13 Moons part 2 - Freebird & Frugabulous

Lula-Hula

Back again

- cant keep me away & actually I thought I should let it be known that contrary to appearances, I am working to a plan this weekend. It involves far more than just drinking coffee, eating chocolate biccies, reading new book ( girl with dragon tattoo & great so far) & perusing tinternet.

DD wants to go shopping & I want to go to the shoes & bag exhibition, cat needs more food, need to source dye for DDs curtains & new plain card & envelopes for card making) Tomorrow the weather is due to be hideous so I proposed that we do all that then as it only requires 2 parking venues & is all indoors.


Today it's warm & windy so once chores are done & lunch is consumed we will be heading off for an energetic walk around Windsor park.

According to my scales, yet another of the 2lbs that I thought I had escaped & evaded have now found their way back to my hips :mad:. This may be due to alcoholic intake, the 4 tortilla wraps I had for supper last night or the constant nibbling. I'm eating loads of fruit & salad ... but it hasn't quite replaced the snunking ( snacking on junk ).


I vacuumed everywhere yesterday & have swept the front steps this morning as well as hanging out washing.

Chores today involve cleaning all windows, windows & flat surfaces using a cunning & very MSE combination of water & e-cloth. It also includes trying to prevent DD from packing everything for the school trip. Yes, the one that doesnt occur for another 5 weeks .

Thanks for your wise words of encouragement Karmacat :A. I keep feeling a bit of a fraud about the whole being debt free but having racked up the CC thing . I reread Mr. :money:'s take on the matter & it reassured me that I am doing the right thing ... AS LONG AS I PAY IT OFF BEFORE INTEREST IS DUE & DO NOT MISS A SINGLE PAYMENT.

I'm not shouting - just reminding myself of the rules.

Delighted to see that Eden is open later for 2 of the days that we are in Cornwall. I need to write a list of all the places we want to go. DD very disappointed that Cheese Rings dont involve any cheese whatsoever :rotfl:. She'll have to make do with gazing at the Davidstow factory instead .

Off to clean something now

se999

Hi Lula, I think it's natural that the debt free bit will come and go for a while until you manage to build up a buffer fund to deal with things going wrong and the bigger expenses like holidays. Once you've got that in place you can really start saving for the big dreams But you still need some fun and life in the meantime.

Shoe_Gal

se999 wrote: »

Hi Lula, I think it's natural that the debt free bit will come and go for a while until you manage to build up a buffer fund to deal with things going wrong and the bigger expenses like holidays. Once you've got that in place you can really start saving for the big dreams But you still need some fun and life in the meantime.

Sensible advice - remember this is not 'bad' debt, it's having a life

RosaBernicia

Karmacat wrote: »

Love this, Lula - the only reason I *still* have so many books, tho, is that my interests aren't available in charity shops or libraries - small scale publishers of therapy, alternative living, science fiction and science, most usually. You just can't get hold of those books any other way than buying them, most of the time I'll survive tho

Somebody needs to invent a scanner for us :idea:

Lula-Hula wrote: »

snunking ( snacking on junk ).

Brilliant word :T

No cleaning being done here lol, am excused until after exams :rotfl:

Don't forget to put surfer-spotting on your list :D

Rosa xx

Lula-Hula

So, here I am trying to eke out the last glass of delicious pink stuff & without any mixers to make my Gin taller.

As I actually havent eaten any more this weekend than any other one, I can oly assume that it is indeed the booze that is responsible for the extra poundage . It's such a shame as I was so enjoying it too, but as I still ( yawn) need to shift that stone then I think the booze has to go.

I just lost a bid on ebay for a pair of jeans that are a size larger & I am taking this as giant hint. I could easily have won them ... but for some reason I just didnt have the heart to.

Other than that it has been a good day. After gathering the washing in we headed off to Virginia Water to attempt sneaky free parking in pub car park. It was full so we carried on driving towards the next car park but as I refuse point blank to pay £6 :eek: just to be on the other side of a fence where signs proclaim that thieves operate in the area I stashed everything away & parked on the road, as I always do. We had a great walk around the gardens & the rhododendrons were still magnificent. We eventually found our/mums bench & spent a bit of time just pondering & reflecting. Lying on it & looking straight up at the leaves was very soothing & loads of birds were chirping away in the background .

