Carry on Questing

Bowski_1011

Lula-Hula wrote: »

The amazingly excellent news is the 'so-far-way-under-budget-it's-almost-doing-a-limbo-dance' electricity bill.

It's amazing because it's real - the guy took a reading, & its excellent because it now means that I have another £100 to lob at Barclaycard this month :dance:

I hereby declare that by the end of this year Barclaycard will be under £2,000 & the total debt under £5,000.

Brilliant :j Brilliant :jBrilliant :j

Clearly I'm really pleased for you

Do tell us about your admirer.....

Lula-Hula

Thanks for the encouragement girls :A

as you both know, my diary is a place of extremely serious financial matters only :rotfl:so any news about men will be posted on the SAID thread, no exciting man news though - I am a woman on a mission to be debt free. Have calculated that for each man I get involved with, it costs me about £1200 a year :eek:

I simply cant afford men at the moment :rolleyes:

Lula-Hula

Good morning & it's a fabulously bright & sunny one here.

DD was off to school at 8.15 which means I was on the pc by 8.30 discovering that, yes Crapital One have prepared my e-statement & yes the interest has gone up again :mad:. It's only by 15p but that's not the point. It makes me very mad & do silly things.

By 9.00 I was in the post office paying cash into the current account in order to pay some bills .

By 9.10 I was in the craft shop throwing away a NSD on a new scribble pad & 2010 diary. Man asked if I was sure I wanted one already Oh, yes, I like to be organized.

Well, that's my stationery fix over for the day. so home again by 9.30 & electricity bill paid by 9.40.

Crapital One bill paid by 9.50 & I am ashamed to say that I couldnt birng myself to just pay the minimum, of £62.33 or whatever, I had to pay £71.78 which brings my balance to an extremely neat & tidy £2,000 :rolleyes:.

Now that all my balances are at nice neat rounded up figures I am happy . A tidy Barclaycard at £2,350, a slighly more neat freak Crapital One at £2,000 & an OMG-I-have-an-OCD-&-this-is-minimalism-gone-way-out-of-control Co op at £1,000 :rotfl:

I am currently fighting the evergrowing urge to transfer Crapital One over to Barclaycard but not sure how much longer I can hold out for ... as with co op card, it's now another 6 weeks until I am due to make another payment.

On another note, please could someone explain the following to me :

Carribean Week at DDs school next week; & as the proud owner of one child I am asked to 'voluntarily' contribute £5 towards their activities - steel drums, tie dye t-shirts & learning how to skin up etc - however, if I had another child at the school I only have to pay an extra £2 for that one.

Is the second child not going to participate in some of the activities ?


So for only having one child I have to pay an extra £1.50 to cover the costs of those who have 2 . Hmmm I think not :mad:. I might have failed my maths O level but even I can work out that half of £7 is £3.50 not £5. They get two lots of child benefit & if they qualify, extra Tax Credits for having two children, so why the flying duck should I have to pay more than them per child ?

Answer : I dont & wont

moo2moo

If its a voluntary contribution you don't have to pay it. Its down to you to decide whether or not to pay it all or some of it or none whatsoever. You shouldn't be asked to subsidise a family with multiple children. Tis madness. School should have divided the total cost per head and asked for that amount per child.

Lula-Hula

Thanks for your opinion Moo, I've never yet baulked at a voluntary donation, but this is the second time that those with just one child in the school have been penalised & I think I've had enough now.

Have had 'financial' overview from the school & just realised that in 6 months I need to start paying for the Year 6 trip - £375 :rolleyes: My plan is to save a few ( 5 actually) months of Child Benefit towards this & then stash the cash in DDs savings account thereby earning a bit of interest for her & not having to pay any tax on it.

I've been spending some quality time with my calculator & new pad & have worked out - roughly - that if I can pay £200 to Barclaycard every month then I can clear it within a year If the 6.9 % deal is still on offer at that point - unlikely, but lets be optimistic - & I then transfer whatever is left on Capital One & Co op CCs then I can be debt free by May 2011 which would be sublime.

Of course this achingly brilliant & cunning plan will only work if :

1) I dont have to put anything else on the cards - at all
2) I can maintain those payments.
3) I dont get fed up with being on a mission.
4) I dont get sidetracked by a man.

You may place bets on which one strikes me down first.

Lula-Hula

Good eveing to all,

Have had a pretty good day today; I earned enough from home-job to top up the funds & pay for a week's grocery shopping.

Work-job is still fun & even though I'm not totally with it yet, I'm definitely getting more knowledgeable. I was also relieved to learn that half my techie problems have been caused by the ancient laptop I've been using, it's been condemned & I should be getting a desktop soon

I had 3 coffees at work so am making the most of the freebies

Rent statement has revealed that I am about 3 weeks in credit so I've altered the standing order slightly so I'll pay a bit less each week, no point my money sitting in someone elses account.

