13 Moons part 2 - Freebird & Frugabulous

Buffythedebtslayer

Hey Lula,

thought I would come confess on here, I missed my CC payemnt by a £1!!!! Got charged £12, Lost my 0% deal so had to move my balance of 800 pounds to another card which was offering 0% thank God, but it is my Tescos card which means no more accidently going out for dinner or shopping. Feel deeply stupid but also grateful that 1. I had another card, 2. I have some savings to tide me over.

Moneywise May is going to be tighter then a duck's...........

its all teaching me something I am sure

Clearly not basic maths skills mind you

Buffy xx

Karmacat

RosaBernicia wrote: »

I can never get supermarket herbs to last either, especially basil - I think they just get forced in artificial conditions and aren't really equipped to cope with the real world. Am growing pot herbs from seed now instead. Which reminds me, am very impressed with Real Seeds (google them) - seem to be very high quality as well as ethical and remarkably cheap. They do veg and fruit as well as herbs.

Re. cress etc, I have one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biosnacky-A-Vogel-BioSnacky-Large-Germinator/dp/B001ILWLRU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304538157&sr=8-1 and I love it - dead easy, you just pour the water in the top once in a while, and it means you can have one lot of seeds in as another are sprouting. There are smaller versions too.

Rosa xx

Rosa, thanks for this! I do wonder about my plants-in-the-house capabilities.... and thats a lovely little sprouter! I'm going to have to suck it up and buy one, I think.

Ouch, Buffy, what a bummer sorry to hear that.

Lula, I understand what you mean about the shine being off the DFD - but altho you have unplanned expenses, the plans you *did* make are flexible enough to cope with them, so thats a big plus for you.

Souk08

Ah Lady, the best laid plans and all that X

Lula-Hula

So,

here I am again & after what feels like weeks of not having 'my friday' (which is in fact true as the last 2 have been bank holidays & the one before that DD was on hol from school & the one before that I worked in the morning & DD broke up at 1.30) I have got my day back.

And very productive it's been too.

Not as far as doing chores, laundry or gardening is concerned, but as regards running errands & sorting through paperwork etc.

First stop of the day was the laptop morgue & while I waited to be served I mentally added a tasty set of bose speakers to my ever-growing list of 'wants'. They will in fact make the hif-fi defunct, but I have heard that one of our contract engineers "likes to build & fix hi-fi s for fun, the weirdo". Sounds like my kind of weirdo .


Anyway, nice & very sympathetic assistant didnt actually charge me the extra £25 I was told I'd have to pay for 'wrapping' the hardrive . Whether this means they have done it for free or havent at all I coudnt tell you, but there were definitely no ribbons or bows on it & the !!!!!!! thing still boots up in capitals & shimmies when I try to enter the password.

No point shouting at me, you should be waterproof you uppity piece of plastic, how dare you shake nooooo when I try to enter the password :mad:.

Moving on.

I didnt stop anywhere else so escaped with a mere £1.10 charge for parking ( in a new area as I'm determined to shake myself out of the dull & boring routine my life has settled into. I know it's just a carpark, but hey I gotta start somewhere ) & charged off to the sainsbugs near work hoping to gain something out of the whole experience.

Well, it cost me £2 before I even got inside the store :eek:. £1 to park - refundable but blooming annoying as it involves to ing & fro ing to machin & back - then another £1 for the trolley, like I'm going to steal that horrible old huge thing with a baby seat & unfathomable depths, when there are lovely small waitrose ones with a list holder a mere 5 miles away .

I do remember shopping there years ago when I used to live on the boat. About 25 years ago actually & I dont think the store has been upgraded since then . If ever there was a shop crying out for a refit, that's the one. The first few aisles (where everyone goes in to get their lunch) are tiny, dark & too narrow. The whole store is a bit dingy although perfectly clean. I had to battle with many many gerries & why do they insist on trying to manoeuver both the shopping trolley & their own wheeled trolley at the same time ???

As you near the end of the store where the freezers, booze & crisps are, it widens out into a 4 lane super aisle & of course, there's not a soul to be found up there. They're all still trying to battle their way round the fruit, beg & bakery section.

I foudn everything I needed & although there wasn't as much faritrade produce as you get in waitrose or the co op, I did get my bananas & sugar in giant packs so happy with that. I was quite happy to buy a lot of the basics range (flour, biccies, potatoes) & was very impressed with pasta at 9p a bag :T - although a small bag, it was still only 9p. They had a few offers on & I just couldnt resist half price crunchie ice creams.

Having got everything on my list ( & a fair few extras too) apart from eggs which were very expensive - so I'll contintue to get the random sized free range ones at the co op for half the price - I headed to the till.

