Fresian's Free Of Debt (Woo!) Now, to stay that way...!

mooomin

Morning folks

I hope everyone had a happy new year and there aren't too many sore heads this morning We had a pretty quiet one as I mentioned on my previous thread.

So, as it's the New Year, I suppose it's time to think about what I would like to achieve this year and what my finances are going to be like.

This month (January) I will get a really good wage as I have done a lot of overtime at double time due to bank holidays. It will also be the last month I'm getting additional money for my promotion as my secondment finishes at the end of the month and I will be losing £262 (pre-tax) per month. From February I'm going to be on a vastly reduced budget but the spreadsheet I posted above shows that this shouldn't be a problem. It includes everything apart from the mortgage.

I'll be continuing on with PADding every day and this will be going into either my ISA or my Virtual Sealed Pot. I'm going to be getting a box of Ebayables ready this weekend as well so that I'm ready to go when the next free listing weekend rears its head

The current money position in Fresian Towers is this:

PAD/Spends - £120
Entertainment - £50
Groceries - £128.26
ISA Savings - £349.98
Virtual Sealed Pot - £58.85

My credit card currently has a balance of £299.20. Of this I am returning items worth at least £100 as I don't need them/they don't fit. I'll be doing this tomorrow hopefully - need to check what shops are open. I have £123 sitting in another account to repay any credit card spending anyway, so will only have a small payment to make when I get paid at the end of the month.

The other thing I have done is to prepare a Christmas & Birthday Spreadsheet. This will firstly track what gifts I have bought people for 2011 but I have also created a tab on it which shows what I have spent and what the RRP for the items was. It's currently showing:

Total spent: £58.80
Should have cost: £156.98
Money saved: £98.18

I need to spend nothing on Christmas/birthdays in January or February now to keep on track for the year. Eek! Thankfully the only people who are due birthdays will be getting home-made cards and nothing else

Off to clean the kitchen now - Happy 2011 to all

Mrs_Money_Penny

Hi Happy New Year. I seem to remember that you were going to do a correspondence course are you still going to start that this year?

You haven't put any car bills on your budget ie tax, insurance or have I missed it?
"subscribes"

Heres to a good money saving year.
Have a good day.

slowlyfading

happy new year!

Intergalactic_Floozie

I shall be indeed dusting off my diary. It's going to be awkward for next couple of months. Unfortunately in my old job we were paid 2 weeks in arrears and 2 weeks in advance, so I got paid on 15th December up to the end of December.

That means on 15th January, I will only get paid for two days from old job (official leaving date is 4th Jan, so will get paid for bank holiday Monday, and Tuesday).

I was meant to start new job on Wednesday but then they rang me to ask if I could start on Thursday instead as my boss has to go to a meeting on Wed that she cant get out of.

This means I will be a whole day pay short which in the grand scheme of things is £69 before tax.

....so on 25th January - providing I make the pay roll - I will be paid but I don't know how much, and it wont be a full month's wage.

I've over spent over Xmas big stylee...So I may even be lots more in debt on the CC's / overdraft than I was last month.

But I'm definitely getting a handle on things.

1. New job is 'in the middle of a residential area' so no impulse spending opportunities unless you count the Tesco which is two miles away.

2. New job doesn't finish til 5:30pm meaning I have to go straight off home so the kids aren't on their todd for longer than necessary. This means no more finishing early and sloping off to the retail park to kill a bit of time.

3. New job (with it being a hospital) has a subsidised meal scheme which costs £1 per day! This is probably less than the cost of me taking my own pack-lunch Hopefully I shouldn't have to visit the nearby Tesco that often either (unless I need something for evening meals) which means even less impulse spending.

4. I intend to start doing my 'big shop' online. Again, hopefully this should curb impulse buys. Although the last time I did internet shopping I asked for cat food in jelly which they substituted for Hartley's orange jelly. The buffoon's! My cat would have left home had I tried to feed her that. What were they thinking???

Extra expenses though is I will be £65 worse off as I have taken a pay-cut. Probably £30 more in petrol costs, as it's an extra 8 miles per day. And DS1 has to get the bus home which is £22 per month extra. But even so that's £117 and I bet I could easily cut that down with no visits to retail parks / impulse buys when shopping...

(Hmm...is thinking all the above should be on my own diary and not hi-jacking yours).

On more exciting de-cluttering front, am going to go through my wardrobes tomorrow and just get rid of every single thing I haven't worn in a year and / or doesn't fit me. I guess if I do lose weight I will want to buy new stuff anyway...also less clothes will mean it's easier to keep up with the laundry...

Have decluttered the conservatory that had been used as a dumping ground / big porch and made it into a dining room. Three bags of clothes went to the charity bin in supermarket car park that I had kept forgetting to leave out for the charity collectors.

Head is already feeling calmer and less cluttered...ahhhh

fedupandskint

Congratulations!

I'm in a similar position to where you started out and am sick of ignoring the CC debts. I've been living quite OS for the last couple of years and this is the year I start the massive repayment plan

I need lots of luck for this however its time to start and finally work towards a debt free post of my own!

EssexHebridean

Woop woop! Shiny new diary!! Woop to shiny new budgets too!

taka

Happy new year! _party_

gilligansyle

Happy New Diary!!

**subscribes**

pixiechick99

Happy new diary....must be that time of year, started a new one myself too. Here's to a super-organised and sparkly 2011:beer:

mooomin

Thanks for all of the Happy New Year wishes

I've decided to return both the coats I bought to Monsoon. They're nice, but not needed so I'm going to be good. I'm not going to buy myself anything until I declutter the house a bit more - Floozie you inspired me!

I'm going to take back a lot of the sale things tomorrow as well and hopefully within the week I should have an idea about what the balance is on my credit card!!

Tomorrow I also need to inventory the cupboards and freezer and write up a shopping list for Monday. Many things in plan!!