Corona007's random ramblings

Corona007

Sorry for the long time since I posted but things have been crazy at work and my perspective on what is important has been a bit skewed recently.

Sadly as a result I have failed to keep making my lunch for work, have been socialising a bit too much, have bought a few luxuries and have therefore overspent in May by £68 which means I am now back to £5105 repaid since my LBM. Not happy about that -after starting the year so well I seem to have hit a brick wall .

Don't know if it is a hollow promise but my boss has said today he will be pushing for a pay rise for me this summer which may make up for the last few months if anything comes true. Most likely nothing will happen though in my experience.

In the mean time I have a work trip to South Africa coming up next week which I hope will not cost me too much personally and sadly my frugality earlier this year is beginning to come back and haunt me. I have two suits which need mending due to rips in them, some shoes which need replacing and ironically my wallet is falling to bits. Money needs to be spent in June - I just hate to do it .

But on the plus side, I am still here and still fighting to become debt free and I guess that counts for something.

Lula-Hula

Hey sweetie,

debt busting is like waves; peaks & troughs of determination & despair. I was rubbish at money saving in May but am a bit better this month & I think it's been a bit of forum-wide phenomenon.

wow to South Africa trip ... do it, enjoy it & then come back safely & all raring to get back in the habit again. Simples

Corona007

[…sneaks back into the room hoping nobody noticed he had gone…]

Well I knew it had been a while since I had posted on here but I didn’t realise it had been over 3 months. I guess I probably should explain myself.

As I said in my last post I went away on business for 2 weeks in South Africa. I had a really great time out there despite it being a business trip and I even managed to get to see a World cup match (though the less said about England’s progress after I came back the better). As usual after coming back from going away I felt a bit depressed and I was sitting in my lounge when I had what I can only describe as a second light bulb moment. I suddenly realised that I hated the place I was living in and I really wanted to move.

I had moved in only a year before and had taken the place at short notice as I had had to move out Greedy Landlords flat when he tried to hike the already high rent up. It was nowhere near as nice as GLL’s place but it was cheaper and it was available when I needed it so I signed a lease accordingly. Sitting there on that sunny June afternoon I looked around as if seeing it for the first time and asked myself why the hell I was living there. The sun was shining brightly outside yet I had all my lights on as the flat is very close to the side of the neighbouring block. Without the lights on even in the middle of the day it was dark enough that you couldn’t read the paper. I still had mouse traps down to catch the little bleeders keeping me awake at night. The sofa was covered in fake plastic leather and in the summer heat it stuck to you when you tried to get up. The cheap laminate floor creaked every time you walked across it. Outside, the local area was surrounded by takeaways and therefore rubbish and noise from all the drunks at night. My commute on the tube into the office each day was hell - hot, crowded and it took a long time. All this suddenly hit me in a wave of realisation. I was spending so much time in the office and travelling away because I didn’t want to be at home. I had to get out of there.

So I phoned up my landlord the following day, handed in my notice and the rest became history. I’ve moved to a different part of London. I love my new flat - it is bright, modern, comfortable and in a much nicer area. I have a dream of a commute to work and I don’t have to go near the tube. I’m happier than I’ve been in years.

Sadly though it’ll take me a while to financially recover from what I’ve done. My new flat unsurprisingly costs more per month and moving also came with a lot of unbudgeted costs - removals, professional cleaning, estate agent fees, larger deposit, reference fees etc. I also found out I owed £380 in electricity on my last place as my direct debits had been hopelessly inadequate. I’ve really not helped my debt situation but that can wait for another day.

Till then, it feels good to be back.

Lula-Hula

Corona007 wrote: »

[…sneaks back into the room hoping nobody noticed he had gone…]

Yeh right :rotfl:,

Welcome back :j

I've been wondering where you'd got to & am glad to hear that you had a great trip to South Africa followed by a bolt of enlightenment about why you were so unhappy.

Sometimes it's the simplest of thing that hold the key to so many areas of our lives that are just not 'working' & it is definitely worth a bit of expenditure to put yourself into an environment where you wont be trying to escape at every opportunity. To be unhappy in your home is very bad for your health & general wellbeing & the new place sounds fab

Will look forward to reading more updates - hopefully more often than once every 3 months though

Corona007

Hi Lula. I'll try to be better behaved with my posting again.

It has been a manic time recently and I'm still trying to sort out lots of things - I still have no phone or broadband in my new place and I think I'm owed a refund on my council tax from the old flat but I'm sure it'll sort itself out over the next month or so. Sadly though I did get my deposit straight back from my old landlord so I don't get to refresh my legal skills by suing them

It's a funny thing how you can fail to spot the elephant in the room sometimes and keep going as if nothing is wrong. It may sound melodramatic but living where I was really did make me unhappy and I pretended to myself that as it was saving me money it was worth the pain. Since I've moved I enjoy just being at home and I'm sleeping better than I can remember. As you say Lula, it is definitely worth the extra cost to live somewhere we feel "at home". I also don't feel the need to open a bottle of wine as soon as I get home. Actually scratch that last comment, I do

Anyway enough of the feeling sorry for myself. I'm working out where I am debt wise and I'll post that next time I get a few moments.

