Reach for the stars...

niccatw

Going, going....

Not quite gone yet but well on his way......

:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Cue Nicca signing up for a night class in interior design! This could get messy! And expensive!!! I implore all of you to stop me buying/attempting to make lots of pretty things for my flat that I wil then want to declutter!

However, I do have a challenge set by a certain expert in field of minimalism (known to mobsters by various names, but we'll just call him Mike...) to ensure my new found space becomes a minimalist multi-functional room.

All it needs to do is house a yoga space, a guest room space, an office space, a sewing room space and a drying and ironing space... simples!

So, let's put the tartan paint and long stand to one side, and let me hear your ideas. Vintage isn't really me, but sustainable, eco friendly and frugal are....

The artex in the hall ceiling is plastered. Woo hoo. As are the walls. Woo hoo. Then I noticed the lodger's ceiling is artex too....

MatyMoo

Yay, tartan paint again :j

So pleased you have got to this day without committing a murder (said in the way of the original Taggart :rotfl:)

Butti

MatyMoo wrote: »

Yay, tartan paint again :j

So pleased you have got to this day without committing a murder (said in the way of the original Taggart :rotfl:)

Don't know, think Mike might be wanting to shoot me over on his thread.

niccatw

I seem to have accidently stripped off some of the wallpaper in the spare room! As well as having got a local charity to uplift all of the mismatched furniture in it...

And I seem to have piled up all the car boot/6bay stuff and work stuff in the corner in front of the cupboard housing the hoover and cleaning stuff!

And I haven't even started the interior design course yet!

There's so much I want to do with it... but I think the first thing I need to do is get more plug sockets in. Two single sockets is just not enough. I also suspect no electrician worth his salt will do this without me updating my electric box. So, I suspect things will come to a halt as I save up for that and continue to pay off the debts.

It's probably a good thing as I will change my mind over what I want to do a hundred times over by then!

niccatw

Long weekends should be compulsary!

Yesterday I walked up a hill and sat and had lunch looking over Loch Lomand (well, kinda; it was a bit misty ).

Today I have cleared another carful of stuff to the dump. Clearly bank holiday weekends are when the dump comes to life as I have never seen so many staff there or had any-one help me clear my car before!

The drill is charging and I am going to attempt to use it on the stuck screws on my lodgers punchbag, which is still in the flat. I want to take it to him as I don't particualry want quizzed on just how quickly I have emptied and stripped "his" room.

And the plasterer was back out to give me a quote for plastering that room - and then there will be no more artex left in the flat! Hallelujah! He will also run the extra plug sockets so that gives me a bit for time to save for a new electric box.

I'm feeling a bit like paying off debt is one thing. It's easy (relatively!!!) when you have a mountain of debt to pay and every spare penny goes to it. In some respects I haven't really had to budget - everything went to debt.

Now I am finding it a bit more difficult! I don't think I have actually learned to budget, merely to ask myself do I need this. So when it comes to balancing paying off my debt with the things I want to do to the flat - and save for the future, I am finding it much tougher!

I'm not sure how I overcome that yet - so if any of you have been there, do let me know what worked for you!

Oh, and before I forget... :EasterBun

niccatw

Happy Easter every-one.

Today I will be visiting pregnant friend (same pregnant friend that was pregnant at the beginning of my dairy! Gestation period of an elephant that girl...) We will mostly be eating banana cake (rather well done! *Note to self, don't switch oven off and leave banana cake in the oven for the next half hour because your memory is like a seive). And we will be drinking tea, naturally.

I'm upset that my posh tea pot cracked. It got into a barney with the pesky tap and said tap punched a hole in the side of it. It is clearly karma as I was just boasting to another of my leaf tea convert friends that I got it in the sale at Sainsbugs and would never have bought it at full price.

So tea bag tea it is for now... (I have plenty of them to choose from too. Although, I don't have rooibos caramel, which I had in a cafe the other day - yummy!)

