Adventures in Living Frugally

DedicatedDFW

Morning all!

- Well after getting up early on Satday for an MS and then even earlier on Sunday for p/t work I am missing my duvet already.

Oh well, now that I'm up I've been on scratches and got my 10p's;) now I'm off to look at the bank situation. I have money to repay quickly and a couple of holidays coming up which need spends :eek: - hopefully this will keep me very focused.

I was so nearly tempted by a lovely pair of blue shoes in the sale last week - reduced to £10 and would be great for walking about everywhere on hols - how I tore myself away I don't know - I think I just kept saying to myself "but you'll need that £10 for spending money".

Not only do I have usual bills as noted in sig to pay, the cooker just got repaired, and now I have an electrician coming round to sort out some wiring _pale_ and a builder coming round to *hopefully* repair a dodgy wall. Yikes! I'd best start rummaging around for e-bayable items me-thinks - although I feel I have exhausted all options on this front and the house is looking a tad clearer. I keep asking OH if he has any games I can sell too.

Off to check the banking situation xx

DedicatedDFW

Gulp! Just checked the banking and its not all rosey. I have paid an extra £20 off my CC - the sooner I stop wasting vast amounts of money on the interest the better. I will look for a 0% card soon but as my income from f/t work is still only a half of my essential outgoings - I think there is every chance of this being declined.

Ok I needs me a plan - all suggestions are very welcome

So i have just re-listed my 99p start price items on e-bay, fingers crossed,

I have my spends for next weeks holiday but will need to keep it in my mind that whatever I don't spend has to be re-paid to OH - £175 - this is the amount I'm taking away with me and has to cover all food & parking etc. so no way i can re-pay him in full when I return. My best option is to weigh each spend up very carefully - do I really want/need it that much? Hopefully I can have a really good time and still come home with a chunk to pay off the debt.

Shortfall on DD's - I have £117.80 hovering in the banking ether - all monies paid in by chq or transferred from Paypal etc and that are not yet cleared. I cannot use any of this for any amount of spends - at all! This has to sit in the account to await DDs and I still have another few hundred to find.

and breathe

E-bay may help if some of my watched items sell. I have sold some more books but won't get the money until next month.

My p/t wage will reduce the amount I need to find by another £100.

Still much to scrutinize.

I'm also thinking ahead to my next holiday. I need to have spends for this and I will be putting money away at the end of each month for this. It is going to be ALOT of spends that I take with me but it is my first holiday in nearly 2 years and I want to have enough with me to enjoy it but again will consider each spend and try and bring as much home with me as possible

DedicatedDFW

Also - OH owes me some money so from this I will pay £5 off what I owe leaving it at £170 for now.

The rest that he owes me will be used to pay the electrician - it seems it is easy come and far too easy go...

Also have 2 MS's lined up for tomorrow and 1 for the end of the week

DedicatedDFW

Well, realised as I headed off to work that in my master budgeteering plan I hadn't accounted for Mr Wall Repair man. Nothing else for it, it'll be deducted from my spends. Sadly this will mean that though I will have to cut back on spends whilst I'm away it is very unlikely I will be returning with a large sum to repay the £170 I now owe OH.

Off to see if I can locate any ebay-able items - extremely doubtful considering all sale-able things have been listed in the past and what has not been sold has made it to the carboot or charity.

DedicatedDFW

Why does it seem like it never rains but it pours. I had a feeling of coping last week, cooker was repaired - expensive but necessary. Electrician and Wall Repairer booked in - again necessities though costly these cannot be put off. I felt I could handle things and everything would start coming together. And now the washing machine has broken :mad: I now feel like I could cry. I have already been on the phone all morning to another company chasing up a quote for something else and getting absolutely no answer. Ok, so this says they've switched the answermachine message off that says they are closed and yet they have not answered the phone in 2.5 hours. I got up early and waited in for them they came out seemed really nice and promised a response before now - hence the reason I'm chasing them. I guess if I wasn't in debt I wouldn't let this bother me. I'd either spend my time again sourcing another company and waiting for them to come out or jump in the car and go to the companys Office and not be worked up and just ask for the info.

In the big scheme of things this should not be so upsetting to me but I guess with money worries other things can get a bit blown out of proportion. Just need to give myself a stern talking to and get some perspective. Ok, using my lunch today to toddle off to another shop and try and get a quote there. Have all details with me so will feel better doing something that is productive. I'm sure they will not mind me sitting at their desk scoffing my sarnies too :rotfl:


This serves as another reminder of how much a house of cards things are for me at the moment and how I have to save money at every opportunity. Thus I have made sandwiches all last week and have done the same for todays lunch. Boring but cheap.