Corona007

I had a wedding this weekend at which I met up with lots of friends I haven't been very good at keeping in touch with recently. Result was far too many glasses of wine [and beer, champagne etc but you get the picture]. I felt so rough today that I decided it would be a good idea to go for a run along the river and clear my head. Well it was a good idea, but now I just feel hungover AND in pain. Next time I think I'll just stick to the Bloody Mary

But hey ho, at least that is another expensive wedding down and only one more to go this year - the one in Kenya which I really need to pull my finger out and finalise all the bookings for.

I also sat down today and worked my total debts after moving. First the bad news - I had to take a £1,000 loan to pay for all the removals costs, new deposit etc. The good news though is that it was an interest free loan from that venerable institution the bank of Dad and he is insisting that I don't pay it back until next year so for now I can focus on my interest accruing debts :T

I've also done some jigging around and now all my credit card debts are on just 3 cards (which is down from 7 at the worst of my debt!) which makes it easier to manage all the repayments. On those three cards I owe:

American Express (19.9%) - £1,500
Egg (15.9%) - £5,700
Halifax Visa (4.9%) - £5,200

Add in my overdraft of £1,800 and the £1,000 I owe my dad and my total debt is now £15,200 which means I've gone backwards by £1,500 in total

Well at least I have over £6,000 at zero or very low interest and only three credit cards to worry about. I've just got to hope now for 1.) a nice tax refund from HMRC or 2.) a nice pay rise at work or 3.) winning the lottery. Personally I think 3.) is the most likely :rotfl:

Lula-Hula

*tiptoes in & whispers*

Hello Corona,

running with a hangover ? - brave man I tend to opt for flooding my system with orange juice & sleep.

Yay for the Wonderful Bank of Dad :j& yay for you getting the total number of card downs to just 3. That's really good going & it just feels so much more manageable. You'll be down to single figures in now time.

Ahem ... coins ???

*runs*

Corona007

Long time no post (again) but mainly due to the fact that I'm still waiting for a phone line and broadband to be fitted in my new place and I never get chance to update MSE at work.

I'm still loving my new flat but it turns out it is going to be an expensive but empty place over the next few months as I've found out that work are going to send me to the Midlands for a project for at least 3 days a week until January. So instead of making the most of my flat I will be stuck in a hotel instead - our corporate travel agent sent me an email today saying they had booked me into a hotel for 55 out of the next 97 nights :eek:

It's not all bad though - it means I'm on expenses for those nights so work will be buying the wine and food rather than me and of course not being at home means lower electricity bills. Oh and I will earn a bucket load of loyalty points too which means I can spend even more nights in hotels. Result, I guess

On money related notes, I had a Yellow Fever jab this morning for the wedding I am going to next month which cost an outrageous £47 and I still have to shell out for malaria tablets which are not cheap apparently. It is a shame the Midlands isn't a hot bed of tropical diseases or I could have sent the bill to work :rotfl:

Corona007

[rant warning]

Still no phone or broadband. I have opted for Sky as they were £1 a month cheaper than BT for line rental and it comes with free broadband and some quidco cash back so I thought I had got a deal. But it seems that going with BT would have been worth the extra money after all. After completely screwing up my original order and making me wait 4 weeks for them to connect my phone line, I phoned up to complain and spent 40 minutes on the phone to them to sort it out. They promised someone would call around on Friday to connect me up but guess what. After spending the day waiting for them to turn up, no one did :mad:

What is more annoying is that I tried to phone up and moan at them again and all I can get through to is a recorded answering service asking me to type in my phone number before they will route me to a call centre person. GRRR. If I KNEW my f****** number I wouldn't be ringing up to talk to you :mad::mad::mad:

[rant over]

So anyway, I have had to go out and buy a mobile broadband widget which cost me £30 but at least I have internet again. Well at least until my £10 of data runs out.

Oh, and I haven't been for a run again. Must pull my finger out and do some exercise otherwise I'll start getting [STRIKE]fat[/STRIKE]... ahem... fatter

Lula-Hula

Hey Corona,

sympathies re the ridiculous sky palaver :mad: I point blank refuse to have anything whatsoever to do with sky. Still havent forgiven them for pulling Sky1 off the Virgin network back when I used to STRIKE]drool over [/STRIKE]I mean watch Lost .

Not that I'm the kind of person to bear a grudge of course :whistle:.

Lifting a wine glass can be classed as light exercise

Have a good week
xx