Reach for the stars...

niccatw

:T:T:T I'm with the two old ladies behind you in the bank! Go Cheri! You have made me smile before bed (MBNA still unavailable, so I give up for the night).

I suspect you are right about your letter but I would be sooooooo happy if they responded with not only an apology but for the amount you billed them.

niccatw

Uhm, only tonight have I figured out that the "User CP" bit above is a quick way to get to all my subscribed threads and stuff!! You learn something new every day!

Ok, so I popped on the internet a wee while back to check all my accounts and update the budget!!!! And 4 hour hours later here I am! Seriously! It really shouldn't take that long.

And it probably wouldn't if I wasn't so pedantic about my tables looking right! I must have reformatted it several hundred times!

Upshot is:

"Spending account" in credit with £181 due out from deisel and food shopping on cash back credit card. This has to come down if I want to continue the overpayments I've been making to RBS!

"Bills" account is in credit. Thankfully! Got a call from veggie box saying my payment to them hadn't come out and had anything gone wrong. SOmething clearly has but it is not, as I had feared in my panic, anything to do with there being no money in the account! Which I knew shouldn't be the case, but I was at work with laptop or cards to see what was going on. Still none the wiser but glad it's not due to disappearing money!

Cashback credit card - the IPL money has thankfully come out of it now so I don't need to worry about them trying to take it all from my bank in one go! Phew!

Barclaycard - D/D confirmation letter through and £50 paid from "bills" account to ensure I don't miss the first payment as the D/D won't kick in until after the first statement. Or something. That always confuses me!

Virgin card - couldn't pay anything to it before setting up a D/D so have done that online tonight to clear minimum payments. Still need to go in and pay something as soon as it lets me. Intend on paying the £300 off when second job money goes into my account.

Rejigged the budget, rounded up all outgoings and rounded down all incomings, which leaves me short by £15.71 per month.

I'm not too worried about this as I've included a couple of things as monthly when they are actually at least 6 weekly, but it was easier to calculate and intended to scare me!

While I will still "round down" my bank accounts to the nearest whole, I will be a bit more cautious about it in the next couple of months until I settle into the new D/D payments. By which I just mean if I only need to "round down" by £1.03, then £1.03 is all that gets sent to RBS. Usually I would feel the need to make that £11.03 to make it "worth my while"!? And to show I mean business, £1.03 is exactly what I sent heading off to RBS from bills account! And £5.66 from "spending" account.

And today was NSD 3.

But budgeting is no way to spend a rare Friday night off! I can see when all this debt is paid off and I have no post grad course or walking marathon, I will need to relearn how to actually live life!

MrsMoo2U

Nope agreed, no way to spend a Friday night off. Hope you are doing something more fun tonight.

niccatw

Indeed I did Cheri. I went out in the Westend with my friends. I think they wondered who on earth was the strange girl that seemed to be tagging along with them and rather freakily, seemed to know an awful lot about them! :rotfl: (Despite that they didn't let me pay for a round... or even a drink.... or come to think of it, even my taxi home!) Which is kinda nice but also makes me feel bad!

Anyhoo, I had a hoot. All things in moderation methinks. I actually like going out less as it's so much more of a treat when I do go out.

And it just so happened that a frend of a friend was going out too and he works in international development, normally resides in Australia and is heading to India and the end of his two week holiday back to the UK.

So, as you can imagine, I had a few questions I wanted to ask! Actually, I was less bothered about asking questions; I just wanted to hear his stories, views, hopes, fears... of doing what he does. It sounds very interesting, although he did not enamour me to Australia at all (to be fair, I've never felt the compulsion - that a fair few of my friends seem to have - to go there and that's not where I intend on going at all so it phased me less than my friend that has been trying to persuade me to move there with her :rotfl:)

Sunday was a bit of a write off! Give a girl a few beers and a late night and all she wants to do on Sunday is curl up in a wee ball, drink peppermint tea and read (this time World War Z. Yes, I'm reading a book about Zombies :eek:. Who'd have thunk it? But in return my mate is reading Harry Potter... ) between snoozing!

At least it made it an NSD! Unlike today because I'd forgotten to do anything about lunch so nipped to the supermarket to pick up a few bits.

UK cherries! Mmmmmmm! Though in hindsight not the best idea to maintain a professional persona of a Monday afternoon! I had the most fabulous purple lips! Oops! Luckily I had no meetings with my boss this afternoon!

MrsMoo2U

Sounds like another good contact there Nic. Hope you got his email address to keep in touch. I have never been inclined to Australia either. I think it stems from when my Mum and Dad were talking about us going to live there in the 70s and I was scared that the pavements would be very big and full of lots of people - go figure that.

Glad you had a nice weekend. I couldnt read about Zombies - too scary.

Butti

I'm interested in going to Australia, at least for a while, not because I'm vastly enamoured of the place although it seems to have some interesting spots. More because it's not in recession, it's not massively cutting the public sector and it's actually got jobs and SOME JOBS RELEVENT TO ME.

So it's down as option c, behind a housing job anywhere and an immediate job that pays money!

So Australia with a job seems like quite a decent option. We'll see what the visa agent says!

Cheri, it's a very big place so maybe it does have very big pavements.:rotfl:

B

niccatw

Yup, email address secured . He was talking about how refreshing it was to come back to the UK and realise how tolerant we are and how we work together for the most part... I wonder if the awful events of the last few days have led him to re-assess that opinion.

