Carry on Questing

Lula-Hula

Hello again,

I did post a couple of times during the week, but they were semi sober rants about work, clients, bosses & such, so I thankfully had the sense to delete them.

Work has been incredibly frustrating this week, Grumpy has been deliberately awkward & arrogant & I have not slept well as I'm too wound up, drinking far too much coffee, eating junk because I cant be bothered to cook & spending money on my Barclaycard .

I put the shopping on it last weekend, because I couldnt remember my debit card pin number but then neglected to pay it off immediately. I bought the cinema tickets on it, I filled the car up with fuel & of course I put DDs new bedroom furniture on it. I've been hunting for new car insurance on Quidco but then I got the renewal quote through from my current insurers, & even with quidco cashback, it's still £40 cheaper than any of the others. I decided not to pay an extra £20 by paying for it monthly, so also put that on the Barclaycard too. Next thing you know, I check my balance & it's £670 :eek:

So, here I am again:( & having finally got the balance down to under £3000, when I include Barclaycard & do the real calculations, it turns out I'm back up to £ 3630 :mad::mad::mad:

Anwyay, I've taken firm action; Uncle Richard is offering me another 0% until October 2011 if I do a balance transfer. I've applied for a £1000 increase on my limit in order to do the balance transfer which would then leave me with about £1300 for any of those mysterious 'emergencies' that never actually seem to occur - unless I can count random purchases & stupidity as an emergency ? No, I thought not .

IF I GET THE INCREASE, I WILL TRANSFER & CLOSE THE BARCLAYCARD. I'LL HAVE A WARM & COSY FEELING OF SECURITY THAT I STILL HAVE AN EXTRA EMERGENCY FUND .

IF I DONT GET THE INCREASE, I WILL STILL TRANSFER THE BARCLAYCARD BALANCE & CLOSE THAT ACCOUNT BUT JUST FEEL !!!!!! SCARED THAT I HAVE NOTHING TO SPEND ON [STRIKE]FRIVOLITIES[/STRIKE] EMERGENCIES _pale_.

Either way, I have to close that Barclaycard Account & only ever, ever, ever have one CC from now on.

I am a danger to my self

I've also bought more stuff from ebay - lovely new Dotty P top & Per Una skirt

Karmacat

Oh Lula! After all your work! Okay, fuel and annual insurance, its okay that you paid for those, they're not bad debt. Bedroom furniture for DD ... well, it wasn't **essential**, as these things go, but it was very much wanted by DD. Did you buy it in the best way you could? If not, take a slap on the wrist! Otherwise, how did you budget for it? The most important part of the description about what you're doing sounds like the first two paragraphs:

"I did post a couple of times during the week, but they were semi sober rants about work, clients, bosses & such, so I thankfully had the sense to delete them.

Work has been incredibly frustrating this week, Grumpy has been deliberately awkward & arrogant & I have not slept well as I'm too wound uup, drinking far too much coffee, eating junk because I cant be bothered to cook".

You've relaxed a bit, as we do as the debt goes down into comfortable numbers, and cos of how horrible work is as well, you've used 'orrible spending to get by - booze, coffee, junk ..... erm, I recognise this! I've done it too, and we all have.

How else can you cope? Exercise, a healthy treat, phone calls, meditation .... any of it?

(((((((((Lula)))))))))))


From KC
xxx

Lula-Hula

Lovely Karmacat - you are a wise & wonderful woman :A

The insurance was definitely worth the spend ( had alwyas planned to pay it in one hit rather than monthly) the fuel could have gone on my debit card but my memory froze again when I went to pay & was too scared of getting the pin number wrong again .

Actually buying the fuel was a 'logistically planned money saving exercise' . I didnt need to fill up when I did my Tatco shop at the beginning of the month & I dont go past a tatco fuelling station on my way to work & refuse to by anwhere else as I get nothing back for it.

Friday is usually my day off but as both Goblin & Highly Annoying have been on hol this week & I wanted everything to be in place when they return, I chose to go in on friday. ( + of course I'll get paid extra for doing so ) I left early to pick up the cinema tickets as I wasnt sure we would have enough time to queue after school. I then went home to have a quick snack & then picked up DD & friends after school. Took them to cinema, then to fast food outlet they love, but I refuse to eat in . Then had to drop a friend home who lives close to Tatco fuelling station so I decided to pop in there first, before taking DD & other friend back to our house, before then taking them to their club.

As I said, it's been a hectic week & still my back aches so I'm feeling a bit useless & today all I've managed to achieve is washing & tidying. I coudnt even face starting to paint the furniture I got from ebay last week .

DDs bedroom furniture was indeed a bargain KC It was £70 off the normal price & earned me some Quidco cashback too.

I am very good at saving up for things ( eg DDs school trip, childminding fees, holidays etc. I am also very good at paying over £100 a week towards clearing the debt. What I am NOT good at is realising that by paying out all my cash towards the CCs, I have none left to pay for necessary purchases such as groceries & fuel :doh:.

Tomorrow I need to buy DD some new school shoes, I also need to make another £50 payment towards the school trip this coming week. I can save the pennies, I just need to stop spending the pounds :mad:.

I've just finished the bottle of wine & need my bed.

I am aware that the spending is fulfilling a need, I'm just not ready to face up to what that need is yet.

Karmacat

Okay, sweetie, you know what's going on, but you don't want to look at it full-on right now. Thats okay, you know! There are consequences, of course, one of which might be a slightly delayed dfd ... but thats all right too. There's a huge vibe going round (my section) of the boards saying that we have to live our lives - I've been bad at working too hard, which is mostly why I'm ill again .... you're living your life, paying your way, providing for your DD - you know there's some stuff you need to sort out in the future, about why you spend, thats all.

