Daffy's 'a nice cup of tea cheers you up' diary

Cheery_Daff

Hi all

I thought it was about time I started my own diary, as I seem to be spending far too much time clogging up Fay's and the 'what small things' thread... :rotfl: So here goes...

A little bit about me... I'm 30, live with Mr Daffs (otherwise known as Rock Star Boyfriend). I like cheery things, colourful things, knitting and sewing and reading and gardening and making things, and lots of things that aren't 'things' at all I work 2 days a week, and am 6 months in to a year's worth of, ahem, 'revisions' to my PhD which takes up the other 3 days. Mr Daffs owns this house, I pay 'rent', 'contribution' or whatever you want to call it. And we drive a rickety old post office van that falls apart every five minutes, but that we sleep in for holidays, and that we love very much :rotfl:

I once saw a sign in the mugs section of a charity shop saying 'a nice cup of tea cheers you up' - we say this several times a day in our house, and it's pretty much the motto of my whole life at the minute :beer: (imagine that's tea, not beer!)

As for money... well. In 2007, I'd managed to rack up around £3000 of debt (I think!) in an overdraft and credit card. I had an income of about £1000 a month, was living in a shared house, just about meeting minimum payments on the card, and heading rapidly towards the overdraft limit well before each payday.

Sometime in 2007, I realised my PhD grant money would be coming to an end (and I hadn't *quite* finished the PhD, so couldn't work full time yet). I started keeping a spending diary. I've still got those diaries - and occasionally I look at them and am astounded at how much cups of tea in cafes and chocolate bars add up to :eek: Anyway, I knuckled down, got a part time job doing care work, threw everything I could at the credit card and overdraft, and paid them both off within 6 months, and before the PhD money ran out :money:

Since then, I've been working 2 (long) days a week at my care work job, earning about £620 a month, before tax. I haven't had an overdraft or credit card since :j:j:j

A month ago I gave up my job, and last week started a new job - still 2 days a week, 60 miles away (:eek:), and much better paid (and much more fun!) - should be £780 a month AFTER tax, which makes me feel positively rich! :rotfl:

So... obviously I'm not paid until the end of June, and I didn't want to get into a cycle of spending my wages before I got them, so my aim has been to make/save enough so i don't have to dip into my holiday fund :j So far I've:

* joined the 'Make £10 a day in June' thread (but it's £5 - I'm still a beginner!)
* signed up to lots of surveys and things
* done a couple of things through Quidco
* listed lots of books on Amazon
* done lots of transcribing work

I'm only about £60 off what I need for June, and have about £100 in wages for transcribing work coming in the next couple of weeks! :j

As for debt, at the minute I owe:

* £292 in fees to the university (not due yet, but I'd like to get it out of the way and have set up a payment plan)

* £510 to Mr Daffs, from when I had several months off work last year to finish my PhD off and didn't contribute anything to the household

Mr Daffs has offered to write off what I owe him, but I'd rather pay it :A, although it's all in dribs and drabs!

So, if you got this far after all that waffling, well done, and welcome to my cheery little diary, where I'll try and keep track of what I've spent (or rather what I haven't), and my vague efforts to cut back even more, while making sure the tea and cake still flows... :j

Pippilongstocking

Hey cheery

woo hoo a shiney new diary to obsess on

I wish you a lovely interesting ride in diaryland.

Many cups to wash, cakes to bake and pennies to save.

Great to see you making such headway with work/money.

Love to cheery post van - even if it's a bit naughty!

Off for an early night - so I will nip back over my fence! Started my cut out and stick it do it up feecycle table today - we've cut and pasted many pics of plants, deckchairs, cakes, tea cups and cushions! It's a riot!

Lemon_Tree

hello Cheery, thought i'd come and join you on your thread, and i'm sure Fay'll agree with me that you haven't been cloggin up her thread any more than the rest of us have

Pippilongstocking

Lemon_Tree wrote: »

hello Cheery, thought i'd come and join you on your thread, and i'm sure Fay'll agree with me that you haven't been cloggin up her thread any more than the rest of us have

Exactly - well said LT - in fact, um please don't abandon me!:eek:

I hope life is great today - just thinking do you get the train to your new job? How long does that take?

Morning by the way - wet and drizzly here. Off to do proper writing up work today - beginning to obsess about the amount of time I have left!

have a great day today - hope the cheery finances behave.

Karmacat

:wave::wave::wave: Found you!