I am contemplating signing up for the grocery challenge. Since doing my pilates and body balance on Monday nights, I tend to nip into the supermarket between them to stock up on bits and pieces - which I'm sure I don't need to tell you, is an absolute disaster if you don't have a list and aren't sure what you need and are a wee bit hungry!!!

But I don't know. I seem to have less and less time to be on the computer these days, which I guess is a good thing. But I know it makes it impossible for me to keep up with the NSD thread for example, and I'm rubbish at NSDs if I'm not reporting back to the Igor and the troops (although not as rubbish as I used to be! ), and I guess I'd have the same difficulties with the grocery challenge. That and I try to be as organic and eco-friendly as I can afford to be... I may be talking myslef into learning how to budget!!! (or at least out of a challenge!)

I stil have a love/hate relationship with spending diaries and I have all my receipts impailed on their spike, but I haven't actually looked at them or plotted them into any budget. Despite having downloaded the MSE excel one and despite having an app on my phone.

So the foundations are down, maybe a bit wobbly and I guess now is the time to root them down a bit!

But first I will drink tea and eat cake!

niccatw

I was all psyched up to change my boradband provider there. o2 put my price up to £14.50 at the end of February and I'd save myself a fortune if I did things as they come up. However, that was me just getting around to calling and asking for my MAC code. Which of course I never got, because I am a wuss with these things. However, despite no longer being an o2 mobile customer, they did offer me a new deal for £6.75 per month. Which is 50p more than the plusnet deal I was looking at, without having to change provider. Which I didn't particularly want to do as I've always found o2 to be reliable and their customer service to be relatively pleasant and helpful. (Let's face it, if you have to phone BT or o2; there'd be no contest!!! )

So I have at least done some money stuff today. I had assumed they might be shut for the bank holiday, but I should have realised poor call centre workers are chained to their desks. I wonder if NRAM is open then...

niccatw

Bit of a silly time to take meter readings, but there you go... meter readings taken and sent in to provider, who have reduced my monthly payment to £43 - a saving of £38 a month. Combine that with the £7.75 from the broadband saving and the student loan payment of £115 no longer coming out, then I only need to shave another £89.30 off my monthly outgoings to neutralise the lack of income from a lodger (though I have to say, that is priceless!!!). And come the end of May, my home contents will be due for renewal and I could probably review my life assurance.

I spent about £30 in the supermarket today and I have no idea what I am going to cook for the coming week. I need to learn to actually, really meal plan rather than just talk about it!

And I also actually, really need go to my bed before midnight too!

Night all

niccatw

Tonight I have been investigating cash ISAs. I find this a bit odd. Mostly because it takes me back to a vague childhood memory where I remember my Dad sitting on the floor in the living room while some guy talked to him about something called ISAs and it was all very complicated. Riveting childhood, eh? Actually, Dad was probably trying to get rid of me but I was a nosey child. And he was proabably sitting on the floor because he had just woken up from a snooze on said floor!

Anywho, I haven't done anything yet. I am partly thinking I should open the easy acess one in case I need to access any money I put in and I am partly thinking that as I haven't paid off my debts yet, the money I have spare to put it in negligible so I sohlud maybe just go for the two year one as it's a better interest rate, but I can't get at my money, but if I don't have an awful lot in it for a while, then that is perhaps no bad thing!

In my expereince, things need to be locked away. I can't do piggy banks as I am always raiding them. I haven't done terrimundi because I can't see why you'd spend that much money on a piggy bank and then have to smash it to release your cash!

So, if I open an ISA, I probably should go for the not very easy access one...

Feels rather weird, after years of trying to get rid of my debt, to be even thinking of savings accounts!

miggy

I'm thinking cash ISAs too... I opened one but only put £1 in! I reckoned I needed to learn about them and the only way to make real progress was to have one.

Now I've got it, and have realised it's a choice between overpayments to the mortgage and savings in said ISA, I'm not doing anything else - though I think the emergency fund should go in there so at least it's doing something useful while it waits.

It sounds as though your situation's different from mine and maybe the money would be best where you can't be tempted to use it! You will probably get a better interest rate as well - which you can rejoice in when I reap my tax free 3p.