The ultimate incentive proposed! Buying a house, a wedding, and staying debt free.

clearmydebts

Birdie85 wrote: »

Hi Everyone!

CMD, I'm really sorry to hear about your cousin, hope she and her OH are OK.

Tete, I'm shocked at the filth you're showing us! I dare you to take one to sewing class!

Dinah, just reading the stuff about your budgets and mobile phone costs, would it be worth getting Skype for NIM to use to talk to his family in Ireland? I don't really know much about it but I like the idea of free calls after the initial cost of getting the phones!

Pilchard, I'll have my fingers crossed for you when you go to New York!

Thanks Birdie

Cinny91

Morning everyone

I love that pin cushion Tete:rotfl: Oh god it gets better, it comes in leopard print! :rotfl:

Got up super early this morning to sort my kitty out, clean his bowl and get his breakfast all cut up. My sister comes skipping into the kitchen saying 'Mum and Dad are going to lend me £1000 so I can buy some limited edition *insert-designer-here* Shoes' :eek: I almost had a heart attack and dropped Pippins chicken tray on the floor. Seriously, 1k for a pair of boots? I'd be way too scared to even touch them, let alone wear them.

Right, so it's payday! Moved £83 into savings, paid £9 off my credit card. Have most of my direct debits coming out this week so things will be a bit tight, but I have £20 to last me the week and figure it's easily done?

ETA: Also! A Big Soppy Thanks to Dinah. Went shopping for some new tops yesterday and I'm actually a tad too small for size 12s now! I really wouldn't have done the weight loss thing if it wasn't for your challenge so thanks I'm feeling good!

Tete_en_l'Air

Morning Cinny and everyone! I didn't see the leopard print one! Yikes! Soo tired today as I was up until after 12 looking at fabrics online (seriously).

Yep that's a bit scary about the boots! I seem to wear shoes out really quickly too so wouldn't even get my money's worth! Well done for being too small for a 12! I hunted out my tape measure last night for sewing and took my measurements and I've lost 3ins off my hips since July! They're still over 40" though! :eek:

OK, lots to do today and am hoping for a bit of a flyer this afternoon so best crack on! Happy Friday everyone!

Poolie

Dinah93 wrote: »

Some of the fabrics are about £2 a metre, I have no idea how much we need though as on the back of the pattern everything is in yards!!!

they usually print one side in english and one in french. If you can work out the english side it will be the same place as the french. The french is always given in metres.

Poolie

Dinah93 wrote: »

Ask him. Otherwise no I can't see you managing on £50 a week at all to be honest!

I am lucky if I have £35 for the month let alone the week!

Poolie

In some excellent Money news!

Our electricity bill has just been generated and we are over £100 in credit. They are now going to half the DD to £27 per month! That will help out were other things have gone up.

I was only expecting a refund by can live with the £27 per month. If they try and double it in March will just get them to set it back to £54 for 6 months and build up the reserve again.

Will have to remember to keep sending meter readings over winter so I get an idea of how quickly we are using up the £100.

Dinah93

Pilchard wrote: »

As for New York, I will def keep you posted but if I know Ian he'll still manage to surprise me by doing something completely different cos he knows I'm expecting the engagement thing. I'm stalking you Dinah looking at venues you've looked at.....just in case.

Are you looking in the same area? We went to see another one last night, and NIM is really taken by it. The wedding coordinator there is AMAZING, by far the best we've seen and we can see how he could make it very easy. They also have a Saturday free next September. The rooms indoors are all nice, not Wynyard Hall standard but the best we've seen in our budget. Outside photos are limited, but there are some options down by the river, and there are places for indoor photos, even if fake roman baths isn't quite the look I would have chosen! They don't make you cater for the full party for the evening, so less expensive there, and they let you bring in any outside entertainment etc that you want. You can also choose to have 2 options on the menu rather than one, and people choose what they like, they are the first place we've seen that does this.

wendz86 wrote: »

I have been looking at my budget for October and I seem to have eaten most of it already oops. Might have to ban myself from buying clothes especially since its my birthday end of October and I expect my friends will get me vouchers as thats what we usually club together to get,

Yeah thats a trap I've fallen into, thinking 'its nearly payday' then being really short the next month and doing the same thing but worse. Glad NIM is taking over the money for a while so I can't keep overspending.

Birdie85 wrote: »

Tete, I'm shocked at the filth you're showing us! I dare you to take one to sewing class!

Tete I will pretend not to know you! Those felt peni are twisted and vile!

