Time to make some changes . . . lots of changes!

karmachilovething

Thanks Chev, it's nice to know I'm not just wittering into the ether and nobody's listening!

I have a new resolution - much as I love the challenges, I don't honestly have the time to be on line as much as they sometime require. So I'm going to give myself a couple of months off from that (with the exception of the Crazy Clothes Challenge), and concentrate on posting regularly in here to keep me on the straight and narrow.

OK so I have set up my monthly spread sheet. I think it's going to work well for me. I was running a spends diary, which was good because every time I spent I had to write it down so it made me think of what I spending on, but I didn't do the adding up frequently enough so it doesn't help so much with seeing how I'm doing against my budgets. And the spread sheet does it all for me (and I've set it up to go red when I overspend - check me out!)

OK so news in the KarmaChi camp?

Well the big thing is we're moving out of our current house at the end of the month. I live with three others and two of them are a couple so they want their own place. DHM (Darling House Mate) and I have found a lovely little house. It's quite a lot more expensive than our current place, but I knew that would happen - our current place hasn't had the rent raised in 4 years so not really representative of rent anymore.

Luckily the agency for the new place aren't charging as much as some - we came across ones who wanted £300 for credit checks and stuff :eek: so that makes this one's £125 seem a positive bargain :rotfl:

I'm also quite confident that savings can be made in bills, so I'm going to be trying hard to get some good deals.

So this weekend I'm doing research for telecoms deals, booking a van (we're part furnished and generally have lots of stuff! Already found a good deal with a local firm for £64 for two day weekend, everybody else I looked at was £100+), and put our current sofa on gumtree to sell. Bit too early to pack, will reserve that joy for the following weekend.

Right, have to go change me sheets before bed - only got half way though doing it this morning.
Night all!

jwil

I'm here too.

Good luck with the move!

karmachilovething

Ah hi jwil, good to see you too! I'm still lurking on your thread too, so have been keeping up with your news - sounds like you've been having a tough time of things lately. Hang in there it will get better.

OK, so this will be a quick one (I hope!):

House things are all moving forward fine, fingers crossed will be signing the lease at the end of the week. Van is booked for the Sunday of the bank holiday (we decided only needed for a day), with a 10% discount because the company is the same one work uses for hire cars for meetings. Bonus! :money: I also put out an appeal at work for boxes and bubble wrap, as we get lots of things sent to us and the packaging goes straight in the bin usually. So have been receiving lots of free packing materials, and have been promised proper packing boxes from somebody who moved a couple of months ago.

Haven't listed the sofa yet, but will do that one night this week. But have found a good telephone/broadband deal and researched a digital box and then found it for about half price with a quick google. Will leave buying that until next month though, trying to spread the expenses a bit.

I'm also thinking that I will use the move as an opportunity for a bit of a clear out - will designate a box (or two, hopefully not more) for eBay sales stuff and work my way through it. I don't think its worth me getting involved in it before that, because toomuch stuuf going on, and any money raised will be "free" and I won't count on it to cover move expenses.

karmachilovething

PS. NSD today!

karmachilovething

karmachilovething wrote: »

PS. NSD today!

Actually as it turned out it wasn't a NSD unfortunately - realised I didn't have enough things in the hosue to make a meal (and I'm pretty good at making a meal out of thin air, so things were really desparate!) so had to go to the supermarket. And then also combined with buying travel insurance for my holiday I'm going on in 3 weeks.

Had my annual review at work today, and largely very positive: clients seem to be impressed with me; a small payrise; agreed on my weaknesses. But I'm annoyed at myself because I didn't raise the fact that I don't want to be on the project I'm on. Mostly because the senior management guy I work under was doing the review, and he's not very good at measure responses IYKWIM :eek: So basically I chicken out of saying something. And I part of my reason for raising it is that then if nothing happens, and I move to another company I can do so without feeling disloyal. Loyalty is one of my great strengths, but also one of my weaknesses.

Going to have a chat to my parents and friends about it, and sleep on it and may come back and raise it tomorrow. They#ll still be doing reviews then so it will be fine.

Have to go to pick up my contact lenses at the opticians now, and I know I'll go past a couple of shops. Have to resist going to buy stuff just because I now feel crappy about how things went.

karmachilovething

So it's moving day tomorrow. I am sat on the sofa I've just listed on eBay (wasn't shifting on Gumtree, but as it was free listing, nothing lost there) looking at an enormous pile of my and DHM's stuff worrying that we don't have places to put everything.

As for the financial stuff, I have so many things in flux I have no idea where I stand, which isn't really very reassuring. The deposit for the new place had gone out (for example) but we won't get the existing house one back until the end of June I expect. I'm glad I have full use of my overdraft again.

Spreadsheet seems to be helping on the day to day stuff, although I haven't really done very well at keeping it up in the past week, so will have to go back and see where I am.

jwil

Hope the move went well Karmachi and fingers crossed the sofa sells.

karmachilovething

KarmaChi gone AWOL again - no surprises there!

But in my defense it's been an incredibly busy month! So I'm going to do a summary of stuff so it's not an enormous post:

House move generally went well, and it seems we do have enoguh space for most things, although still to find the time to find homes for some of it.

But. Big BUT. On the last van run (at the end of like a 12hr day, so both tired) DHM scraped the rented van down the side of a skip :eek: So we had to kiss goodbye to our £250 deposit :eek::eek: Didn't have the heart not to split it with him, and it was a real case of "there but the grace of God go I" so that's an extra £125 down.

New bills for the house seem to have come down a bit, and have got some good deals on insurance and telecoms. Virgin got installed last week, so now have internet at home (also why I haven't been on forum for ages)

Went on holiday to Morocco for a week. Not very MSE, but kept within my budget, and DM gave me £100 for holiday treat/moving expenses, which was a lovely surprise. Also had an amazing time, so no regrets there.

Old house has been cleaned, so fingers crossed on the return of full deposit (boy do I need that!)

Spreadsheet has not been updated for ages, so need to get back on top of that . . . Also without broadband haven't been able to check on-line banking and frankly terrified what it's going to look like when I do. Am going to pluck up the courage to do that tonight, as have to pay up last bills for the old place.

And in somewhat different news - I have been dating a amazing man for the past month. Everything going swimmingly, and making me very happy and an improved outlook on life definately helps everything else.

And latest news: NSD today! Need to up the quota of those in the coming months!

Phew, still a pretty long post! Will try harder to keep up with this diary on a more regular basis.
KarmaChi

jwil

Good news about the holiday , not so good news about the van .

GREAT news about the new man!