Raquela's Diary

Raquela

Hello everyone, I've been on here a while, but am a somewhat sporadic poster!
I had my LBM years ago, but I think it was only a 40 watt bult, and a 160 watt was needed! I made the decision to go to university which added to my debt significantly, as a grad loan I got to pay for a professional course ended up being used to live off, after I was ill, and subseqeuently gave my job up as was too stressful, then lost the job I got when I relocated due to the credit crunch and other than the fact that I paid the bills, ate etc with, I have nothing at all to show for that money (except the cheap ikea furniture I purchased to furnish my flat!).

I don't want to be all 'woe is me' though! Part of me thinks I should have stayed doing the course I was doing, but I hated every second of it, and I couldn't see that it was going to get me anywhere thanks to the credit crunch (again). Illness meant I had to defer for a year anyway, and now the money isn't there to re-enroll if I wanted to (which I don't!).

I now have a job which is better paid than anything previously I've had - it's still not enough once I have to start paying my grad loan off, however, and the bigger catch is it's ongoing temp. Which isn't necessarily an issue, but I do worry I'll get the phone call telling me not to come back the next day - it's happened before! I am working for a good employer though, and am hopeful that it might lead on to other things.

I have relocated to a much nicer place, and am living in a lovely house, and am very happy where I am; I've noticed that this has had a major impact on me; I no longer have the urge to spend! I finished work early on Friday and went into town meaning to buy a laptop bag that I'd had my eye on, went to look at, examined it thoroughly, realised I didn't want to buy it at all, or anything else for that matter! Could have gone straight home and saved myself the £2 parking!

In the interests of fullness, here is my statement of affairs:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1227
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1227

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 475
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 71 (but 10 months standing order at £85)
Electricity............................. 22 (this is gas as well. I think this may go up come winter)
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 17
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 35 (in contract til Feb - then I will end it as no signal where I live!)
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 12
Groceries etc. ......................... 90 (I actually budget for £80, but include an extra tenner for snacks/coffee etc on evenings out. I don't drink or smoke)
Clothing................................ 10 (don't actually spend this, I barely buy clothes. However, am going to 'envelope' this amount for when new work clothes required)
Petrol/diesel........................... 150 (car is hungry, work is 36 mile round trip. Not feasible to bus it)
Road tax................................ 15
Car Insurance........................... 37 (hope will go down next year; I had no NC due to not owning a car for a while)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 15
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 7.5 (thank you safe county and Confused.com!)
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10 (again, 'enveloping' this)
Entertainment........................... 20 (I realised that not budgeting any was responsible for naughty spending. Let's see if I even get to £20! My only night out atm is knitting night! Occasionally go to gigs at pubs etc, but they are usually free, and my drink of choice, lime and soda, isn't exactly expensive! My new library is great for books, and it's not often that I want a DVD etc.)
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 15(I know this could be going to my debts, but not having any emergency funds was one of the reasons I got further into debt over the last 12 months)
Total monthly expenses.................. 1038.5


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 650
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 650

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Cahoot.........................4092......120.......0 (on a DMP)
Natwest CC.....................450.......10........0 (will dig out statement and have a look. I think it's a fair bit though.
Natwest OD.....................1787......0.........0 (was a student overdraft)
Natwest Grad Loan..............23000.....0.........7.5 (will double check interest. No payments til Jan 2010, then I have to find an extra £340 a month to pay this - eek)
Total unsecured debts..........29329.....130.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,227
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,038.5
Available for debt repayments........... 188.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 130
Amount left after debt repayments....... 58.5

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 650
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -29,329
Net Assets.............................. -28,679

Created using the SOA calculator at https://www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using Firefox browser.

I am looking into doing Arise part time for some extra money (not that hopeful though, considering some of the reports!), but also researching starting my own part-time Virtual Assistant/PA business for some extra money, the idea being that if I was to lose my temp job whilst the economic climate is still bad I might be able to do the Virtual Assistant thing full time and not have to go on benefits. I also do Slice the Pie (am also on it as an artist! - wonder if any of you have reviewed me!), opinion surveys, and am trying to get the mystery shopper thing going. I also ebay / amazon marketplace my excess stuff (too many CDs!); I usually make around £10 a month from doing this (it's included in my income).

