Diary of a Dramaqueen

PollyBanwell

Well, it was the day before Christmas...and I got paid!!! Woo Hoo!

After all my smugness about how in controll I was the council decided to debit my account for my parking permitt which I though had been taken weeks ago plunging my account into the red! I saw it in time though and with some juggling of money from the house account, and a quick begging email to my new employers managed to avoid total bank charges catastrophe and still make rent in time for our rent day which technically is tomorrow! Also have put some money in for next months rent already and £150 into my ISA so it's there if I need it. Feel so relieved! Teaches me to keep better track of my moeny though! I need to perhaps start some system were I write payments down when I make them and tick off once they are debited. I was so cross with them and myself. If I hadn't thought to ask for an early payment, or if they had said "No" then we would be in a very tricky situation right now. Fortunately things have worked out and so may I take this opportunity to wish everyone celebrating Christmas a very merry and messy one, and to everyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas, seasons greetings and all the best for 2011. May we all be happier, healthier and slightly richer!

Polly x

PollyBanwell

Well, could I have eaten anymore this week? The answer is probably not! Oh my word, utterly full! It has been a fantastic Christmas and I have seen loads of family and friends. There has been a big meal every day and I feel thoroughly spoilt! Its been a fab few days in terms of spending quality time with my and my OH's family and a fab time in terms of spending in that I haven't done much! Apart from a bit towards my oyster card and petrol everything has been paid for by our families! We had lunch at my OH family on Christmas day, then the panto and dinner with mine on boxing day. Lovely! Back to work today and tomorrow and then off til Tuesday. Feels great approaching the New Year with a positive financial attitude and money in my account! I know I still have a long way to go in paying off my debts but I feel it is becoming a lot more managable.

With that in mind I have been rethinking my idea about Paris. I think it would be fabulous, but £160 is still alot to spend when I am £5k in debt and as much I would love to say "grab your passssport hun, I'm taking you away" I think its foolish. I still want to take him out for the day somewhere, but maybe Bath or York instead. Easier to get cheap "advance" tickets etc. We are also saving to go away in March and then there's a wedding in May in the channel islands, so plenty to save our money for!

I'm looking forward to NYE. Going to a dinner party with my folks as OH is working, so again saving loads on celebrating. NYE is always so expensive! I can't believe pubs that you normally go to any other night of the year suddenly are charging you £10 just to get in the door! Nah, house parties and dinner parties all the way.

The next part of my debt busting plan is to follow up on what someone suggested on this thread earlier and investigate snowballing interest rates on my cards. I have one more payment on my loan next month and then I have an extra £100 a month to play with. I am going to set up a DD to pay that off one of my cards each month, and want to know which would be the cheapest option. I imagine to jsut get into tackling the highest interes rate first, although I have smaller amounts on other cards so it would be nice to clear a card completely. I'm sure there is some info on MSE - love this website!

Happy New Year Everyone! Wishing you all all the love, luck and happiness in the world

urg123

Hi Polly,

Snowballing will make a real difference - by focusing on paying off the highest interest debt you will be able to say goodbye to them one by one!

As well as paying off from your earnings, have you thought about other ways of making money - i.e. Selling stuff on eBay and amazon; doing online surveys and mystery shopping. It sounds like your jobs can be flexible so it might help you to increase your income a little and pay that debt off a bit quicker.

Good luck on your debt free journey.

Urg x x

PollyBanwell

Hi Urg! Thanks for your post - Oddly I have just read and subscribed to your diary before I even saw you have seen mine!! Lol!

Thanks for the advice. Yes it makes sense to get rid of the highest intrest debt first. And if that's being covered by my £100 DD each month I can pay off other debts with the extra money from ebay etc. Generally in the past I've been quite good about getting stuff on ebay - it just doesn't always sell! Fortunately this year all the pressies I got for xmas were lovely and I don't want to sell any of them! But there is a pile of things from before xmas that need uploading. And I have looked into on line surveys - they bore me incredibly though and YouGov don't seem to pay brilliantly. Are there any other companies anyone knows of that are really worth while?

Lots of people have been writing their "to do" lists on their threads and its so good to know that I'm not the only one who loves a list! Washing, ironing and putting clothes away always feature, but at the moment I can add...

Put stuff on ebay
Get new camera memory card (mine broke!)
Do tax return (eek!)
File all my statments and paperwork that I gathered up and threw in a bag out of sight just before xmas!

Organised and tidy really seems to be the key to being in controll of not only your finances but life as well!

chevalier

lightspeedpanel.com are good. crowdology also pay our quite low and in cash. erm.. valued opinions. Some people seem to do quite well out of toluna and onepoll
good luck with your journey
chev

PollyBanwell

Well, another New Year! And yes, so far it has been a happy one!

Had a lovely dinner with my Mum and Dad at a friends house to see in the NY (OH is in a band and they were working!), then a very relaxing weekend, hanging out with Mum and then OH, until we finished off the holidays with my cousin at Mum's house and roast lamb!!! Yum Yum! A fun and rather inexpensive few days!

