Sparkle is sorting out her finances

mendedmyways

Hi Sparkle!
Just thought Id pop on here to say Hi!!
You have given me a few good ideas from your diary, and I think I will start separating out my wages between my 3 bank accounts, so I have one for bills and another for food, and the third one for.... mmmm not sure what I will put in there. Anyway im sure it will help me with my budgeting in the long term. Also will give me something to do with all these bank accounts I keep opening for the incentives!!!

sparkleisshopping

Hi Mendmyways hope things are going well for you

It's been a really good few days financially for me I rang Nationwide as I wasn't too sure how many payments I had left on my loan. I thought I had two left but I wanted to confirm with them and to my suprise and delight this month's payment was the last! I'm so chuffed! And what's more, I have a 70p credit balance on the loan account so they are going to send me a cheque :rotfl:So, that's me £193.15 better off each and every month!

Initially I'd cleared my overdraft balance with part of my bonus payment. My 0% credit card offer expires this month and I was due to be charged £36 interest so I've balance transferred £3850 onto another 0% for 15 months card (the figure in my sig is with the balance transfer fee added on) and used my overdraft to pay the remaining balance which is why the figure is a little up on last month.

So, my plan for this month is to get my lloyds overdraft down to £0 as that's the only one that isn't on interest free. From now until after the wedding (August) I will pay £150 a month on my cc and the rest can go into the wedding account then I'll throw everything I have at the cc until it's paid off. That way, I think we will be able to pay for the wedding out of my savings and not have to put any of it on cards or overdrafts. Well, that's the plan anyway! I've got a sharesave plan that matures in August which is at least £1100 so that will come in handy along the way too.

Other things I've been up to include getting a doctors referral to the occ health people at work which is good news! I injured my upper back a couple of years ago and I have been getting increasingly uncomfortable at work over the last few months. Occupational health will come and assess my workstation and get me a nice chair that's made to measure so I will be able to work in comfort - hurrah! I've also booked myself in with the physio on tuesday (£45 :eek:) for some work on my upper back so that'll be nice. Ebay has been steady away, we've booked a band for the wedding, got a few £2 coins this week for the money box, it's a 4 day weekend and I've already finished my first cider and am going to make myself a vodka and ginger beer shortly - good times :cool: Happy easter everyone :beer:

Choc-addict

Hey there!

Just wanted to pop in and say hello. Really enjoyed reading your diary, you're doing fab! Congrats on the pending wedding, you seem really organised!

Loving the choice of tent - we brought it last year....it's fab!!! Me and OH are particularly fond of the old camping, have tents for all sorts of occassions

Have subscribed so look forward to your updates

OrangeFairy

Hey Sparkle....love your diary! What a great bonus! :j I wish we got them at work.

You are really inspiring with the bits you are doing yourself for your wedding! Well done you! You are obviously very creative! :T

Oh and wanted to add that i love that tent....we have the Orchy 500 and we LOVE it! Bought it last summmer and it is a great size. And not too pricey either!

Off to subscribe to your diary

**Edited to add WOOHOO to finishing the loan repayments!! That must feel pretty damn good!!****

Choc-addict

Ooh, a few tent lovers here.....:D

sparkleisshopping

Hi Choc-addict and Littlekel! Glad I'm not the only one who has a bit of a thing for tents lol!

I'm having a great bank holiday so far - equal amounts of chilling out and being productive. We had our friends over for dinner and sillyness on Saturday which was great fun and I managed to break myself quite well with wine then cider then cocktails so I spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa watching Coach Trip (it's so rubbish!) and groaning. Fortunately I found the energy to tidy the house and sort stuff out before collapsing in a heap so at least my house is tidy lol!

The main reason I popped in was to share something my OH said yesterday. He's so sweet but he has no idea how much stuff costs - I'm sure his pricing structure stopped in about 1992 as he always goes off on one about the price of stuff! As I said, we had six friends over for the evening. I'd bought some beer, wine and cider for us, some crisps and biscuits and nibbly bits to put out on the coffee table, two packets of bacon for bacon butties for the meat eaters' breakfast the next day, juice and pop, and ingredients for dinner. I made a lovely veggie morrocan stew with couscous and for pudding I made maple syrup and pecan bread and butter puddings with icecream. The shopping bill for all this came to £65, which is quite a bit of money but about right for six people I think.