We eventually headed back via the ice cream seller - £3.90 for 2 & took an even more scenic route home (until DD claimed severe dehydration) & whizzed by the co op for more buttery stuff & bottles of water to keep in the car - £3.59 added to the household budget & now at £271.03p.

I've taken se999s comments very seriously :T & it is true that it will take a while to get finances even, just as it took a while to get the budgeting & funds to work in my favour.

I have done an experiment this evening & will now do this every week as I start the next page in the Big Pink Book. It's quite simple, I add up the sum of my available wealth & if it is more than the balance the CC is wearing, then [STRIKE]I win .[/STRIKE] I'm sensibly solvent as I can (if necessary) repay the entire amount.

The sum of my 'wealth' is an eclectic mix of the following :

online banking float,
savings funds ( both bank & cash ones)
quidco /laptop drip fund
sealed pot,
credit on uncle richard s CC,
money in paypal acct,
cash in purse &
pocket money.

This week I win by £115 :j.

Of course, I would only use all those funds under extreme duress but it does make me feel more secure & confident that I know what I'm doing :huh: :rotfl:

I'm not confident or disciplined enough to do the serious stoozing, but I see absolutely no reason why I shouldn't spread my purchase payments over a longer period of time without paying any interest on that borrowing; as long as I always have the equivalent amount available to repay immediately if necessary.

I've already had a look about to see who else is offering 0% deals as I feel that Uncle Richard's days are now numbered .

Ok, what I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty certain that I'm on my way to becoming a proper tart . (CC tart that is - just in case anyone suspects me of living off immoral earnings ) I like the excitement of juggling & the challenge of having a deadline to achieve.

As Karma recognised, I do have a significant amount of outlay over the next few months but I have no doubt that I can manage it. Part of my ability to juggle money effectively comes from having different sources of income feeding in at different times & intervals:

It allows me to shift money around & keep everything flowing. I used last week's child benefit to pay the CC, but will take back that amount from wages to pay for childcare this week. I will use the float to pay for the summer childcare, but only because I know that I have another 3 child benefit payments due to go in to the float account before playscheme starts so that will pay it back.

I've really enjoyed having these few days off as although the physical chores have been only the necessary ones, I've had plenty of headspace to think about stuff & I can return to work knowing that I am going somewhere rather than just bobbing about in an existence. That has a lot of value for me

More words of 'wisdom' :rotfl:are sure to appear here again soon, but for now I'm off to bed to read another few chapters.

G'night
xx

Lula-Hula

RosaBernicia wrote: »

Somebody needs to invent a scanner for us :idea:



Brilliant word :T

No cleaning being done here lol, am excused until after exams :rotfl:

Don't forget to put surfer-spotting on your list :D

Rosa xx

Dammit - someone has sussed out the real reason I'm heading south west

Mmmmmmmmmm I do like a man with a board under his arm & flowery shorts

Karmacat

I love the inventory you did, Lula, that really does show that you're completely in the black if you absolutely *need* to be.

I was going to quote RB's post too - about the scanner thing, for me - at one time, I had a whole reference book that I had on photocopy - and last year, I took the copies, my lappie and my tiny little scanner up to London, and made pdfs of the whole thing, then backed it up and threw away the photocopies .... liberation, or what

fedupandskint

Morning - groggy head here from 3 glasses of wine last night which were the most in ages - no rushing around yet afer decluttered 2 cups of tea rapidly and slice of toast

List for today is kitchen and finish off in garden and put picture in kitchen and work out holiday list so better recover some energy and motivation!

You sound focused on your repayments and its going well, I'm on a little break as finances are very tight and need to work out where I can get some money from (out of the savings I think) to pay some bills, holiday fund etc. Have most of the camping equipment and will take other stuff from home

Enjoy the BH - as its chucking it down here!

Souk08

Morning lady, enjoy your BH. I'm working today, but had the last two off so I cant complain. I now have a freezer so I'm wildly excited!!!!

se999

Hi Lula I think stoozing & 0% work best when you either need credit, you have loans on high interest so you can balance transfer, or there's high interest on savings accounts. Currently there's pretty awful interest on savings and especially if you need to pay a balance transfer fee, it's not necessarily as good as it used to be. Once you've got the buffer fund, it could be worth looking into cashback credit cards instead, especially if interest rates on savings stay so low, the % cashback can easily work out better than savings interest rates especially if you try to put all your spends on the cards. But it also depends on your 'relationship' with credit cards