Lisa's Debt Diary - The Beginning!

lvm

So, daily weight update!

Day 1 - X
Day 2 - X minus 0.75 lbs
Day 3 - X minus 1.75 lbs

Think I'll have a chicken breast with a bit of rice for today's dinner, a banana for lunch and an orange as a wee snack. Just need to make sure I keep the drinking up as I'm usually quite bad with that. I'm kind of hoping the lodger doesn't offer to make dinner today as that would be something I couldn't resist and 1 portion would feed a family of 4!

Anyways, very close to my £50 payout on ChaCha - just about 24 more questions to go. Hope they keep coming through at a reasonable speed!

Actually got quite a bit of work to do along with reading up on what I need to do for mystery shop this afternoon. I hate being busy

Need to find some time to be going to the gym more regularly as well - haven't been in weeks so feels like a waste. So much to do....

lvm

Another weekend gone and back to work!

I actually spent a bit of money at the weekend which isn't like me at the minute - had £10 Debenhams voucher from Shopanscan and ended up spending another £38 on top of that on a nice burgandy long sleeve top and a grey/silver cardi both from Oasis. Then took my Mum and Dad to Pizza Express for lunch which set me back £23 (used the buy 1 get one for £2 voucher though!)

What else have I been up to...oh, yeah - did the laser eye consultation which went well. I wish I could go round the whole country doing them. Carpet place fine as well (it's ridiculous the crazy stories I make up when doing these shops!) and then a sandwich shop - a bit far away but their sandwiches are amazing so couldn't resist. And they were excellent (think they knew I was MSing when I asked for receipt though).

Just 10 days til I head off to Londontown and I'm getting dead excited now...bankruptcy here I come!

Good news is I have managed to request a payout of £83.05 from TCB when I didn't think it was going to let me til January! Hopefully will get that sometime this week.

Have emailed the dreaded Sc0ttish Power asking what they're doing with my dosh so hope I'd get that at some point before Christmas!

Did my weekly shop at Asda yesterday and decided I was only allowed to spend £2.97 as that was the total value of the Price Guarantee vouchers I had. So managed to get 4 packets of Ainsley Hariet rice, a pepper and a yoghurt - and I only needed to put 1p towards it. Got another £1.23 voucher which I'll use next Sunday

Weight loss isn't going as well as I had hoped...but what do I expect when I go to Pizza Express (not to mentions the Chinese buffet I had on Friday!)

Day 1 - X Lbs
Day 7 - X minus 2.5lbs

Think the chances of dropping another 11.5lbs in the next 10 days are looking rather slim unfortunately.

Got my dinner planned today - have 1 last chicken breast left and will use it for some BBQ fajitas with the pepper I got. The rest of the week I'll be living on Ainsley rice and a couple of frozen meals I've got hidden away that I managed to get for 50p the other week.

lvm

Thought I'd keep myself right but keeping strack of the money I've got coming in over the next wee while...at least if something goes amiss, I'll notice it! So:

ChaCha - £50 (or just over) around the 20th
Mystery Shopping - £34+£7+£11 (all from different companies)
TCB - £86.05
Gas/Elec - £160ish (who knows when that'll arrive)
Betfair - £65
Skybet - £32.50
Paypal - £15 (+ £5 not yet paid for MySurvey)

Total - £465.55 (roughly!)

I'm rather pleased as that's more that I was expecting. Just wish I didn't have to wait on it all coming in dribs and drabs - I wanna update my spreadsheet NOW!!!

Also, been playing about with trying to upload photos on here so thought I'd try a little graph...this may come out in goobledygook!

Graph should be here....

lvm

Yey! It worked - I can upload pics now. Although this is going to be another excuse to keep me distracted from doing my work!

lvm

Some good news at last!!

Got a reply from Sc0ttish Power and I'm getting a refund of £183.80. Will get it some time before 22nd November so that's good! That's a wee bit more than I thought which I'm definitely not complaining about. Would have been helpful to get before my holiday though.

Phoned o2 as they were trying to cancel my free broadband from this month when I've got another 3 months to go - that's all sorted now! I love their customer services - they're so friendly

On the diet front, only a 0.25lb loss since yesterday I can't eat much less that I'm eating at the moment - maybe my next savings account should be for Lipo!

I'm at home and absolutely shivering. It is sooooo cold and I'm still refusing to put the heating on. It's been on 3 times for about an hour in the last month. Just need to make sure I've got enough hoodies and jumpers to keep me warm.

