Sparkle is sorting out her finances

sparkleisshopping

Bad news - have been full of lurgy so have been off work for the last few days

Good news - got my buildings and contents insurance renewal through - it had gone up to £49 (£597 annually!) which is shocking and I was currently paying £46 anyway which is pretty terrrible. So, I went on a comparison site and got prices from £297 upwards so rang my current insurer who wouldn't budge on the price so I cancelled with them, went on quidco and got a quote with Aviva who came in at £320 with £60 cashback - bonus! So, I'm going to be paying £28 instead of £46 a month so that's a £18 saving - hurrah!

Bits on ebay are steady away - I relisted the ones that didn't sell at the weekend and have had a bid and a couple of buy it nows already which is good

sparkleisshopping

Ooh I haven't checked in here for a few days - oops!

Well, my ebay bits are going well, I am getting a buy it now purchase every couple of days so that's nice I've also finally made it to the £40 onepoll payout so that should be arriving in my bank in the next couple of weeks. It's payday tomorrow so I'll spend time doing my sums and working out how much I can pay onto the credit cards of dooooom.

I went to Zumba at the gym last night which was great fun and whizzed by really quickly; I am going to pilates tonight and hopefully my friend who I used to work with will be there so we can have a catch up.

I've started back at slimming world as I had a nightmare last Thursday when I was getting dressed. I put on my favourite navy blue sailor trousers which are always very baggy and they weren't baggy at all - they were almost snug! So, I rejoined slimming world and I would like to lose a stone.

sparkleisshopping

What have I been up to then?

Slimming world is going well - I lost a pound last week and my weigh in is tomorrow so fingers crossed for that. I've been feeling somewhat down in the dumps lately but it feels positive that I'm doing Slimming world so that's a good thing. Mind you, 28g of museli is a pitiful portion so I'm going to swap back to having two weetabix for breakfast instead!

I went to pilates last night and it's legs, bums and tums tonight I am very tempted by a class on saturday - the gym is doing a halloween fundraiser for breast cancer care and you have to donate £1 to go to the special halloween classes, one of which is learning the Thriller dance which I'm well up for so think I may go to that on saturday.

Money wise, my ebaying has been going well and I have just received £100 paypal transfer into my bank account today. I have about £40 in paypal at the moment and when that gets to £50 I will do another withdrawal. My £40 onepoll money has also arrived in my bank account today. I've started again with them and I'm up to £5.35 so quite a way before payout!

I haven't done my balances for the month so if you're interested, here's where I am:
Virgin - paid £405.10. Balance now - £1409.29
first direct - paid £100. Balance now - £2980 (hurrah! the balance no longer starts with a three!)
lloyds - paid £120. Balance now £3820.

Total paid in september - £625.10.

Paid off in total - £1368.59 (in two months - go us!)

Total balance - £8209.29

14% paid off!

I'm really happy with the amount we've managed to pay off in two months! My goal for next month is to get the Virign balance under £1000 so I'll need to pay £410 + £100 first direct + £120 lloyds = £630 which I think is very achievable

Right, off to update the signature Have a good day everyone

Lemon_Tree

sounds like a good plan and you've got money coming into you from all directions.
glad slimming world is going well for you, i need to commit to mine properly, i've been playing with it over the last few weeks and came a cropper last night so i've got to knuckle down.

sparkleisshopping

Cheers hun And I know what you mean about Slimming World, it can be hard to commit but I'm sure you'll get there. I've been reading the stories on the slimming world website and also the slimming world thread in the health forum here and I've enjoyed these as they've given me different ideas about what I can eat and also some general inspiration. I've realised that I can't use my syns for both nice chocolatey treats and some extra bits to make my food nice (jam on toast, a couple of cashews in a stir fry etc) so I think I'll go down the route of using my syns to make my food nice.

_________

I've just done a quick sum regarding my dfd, and if I can keep up with paying 7% each month that's 100 divided by 7 which is 14 months of payments before I am debt free. I started my payments in September so if all goes to plan, my last payments and debt free date will be October 2011. That sounds very positive! I'm trying to think about the positives rather than wallow in the "oh, I have so much to pay off" frame of mind so the amount we've paid off in the last two months is making me feel positive too.

sparkleisshopping

Today is a good day It's Friday, so that's always a good place to start!

I've had positive feedback from the ebay member who I sold an expensive item to so that's good. I went to slimming world last night and I've lost 2lb which is great (including going for a curry last friday and for lunch at Betty's Tea Rooms on Saturday). I've been to the gym twice this week - pilates on tuesday and circuits on wednesday and I'm going tonight just for a quick 45min or so. My friend is coming with me to the gym tomorrow to do the Thriller dance class so that will be a giggle, and I've invited my other friend along who also likes going to the gym but can't afford the membership any more.

I'm up to £6.50 with onepoll. I paid for a 5 week countdown at slimming world last night as if you pay for five weeks you get the sixth week free which is good. I'm also really proud of OH. He checked his statement the other day and he said that he's been on track with his money this month and doesn't feel like he's skint either which is really important to him. He's decided that this month he is going to try and have a frugal month so that he can save some money towards christmas (we are going halves on a new laptop as our christmas present, and I have £50 of pc world vouchers from work to go towards it). I'm really proud of him for managing his money well

We went to B&Q last weekend and we've bought the paint to do up the front room (from the wedding money). Our new sofa arrives on 6 December so we have a deadline to work to! We are painting it in shades of purple and grey and it's gonna look lush. Although it currently looks like a state as there are tester spots of paint all over the place lol!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

sparkleisshopping

Ooh I could do with being a bit more organised financially as I can feel myself slipping back....

