Amatheya's £4,000 in 2011 Diary

loumac

Hey hun,

Still very quiet, are you feeling any better yet?

Are you getting much painting done at the minute?

It sounds like you've got lots to plan for and look forward to, I think nothing beats having your own little goals. Keeps you motivated.

Hope you're ok anyway and you've had a good weekend. xx

Amatheya81

Hi Loumac,

I'm fine, though I seem to be doing a lot of sleeping at the moment and not much else. That is not nessesarily a bad thing

I've been having a lovely weekend, yesterday I just chilled, read, worked on a cross stitch and watched Time Team re-runs Then today I went to a friends house when I was given so much food lovely and drink I thought I was going to pop! And I was sent home with a big bag of leftovers, even Peanut was given some baby carrots to munch I spent this evening painting although I'm finding it very hard to get inspired to paint a pet portrait from a photo when I'm used to painting what ever's in my head... it's just to restrictive when you can alter things to fit in with where the paint wants to go! Oh well, I'll be finished with another couple of hours work and then I've got a couple of more exciting things to paint lined up

Hope everyone's had a good weekend, I'm of to get a cuppa

Amatheya81

Happy Hump day everyone

Well I'm back on a count down to pay day. I should have a few £ kicking around at the end of the month but I've already spent way over my £100 budget I've also realised that my car tax is due next month and there's no sign that we're going to get bonus after all Never mind at least it's pay day next week and I've 2 days off next week to look forward to

I'm trying to decided whether I can justify spending £19 to go to the Chinese circus next week. I love the circus and they don't come to Swindon often but I just don't think it's a good idea for me to spend that much money on something unnessesary with other bills around the corner. Oh well, there's always next year and Zippos will probably pitch up in the summer

Diet is not going well this week but I'm not too worried as I haven't put any weight on. I'm going to pull my finger out next week and make a extra effort to lose a couple of lbs.

Hope the week is going well for you

Amatheya81

Well I haven't posted for a week or so again but things are deffinately on the up (well at least for five minutes)

The Diet is still a bit shakey. I really need to pull my finger out but people keep buying/making me dinner... Not that I'm complaining, quite the opposite but it's very difficult to what what you're eating when there's lots of yummy but not particularly healthy food flying around. I'll do better soon

Money wise things are better. After all the worry I don't seem to have done too badly this month and I should have a few quid left over to overpay on my credit card. I've also found out that while we're not geting a bonus we are getting a incentive payment that will work out as about £200 in this pay packet. That will pay for my car tax and another few quid on my credit card... I've also got the first payment of my holiday sale in this pay packet and because it was processed late I will be getting two payments. That will be another £40 (again going strait on the credit card)
When I worked out how long it would take to get my credit card under £4k a month or so ago the prediction was Dec'11 but now with the extra payments I've made, the payment I'm predicting this month and the payment I'm predicting next month I should be well under £4k by the end of March!!!!! While I'd love to, I really don't expect to clear my over £4k card by the end of the year but now it's starting to look reasonable that I will half it and maybe even clear it by at the same time I clear my loan in 24 months time

Oh and I forgot to add, I've sold the old magazines I mentioned before and a blu-ray and raised £25 for the pot I'm also working on getting my greetings cards back online. With any luck they will earn me a few pennies

So money wise all seems to be going well, I wish me DIY escapedes had gone to plan. I took two days off this week to tile and decorate my mothers bathroom. The tiling was fine but when I lifted the old lyno disaster struck! there was a massive leak comming from the systern that nobody had noticed and a puddle had formed under the floor and rotted everything... One plumber and many hours latter still didn't manage to finish and new have to go back on Sunday after going to Medieval dance practice on Saturday... Is it wrong that I just want to hide my head under a blanket and wait for the world to go away?! lol

Amatheya81

Arrrrrrrr!!!!

Blooming Sky strikes again. I had a odd bill arrive today from them which was £5 more than I expected and only had internet on it again **sigh** Called up and oh look, dispite sending me a letter on 02/01/2011 telling me that they'd sorted out the mess up with my phone and line rental there is still a problem! The guy on the other end of the phone just kept saying "Wow, I've never seen this before" and asking me if I could use my phone dispite that fact that nobody appears to be supplying my calls or line rental???