Terrible, too few & too narrow gaps between them, but all this was nicely compensated for by marvellous Mak who served me. Hmmmmm :drool:dont get pretty boys like that in waitrose. He gave me the nectar card & insturciont on how to register.
I got my £1 parking back, but that was cash & I paid by CC so it just came off the bill. Very sneaky way to get my sealed pot money. Havent added anything to it for weeks & with mouthwatering Mak to entice me back there, it may well never get another one :rotfl:.

Came home, had a coffee & went through the bill. I spent a total of just £33.07 :j Of that, 99p was on some bamboo skewers & the giant sugar & buttery tubs were £5 together so I can easily spend less next week. I'm very pleased

More news in a bit, just need to go & test out the crunchie ice creams ...

Lula-Hula

Sorry, more waffling ahead, will try very hard to be concise.

* I believe that I still have about £12 of this week's grocery budget left, but as I'm nearly all out of cash thanks to window cleaner being imminent to collect his pay I'll just be using the £ 3 odd in change I have.

* I paid a very small cheque & the £20 clothes fund cash I had, into the bank.

* I rang the Inland Revenue peeps to renew my Tax Credits claim & spoke to a very nice & helpful man who assures me that I will get some allowance towards my childcare cost. He originally worked it out over the 13 weeks of school hols & whilst I was briefly tempted to keep quiet, I know I'll only have to pay it back next year so admitted that it is in fact only 9 weeks that I have to pay. Still works out at over £1200 a year though so any help would be great, even if it just cancels out the expected decrease due to higher than expected wages.

* Along with 2 new mags I got my tax disc renewal letter so got straight on it & have now paid up for another year. The savings fund account is now looking very sorry for itself as I also took £100 from the Gas & Elec acct to pay towards the CC. Total now = £440.

* DD starts a new term of guides tonight so that's the final £25 in her clubs fund gone - thanks to the unplanned for drama club fees of £25 on wednesday. The leader is also holding a £10 cheque towards a deposit for tickets to the big gig. We wont find out until next month whether the unit has been succesful in their bid, but that will be another £25.

* I added another £10 to the Fun fund - total now a sad £20 & still have my own £35 pocket money left & today decided against spending it all on a case for the shiny new lappie. I expect to find a cheaper one online somwhere & hopefully via quidco too .

I'm planning another quiet weekend & DD has been given STRICT INSTRUCTIONS from school to just relax all weekend. Yeh, like she needs any encouragement there :rotfl: SATS next week so I need to be on my best mummy behaviour. ( No flirting at young lads in sainsbugs then )

Still have £140 in the presents fund but as DD has been invited party next friday we'll be heading off to next village tomorrow to buy a gift. We will be walking so there is no risk of being sucked into waitrose

Lula-Hula

Buffy - I feel your pain my love & have done equally dim things on various occasions ( drunken overpayment to Barclaycard after I'd just cleared the balance & such like)

You are so close now & have done so very very well, just make sure you leave yourself enough to live on & be very proud of what you have achieved - you are awesome
xx

Lula-Hula

Yep,

I am finally ready to declare my sins. ( actually I started this an hour ago but stupid stupid pc lost my post again :mad:).

Essentially, I've separated the total CC balance into 2 sections :

1) - Regular & everyday expenses - this comprises fuel, groceries & all such things that are to be paid off each & every month. The total outstanding is £144 & this will be cleared on monday

2) - Planned (& unplanned ) large purchases. This is a combination of the cooker - planned - & the diagnosis, half hearted repair & replacement of lappie - definitely unplanned. The total outstanding is £1300 & will be cleared by November 1st or as I put it, ASA bloody P .

By my calculations, to clear this in the 25 weeks remaining until interest occurs, I will need to make weekly payments of a minimum of £52.

Well, I havent spent 3 years reducing, increasing & finally clearing my bad old CC debt by making minimum payments.

"No, you sneakily used some of your ISA savings" I hear you mutter.

True .

But in a bizarre twist of the universe & utterly karmic pay back kind of way, it turns out that the amount I now have to repay, is a very similar amount to that which I 'borrowed' from the ISA :think:.

There is no escape & I clearly havent yet learned the lesson the universe wants to teach me, so off we go again along the path to debt freedom :rotfl:

This time around I'm armed with 3 years of experience, all my regular bills & payments in order, funds for future expenses & the determination to slash my living costs to facilitate larger weekly payments.

I'd like to reduce the time it takes to clear the balance & Monday 1st August seems like a nice tidy date to me.

Let's get on it :cool:


NSD 4 for me today.


3 loads of laundry done & hung out to dry in the lovely free fresh air. Dinner tonight will be homemade meatballs & pasta with the remainder of the sauce we had the other night.

I've done my free exercise with half an hour of yoga stretches ( another Davina weights workout last night so being gentle today) & DD is amusing herself with baseball on the wii.

