2009 New Years Resolution-MFW Diary

SmlSave

Cold, Cold..this is no cold I tell you, its major man flu!! It must have been the office party though;). If only GG hadn't egged us on.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Tesco_points_addict

I'm bored!!!!!!!!!!

TPAx

PS thanks for the kids words and laughter!:rotfl:

SmlSave

Me too, even though there's loads to be done

What games could we play?

SmlSave

Sorry, I'm logging off now to go home and get changed for the party

Tesco_points_addict

Blooming ek woman, 2 minutes you gave me, then you said...nah nah nah i'm off to a party..well to you!

Now the charming Mr Darling has shot me a bad arrow

1. No pay rise:mad:
2. Higher National Insurance:mad:
3. Government pay less into my pension:mad:

Anyone else fair off any better?

TPAx

SmlSave

Blooming ek woman, 2 minutes you gave me, then you said...nah nah nah i'm off to a party..well to you!

Sorry hun will you forgive me?

Don't forget...

4. VAT back up to 17.7%
5. Stamp Duty back down to £125,000

taka

Tesco_points_addict wrote: »

Blooming ek woman, 2 minutes you gave me, then you said...nah nah nah i'm off to a party..well to you!

Now the charming Mr Darling has shot me a bad arrow

1. No pay rise:mad:
2. Higher National Insurance:mad:
3. Government pay less into my pension:mad:

Anyone else fair off any better?

TPAx

:think: Hmmmmm... Not all Mr Darling related but...

(1.) £600 Millions of cuts (sorry "savings" :rolleyes:) in the next few years across my sector. :mad: :mad: :mad:

(2.) Higher NI as of April 2011 :mad:

(3.) No tax allowance increase (guess we had it early this year... :rolleyes:)

(4.) VAT back to 17.5% as on Jan (could have been worse I guess) :mad:

(5.) Lower chance of charity funding for my job - charities have been hard hit by the recession and many are cutting back on research grants. :eek:

(6.) Looks like we may finally get the cost of living increase that was supposed to start @ the beginning of Aug - the unions look to have finally given up the fight for this year so its the 0.5% that was offered eons ago:rolleyes: :j Looks like we won't get it (+backdated) in until the end of Jan at the very earliest. :rolleyes:

(7.) In the same short work newsletter as the cost of living rise announcement... a section pointing out that voluntary severance was always part of the normal business processes and if anyone had any questions about it talk to your line manager! :eek: (due to no (1) I guess... :eek:)


(8.) Also in the same newsletter was something about them changing our holidays.

• Cut 5 public holidays -get rid of Good Friday, Spring holiday (mid April), Victoria day and the day after (who else on the planet gets 2 days for Victoria day?? ) and Autumn holiday (Mid Sept) and retain the other 4 public hols we get over Xmas/NY.
• We've been allowed to move some of the holidays for a couple of years. The September holiday is often on the 1st day of the new academic year so rubbish timing and the Victoria day ones were utterly random! :rotfl: I guess it impacts on those who now have to work these days where they used to get time (and a half) in lieu or overtime but in my area no-one ever did and we all (with our line manager's support ) informally swapped the days anyway!
• Give us an extra 6 days annual leave instead! A gain of 1 day!:j :rotfl::beer: :j

Tesco_points_addict

SmlSave wrote: »

Sorry hun will you forgive me?

In a word...NO!:p

Wow Taka you certainly made notes! I hadn't even noticed the 'no tax allowance increase':mad:

Here we are trying hard yet theres always some-one out there to try and scupper our plans:mad:

I have a confession, no suprise to those of you that read regularly....I have spectacularly failed the 2 days spend/22 days no spend challenge...set by myself:p.
I blame my man flu..being home alone and bored I have been frequenting the 'Grabbit' boards. So in summary, a lap top, the grap it boards, a bored ill TPA and a credit card = spending! Not hundreds but enough over a few days. Well there was the Asos offer, then the Wii game......... you getting the idea??
On a brighter note the no alcohol challenge is going swimmingly, only one evening with a bottle of wine so far. As I set myself a limit of 4 I should do this one!

TPAx

setmefree2

note to self "don't frequent the grabbit board"

Well done on your Alcohol freeness :T:T

Tesco_points_addict

Afternoon all, well the new year is not far off, so i'm in need some more challenges for me to fail spectacularly:eek:

I have been reading back the start of my diary, I especially like the bit where I say I will not buy any wine this year!!! Who was I kidding!:rotfl:

Also said;
Don't look through the Avon book when it comes through the door...therefore no impulse buying -I think I managed this one!:j
Buy NO magazines in 2009-Almost managed this one:j
Cut down on takeaways........1 a month at most (hubby not going to like this one!) - Failed this one spectacularly. although hubby has to take most of the blame for this - still had a lot less takeaways is 2009 compared to previous years.
Hubby and I to take lunch to work at least 3 days a week- hmm, some weeks we both took lunch all week, others none at all, it may well average out over the year....just!

Put any extra money away...such as ebaying, Birthday money etc-hmm, now I tended to use this money for day to day expenses rather than withdraw from the bank, so in a roundabout way it was saved:o

We did manage to save/offset a lot more than I ever thought possible, i'm not quite sure how...but we did it:j. Secretly I am hoping to be MF before our estimated date of my 40th...but there again in 2010, as I have already mentioned, we really MUST do some bits and peices around the house, so we will have more household expenses than last year.
That said, after reading weezls new diary I realise we should be able to cut our grocery bill at least in half:rolleyes:! I am going to keep reading her diary and get lots of cooking tips. Hubby and I are both useless at cooking from scratch and more often than not we eat convenience food:o. I must find out how much the slow cooker costs to run.

I am also going to put the electricity meter 'do dah' on the dishwasher to see how much this cost us, having said that I'm not sure it's something I would be willing to give up, but I might once I know how much it costs!

Do any of you bulk buy meat? If so where is the best place? Somewhere like Costco? I don't want meat such as cheap battery chickens, so this is a bit of a difficult one.


At the begining of 2009 we were offsetting at 2.59%, since then or rate has dropped to 1.09%:j...hmm dread to think what will happen with that rate in 2010.

Anyway enough rambling for one evening, (it was afternoon when I started this post!) I'm off to find the electricity meter do dah!

TPAx