I threatend to leave if it wasn't sorted out so he credited me £20 as a good will gesture (actually I checked and I've over payed by £18 becouse of their mess up so there's not a lot of good will in it) If they don't sort out out this time I think I'll switch, this is just getting beyond a joke, BT and Virgin may be a little more expensive but surely it's worth it in the end?

Why is nothing ever easy?!

Amatheya81

It's a famin or feast kind of day... After so long without posting I've managed to post 3 times in a day!

Anyway, after reading a article on this website about shuffling money between credit cards I decided to give applying another go. Now I've been turned down 3 times in the past year so I decided to go to one of the soft check sites to see what they suggested but they told me that there was nothing out there for me I've been worried about my credit so I decided to bite the bullet and pay the £15 for a credit Expert report (I'd already had my free one 2 years ago) I fugured it if could help me move money off of my shacking 26.9% APR card it would be worth it!
I was expecting to see something awfull on my report which had stopped me getting more credit in the past but on the contrary my score was excellant!! In fact it was the top score possible, the only negative they could come up with is that I already have a fair bit of debt so I followed their suggestions regarding which card to apply for and was approved for a Barclay Card at 0% for 18 months **does a little happy dance** Obviously I don't know what kind of limit they will offer me but any amount that I can shuffle away from my nasty high rate card will save me in the long run.

Now all I have to do is cancel my credit expert account and get shuffling

Amatheya81

Today was payday and as such VSP day. With it being a no council tax month I managed to bank £80.95 That means I saved all my council tax money plus £10 which is pretty good. My pay is increasing a little from this month. I'll have about £20 extra from the sale of my holiday and I'll have an extra £20 in April from the change in tax rules and a extra £10 per month from a small pay increase... I may have another £20 per month on top of that if the union at work agrees to accept a bonus buy out scheme. So all in all from April it's possible that I'll have a extra £50 to £70 in my bank every month That would be a welcome addition!!

Seeing as I can never resist the urge to fiddle around with my snowball calculator. If I can move £1,000 from my 26.9% credit card to my 0% credit card, and assuming I have a extra £200 (including my bonus) left over to put on my card next month and assuming my small raise and holiday sale will allow me to pay an extra £50 per month onto my card I will be free of the evil thing in only 22 months Ok that's a lot of speculation over what I will be able to afford, after all with petrol and food going up my expenses may well be a lot higher than I'm expecting but I like to look on the possitive side In fact, Ideally I would like to clear the 26.9% card within my 0% period on my new card so that I can do some more shuffling before I start having to pay the higher rate but I guess I'll just have to see how it goes... Maybe I'll win the lotto?! I imagine that would be more probable if I bought a ticket

So, moving on to the real world. I've been able to drag my target of getting my 26.9% card under £4k back from Dec'11 to July'11 But all my other targets remain the same.

I still haven't got my greetings cards on-line but I'm hoping to do that from bed this weekend allong with some painting for my new Geisha watercolour

Righ, I'm off to bed to cough, sputter, sneeze and hopefully sleep! Have a good weekend!

Amatheya81

I feel like I've won the lotto today

I just got a email telling me the credit limit on my new 0% transfer card and it was much higher than I expected. Infact I will be able to move the ballance from both my 26.9% card and my 24% card over onto the new card. Now this might not sound too exciting at first glace but when you turn that into money assuming I continue snowballing the way I have been for the life of the debt (about 2 years) I will save an incredible £3,500 in interest!!! Now do you see why I feel like I won the lotto

Hope everyone else is having a good day too!

**Happy Dance**

rainbow81

Congratulations! That's great. Have you worked out how much time that "buys" you? (ie how much sooner the debts will be paid off?).

I've never seen your diary before and you sound really interesting. I need to find some hobbies!

Take care.

Amatheya81

Thanks Rainbow

The new cc will save me about 6 months and that's without factoring in any overpayments.

You should deffinately try weird hobby It's great fun, just randomly think of something you'd like to try (the more mental the better) and google it. Most things are great fun even if your rubbish lol.