We bit the bullet and booked the accomodation for our trip to Barcelona. 3 of us are hiring an appartment for 5 nights at 73euros each! Bargain I thought! We are going to be a bit stung on the flights though. We were looking yesterday and because of the weekend we're going and its a Friday everything is quite pricey. It actually works out cheaper to go BA! We need to take bags as we are going to have fancy dress costumes and easy jet charge £18 a pop! For luggage! With BA it's all included and you get allocated seats so no elbowing for position and a free drink!! Sounds heavenly compared to the scrum that is easy jet! My OH camein last night from work (waiter when not a rockgod) and promptly put a tenner in our £2 coin/saving for Spain jar! Nice work - although the OCD in me was screaming inside "its not in £2 coins"!!! Far be it from me to moan though! It all adds up and we are trying to save our spending money between now and March so we don't have scrimp annd find it nearer the time. The accomodation is paid as we check out and so it's only the flights we have to find. £150 is steep but we can do it! I know! And whats lovely is that we are saving for it and not just reaching for the credit card as I might have in the past!

I also booked the tcikets for OH birthday surprise! £48 for return tix to Bath which was much less than the £160 I was going to pay to go to Paris for the day! Really looking forward to it. Got the later train as well as it was cheaper and means he can have a lie in - would have felt mean waking him up at the crack of dawn on his birthday!

So all in order and back at work! Tube fares have gone up, and so has my weight so also joined WW last week. Seems a lot of outgoing I know but I have budgeted and these are things we have and are still planning for so it doesn't feel "naughty". Today I have been very good and only spent £1.64 on 2 bottles of coke (on offer) and a bottle of water for the gym later (get me!) and then £5 on stamps for thanks you notes. That has blown my weekly budget of £1.50 per day from today til Saturday, but I have Coke and a refillable bottle for water and so should be finacially ontrack by Saturday.

The only thing that is a little naughty and not planned is a trip to the cinema tomorrow. It'll be 241 and I won't buy snacks coz of my diet but it is money I wasn't planning on parting with. Its just a friend of ours is in Harry Potter and we MUST see it on the big screen. OH might have a gig tonight so if that come soff maybe he'll treat me!

Must get back to office work! Boo!

Happy New Year everyone x

PollyBanwell

My gorgeous thing of a OH came in last night and promptly put antoher tenner into our £2 coins/holiday pot! I feel really bad now that I'm not saving more although I love the fact he has taken to saving so well! Think he had a rather good tips night at the restaurant. WOuld rather he had treated me to the cinema tonight! I'm so ungrateful!

Managed to only spend 25p today on a bread roll for my homemade WW mushroom soup! Woop! Hopefully tomorrow is a NSD and then I'm back on financial target after my stamp blow out!

Looking forward to Harry Potter!

PollyBanwell

I've just made to final payment on my loan!!!!!! Yee Ha!!!!

2 years it has taken to pay off and it feels great! I'm going to use the £100 extra a month to pay off another card so hopefully things will start moving much quicker on the debt front.

Looking at my diary dates and payments I have paid off £430.50 this month although I know there are a couple of spends I put on my card at the very beginning of Dec. My plan is to pay off those spends PLUS the minimum payment so I will then be "back on track".

Last night we went to see Harry Potter and I really enjoyed it! I'm not a massive HP fan - only read the first book and thought the other films were "ok" but I thought this one was great! Really dark, lots of hand held camera action and lots of humour! Cool! Went on 241 and offered my fiver to OH but he siad "put it in the holiday fund" He's a saving monster! I love it! Its actually great as it spurs me on loads.

Off to the gym tonight even though the weather is rubbish and all I want to do is go home! hopefully there will be a nice plate of chicken curry waiting for me but OH is having drinks with some friends tonight so we'll see!

PollyBanwell

Pay day 1 today and so have paid the council tax and went to pay something of my Mint card onlt to see that I had spent alittle more on it last month than I remembered. This is my trouble! So instead of recording a smaller amount I have now adjusted my sig to the current amount. Its only £51 more and I have just paid off £100 but I had spent £151 on it last month! Must really get on top of thi "i'll just pop these groceries on them". Screws me over a little bit. Some of the spend is a deposit on our accomodation in Spain so that will be paid for gradually by me and the other 2 people sharing the apaprtment. But I'm still annoyed that I have to make a plus adjustment and not a minus!

grr!

PollyBanwell

OK, so how best to use my extra £100? I think what I am going to do is start with the Mint card as I should never have run up that balance on it in the first place, but I'm still going to pay the minimum balance each month PLUS the extra £100. Then once that is cleared I will focus on the others. I'm going to call them over the weekend to sort it out.

Other things to do and pay off this weekend before my money runs out!
Asda
Post Office
Mint Direct Debit Set Up.
All my other cards are on Direct Debit so are taken care of.

OH halfs surprise birthday trip on Tuesday! Can't wait! I've booked the train tickets and also a meal! I discovered Groupon the other day and managed to find a 3 course dinner for 2 with a bottle of wine and coffees for £29! That's total not each! I've got to wait to check that it is valid and enough people have signed up but fingers crossed!!! Woop!

Off to my other job's christmas party tonight - totally free dinner and drinks so double woop! Then work tomorrow and over to my Mum's for dinner with family friends on Saturday. The only pounds that will be effect are the ones around my waist I think!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!