Butti, his view of Australia less optimistic than your in terms of economy. I have extended family there so I have their opinions of the politics, economy, jobs etc. ... I think it depends on what you do and where you go. From what I've researched, the health care system there would mean I would hit upon the same problems there that frustrate me here. And while I suspect I will hit similar problems in a developing country too, I'd be more interested to see how people work to problem solve them.

In this country right now I feel there is so much negativity and bleakness - and I've never found a situation where those two things have helped me find the strength to make the next move.

Anyway, I'm waffling. I'm sure I came on here to say something profound and inspiring!

And tell you exactly why Australia's pavements are so big and full of people (Cheri, I now have an image of you as a Borrower No wonder you were scared of Australia's pavements! )

Butti, working in a bar in Edinburgh during the festival! You mad soul! (Where did I read that?) If you get the chance, pop into The Rose Street Tavern on, uhm well, Rose Street and tell Jen Nic said hi! . I hope between that and the lodgers smash down the side of the sofa (again, where did I read that?) you manage to get together what you need for your immediate needs.

The book about zombies isn't scary Cheri. It's very well done and is written as research transcripts so it's people's memories rather than zombies coming to get you. Though for me, zombies coming to get me conjures up the Simon Pegg movie "Shaun of the Dead" :rotfl: which is not at all scary. So zombies I'm ok with.

Ghosts. Now ghosts terrify me! They keep me awake at night. I can't watch or read anything with the slightest mention. Or hear stories. I mean keep me awake in that child-like way when it is night-after-night. And I need the light on.

It's probably not any wonder as I used to hallucinate at night time as a child! And I don't know if any of you have ever experienced sleep paralysis...? You really don't want those two together as an 8 year old I tell you! Lasting impression on my pyschi! (At least, my rational self will continue to tell me that!)

NSD again today. Despite meeting a colleague for lunch. She never lets me pay and it really is way past my turn! But she's so sneaky about how she manages to pay! So I feel I need to do something as a token of my appreciation. Any idea will be gratefully received! Food is out, though I think her and her husband like to go out for brunch of an ocassional weekend as a treat... hmmmm......

Anyhoo, off to exorcise those ghosts so I can sleep (better than exercising them, methinks)!

I hope you are all safe wherever you are tonight. x

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi nic nothing much to say just reading but I thought I'd say hello. The rioting is terrible :-s hopefully all will calm down soon enough xx hugs hope you are well xxx

Butti

niccatw wrote: »

He was talking about how refreshing it was to come back to the UK and realise how tolerant we are and how we work together for the most part... I wonder if the awful events of the last few days have led him to re-assess that opinion.

Butti, his view of Australia less optimistic than your in terms of economy. I have extended family there so I have their opinions of the politics, economy, jobs etc.

Butti, working in a bar in Edinburgh during the festival! You mad soul! (Where did I read that?) If you get the chance, pop into The Rose Street Tavern on, uhm well, Rose Street and tell Jen Nic said hi! . I hope between that and the lodgers smash down the side of the sofa (again, where did I read that?) you manage to get together what you need for your immediate needs.

NSD again today. Despite meeting a colleague for lunch. She never lets me pay and it really is way past my turn! But she's so sneaky about how she manages to pay! So I feel I need to do something as a token of my appreciation. Any idea will be gratefully received! Food is out, though I think her and her husband like to go out for brunch of an ocassional weekend as a treat... hmmmm......

I think we are a very tolerant society and I think we continue to be a very tolerant society. I believe Aussie is a bit more like the USA in their view and treatment of minorities. Racism seems to be more acceptable there. But that is my assumption and you know what they say about ASSuming!

Construction wise things are looking good in Aus at the moment BUT a lot of their growth is tied in with minerals, so not as rosy as it appears.

I am being paid £80 a day for working Edinburgh, during the day (not the evening). So it should really help even if it kills me.

What I would do for your friend (if you are as slight of hand as she is!) is cut out two squares of fabric. Stitch them almost completely around the edge with broderie anglais sandwiched along the edge between them (they are facing in). Put lavander inbetween. Sew up. Slip into her bag.

Cheap and paid back!

B

MrsMoo2U

Very tired and incoherent but had to post. The Borrowers .......loved them and perhaps that is the answer, I seem to recall that the talk of moving was around the time the Borrowers were on tv. How strange.

Australia I know nothing about but my friend moved to NZ with hubby (policeman) and 3 children. Says it is the best thing they ever did (NZ like England when we were kids - now we are 46 so probably way before your time). He was a police cadet aged 16 and went into the full force aged 18 and he says that policing in NZ is great because it is like it was when he first started. I also have an ex colleague who was married to a NZlander who wanted to go home. She agreed (told us that she was only going for 6 months and sublet her house) 5 years later she is still there and loves it.
Nic - I hear that Austria has an amazing healthcare system and all related services too so I wonder if that might be a country for you to consider - not sure VSO go there though!
Nope, you wont convince me about zombies or vampires. Ghosts dont scare me at all though. My Mum and Nan were both Clairvoyant if you believe in that kind of thing (I think it is more instinct and can be explained but then it is healthy to be sceptical).
You just reminded me ....... when I was a kid my Nan used to tell us that we shouldnt stare into the mirror because the devil would stare back. I used to sleep over there a lot and she had one of those big dressing tables with a big mirror. One night I was lying in bed and facing the mirror. I swear the devil looked at me. I ran to the living room crying that the devil was in the mirror and my Nan said........... Dont be so daft lass, there is no such thing as the devil?????????????????? I tell you if I was John Bishop that story would feature in my set - honestly.