Getting so excited for my bike training...2 weeks on Saturday now!! Been having a think about what I should be doing when I (hopefully) pass the test. Ideally I'd love to sell my car (could get about £1200 for it I think) but I'd feel quite bad as my Dad gave me it and he had it for years before then - feels like an heirloom! I'll have had it for a year though. If I manage to do bike test before 23rd Dec I reckon I just won't insure the car and will find a bike sharpish. Then I can decide whether to sell the car or not. Oh, decisions, decisions!

Still been looking for a little part time job but absolutely nothing of interest coming up.

I have decided however that I want to get rid of as much stuff in my bedroom as possible. I hate moving house and really want to aim to buy a new house as soon as possible (looking at under 3 years now). As I'm not really buying anything at the moment, I don't need to worry about filling the place up with pointless junk. I've got so many clothes I don't wear - my wardrobe is full, I have a clothes rail in my room plus another in a storage cupboard in my living room along with 2 suitcases full of holiday clothes and black bin bag full of "too small" clothes plus a shoe cupboard in the hall. I only had a clear out a few months ago but for some reason decided I needed to keep all this stuff when clearly I don't think I did. I feel this could be a challenge to set myself before Crimbo if I can find the time!

Well, off to do a little bit of work - it's about time really! Ta ta for now! x

lvm

So, I've either just done something very stupid or something a bit clever (more likely stupid!)

Well, around April (ish) this year, I upgraded to Sky+HD in order to get £100 M&S vouchers. So over the course of 12 months it would have only cost me £23. Turns out something went wrong and it never went properly on my account although I got my HD box and the £100 M&S vouchers (for free!).

Cancelled Sky TV totally a few months ago but then got enticed back to them for half price TV for a whole year (£10 a month).

So, just discovered that you get £100 M&S vouchers for upgrading to HD pack again and also £70.70 cashback if done through Topcashback. So really I'm making £47.70 out of this (the cash back better track!). Also, because I'm betting (risk free) with Skybet, I've already got £20 off my bill and will get another £20 next month and I have a feeling they're continnuing the offer til end of December so chances are I'm not going to have to pay a bill until February - and here's hoping they keep the Skybet offer going for longer!

Ok, maybe it wasn't so stupid after all. Not quite sure what I'll use the vouchers for though. No way I'd pay those prices for food so thinking I could possibly get some Crimbo pressies if they arrive in time!

At least I'm chuffed with what I've done :-)

lvm

Well, I now clearly need to to an Ainsley Harriott rice diet seen as I managed to lose 1.25lbs since yesterday. So, 8 days of not eating and sitting at a 4lb loss in total. A bit disappointing as I used to do a pound a day but still not terrible I suppose.

Good news - the Sky purchase has tracked in TCB! Hopefully the voucher will come along shortly and I'll be quids in!

Update on payments I'm waiting for:

ChaCha - £50 (or just over) around the 20th
Mystery Shopping - £34+£7+£11 (all from different companies)
[STRIKE] TCB - £86.05[/STRIKE] Received :j
Gas/Elec - £183.80
[STRIKE] Betfair - £65[/STRIKE] Received :j
Skybet - £32.50
Paypal - £15 (+ £5 not yet paid for MySurvey)

Can't wait til all my payments are received and I can bring my spreadsheet up to date properly - it's freaking me out when there's not a nice round number in my current account

Have started thinking about Crimbo pressies and on the list to buy so far:

DVD Player with USB port - £26.95 from Amazon (hoping to get my £15 voucher through before I need to buy)
Molton Brown gift set - I've got loads of the travel size ones so think I'm going to make a nice set myself at little cost
Some smellie stuff from TKMaxx
Top from River Island or similar
Mens smelly stuff (I'm hoping this is ok for the lodger!!)
2 other unknows - 1 will be easy but the other quite difficult. Thinking some stuff from London for the difficult one!

It's not that bad a list to be honest and should be able to keep costs down one way or another.

Until next time :T

girlatplay

Semi-Chem have some smelly gift sets for men and women at reasonable prices. St James Centre or Kirkgate

lvm

girlatplay wrote: »

Semi-Chem have some smelly gift sets for men and women at reasonable prices. St James Centre or Kirkgate

Ooohh, thanks for that! I'll try and pop in and have a little look!

Hope you're fine and dandy! x

girlatplay

I'm good thanks. I keep going into Semi-Chem and looking at all the sets and trying to make up people to buy them for! I just don't need them all haha. Another good place is B&M at Meadowbank Retail Park. They have lots of little gift ideas. Not so much smellies but gifts at reasonable prices. I got 6 children's gifts for £45. I usually allow £10 per child so have saved £15! Hope you are well xx