I have around £6 - £7k of debt that needs to be cleared. Some of it is priority debt, i.e council tax and water while others will just be token payments for the immediate future.

TOTAL OUTGOINGS - £342

On the face of it, not the worst SOA you've ever seen but the irregularity of the payments plus my semi-dependency on benefits plus my terrible wasting of cash in my pocket leads to my current plight. Four times a year I have sufficient money in my pocket, eight months of the year and I'm often down to my last pound.:eek: . The next twelve months will make-or-break the next four or five years; it is vital I learn to budget, work hard and do well.

Smart_Mart

Right, good morning. Here is the rather sobering list of debts that I have. They total £6,872.85 hence the slight edit in my previous post...:eek: . In order of size and not of importance...

CSA - £3,041.27 ( this is from eight years ago. I have previously disputed owing this with them, even the children's mum agrees I don't owe that much ) but to no avail...the bailiffs are currently considering action if amount not paid in seven days.

Council tax - £941.50 - the bailiffs are involved here too. They have served two notices but won't accept a payment arrangement unless I let them in to do a levy of distress.

Provident - £746.00
Bristol Water - £713.07
British Telecom - £588.96
Nationwide - £422.00
Three - £189.00
Council tax(2) - £100.00
British Gas - £59.05
Auto Direct - £50.00
Sky TV - £21.00

Told you it was bad...:eek: . I also owe EDF for gas and electric but they're being paid off through the meters I have for both utilities. I put a tenner on each every week and part of it comes off the debt. Pretty much all of the above creditors are accepting token payments of a pound a month just to keep things running although there will be pressure to increase these later in the year.

There you go, fill your boots! :rolleyes:. Have also started using an A4 hardback book to record my plans, targets and thoughts in an attempt to organise myself and keeping everything in one place.

Smart_Mart

Well that was an underwhelming day if ever I've had one.

I've barely spoken to a soul all day ( bar a five-minute call from my boys' football coach ); haven't spent anything either and pretty much haven't even opened the front door...:rolleyes: . A NSD to start with but not a wasted day. I wrote a 625-word article for the football programme, sorted out more than 500 envelopes for next week's catalogue delivery, got three letters to creditors typed up, emailed the lady who offers out the paper rounds asking for two more and did a little more paperwork. Was good on the diet too.

I'm picking DS2 and DS3 up at 2.00pm tomorrow for the weekend:j , I've got a job booked in the morning and the evening and it's shopping day so I'll be leaving the house tomorrow at least!

Smart_Mart

Another good start to the day. Did my first job of 2009 then popped into Asda to do the weekly shop. Spent £19.85 in total saving £1.32 on the multibuy savings. I've decided this is going into a pot towards next year's Christmas savings and my target will be £75. I generally spend around £150 on presents so the thought of having 50% of it saved up somewhere will be incentive enough...;)

Put £10 on to both the gas and the electric too meaning t'will be a warm weekend with the boys...:D

Smart_Mart

Just thought a short post of who I am, what I'm about, might be in order for those who didn't follow my previous aborted diary.:rolleyes:

• I'm a single man of 40 who lives in Bristol
• I work as a self-employed courier for several different companies including Home Delivery Network, another courier and a florist ( once a year on Valentine's Day )
• I have four children. DS1 is 17 and goes to sixth form in Dorset as well as working in his local Somerfield. DD1 is his sister and is 13, they're both from my marriage. DS2 and DS3 are never far apart as they are eight-year-old identical twins, living near me. That relationship failed too. They come over once during the week and every weekend from 3pm Friday till Sunday afternoon.
• I am a supporter's rep for my boyhood football team Yeovil Town. This involves meeting with the club's board once every two months and discussing incentives and ideas. I also write three articles for every matchday programme.
• The twins play for an under-eights football team. I help coach them but my principle responsibility is refereeing the games, running their website, collecting the match and training fees. It's quite good socially as some of the parents come to a weekly quiz where any prize money gets ploughed into the club. We're £200 up after eighteen months now...:T

Smart_Mart

Not too much else happened after my earlier post.:rolleyes: . Spent £1.80 on five stamps and that's been it. Picked the boys up at 2.00pm for the weekend and we've stayed in all day since.

Seaxwyn

What a great first post! I could join you on most of those goals. I've always enjoyed reading your diaries and look forward to this one too!

Good luck with relaunching yourself as a writer. It has to be better to write for magazines than deliver them.

Smart_Mart

Another quiet day today. Spent just a tenner today on gas. Meter seems to be eating it at the minute...:rolleyes:

Football training this morning for around an hour and a half then back home to the house for the rest of the day. Nothing much planned tomorrow either....:D

Edited for poor memory: Football training for the boys was £3.00 the pair.