We're having 17 people over to stay next weekend as it is my lovely friend N's 40th birthday party and she's hired a private bar in Leeds for it! Our friends are scattered across the country hence me having so many people over to stay. I explained to my OH that I was worried how much it would cost us to feed everyone. I said I was thinking of getting ingredients for cooked breakfast for everyone (bacon, eggs, hash browns, mushrooms etc) and I'd ring Dominoes for the evening meal and everyone could choose and pay for whatever they wanted as I was concerned about the cost of feeding 17 people dinner and breakfast. OH told me not to worry about the cost as you can do cooked breakfast for 17 people for £20! and I could do a veggie stew for everyone for £3-£5! Bless him but he just doesn't have a clue does he! I'm very tempted to send him down the shops with £25 to get the ingredients for the breakfast and the stew lol. I showed him the £65 shopping receipt for Saturday's meal and he nearly fell off his chair when he realised that was what I'd spent and that we'd eaten it all apart from a pack of bacon and a couple of biscuits! Does anyone else's OH not have a clue about money or is it just mine?

Today I'm going to do some sewing - getting on with hemming these tablecloths for the wedding, sort out some stuff to go back in the loft and put some bits on ebay. I found some photography paper in the loft the other day and a quick scan on ebay shows it's going for about a tenner a box so that's nice. Hope you're all having great bank holiday weekends and it isn't raining where you are

Choc-addict

Don't worry you're def not the only one with a thing for tents...lol!!

:rotfl:Bless your OH....if only things were as cheap as he thinks eh!

Glad you're having a lovely weekend, can't beleive it's almost over!

Lemon_Tree

well done for having finished your loan. That can make some serious inroads into the rest of your debts.

sparkleisshopping

Oops....

I've been spending....

Not on anything excessive though, just things we needed such as the new tent, then I'd done a couple of biggish shops at the supermarket and health food shop, then it was my friend's birthday party and I had everyone over so ended up spending a fortune on food and booze, but hey, I enjoyed myself! I'm back on board now, I'll update my signature and get back on with things.

I've done a new SOA based on this year's amounts for the water and council tax, and taking into account I don't have my Nationwide loan payments to make any more!

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 3
Number of children in household.........
Number of cars owned....................

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1284.23
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1284.23

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 87.93
Electricity............................. 59
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 33.92
Telephone (land line)................... 12
Mobile phone............................ 17
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 350
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 50
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 85.13
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15.48
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 46.38
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 45
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 833.96


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

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Lloyds o/d.....................1105.59...10........19.9
Credit card....................3961.65...110.......0
owed to OH.....................360.......10........0
first direct o/d...............30........10........0
Total unsecured debts..........5457.24...140.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,284.23
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 833.96
Available for debt repayments........... 450.27
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 140
Amount left after debt repayments....... 310.27

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -5,457.24
Net Assets.............................. -5,457.24

sparkleisshopping

I'm back

As it's the first I've done my totals for the month and I've paid £30 off my first direct overdraft, bringing that back to ZERO!, £161.65 off my credit card, £397.97 off my Lloyds overdraft, made £100 on ebay and £10 mystery shopping. That's a total of £589.62 paid off, bringing me from 23% to 32% of my total. And I received an email from Quidco today telling me that £19 is winging its way towards my bank account :cool:

My new tent arrived the other day and it's rubbish so I'm sending it back. There's a stitching fault, a hole, some reinforcing stuff is peeling off and there's writing on the groundsheet. But we found a new tent that's £20 more expensive that we like so I've written an email suggesting that they could waive the £20 due to the poor condition of the first tent.

It's all systems go here for the wedding. There's loads of sewing that needs to be done and about a million other things besides. My friend gets married next weekend so I'm looking forward to that too