So that's me! Any comments on my SOA gratefully appreciated, but I don't think there's a lot of room for manouveure really. I could get my food budget down lower with even better meal planning, but working full time and living alone, I just don't have the time, and am usually too knackered after work to cook properly during the week (I batch cook on weekends). I do have an SOA for January when I have to start paying the Natwest grad loan, when all the savings payments will have to stop (the £35 a month mobile money will go to that too), but it doesn't add up to £340 a month, so I will unfortunately have to redo my DMP.

At the moment, as there is a little surplus I am making payments to the OD, and paying over on the CC.

Raquela

PS - forgot to say! It sounds like I regret going to uni, I absolutely don't - best thing I ever did! And hopefully the actually having a degree bit will pay off eventually!

Also - yesterday was a no spend day . Today may also be, but I've run out of milk for coffee and don't like it black. I may try making a soya milk latte so I don't have to go and get any though ;-). Already had 3 No spend days so far this month, and I'm not even doing the challenge - think I should next month!

hypno06

Hello!

Whilst your SOA seems pretty realistic, you can still do things to either help get rid of the debt quicker, or to provide you with a bigger savings buffer.

You say that you are doing slicethepie, amazon, ebay etc but you are only getting £10 a month from this.....

Join the £10 a day thread and you will see that there is a huge potential to make a whole lot more - even if you only made £5 extra a day, that is approx £150 a month that you would have extra. That is a long way towards making your books balance once the grad loan kicks in, and in the meantime you can make a good start at savings, just in case the job ever ends unexpectedly.

Raquela

Grrr, just lost my post!!

Let's try again! Yes, I've been on the £10 a day challenge before, but to be honest, I have no idea how people do it, unless they can work overtime! I have neither the time or patience to do the clicks. I do surveys, but so far this month have made £3.60 only (Pine Cone and Pure). Plus I wouldn't want to count money as made until it's in my hands or bank account! I don't do cashback sites etc because I don't buy anything - I used it for my insurance etc, but that's about it. Can't do overtime either as a temp (and can't see that they would ever need it anyway!). So at the moment, the only real extra money I am making is from Amazon/ Ebay sales, and unfortunately I've sold all the good stuff! These days I'm lucky if I sell a CD or book a week - that said, I did get notified I'd sold a DVD box set yesterday, so that's £20! CDs/books/dvds I always list on Amazon unless they aren't catalogued on there, have nothing to Ebay right now. I'm amazed that people manage to make an extra £10 a day to be honest! I also have a blog and google adsense, but apparently not very well as haven't made a penny yet, oh dear!

Got to go and do my Arise training now... if that ever pans out, that will get me my £10 extra a day hopefully!

hypno06

I don't get paid overtime either......but I do.....

• ebay and amazon
• use quidco....look at the "no spends required" thread on MSE. For example, sign up to a magazine free trial, get £10 cashback, and cancel the subscription before they ask for payment details.....
• do free scratchcards. See the thread on the gambling board
• play free bingo on occasion (in the past this has provided me with a lot of money)
• some people do bingoport to get amazon vouchers
• do a bit of matched betting
• mystery shopping
• write reviews on dooyoo (others do ciao, qype etc) - I manage to get about £50 a month extra from this...

It does take time and effort, but it can make a big difference to whether you break even at the end of the month or not!

Raquela

ooh, I wonder if I can access doyoo at work.... will try tomorrow. I work for the constabulary and they block pretty much everything... can understand why, but when I don't have enough work to do its pretty annoying!

I'm taking a break from the Arise training whilst my other computer downloads the software it needs, so can't do anything anyway... so reading some of the threads you suggested, and then thought, hey wasn't I a member of quidco? Just logged in - I have £7 sitting in there I didn't know about!!:rotfl:and that's after the membership fee (that I also didn't know about!). I did think about writing some ebooks and trying to flog them on Ebay, but never got round to doing it (old lack of time again!). Basically revision guides for law - guess I'd need to market them to the students to get any bids though (and of course write them first ;-) )


Bit more info about me to anyone else who might stumble in here - I am a thirty something single gal living in the beautiful Norfolk Broads, I work in admin, did law at university (but don't want to be a lawyer as my first post may have indicated!), am a singer-songwriter in my spare time (but have never made any money from this sadly - spent a lot out though :rolleyes:), read a lot, knit a lot (my other passion besides music), and oddly, love audio typing in a job. So if I do jump the bullet and set up as a virtual/freelance PA/assistant, that's what I'll be specialising in. My current job has no typing . I think I like typing because it improves my dexterity and speed for playing the guitar. Either that or I'm just a big geek

No pets, no kids, but I'd love to get a couple of cats or a little dog (I love chihuahuas, but not to be carried around as an accessory) if I do work from home in the future.

hypno06

Is it the lack of time.....or is it just a case of needing a kick up the backside.....?

