Smart Mart - Health, wealth and happiness

Smart_Mart

Good day on the whole today although I've been running on auto pilot since about 8pm as the late night last night catches up with me.

Off to bed soon to catch up on some sleep.

Made a SMART decision today not to go to the football club tomorrow and work from home instead. I'm also going to report on the match on Saturday from the radio commentary. It's not ideal but needs must in this case. Staying at home on both days will save about £75 (petrol and matchday tickets) and make the weeknd a little more bearable. The weather forecast is a little inclement this weekend so I might try and squeeze in a game of golf on Saturday morning to get the kids out in the fresh air.

Spent £5.01 in Tesco's today and a tenner on petrol.

Tomorrow will hopefully bring more energy and a desire to get stuff sorted before Christmas. Four weeks tomorrow is New Years Eve and I'd like to be settled and organised by then if at all possible.

Smart_Mart

Not quite sure why I didn't update the diary yesterday...., ah well!

Delivered two lots of papers today then went shopping in Sainsbury's (trying to get into the habit of shopping in reward card places like Sainsbury's & Tesco) and spent £20.82 in total, well down on normal as I only went on Monday. Stuck £10.00 on the gas card too so all cosy for the weekend.

Boys and I went to their school Christmas fayre after school. I gave them £3.00 each and their mum gave them a fiver so they bought some cakes, some books and toys etc. They had a few goes on the raffle too and won two bottles of wine, some xmas wrap, a snazzy candle thing, a box of biscuits and something for a bikini line (that'll be useful...:rolleyes:). Still, I have some alcohol to share New Years Eve with...

The media manager offered me an ad-hoc job sorting out some community trust work this afternoon and wants me to start as soon as possible. It might be worth £500 to me and there's a small possibility it might even pay by Christmas which would be a godsend. Discussing it with him on Thursday or Tuesday if I can get down sooner.

Also, a helpful fellow poster on here from the self-employed thread has given me the name of a website where freelance writers can bid for work and she even found a perfect project on there too. Joined yesterday and have bid for one project already so fingers crossed that things might move along on that score soon.

Dusted off the Christmas tree tonight, found some tinsel and have slightly trimmed up tonight. Need lights, need baubels and need crackers to make it look nice but I'm beginning to feel Christmassy at last.:T

Smart_Mart

The rain held off long enough today for the boys and I to fit in a round of golf, our first for six weeks. Cost £10.55 for all three of us and no petrol to speak of and it gets us in the fresh air for two hours or so. Normally we go to football on a Saturday but after chatting with the media manager yesterday, he was happy for me to do the report from the radio commentary.

Speaking of which, he has also had a chat with the chief executive who has agreed to paying my petrol on games where "a lift is not feasible". This means that anything in the south east plus anywhere local to me will now attract a payment of 18p a mile. It's only peanuts but it will certainly help things. Ironically, if we'd gone today, it would have cost me £37 in petrol and either £14 or £32 in tickets, total cost of either £51 or £69.( this is because when I take the boys, I can't go in the media box so often have to buy my own ticket unless the other side give me a freebie). Today, I'd have got 47.16 back which would have been great.

Golf was the only spend for me today!:T

Smart_Mart

Had a good day yesterday. The boys won their football match 5-3 in the afternoon, a good result seeing as they haven't had a match for four weeks. The in the evening, we won the pub quiz after coming second three times in the last five weeks. We needed a tiebreaker to do it but answered correctly and won the £29 first prize...:beer::j:T

Quiz cost a pound and I picked up some bread, milk, sweetener etc from Tesco's too (£6.20) while I got some petrol too (£12.50).

Today, have already been out doing a regular courier job which I will repeat at 5pm tonight. Rest of the day is housework and looking after the website for the football club. Need to go to the recycling facility at some point too...

Smart_Mart

Quiet day really. Did the regular courier work this morning and this evening and the rest of the day spent working on the programme and the website. Interviewed an ex-player this afternoon and wrote the 600-word article pretty much straight away.:T

Bought some biscuits and £10.00 of petrol today.

Tomorrow sees me getting rid of some rubbish up the recycling facility (or tip as we used to call it) and working on the programme. Hopefully interviewing an ex-Premiership footballer tomorrow if he answers his email and getting a lot of paperwork done.

Smart_Mart

Today's spend was £6.30 on a mini-shop (coffee, eggs, salt, bread) plus £2.20 on four envelopes.

Nearly broke again for the week. WTC goes in tomorrow so will have about £44 to last the rest of the week. I'll need a tenner for gas tomorrow plus two trips to Yeovil so it will be a tight squeeze and that's before my shopping. Paying two lots of rent last month was morally the right thing to do but I wish now I'd only paid a month and a half. Ah well, it's a learning curve, I guess! :rolleyes:

Going to be a late night tonight. The Latvian footballer I put up last week is staying over again tonight but he's played a match tonight and won't be back here (well ten miles away) until 2am. Can't make my mind up whether to stay up or go to bed and his phone call wake me up.

Interviewed my ex-Premiership footballer as planned today and wrote the 900-word article tonight. I also proof read the programme too so have twenty pages of that to check before bedtime.

Smart_Mart

Having fun and games this week, all self-inflicted of course!:mad:

Virgin Media cut me off on Tuesday evening just after midnight so I'm writing this on my business laptop. They got fed up with me not being able to pay my bill of £60.99 and couldn't wait till Monday when I can pay it. My own fault for being such an idiot with money...:rolleyes:

Have now got about £20 to last me until Monday morning of which I have to get a little bit of shopping and get myself down to the match on Saturday. I can't start missing matches too regularly or people will start asking questions so I'm hoping £12 petrol will get me down plus £8 on shopping. Ah well, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger!!:D

I've spent £6.45 on bread, milk, coffee and a few bits and bobs and yesterday spent £3.24 on posting some correspondence.....

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

Hi Smart Mart, we are only human, so dont beat yourself up too much, although I completely empathise with that feeling of being cross with yourself! Have a good weekend and enjoy the match if you can get to it. Take care

scrooge2008

Hi Smart Mart,

Hope that the £12.00 gets you to the match. Wouldn't want you pushing your car home :mad:.

It's no wonder your struggling when your income has effectively halved in the last six months. Your SOA looked pretty tight to me, not a lot of room for cutbacks. I thought asking for travel expenses was a brave, yet wise decision, which paid off.

Have you brainstormed and come up with a business plan for 2010 to get you to your income goal?

I need to double my income too and will be busy organising an action plan over the next few weeks.

All the best.

Smart_Mart

Been a half-decent day today despite everything...:beer:

Firstly, should have added £7.00 gas on to Wednesday's spending diary. Reckon I can just about manage on that rather than a tenner. Went shopping this morning and spent £8.12 in total which leaves £12 and a few pennies for tomorrow's petrol. I actually have the winnings from last week's pub quiz in my wallet but I don't want to break into that as it should be shared with the other two too.

Rung DS1 this afternoon and got some present ideas for his sister and him. He also told me how to set up this laptop so that I type on it but the text comes up on my PC screen.... magic!!:T

The lady that organises the pub quiz emailed me earlier in the week saying she had a freezer going free if I wanted it so I picked that up today. First time I've had a freezer since I have been living alone (on and off, eleven years now). Need to put a plug on it on Monday but it's clean and tidy and ready to go. I had to reorganise the kitchen to fit in as my kitchen has only three sockets in total :eek:but it looks the bees knees now. Inadvertently, that's two rooms I've completely redone in the past week ready for the New Year. Spare room's next followed by my bedroom but I'm waiting for some cheap Ikea furniture to come up on gumtree.com.