After school DD & I went to Waitrose & although I confess to not having bought much food for scratch cooking, I did only spend £28.04. the best bargain was a bag of 4 rolls for 19p which I had 2 of & along with a cup a soup means that my supper tonight only cost about 26p.

I also spent £16.97 on christmas presents online, earning a free gift, free delivery & £3.80 in cashback

I've been checking up on my survey accounts & now have 2 that can pay out £10 vouchers. I havent ordered them yet though as I cant work out what to have. I might be a shellfish & use them for treats for myself (eg M&S or Amazon vouchers which will stop me from spending cash which could be used for CC repayments. I budget for presents so they're not really costing me anything extra.

I'm planning to go shoping for some new work trousers at the weekend & will try to shop around & not come back with anything extra ...
but when I still have a whole £10 left out of my clothes budget, it will be very tempting :rotfl:

Horace

Why not get some M&S vouchers and use them to buy some new work trousers?

Don't get me started on shopping - I meant to go to tatco today but it was raining and I refused to leave home:eek: I will have to go out tomorrow and go to the petrol station to fill up as I have another week of meetings to look forward to:rolleyes: I am on a mind mapping course on Monday so will only have to contribute towards lunch but am dreading it because I have to drive back from Stourport on Severn in the dark:eek: Mind you, I have to get to Stourport on Severn without getting lost:eek:

Nooo don't get a man...you will have to relinquish your tv remote:eek:

Lula-Hula

Bonsoir & 3 cheers for it being friday & therefore Pink Elephants Unlimited day

I had a flurry of activity first thing this morning; sending in my £3.50 'voluntary contribution', hoovering & changing the bedding & then jumped in the car to whizz off for a very large & leisurely cappucccino with my lovely friend. 2 hours & £4.40 later I had an hour & half to kill before collecting DD & Bessfriend from school & decided to go on the hunt for work trousers.

On the way home I stopped off at nearby ultra posh village to have a rummage in the charity shop. There was a very odd late-middle-aged woman in there; dripping with Chanel - earrings, sunglasses, bag etc but the overall effect was 'do as you likey' rather than class - particularly the wet-look leggings :eek:

It really put me off wearing other people's cast off trousers, so I headed off to reliably comfortable ( & new ) M&S where I eventually managed to find a pair of black almost-jeans style ones for £15. Horace, your advice is good but it could take 28 days for voucher to arrive & I need trousers now, so will use vouchers to boost Clothes Challenge allowance next year Fear not, this a man-free zone & is likely to remain that way for the forseeable future

I am not tall - 5ft 4" but I have to buy long length trousers & jeans in order for them to look acceptable with boots & heels, makes me wonder where taller people buy theirs . The changing room 360 degree mirrors were not flattering & I am now prepared to live on cereal & cup a soups in order to lose that weight. I am not liking how I look at all; disgusting :mad:

Tomorrow we need to head off into town as I need to have my contact lenses check so will have to spend money on parking, & DD is off to sleepover birthday party so we need to buy a present as well. I am hoping that maybe sunday will be a NSD.

I've done another You Gov survey - only another 3785 points to go until pay out :rotfl:- & received £6.50 of Tatco vouchers. In the same way that we are meant to add up how many hours we have to work in order to pay for a treat; I add up the clubcard points & convert them into how many £s I had to spend in order to receive those vouchers. I know that everyone thinks it's great that the points can be converted into 'deals' but I just view this as a cynical marketing ploy to get people to spend more in there on stuff they dont want or need in order to get better deals :mad:. Has anyone else noticed that you dont get vouchers for extra points on value or fairtrade products :rolleyes: I shall probably spend mine on fuel - another necessary evil.

Well that's tonights cynicism delivered, so I shall now retreat & wonder why I've had a letter from the local authority to say that I have overpaid Council Tax & they only want another £18 from me rather than the £108 that I was expecting to pay

I fully expect them to change their mind in a couple of months time & demand it all back again, quick before the year end but for now will just pass it on to Barclaycard :T

G'night
xx

Bowski_1011

Evening Lula... Not very often people get nice letters about council tax, sounds good though and will look even better when you see your B'card balance go down quicker! Although I do agree they'll probably come back for it at some point but at least you might aswell pay it off the card for now and pay less interest.

Sounds like you've had a nice day.... good for you. I love seeing friends for a brew.

So a child free night for you tomorrow... do you have any plans?

Lula-Hula

Hey hun,

how's you & the annoying car ?

the sleepover was sprung on me yesterday so havent had a chance to plan anything. I have a single friend nearby who would probably be up for a night out, but I'm a bit of hermit in winter, dont really like going out when it's cold, wet etc & have no money to spare anyway so will probably either make a start on decorating ( yeh, yeh :rolleyes:) or be totally lazy & have a bath at about 5 o clock, jump into my jamas & spend the evening on the sofa with the remote :rotfl: