Cloudy's 'bring me some sunshine' diary!

Cloudy456

Thanks Cloverfan, that's really nice of you!

Decided to make a to do list this morning!

Post E Bay parcel
Have a NSD by coming home for lunch and staying in this evening
Check bank balances and update excel spreadsheet
Book train tickets for the weekend
Make lunch to take to work tomorrow

Have a good day everyone!

Cloudy456

I've done everything on my list except the NSD as I bought lunch, work got really busy and I only had time to run out for a sandwich so that was £3.50 down the pan aggh!

But I've had a mini LBM about how things have been over the last week or two, and am confident that I will get this month back on track! I'm determined not to let it slip any more, and so I have made 2 days worth of lunches to sit in the fridge and have cooked myself a nice dinner from things in the freezer. I am determined that my ruthless attitude of last month is back!!

Cloudy456

Update: I've kicked into action tonight and have parcelled up £5 worth of CDs to go to Music Magpie, so that should be in my account next week. I've also phoned Virgin to see if they would extend the 0% BT offer that's on my account as its only until October. When the woman said no, that's the best they can do, I said oh well I might close it then as its not much use to me....and she immediately gave me the number of the retentions department to call when they are open tomorrow to 'see what they can do'! So if they would offer me 6 months or more, I would do a transfer from my main CC....will see what they say tomorrow! Feel good for having done some positive actions though after a fairly rubbish week money-wise.

Cloudy456

Just gave Virgin a quick call before work and they offered me a 0% BT until March 2011, and I didn't even mention I might close the account! So I've done that for £4700 ish of the £7200 balance on my other card, leaving me a much smaller and more manageable amount to tackle. Yay! That's about 40% of my debt that I now don't have to worry about for 10 months (well in terms of interest charges, obviously I won't just ignore it!) Yay!

Question - I wonder if I should request that Barclaycard reduce the credit limit on my other card? I don't want to bring myself to their attention in case they decide to increase my interest rate or something, and maybe I will want a large credit limit available to do a BT in the future if I can't pay of the Virgin card by March, but I feel it would be good to reduce the amount of credit available to me on my credit file. And would also remove the scary feeling that I have £7,500 of credit available to me on one card!! I'm not worried about running it up more, I just wonder what would be best to do?

Nichelette

That's great about Virgin. If you're making the min payments I doubt Barclaycard would up your interest rate, though I'm not a CC expert so I might be wrong. If it would make you feel better maybe you could reduce it by a bit and see how you feel? Maybe you could reduce it to £5000 or so, then if you need to BT the amount on the Virgin card you can?

Cloudy456

Yeah I don't think they would, I'm just paranoid! I know the BT was the right thing to do as it will save me loads in interest in the next 10 months but it had a fee of £130 which means my overall balance will be reduced by even less this month! Oh well, I guess its a kind of investment!

I spent £8.90 tonight on dinner with my friend but I got 2 courses, a cocktail and large glass of wine for that so I don't feel too bad! Yesterday I spent about £9 although some of that was on posting an E bay parcel so doesn't really count! The rest was food and toiletries that I needed. So all going sort of ok at the moment, I'm not being militant but not more blow outs. And I'm back to recording all my spending as I think it was when I stopped the spending diary that I lost control a bit, so I'm back on board with that. I've got my Music Magpie parcel ready to send off tomorrow for another fiver or so, and I've got up to £9 in surveys on my OnePoll account, so that's all good!

Now I need to go and make lunch for tomorrow but I have a headache from having two drinks - how pathetic!

Cloudy456

Spent about £6 today on some groceries but well stocked now for the next few days. I'm off to my friend's tomorrow to get fitted for my bridesmaid dress but the train is paid for and I've made a packed lunch to eat on the train so it should be a nice cheap trip! We'll be staying in for dinner tomorrow night then I'll head back on Sunday. So actually the whole weekend should be fairly spend free...hopefully!

I sent of the Music Magpie parcel today and did a few more surveys, not much else to report. Just desperately trying to get through the next 2 weeks without blowing the budget, then I might have a hope of paying off about £300 this month. I'm trying to look at everything in bite sized chunks for now, if I think about how I have 11k to get through its just too depressing so for now I am focussing on clearing the £1049.20 that will get me under 10k, then I will set my next milestone. My thinking is, the more targets I set, the more I achieve and the more motivated I will feel! Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Cloudy456

Quick Sunday night update - had a good and reasonably cheap weekend, spent about £15 on drinks and a few bits of food while we were out and about. I also had to spent £26 on renewing my railcard which was annoying as I'd left it at home when I got to the station and my pre-booked ticket wasn't valid without it. But it expired in 2 weeks anyway so not a disaster, just means its yet another thing I've had to shell out for before payday therefore another sum knocked off what I will have paid off this month! Anyway, it should be a cheap week coming up, got lots of food in and nothing much planned except a drink with a friend and I'll probably just have soda water! With every penny I spend at the moment I can feel this month's total debt reduction shrinking before my eyes, so I'm finding it quite easy to be motivated. But I have definitely realised that using cash helps, I will try and do that next month as much as possible as paying by card just doesn't feel like money somehow. Anyway, that's my ramblings for tonight, off to make packed lunches for the next 2 days and watch the end of the football!

Cloudy456

Fairly good start to the week - received my £20 goodwill cheque from Npower and also got £10 I was owed from work. I spent £2 at lunchtime as we all went out for lunch but I ate my packed lunch first and just had a drink so it could've been worse. Still annoyed though, I was hoping for a NSD today! Just had a nice dinner cobbled together from the freezer. Oh and I also did a few more surveys today worth about £1.70 in total.

I've been re-reading through the earlier pages of my diary - its amazing how quickly it gets long, especially when I'm mainly just babbling away to myself! It really helps though, and reading my entries from last month reminds me how militant I had to be to pay off a decent chunk. I think doing quite well last month made me complacent but I need to stay that strict for the long term not just do it for one month then pat myself on the back! Oh well, the rest of this week should be a cheap one and its only 11 days until payday!!

Cloudy456

Soooo sleepy after a long and smelly day at work! It doesn't happen often - I generally really like my job which is unusual I know, so having rubbish days reminds me I'm lucky not to feel like that all the time! Doesn't make me feel better about the fact that I'm about 5 grand underpaid but hey, its a recession :-)

Still waiting to hear about my 'payrise' which I should get told about in the next week or two I hope. We're having a pay review and I've made it clear to my boss that I will be job hunting if I don't receive a good increase and he said he will do his best with the powers that be, so we'll see.

Spent about £6.50 today on some groceries and a drink with a friend after work. Just had a coke as last time I had wine at that place it was £5.50 a glass! Now I'm stretched out watching the football and have a good new book so I'm happy. A library book of course, got to get something out of all that council tax I pay! I've made two more lacked lunches for tomorrow and Thursday, and done a few more surveys so all in all a fairly nice and chilled out day. Ooh and I paid in my Npower cheque at lunchtime, should clear in a couple of days.

Only 10 days until payday woooo!