Yes, don't leave Fay's diary - after all, I have my own, and I still witter endlessly on there

Cheery, thats a long old commute - as long as mine to London, which I only do once a fortnight - I second Fay's question, how do you get there, if you're a passenger what do you take to pass the time, is it rush hour? Details please :D:D

makeup

Hey Cheery

I've subscribed to your lovely shiny knitted diary!

Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures!

makeup x :j

beanielou

LOve your user name
Happy new diary

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, thanks for the lovely welcome, you gorgeous lot! :j How lovely to have people excited to hear about my waffling on :rotfl: Mind you, I love having a good nosey at what everyone else is up to :rotfl:

How do I get to work? Well, it's ever such fun. Years and years and years ago I bought a little foldy bike - one of these. I used it all the time back then, but it's mostly been sat in the cellar for a few years now. ex-ex-mr daffs had one too, so the present Mr Daffs bought it off him, so now we both have one :j They both come on holiday with us in our little van.

Anyway, so I whizz 3 miles downhill to the station at ludicrous-o-clock in the morning, catch the 7.12 train, do a bit of knitting/reading/staring out of the window, get off at 8.23, and cycle another 2-3 miles to work Then at 5pm I do it all in reverse (although, er, I'm not fit enough to cycle all the way back UP the hill from the station, so I, er, get on the bus :rotfl:)

Door to door it's about 4 hours a day round trip :eek::eek: I'm sure it'd be much quicker driving, but

- driving is boring
- my van would probably break down every day and then I'd be sacked :rotfl:
- I still have a student railcard so train is much, much cheaper than diesel would be :money:
- over 2 hours out of that 4 hours is knitting time :T
- I get 9 miles of cycling exercise done in there too :j

Morning train isn't really that busy, evening generally quite busy, but usually get a seat (although I've only worked there 4 days - one of those I didn't come home, one I was in Cardiff, and one I missed 2 trains through my own incompetence and had to get an indirect one, so evidence based on, er, one train journey...)

(anyway, a very long answer to a very short question!)

Just got back from a little trip to Cardiff/Bristol for a work training course (lots of fun), and sneaked in a little trip to visit a couple of friends too - very MSE! Off for a wander round diary-land (and to make another cup of tea, of course), then I'll start thinking about money

(must also start thinking about how to answer questions without waffling on quite so much! :rotfl:)

Karmacat

Thats brilliant, Cheery! And fancy your ex and your OH being friendly enough to buy a bike ... tres cool. I love the idea of you on the train with your knitting and your folding bike, thats incredibly green of you! Are you liking the job so far? It sounds like you are, cos you sound really happy (or was that out to la-la land with friends?) Very nice, whatever! Speak later
xx

Cheery_Daff

Karmacat - it's part of the job description that any boyfriend of mine must NOT have jealousy or otherwise issues with any ex of either mine or theirs Consequently my ex comes round for tea, and fixes our bikes if necessary (although I'm pretty good at that myself) and Mr Daffs is in a band with his ex Good manners (mostly!) all round I say - it's a good sign for our own relationship I reckon! :A

And yes, thanks, I'm enjoying the job, everyone's absolutely lovely, nobody moans about ANYTHING (so far), department provides tea and biscuits every morning at 11 and you're not allowed to talk about work while they're out :rotfl: And the project is really interesting and worthwhile too. And it's only a 20 month contract, but they like to try to keep people on afterwards. But in case they can't, cos that depends on funding, they're taking a real interest in my 'career' anyway, lining up training that will help not just for this job, and paying for me to be a member of a professional association for my other field of research, not the one the job's in :eek:

Proper landed on my feet there I reckon!

Money update:: Just had a slightly scary moment having to transfer £390 out of my savings account, leaving a grand total of £35.09 I was SO pleased with myself having a savings account with some actual money in it! :rotfl:


However, MUST remember:

- some of it was saved up to pay for annual van expenses - £250 of today is for the insurance, of which I'll get £125 back from Mr Daffs anyway
- £140 of today is to cover the rest of June's expenses, just swept it into current account in case of unexpected things. I'll get paid this much from my second job in June - but it won't come til 25th - when I'l l transfer £140 back to the savings account (otherwise known as "I-want-to-go-and-visit-Fay Account :rotfl:)

So it's not all bad, just feels a little scary... :eek:

Karmacat

Wow! They're helping you with career planning too..... that sounds a great place, Cheery, well done you.

I know what you mean about the scary stuff - I've just had to push £1000 to France for the mortgage payments, and it'll be gone in *such* a short time. I have to remember, there's over £500 of debt being repaid every month over there. ...