Sparkle is sorting out her finances

sparkleisshopping

Ahh, am feeling better now!

I've done something positive and written a letter on behalf of my OH to his bank to cancel a £7 monthly fee he has on his bank account for a range of useless benefits which he doesn't know what they are and won't ever use. I'll show the letter to him this evening and if he's happy I'll get him to sign it then I'll pop it in the post. I think I'll write the £40 off and remember to hide the groceries purse in future!

sparkleisshopping

Hi all

Not in a good mood today as had an arguement with OH last night (really upset me as we never argue). Am going to try and take two hours lieu time this afternoon so I can go home and mooch on the sofa with a book.

I checked my bank today and I've been paid £4.31 from quidco so I transferred that to the virgin card. Off to update my signature!

Lemon_Tree

sparkle it's hard isnt' it when you're bedding in shared finances. My OH only moved in 6 weeks before the wedding so we have had to spend a fair bit of time working out the budget stuff. I do get frustrated though as i spend so much time trying to clear my debt and yet OH actually gets a monthly spend budget and then also goes overdrawn. Not by much but by enough to dent his meagre yet hard earned wage.

sparkleisshopping

ooh tell me about it Lemontree!

I love my OH to bits but he really is useless with money! I showed him the letter I'd written on his behalf about the £7 account fee and he's signed it so I'll pop it in the post and that'll be a bit of money saved.

I have also managed to sell the cupcake stand from our wedding so I shall put that in the post tonight so that's another bit of good moneysaving news

More good news is that it's friday, I'm only in until 3.30pm, and then when OH gets home from work we are throwing the camping stuff in the car and heading over to a campsite near lincoln for my friend's birthday I love going camping with my OH so much and it'll be great to see all my friends as I haven't seen a lot of them since the wedding. Oh, and opposite the campsite is a great pub with about 20 different types of cider for sale so I may be getting a bit drunkled tonight

And I had a lovely treat lunch - peanut butter and homemade jam sandwiches on homemade bread - nom!

Have a fab weekend everyone!

sparkleisshopping

I've been reading Kavics' diary and am well impressed at how much she goes to the gym.

I pledge here that I shall go to the gym four times next week, which will definately include these classes:
pilates - tuesday
legs, bums and tums - wednesday

I would also like to make it to a spin class and a body pump class.

kavics17

Hi,

Found you:). Glad you're impressed by me going to the gym:). 4 times is just right, I go on Tues (spinning), Thurs (body pump), Sat and Sun (morning class both, aerobics). We used to have legs, bums and tums in my gym but they cancelled it though I really liked it.

Camping is great fun though it's a bit cold today,isn't it? You better snuggle close to your OH . We went to Spain camping 2 years ago, it was great until we found out that a seaview hotel with half board would have cost us less:D. Needless to say we haven't used the tent since than:D.

sparkleisshopping

We had a most excellent time going camping at the weekend It was quite cold but the campsite we went to lets you have a fire and also over the road from the campsite is a cider pub so my cider blanket kept me nice and warm :rotfl:I did well and spent £40 including bbq food, two meals at the pub and maybe a small cider or two :beer:

It's payday today so here's where I'm up to:

grocery challenge - budgeted £250, actual spend £155.04 :j(so that's £94.96 towards the cc's)
personal spends - budgeted £200, actual spend £130 so I've put £50 of the remaining £70 to one side to go towards christmas and the £20 can go towards the cc's.

Credit cards:
Lloyds: was £4060 minus £120 payment = £3940
First direct: was £3180 minus £100 payment = £3080
Virigin: was £2314.56 minus a whopping £500.18 payment = £1814.38.
Total was £9554.56 now £8834.38 which is 8% paid off :cool:

I'll go and update my sig - hurrah!

edit - oh and OH wants to look at his banking with me at some point soon to see if he has any extra money left over now he's been paid (he gets paid on the 15th and my payday is the 20th) that he can put towards the cc's - that's what I like! It would be nice if we could get the balance on the virgin cc down to £1700 by next payday... as soon as I've heard that the cake stand has arrived with its new owner safe and sound I'll transfer that money from paypal over to virgin and that'll help I'd love to get virgin paid off by christmas!

kavics17

WoW, I like your summary, it really helps to see the numbers written down and you can see how much you have paid off already.

I would love to have a payday mid-month but never get my salary before the end of the month, usually it's on the 30st or 1st by the time I can see it-long wait always...

Glad that camping was ok, we just got out our winter blanket as I was freezing cold last night:).

sparkleisshopping

good news - it's pilates at the gym tonight and that's where I'm going

bad news - OH's ps3 has the "yellow light of death" We have found a repair shop in leeds but they charge £75 (inc callout) so he's taken the ps3 with him to work today and he's going to call the repair shop and see if he can take it in and get it repaired more cheaply without paying the callout fee.

food news - made a really nice pie for tea last night! It was a quorn and mushroom pie with a puff pastry lid and I used a can of condensed mushroom soup for the sauce (I've never used soup like that before!). I also found some fakin-chorizo in the freezer so I put that in too and it gave it a good kick. I have a load of chestnut, oyster and normal mushrooms left over so I think I may make pate with them. I have also reduced this month's grocery money from £250 to £230. Last night I spent £20 on toiletries (mostly hair product but I have enormous hair and get through a *lot* of product) and £9.08 in the supermarket - mainly on ingredients for the pie but I also got two bags of quorn chunks as they were on offer and a massive bag of carrots for my work snacks. I plan to use the other piece of puff pastry to make another pie which will use up the rather suspicious looking tin of vegetarian fake duck in gravy that has lurked at the back of the cupboard for ages as I'm a bit afraid of it tbh! I think putting dodgy savoury stuff in a pie is the equivalent of covering dodgy sweet stuff in custard and calling it pudding lol!

money news - cake stand has arrived ok so I'll request that money from paypal I found a £2 coin that oh left out so I put that in the pot and I bought 2 x £2 from my workmate so I reckon we're well over £100 in there now

edit - I forgot I have more money news... I've done some snowball calculators:
basic - paying £530/ month = DFD Feb 2012
mid - paying £630/ month = DFD December 2011
high - paying £730/ month = DFD October 2011

The mid one sounds achievable but it would be great to manage the high payments every month to get rid of all the cc's in a year!

I'm sooooo close to a payout with Onepoll - I've been doing it since March or thereabouts and my balance is £34.90 and the payout is at £40 - come on Onepoll, ask me some more opinions please! (or if anyone wants a referral to help me on my way then drop me a pm!)

sparkleisshopping

OH is happy cos he got his playstation fixed He called the chap out to our house as there was noone working in the leeds shop today so he's £75 lighter but a lot happier that he didn't have to shell out for a new playstation.

I went to the gym last night for pilates - it was good fun even though the instructor made us do lots of side planks and normal planks and moving planks - I don't like planks very much! It's legs, bums and tums at they gym tonight which will be easier than last week as I have remembered to pack my knee strapping so I can tie it all together and it won't crunch and be all horrible.

Still haven't received the birthday present I bought for my friend in the post I do hope this one hasn't gone missing as well. I shall give the company I ordered from a ring tomorrow and see what's going on there.