I have also transferred £20 over to the CC again. Ok things are tighter than anything right now but by moving money around this reminds me why I am up at the crack of dawn doing a second job. When that money is paid to me it needs to go to the CC - this has to be seen as an essential (over)payment if I am going to clear this debt.

The good news is its nearly the happy middle of the week. Hope everyone has a good Tuesday

DedicatedDFW

So the expenses just kept on coming this week. I had £175 sat there for my trip so that I *knew* I had this money and could enjoy myself but also, as I said, really think about how I was spending it and did I need it so that i could try and bring some back for the debt.

So one of my shifts got cancelled at p/t work which means my money will be down next week. The electrician sorted out the wiring fault - there was not much change from £110 but as I was panicing that I may need a whole re-wire or electrical box thingy this repair was the best case scenario. Wall Man has re-arranged until next week as its best for the job to be done in dry conditions and then the car needed more petrol :mad: £10. Thus my trip money has almost been wiped out. I am going to see how I manage with £55 - it sounds alot and is more than I have spent on myself in forever but as this needs to feed and water me for 3 days whilst hopefully enjoying some fun things too I will just have to get more money out the bank if needs be. Housework beckons - have a good Sunday all

DedicatedDFW

Hi all back from hols now - had an absolutely lovely time even if it was only a few days off work it felt fab - back to the grind now though

Money didn't exactly go awol but didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Food was reasonable and OH did treat me a bit to meals . As it was soo hot though meant having lots of cold drinks and this did mount up. I did have to take money out of my account to replace what I had used for bills beforehand - hope that makes sense. I have come back with some money but have to put £20 in petrol and a further £20 travel expenses. Also £20 disappeared on food shopping for the essentials I had forgotten such as coffee - an absolute necessity here Thus I came back with £60 which all got very rapidly depleted.

Also opened the door to a pile of bills ok, I know that these will come regularly - gas, electric etc. but yikes! the heating has not been on and the gas bill is still really high. Will have to be paid though. Am off to work and hope to get the chance to work out some sums too and see how the financial land lies. Hope its a good Thursday for everyone!

DedicatedDFW

Hi everyone - Gosh I have been gone a long time but health wise feel a bit better than I have been lately. I am still at the Docs and hospital regarding illness and have not taken any time off work so have been very tired as any illness leaves a person feeling I suppose. I have also had many days feeling very down. Don't want to post too many details in case people I know are reading this and then realise its me

Ok today is a quick post about a new challenge I have set myself 100 x 100 - basically there are things I should be doing to make me feel better - not just health wise but confidence, helping homelife run better and there are things I should be doing that I enjoy doing but don't set aside the time for - meeting friends, challenging myself to do something completely new, earning extra money. And for anything to become a habit it has to be done consistently a number of times. Although for me this is not just about forming a habit but making me question certain things that I do. Some of these tasks are quite small - eg 100 days of eating breakfast - I know it is a really important meal THE most important of the day and yet I only really breakfast when on holiday or at the weekend so now I have started to breakfast - 3 days in a row now This may be basic to alot of people but a good healthy start to the day should improve things for me no end and this 100 x 100 is a very personal challenge to me

On the de-cluttering / generating income front - I have put get rid of 100 clothes so my update is to keep track that I have successfully purged 15 items - some for e-bay and given some items to family so a way to go yet but it is a start and along the way i am picking up bits of bric-a-brac for a carboot.

Hope everyone is well and I will post more about my challenges later so I can keep a record of how I'm doing.

DedicatedDFW

Oof! Well I had plans of listing 100 items of clothes on e-bay - trouble is over a period of time I have listed things on e-bay, given to charity and friends and family and sold things at carboot. I have listed 40 items on e-bay currently but they are not all clothes. The clothes I have left I am still going through but they are all items I do wear at various times - going out, winter, summer and are all things I like and suit me. Still wanting to list things to raise funds and clear clutter! The next couple of days should see a ruthless finishing off of the clothes decluttering before I move my attentions to the lovely under stairs cupboard hmm - admittedly there are alot of things I put in there but there are also all the things I'm convinced OH simply throws in...

Good news is at least 100 items have left the house in the form of being thrown out or given away and e-bayed so parts of the house are looking better - its just the rest of it now...

fingers crossed for me for some sales

Roll on the weekend!