Dinah, just reading the stuff about your budgets and mobile phone costs, would it be worth getting Skype for NIM to use to talk to his family in Ireland? I don't really know much about it but I like the idea of free calls after the initial cost of getting the phones!

We looked into it, but we'd have to buy about 5 people a phone, and it gets expensive then!

It won't let me quote the next page at all, but you're welcome Cinny, I wouldn't have done it without the people on here to report to either. Also have an explanation for my 1lb gain, TOTM came early this month and I didn't realise thats what it was.

£1000 on footwear, thats insane! Have to be honest I wouldn't lend money for that, I'd make her save and waste her own cash!

Where have you found that does online fabric Tete? I found those patterns I bought in the charity shop this morning, there are a lot more than I remember buying! Must have about 12-14 patterns there plus the 4 I got yesterday. Now I need some material.

Poolie thats really handy thank you, just one question - how do you know this?!

Poolie - Tete goes out for dinner 3 times a week, if you have to get petrol and food for home out of this £50 as well I just can't see it happening.

Went out for dinner last night, it was absolutely superb, both had a mushroom soup (but there were some really interesting starter options, we just like mushrooms!), then I had pork with apriocot cream, and NIM had venison, wild mushroom, red wine and thyme casserole, with panna cota and strawberries and sticky toffee pudding as our puds. Had 2 soft drinks each, and came in at just under £30, very chuffed with that. We peered through the windows of the wedding room and its far too small, plus no gardens and really limited car parking, so not going to make an appointment for there.

We have a new budgetting technique to help NIM keep track of the money. We're setting up an email addy for spends, and everytime one of us spends something, we email this address with what it was and how much, then he can add it onto the spreadsheet every few days or something.

Oh and other money news, we're going to skip a month on some payments for things we budget for, like holidays, possibly car as well, we need to see how much money is in there as my insurance is due this month. By skipping some of these payments a month we should be able to clear the CC, meaning NIMs car will clear most of the OD and we should be back on track.

Poolie

Dinah93 wrote: »

Poolie thats really handy thank you, just one question - how do you know this?!

Poolie - Tete goes out for dinner 3 times a week, if you have to get petrol and food for home out of this £50 as well I just can't see it happening.

Look at the back of the pattern and you will see layout is the same on both the english and french/spanish side. All you have to so work out what size you are in english and the look at the corresponding column in french.

You have to work what which clothing item you are making with the pattern as it will different parts for different things. You then need look at the back and work out how much material for each bit. Total it up (add a bit extra for mistakes) and then purchase the material.

This is how my OH does it.

£50 - I could see how that would be difficult. We are luckily if we got out twice a month. Plus petrol and food comes out of the joint account and not my account directly.

wendz86

How exciting about the wedding venue Dinah, sounds great! Also I think that is a great idea to skip the payments and pay off the cc.

Cinny - £1000 for boots!! I wear shoes out really quick as well so would be wasted on me.

The meal last night was good overall. We went to Gaucho and the food was gorgeous. Unfortunaelty we were a bit pushed for time and we were given our desert menus and then had no server for twenty minutes so by the time they came over to ask us we had no time for desert. They brought my sister over a free desert anyway with her name on etc which was nice but they had the cheek to say the management would like you to move to the bar area obviosuly because we weren't spending enough. They didn't seem so quick to get rid of us when we were waiting to order desert. Sisters OH was very annoyed by it all.

Then we went to Oxo tower for some cocktails as we were meeting sisters friends. They were really yum, a bit pricey but I didn't have to pay yay. I managed to stay within my set budget for the evening as well which is good news.

Birdie85

Well done on the shrinkage Cinny! I'm only a teeny bit smaller than I was at the start, about 6-7lbs down- not nearly enough! I'll be back to where I was at the start now after I had some birthday cake and a cookie at work and sticky toffee pudding at my parents house yesterday!

I saw this article last night and I was mortified- http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Chain_pizzas_are_loaded_with_fat_and_salt&in_article_id=742524&in_page_id=34
I think I'm going to have to start favouring Pizza Express over Pizza Hut from now on- I'm gutted!

Pay Day for me, whoop whoop! I'm going to take the money I need for this weekend out of my account and give my card to OH for safekeeping! I'm a bit gutted about how much I got, my overtime wasn't entered onto the system correctly so I've only been paid 4 hours (should have been 9.5!) and after all the extra tax I'm only about £15 better off! I think OH's tax has been a bit mixed up too- this is his first proper paycheck from work since coming back and he's paid £600 in tax! I think he's in a for a rebate as he's been paying tax the entire time he's been on SSP, but I'm not sure if he should have been or not? Any ideas?!