Give yourself a good day today

xxx

taxi73

I have to agree with KC here..you are fantabulous hun x

Lula-Hula

Thank you both for your kindess :A.

Being incpacitated is clearly not good for my motivation or spending, thank goodness I'm nearly back to fully fit again.

Didnt sleep well last night, which is a sure sign of a troubled mind but I did wake up this morning knowing exactly what to do.

DD needed new school shoes, I needed to spend my Boots vouchers & earn some pointage & we also needed a few bits in Waitrose. So we 3 ( DD, Barclaycard & myself) went shopping. The shoes were £36.75, the spending in Boots was £44 & Waitrose was another £19.23.

So, another £100 on the Barclaycard, but that's it now. I'm all done with juggling cards & payments & pretending I dont have to live within a budget in order to clear my debt.

With or without a limit increase, I can still do the balance transfer & will then have just the one CC & my life will be so much simpler :j.

Looking back, getting a second CC was when it all started to go really wrong for me. Scary to think that this time last year I had 3 of them & could so easily have racked 4 times what I owe now _pale_.

It hasnt been all bad today;
I did return a pair of boots that I had bought on line so will have £32 coming back to my account. I also saved £20 in Boots with a 3 for 2 offer, earned £9 of points & now have enough skincare products to last me until the end of the year, which should help to keep me away from shops for a while .

I have also paid £60 to Virgin CC to tidy up the balance which is now a very tidy £2900.

Oops, didnt realise how late it is, thankfully have made lunches for tomorrow & the place is clean & tidy ish & all laundry & ironing done.

Next step is to make sure my back is fully recovered & then restart the exercising.

Ugh - work

night night
xx

Shoe_Gal

I need to start exercising too Managed the gym yesterday but I find it hard going during the week

Karmacat

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Thank you both for your kindess :A.

You're very welcome.

DD needed new school shoes, I needed to spend my Boots vouchers & earn some pointage & we also needed a few bits in Waitrose. So we 3 ( DD, Barclaycard & myself) went shopping. The shoes were £36.75, the spending in Boots was £44 & Waitrose was another £19.23.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

For the rest - you're right, there's some good news in there, good for you. And good luck with the exercising, I need to do that too. Dance classes when I can, gardening when I'm well enough, stretching and flexing - and even deep breathing - all help.

Lula-Hula

Hello ladies,

Shoe Gal, good to see you back here & KC, your very well thought out replies & views always give me something new to think about & are much appreciated. As it was heaving rocks around the garden that got me into trouble with my back, I can sympathise with only doing gardening when well enough. I do however, recognise just how energising it is to just get outside for afew minutes so have resolved to take the compost scraps down to the bin at the end of the garden every evening & sit for just a few mintues & just 'be' .

The main thing I'm not facing up to is my current social wilderness. Whilst, it does actually suit me at the moment, what with working 3 evenings a weeek & having DD, I am actually hiding behind both those convenient barriers . Never mind, this is how life is for now & I have good news.

It has been a NSD all day long.

Grumpy seems to have recovered his humour & spent a lot of the day trying to make friends & attention seeking :rotfl:

Highly-Annoying is back from holiday so I can let him get on with his job & get back to doing mine.

Goblin didnt come in til lunch time & has so much work to catch up on she'll not be bothering me for a while. I think the break has done her good, she seemd very energised.

I had a lovely text from Uncle Richard (ok, not him personally ) to say that he had considered my request & decided that I was indeed a fine & decent upstanding citizen etc etc & granted me my wish to have credit limit increased by £1000 :j:dance::j.

This means I can finally wave farewell to Barclaycard & only have the one CC to deal with . Many many trees will also be saved by this action. I get all my debt on 0% & have been pondering one final splurge ... I need a new pc/laptop & have one in mind that will also be useful for work.

Option 1:

I can either buy it now on the Virgin CC & enjoy 0% on my purchase until end of March, which is ok but means I'm very unlikely to clear the entire debt by then, although it would mean that the current balance transfer amount would be at 0% until October 2011. this option leaves me with very little 'credit safety net' for emergencies. Or

Option 2 :

I can buy it now on the Barclaycard & then complete the balance transfer to Virgin CC which will incur a small ( about £45 ) transfer fee, but will then be at 0% until October 2011. This option means I can still achieve my original goal of clearing the Virgin CC by March 2011 & would then give me another 6 months to clear the balance transfer ( at most £1500 including the new pc/laptop).

Clearly option 2 makes the most sense. However, I do have slight reservations in that I will be both increasing & prolonging the debt & also the time I will have to carry on with home-job - about 4-6 months. Given that if I clear the original Virgin CC debt by end of March 2011 as planned & then continue to make the same level of payments until the balance transfer debt is paid, it can be cleared by end of July which was my original required DFD (by the time DD) leaves primary school.

I have to admit that it would also give me some perverse pleasure by whacking a large purchase on the Barclaycard, them getting all excited about the future interest they'll receive & it then being whisked away from under their noses to a far more deserving CC:rotfl:


Any thought would be appreciated, I may well have missed some glaringly obvious flaw in my cunning plan .

Eek, look at the time again,

night night
xx

taxi73

I think option 2 is the most sensible answer especially if you need the item.
The social aspect of things is a hard one and i can totally empathise with you there.I need to work on that aspect of my life as since becoming ill have withdrawn myself somewhat.