I'm a Norfolk gal too, btw.......

Re the audio typing - get yourself advertised at the UEA for the start of term.......dissertations to be typed, that sort of thing. I used to do this several years ago, and got £7 per 1000 words. Easy money for accurate work!!!!

Raquela

grrr, can anyone tell me which button on my laptop I'm hitting which is making me lose my posts!

This Arise training is taking so long (it's doing the computer checks. And is failing me on Java even though I have the latest version. It wants me to download their version of Java - which gives you an error message grrr...) I've brought my laptop in with me to browse here, browse the sites you've pointed me to, and review on slice the pie all at the same time! I also signed up for a free sim on quidco and an email newsletter getting me an extra £1.10 to add to that £7 I didn't know about! Maybe I could do this £10 (ok, let's start at £1 a day lol. :rotfl:) a day thing after all.

Norfolk too?! Small world!

hypno06

Even £1 a day would be three times what you are currently making each month.........:D

Fire_Fox

Welcome to diaryland!!

Looking at your Statement of Affairs the energy looks much too low - are you supplying regular meter readings? We were paying £26 for a two bed flat last year which included no heating at all the previous winter. Can you reduce the package on the mobile phone? Uusually it's possible 3 to 6 months before the end of the contract. I also think you should allow more for car maintenance.

Do you have a slow cooker? I absolutely luuurrrve mine!! It's possible to cook cheap meals with literally five minutes effort - a lump of cheap meat (turkey drumstick, lamb shoulder, pork mince, beef skirt), stock cube with water or a tin of tomatoes, frozen garlic, dried herbs, whatever veg you fancy, a handful of red lentils or pearl barley ... and switch on. If you leave the meat out and add extra liquid you have soup. :cool:

Raquela

Hi there, yes, I'm concerned the energy is too low too. I've not had a bill from them yet, and apparently can't set up my online log in to log meter readings until they send me one. I'm with Npower, they set the account up in May I think.

O2 won't let me reduce the contract even though they know I can't get a signal here... at least I can now get one where I work, so try to use my minutes then so I don't use my home phone as much.

I don't have a slow cooker though - very small kitchen and no space for one. I do however have a remoska (which my mum gave me, so free :T), which I use all the time. I don't think I'd use a slow cooker, because I can't deal with cooking / smelling food in the morning, makes me feel sick!

Can't allow more for car maintenance at the mo - but the money in the emergency fund will help. I bought it in May, and fingers crossed it will not need any attention til MOT time in March. It only cost me £650, so not expecting it to last too long, and not intending to spend much to keep it on the road. That said, it's a great car, starts first time every time, am really pleased with it!

Did 3/4 of my arise training, managed to keep today a No Spend Day again, cut my own hair (and it actually looks ok!!) using a tip of OS, so money on the budget for haircuts can go to the debts for a couple of months! Or can I count that towards the £10 a day challenge that I'm not doing?! I also made myself a lovely corn beef hash with plenty left for tomorrow, and spent an hour outside in the sun cloud watching - great free entertainment! Whilst doing my Arise training I was doing Slice the Pie on the laptop, but got really annoyed as I realised that they dropped me down to 1 star, whilst I was in a 2 star or above room, and so they didn't give me anything for about 10 reviews whilst I didn't notice. Went into another room, did a load more reviews, but haven't got my 2 star status back. Will never get to actual earning status at this rate! It's a good thing I like listening to music, that's all I can say!

Tonight I've been knitting whilst watching a film on telly - it was terrible, but quite funny. Princess Diaries 2. Spect that will remove any street cred I had remaining! Now early night ready for work tomorrow. Going to see if I can get on Dooyoo at work tomorrow - wish me luck!