My Debt-Free-Wannabe Diary

gallygirl

Yay, well done you!!!! How about switching power next?

£2 for insurancwe quote from Swinton.

£8 from Inkclub (not sure if £8 still on offer, may only be £4)

£25 betfair

50p opinionistic sign up

10p Kelkoo - better than car searches, only 1 a day though.

40p catalink

£4 mags sign up to The Week through Dennis Publishing - CANCEL THE DD THOUGH - £4 and 6 mags free.

Right, that's another 2 days worth!!!

DontDoDebtKids

Time for the report of my second week of having a spending diary.

The good news this week, as you will have read, is that I've been clocking up extra money from Quidco and matched betting, to the total of £118.38. Thanks for the suggestions ali007, I'll keep on scouring Quidco for useful extra cashback. I also had one more no spend day this week on the 2nd August :j Spending this week was £98.35. Under £100, which is better than last week but still not ideal, nor is it my £57.12 a week!!!

One major slip and several minor slips this week, details below:

Minor slips: I had lunch at work 3 times this week - cost £6.65. :mad: This really seems to add up. Slipping on the preparation of packed lunches so aim to make lunch for myself every day this week. Also spent £32.45 topping up my car as I was at the supermarket and that's generally where petrol is cheapest in my area. I also had to get a new car parking permit for where I live - cost £15.00

Major slip: (here goes, this is what you're all going to tell me off for) I spent £42.50 on Sunday taking out some friends for Sunday lunch. My girlfriend and I stayed with them this weekend, which was great fun, and we all went out for Sunday lunch. I didn't want to seem like a scrounger as they had paid for everything else the entire weekend so I paid for the lunch - it's all very well saving money but I don't want to be a complete scrooge!!!

Spending Summary

Going Out : £44.25
Petrol : £32.45
Lunches : £6.65
Misc : £15.00

Total : £98.35

So, using my calculations below, my remaining £228.49 has been reduced £98.35 to £130.04 until the 27th August.

Now, I'll need to fill up my car towards the end of this week, which will cost a bit, but if I make sandwiches to bring in then I shouldn't need to spend anything during the week and we're not doing anything this weekend (perhaps going to a friend's house party but that won't cost anything if I dig a spare wine bottle out) and of course I have lots of free DVDs to watch from Blockbuster anyway so I reckon that this week should be a good one.

PeachPickle

DontDoDebtKids wrote:

Major slip: (here goes, this is what you're all going to tell me off for) I spent £42.50 on Sunday taking out some friends for Sunday lunch. My girlfriend and I stayed with them this weekend, which was great fun, and we all went out for Sunday lunch. I didn't want to seem like a scrounger as they had paid for everything else the entire weekend so I paid for the lunch - it's all very well saving money but I don't want to be a complete scrooge!!!

That's always a killer isn't it? £42.50 doesn't seem *too* bad if you break it down per person there

Well done with Quidco :T

DontDoDebtKids

ali007 wrote:

Yay, well done you!!!! How about switching power next?
£2 for insurancwe quote from Swinton.
£8 from Inkclub (not sure if £8 still on offer, may only be £4)
£25 betfair
50p opinionistic sign up
10p Kelkoo - better than car searches, only 1 a day though.
40p catalink
£4 mags sign up to The Week through Dennis Publishing - CANCEL THE DD THOUGH - £4 and 6 mags free.
Right, that's another 2 days worth!!!

Wow. Cheers! I've done Betfair a while back and The Week. Switched gas and electricity last year too.

I was just doing Ink Club but they want to charge me £2.99 postage for a free ink cartridge so I've put that off. I would get £8 but I'm wary because if they don't pay me then I have an ink cartridge I didn't really need...

I had just found kelkoo so have done them once a day since. I'll add Swindon, opinionistic and katalink to my to do list. :money:

DontDoDebtKids

:mad: Managed to make myself a tasty lunch today and then FORGOT IT.

Damn.

Two no spend days in a row so far this week. Looks like it may not reach three. :mad:

Currently setting up my Alliance and Leicester account as my spending account (replacing First Direct). Phone banking not a patch on First Direct but otherwise OK. May try to find people who want to be referred (yay £50 for me as well as them!)

Have changed my standing order on HSBC internet banking.

Now have to ring all my direct debit people to change account details. Stuck in Orange phone queue - stupid numbers they ask you to press :mad: :mad: :mad: and then you wait FOREVER :mad:

DontDoDebtKids

Checked my rpoints balance and transferred £15.16 of points that I didn't realise I had to my bank account. :j

Since I started using Quidco I've hardly used them so that's a bit of a bonus

DontDoDebtKids

:eek: My direct debit for my Morgan Stanley card is due tomorrow - £1088 :eek:

I've only got £1058 in my First Direct account so it looks like I'll being going overdrawn tomorrow on that account...

... and I had to move £734.65 from my HSBC account (now showing -£1,500:mad:) to get it up to £1058 so that's going to cost me in interest charges there too.

I'm expecting about just under £700 in rent on, probably, Monday next week and then I get paid on Tuesday. _pale_

This is the time of month I HATE:mad:

The worst thing is that I look at my "recent transactions" on my credit card and it already shows £676 as the balance, which will pretty much clear me out next month too.

DontDoDebtKids

Looks like MS haven't taken their money yet. That'll be tomorrow then. I've also just realised that I may have to keep some money in my HSBC account to pay my American Express DD on Monday (£190ish). Aaaargh why do I always seem to have a cashflow problem every month!!!

It doesn't help that apparently I'm going out for a curry with some friends tonight (that I apparently agreed to a while back and so can't back out of now) so there goes the no spend day :mad: :mad: :mad:

Floss

Maybe when you've got a little bit more sorted with your Cap1 card, you can allow yourself a buffer in you current account....I know its hard, I used to get charged everymonth, then go overdrawn again by however much I'd been charged etc etc etc to the tune of a £3044.87 claim!

You're doing really well - you'll see the difference when Cap1 is paid off.

DontDoDebtKids

MS direct debit still not gone...very odd!

I've moved £195 to HSBC in preparation for my Amex DD on Monday so when MS and Amex have taken their money (probably Monday now) I will have...you guessed it...zip!

Actually, I suppose, I already have zip as I know those payments are coming out.

Looks like today will be a no spend day as I remembered to bring sandwiches in and this weekend will be spent watching the second batch of DVDs ordered from my free Blockbuster trial and doing things to the garden. Perhaps I will put some junk on ebay (sorry, I mean valuable collectable merchandise which you KNOW you want so bid now folks!) and perhaps do some matched betting.