The window cleaner came round to collect his pay ( budgeted for) & I've added 5 x £1 coins to my pot, taking the total to £130.

Finally received my £10 amazon reward from ipsos so added that to my account & then immediately used £7 to pre order miles Kane CD to accompany the import version of first Killers album. I know I said I was going to use Amazon rewards for presents ... but I need treats too & at least they're not costing me any money.

Have so far resisted the fuschia pink laptop shell ( not for much longer though I fear & I do consider it essential along with the keyboard protector) & I am looking forward to reloading all my music on to new lappie .

The one thing that has irked me beyond everything, is the loss of my living expenses spreadsheet. I had conscientiously entered every single penny of income & expense on there since January 1st.

From my each & every survey reward & quidco payment to my monthly work-job & home-job income. From my council tax bill to my ebay wins P&P charges.

I was building a very clear & detailed picture of my inocme & outoings over a whole year with a view to possibly joining the frugal living challenge next year.

Grrrrrr

Time for a cup of tea, penguin & wander around the diaries now.

Bye for now
xx

Lula-Hula

I have just discovered that the reason for not finding the email from lightspeed that contains the code for free amazon award is because .... they have only just this minute sent it :doh:.

All good though as that's another £5 applied to my account which now has £18.70 in it :j. It would have been £35 but hey, I need music & books & I love getting parcels - especially when I havent had to pay for them .

I'm on a carb high at the moment - cant believe it's saturday again - & on a bit of a mish to declutter my life & home. Actually, my life has been decluttered to the extent that there are tumbleweeds rolling around my diary, but still the home seems to attract 'stuff'.

I rang my Dad earlier to hear all about his most recent trip. He had a great time & was really pleased to hear from me. I had been a bit narky last time we spoke & felt a bit ashamed after, so made sure we had a good catch up & also apologised for not going over to check the house while he was away He kindly brought me back another bottle of duty-free Gordon - how timely when new lappie is being delivered on monday - & I'm kinda hoping it might be cost-free as well . Oh heck, when's Fathers day, hope I havent missed it.

After that & not making meatballs - postponed until tomorrow due to lack of interest - but having jacket potatoes with sweetcorn & coleslaw instead, I decided to set about sorting through my shoes, again. There are still piles of boxes under the bed & that location is the one reserved for things that dont get worn; either due to seasonal adjustments or they dont fit & I just refuse to admit it.

I'm fast approaching 'dont care about the money, I just want it out of my house' status & DD loves to help, so off we went with our miners helmets firmly in place & a mini skip in which to put our haul.

Ok, I'm exaggerating, but we did crawl about on the floor for ages & the end result is that all the shoes that dont fit me ( & never did) are now in the pile of stuff that's going to be charitized this week.

That should help to rebalance my karma somewhat .

It's been raining for hours so the garden will be happy & I'm now finally tired enough to go to bed.

More scintillating news tomorrow :rotfl:

Karmacat

Oh my word, you were posting late! Mind you, I realise I'd only just gone to bed myself :eek: and since a sleep in for me now means waking up at 7.30, thats not very good for me :rotfl:

Sorry you've lost that detailed spreadsheet you'd been keeping - thats a real shame. Although I probably don't back up regularly enough, what I *have* been doing recently is that with, say, the website drafts I'm doing, I either do them in a draft email that I save, or I get *really* paranoid and send them to myself on another server again, so if hotmail breaks down, I've still got yahoo, and so on paranoid, moi?

And I bet your karma is really good after donning miners lamps to find the charitising stuff! Good for you :T:T:T

Lula-Hula

Forumscats - hi & thanks for your post - not sure if that was a genuine thanks or not :undecided ? but the tumbleweeds & I will take any kind of attention so even sarcasm is appreciated

Karma - I'm still tunnelling :eek: in fact I'm at the stage when the place is such a tip that you kinda wish you hadnt started ( a regular feature of my life). I started off sorting through the stuff to charitize & somehow got distracted enough to clean out kitchen drawers, relocate kitchen trolley from my bedroom ( it was in there to support stereo & cds ) & we havent even considred gonig to town yet.

Stripped the beds & the final 2 laundry loads were out billowing on the line until neighbours lit up smoky stinky bbq so the magic airing cupboard is now full of stuff to iron . Later.

I have a generous pile of stuff to charitize & yet again I'm aware that so much of it is stuff that I bought from ebay, which is good in that it cost very little, but bad in that it shows I get mad urges to just buy stuff.


Not to town today as still have so much stuff to sort out that will definitely improve our environment, but will wander down to cop later to pick up a few essentials such as milk, bread & coffee.

Right gotta go, I promised DD that I'd only be half an hour on the pc & my time ends in 2 minutes & I have a whole heap of stuff to pile away.

Bye for now ...