I have got the old spending diary out as I seem to be rattling through my £200 monthly spends like noone's business! I got paid on 20 October and have spent probably £50 when I went to Harrogate spa with my friend (I nearly wrote Harrogate Spar which wouldn't have been a very exotic location to take my lovely friend on a day out :rotfl:) and I now have £50 in my account and £20 in my purse to last until payday which isn't an awful lot really.

Spends so far this month:
Jacket potato and beans £1.50
ebay postage £5.30
fairy lights £1 (quite why I'm buying fairy lights I have no idea as I am actually selling a load on ebay at the moment!)

My groceries budget is also going out the window very rapidly - I had £230 on the 20th and I only have £40 left - eek! :eek: I do have the world's fullest freezer, I have more cat food than you could imagine and the cupboards are all full so hopefully I can manage on £40.

I think part of the problem is that I am using my spends money to pay for ebay postage. For example, I paid £9 royal mail and £20 courier on Friday and I've just paid another £5.30 yesterday so I think that's where a lot of my personal spends are going. I have told my OH that the next time I draw down £50 from ebay I am keeping it for myself (it will prob end up going towards christmas tbh) and he's ok with this. I would rather see it going toward the credit cards but I know there's no point in making myself unnecessarily skint as I'll just end up buying things on the credit card or something.

In more exciting news, the Thriller dance class was excellent fun at the gym! Although I am no longer going to moan at not having a gym partner.... It was great to go with my friend but I guess I must be a lot fitter than her as I didn't find the class too taxing and wanted to stay for the zumba class afterwards but she was bright red and panting so I decided not to suggest zumba and got changed and went home (I gave her a lift so wouldn't have been fair if I stayed for zumba). I am going to the gym tonight for pilates then if I can be bothered when I get home I will help OH get all the camping stuff into the loft.

sparkleisshopping

Hello all

It's weigh in at Slimming World tonight - fingers crossed for me! I've been good with my food and i've been to the gym three times (legs, bums and tums, Thriller dance class and an hour around the gym floor) so hopefully this will show on the scales.

Yesterday I spent money on:
Cereal bar - 49p
£2 coin in my change that is going in the pot - £2
cigs - £6.50
Total - £8.99
Total spend this month - £16.79.

I have three ebay parcels to post but that should be less than £2.50 and I have already paid my SW fees in advance so I just need to spend £1.50 on lunch then that's me done for today. Got £4.07 from quidco so that's gone onto the virgin card and I paid the £40 onepoll and £100 paypal onto that card also, so the balance is down to £1265.22

I've got the day off work tomorrow - hooray! I am going to make a start on the front room. I tidied up the bedrooms the other day so there is room to move the contents of the front room into the bedrooms so then I can start painting. Over this weekend I would like to get the burgundy paint on two of the walls covered up with undercoat and the ceiling painted. I also want to go to the gym twice and I could do with going to town to buy some more foundation as I'm nearly out! I'd like to pick up the Boots christmas cataloge as well. And I'm going to see the fireworks that the council put on tomorrow with my friend - busy weekend ahoy!

sparkleisshopping

I've not posted in here for ages but I'm still around :T

Have been a bit slack with my debtbusting and it's not much different to the position in my sig above. I'm currently:

Virgin - £1876.65
First direct - £2690
Barclaycard (was lloyds, have moved to the 17 month interest free deal there) - £3663.82

I'm on with the one debt vs 100 days with my virgin card and I paid £375.95 from January's payday, giving the balance above.
I have a load of payments which will be heading towards virgin shortly which is good -
£270 from savings
£87 I think from the council tax which I will transfer after the 10th so I can check that the dd isn't going to go out (pretty sure I'm on 10 months not 12)
£140 from an account I forgot there was money in :eek:
£34 from the water (again, think it's a free month!)
£70 (or hopefully more) from ebay sales currently in my paypal
total - £ 601 which will take virgin down to £1275.65 - I hope I can clear it all in 100 days, if not I can deffo get rid of it in 101 as payday as the day after the challenge ends!

In other news, we've decorated the front room and it looks lush, but we had to buy a few things like a new carpet that we hadn't budgeted for as the old carpet was *so* scruffy). It's all purple and grey and looks beautiful - I'm so happy with it and the new sofa is lush - purple floral velvet - yum
It's my birthday this weekend and we're having a house party - wine was on offer at the supermarket, as were all the boxes of frozen party food from christmas so I've got a load of samosas and bhajis and I'm going to make pizza using the breadmaker to do the dough for me. We made our first pizza in this way a short while ago and it was the most lush pizza I'd had in ages - if you have a breadmaker then definately give it a go - really cheap too! I might have also purchased a new frock too - it has a peter pan collar and I'm in love with peter an collars at the mo so it's making me very happy

sparkleisshopping

I'm currently procrastinating on here instead of listing things on ebay! That's really bad of me considering it's free listing weekend - oops! I promise to get started shortly though.

I'm still plodding away with the virgin card and since I last posted I have paid £50 from ebay sales and £110 from the council tax / water free months (left the remaining few quid in the bills account as I like to have a bit of a buffer in there) so that takes the balance down to £1716.65 I have another £50 from paypal making its way into my account so I'll include that once it hits my bank account and I can make the payment.

I switched my gas and elec supplier from scottish power to eon today, which will give me £65 quidco cashback Our payments were £68/month which scottishpower wanted to put up to £87 (which is a bit much seeing as we are still £7.75 in credit as of our most recent bill) so I've arranged to pay £75 to eon which is more than I'd like but I guess that's how much gas and elec costs these days.

The gym is going well - went to body pump yesterday and it's zumba tomorrow. I'm really into my street dance classes too - it's ace fun! We did a routine to a Beyonce song last week that was really cool.

Right, guess I should go and hang the laundry over the radiators and do some ebaying!