Back filling the big hole I dug with my credit card

PiggyBankShaker

Today is the first anniversary of the first post in this diary.
Happy Birthday diary! :beer:

I thought it appropriate to contrast our position this time last year with now, to see how far we've come.

2011 Debt
PBS £6942 @ 6.5%
ATS £3300 @ 0%
Bathroom £1238 @ 0%

2012 Debt
PBS £0
ATS £4200 @ 0%

2011 Savings
£2700

2012 Savings
£4053

We've got our monthly outgoings down quite a bit. Compared to this time last year we're saving:
£42 on utilities
£28 on mobile phones
£140 on nursery fees
£21 on boiler cover
£30 on hair cuts
£138 on bathroom repayments (see above)
We've also cut our car and house insurance too, but I'm not sure how much by.

Our landline/broadband has gone up by £5 a month. And I am also paying out £37 a month on business insurance, although I live in hope that this might actually pay for itself one day - if someone will give me a freelance contract???

My habits and relationship with money has changed a lot too. Before I would have been embarrassed / uncomfortable buying 'smart price' / value label products, now I am a total convert. I could never have imagined myself 'wombling' receipts for vouchers, but I do and also, playing bingo to get cashback. How times have changed eh?

We have decluttered loads and made over £3000 last years by selling our crap, we've made over £400 this year too so far.

pennywisepoundstupid

Well done on everything you have achieved over the past years.

Free listing this weekend on ebay if your wanting to get rid of a few more things.

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

AAAAGGGHHHH. Just typed a really long post for it to then disappear. ggrrrr.

So here it is again:

PBS's post has reminded me how far we have come - and how far we still have to go. I know we work best together and despite our ups and downs, most of the time we do that very well. So I've decided to get out of my grump in respect of the diary. I will be posting here again as before. I hope it will help get our team work back to its best levels.

I think we should post the filing cabinet on ebay this weekend. We don't need it and it just makes us keep things we don't need to fill it up. I'm determined to make this whole house fully decluttered and ordered this summer. It doesn't help that well meaning friends and relatives buy/donate endless toys and clothes for the kids. Clothes it's easy t move on when they grow out of them but need to be a bit tougher on moving the toys on as they grow out of them now. That said, there is plenty of mine and PBS's stuff that can still be got rid of.

We day dream a lot about paying down the mortgage and move out to the country. If we work at it together then i have no doubt that we can do it. I hope this summer we can turn another corner.

Anyway, that is enough for now. More again soon

PiggyBankShaker

Hello ATS - I have missed you contributions in the diary

We did the money hokey cokey today, all bills paid, money into savings, bit left over to last us until the 10th, when I next get paid.

I've got a few random rebates to come, gas and electricity, depending when they do the supplier switch, deposit from the dehumidifier and money from my mobile. Not sure how much or when any of them will happen, but's its nice to know they owe us rather than the other way around.

I am feeling bleurgh today, I have PMT and am making sure everyone knows about it iyswim. I want to list some stuff on ebay, but I just don't have the energy atm.

No new jobs to apply for since last night. Less than seven days to go until we find out if we get our contacts renewed - eek.

Aesop

PiggyBankShaker wrote: »

I am feeling bleurgh today, I have PMT and am making sure everyone knows about it iyswim. I want to list some stuff on ebay, but I just don't have the energy atm.
.

free listing this weekend hun

PiggyBankShaker

Just a quick one, finally been offered an interview for the other post I applied for weeks ago. No details yet, other than it'll be in London in two weeks time. It's a work from home post, full time and whilst the pay is not as much as I'd like it is more than i'm currently on.

PiggyBankShaker

Thank Aesop and PennyWise - I will list some ebay stuff this afternoon.

We had a friend stay for two nights so we have had a bit of a 'spendy' weekend. £30 on booze and £23 on a takeaway. There's lots of wine and beer left over though. It feels like a lot compared to what we spend normally there day. But it was a lovely treat and we won't be repeating it for a while. Not so long ago we'd spend that every month at least on takeaways. We've only had two in well over six months.

Big news, we found a tenner on the road! Amazing. I'm counting it towards our 'money made' total.

must, must, must do ebay today. Must.

PiggyBankShaker

The interview ATS had on Monday went well, but they didn't offer him the job

I had a bit of a spendy day on Monday, about £15 in total, taking the kids out to a play barn thingy for the afternoon, DD has been ill ever since so maybe it wasn't such a bright idea. But they both enjoyed themselves at the time and it's the first time in a long time that we've done something like that with them.

I have £89 to last until the 10th May and I have some train tickets to London to buy out of that (which will be reimbursed afterwards) I'll get them on topcashback to get some profit out of it at least.

I have £40 to withdraw from paypal from ebay sales, but I also need to post the things too and I've been too busy to do it yet.

I made £9.77 profit on another bingo site last night, not including the £10.10 cashback.

Tomorrow is the BIG day we've been waiting for for months. I'm nervous about it all, hopefully things will go our way.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

pennywisepoundstupid

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

PiggyBankShaker

Okay, so ATS is now unemployed and we are down £27,000 p.a. income. We're trying to process this as best we can and work out where we go from here. We have six months outgoings saved up, although we don't need to access this for 5 months as my pay is enough to cover everything and save a small amount for emergencies. After the 5 months are up though my hours are being cut from 5 days a week to 3 days a week and from that point on, if we haven't got something new, we'll be eating into savings every month.

ATS has an appointment with the Job Centre for JSA next week and I got the ball rolling on Tax Credits today.

It just makes it all the more important that I get this job I have the interview for next week.

We'll be selling as much stuff as we can on eBay as we possibly can and cutting back on everything.

Need some good MSE vibes now more than ever...