"Simply not solvent!

chevalier

Seaxwyn wrote: »

I've just given myself a big shock. I've added up my takings and learned that my GROSS earnings last year were £17,439.30. That's before deducting expenses. I knew it was less than the previous year but didn't realise it was 12k less.

No wonder things have been so tight. I really need a smarter bookkeeping system that makes it harder to ignore this kind of thing. What a moron I am.

Looking on the bright side, my Jan 2010 tax bill should be small, and I may be entitled to some retrospective tax credits.

Hi Seax
I have just been catching up with your diary. Glad the first days of the job have gone well. I can well understand the not picking you youngest up form school. It is hard...

But and sorry i this comes across as a bit harsh, I had to comment on the above statement. Yes I am sure that the amount you earned last year was a shock, but really if you are honest with yourself, are you surprised. Go back about 30 to 40 pages in your diary and have a read of your posts. The recurring theme (other than griping about the lack of money your OH was/is earning) was you writing that you really must get on with this, or that you had let the day slip away and not done that, or having to ask for extensions for work, or working late into the night. I reckon the every job virtually that you got took you double the time (ie hours in the day not billable hours) you thought it would, because you let yourself be distracted.

I think that now you will be pretty much working full time, you will be amazed how much free time you have, because you work and then come home...Even to the point where after a month or so, you will be able to fit in some freelance work cos your work hours will be more organised. You always felt that freelancing gave you the freedom to work the family around it, and still earn you good money. BUT it also gave you the flexibility to actually do nothing at all as well.Sorry hun but you will get far more work done I feel now that you are going into an office, and you can see that others are relying on your input day after day.

Moving on, now that you have regular money, it may be time to do YOURSELF and SOA. Not necessarily for putting up on here, but so you can budget for the next few months. You have regular money coming in, so that means you can put money aside for yearly bills, like car, mot, insurance etc. You can budget for it ALL lol. And doing this may give you a wake up call that there ARE areas you can cut back on so that you actually increase your debt busting over and above what you can manange by having a PAYE job.

And if you want us to have a look at it too then of course we will be happy to help:D

good luck with your new roles I think you will do brilliantlty
chev

hypno06

^^^^^^^what chev said....

Hope you are having a lovely weekend, seaxwyn x

Seaxwyn

Hi kissjean! You had better stop reading now... things went downhill after 2007 as far as debt goes.

Chev - that post is spot on, I'm going to save it somewhere to remind myself of the hash I made of freelancing lately. Working in an office is definitely going to be good in that I'll complete five whole paid or billable days each week. I do plan to do an SOA - it won't be hard as I have kept detailed records of all outgoings for the last two and a half years. Sadly it will still be very far from health, with OH's earnings so unreliable (his total income this month: £34). But I will do what I can to get things much better under control.

This weekend was DS's 8th birthday. We had a birthday tea with family on saturday, then a party for 14 kids today, all went well and cost very little.

hypno06

£34 :eek: Has he got more lined up for June?

Glad that the birthday bash went well - it has been a perfect weekend, weatherwise, for 8 year old's birthday parties, I reckon! happy birthday young man!

Seaxwyn

I hope he will get paid more in June, but it is never predictable. He has done days and days of work marking dissertations, but either it's not paid or he has failed to claim it.

kissjenn

Seax,

Unfortunately I've never been one to take good advice which explains so much I hear the crowd roar. You are the source of both my procrastinating and re-energising this weekend.

Our situations are so similar, my OH had a stroke in March last year while I was working in London - we live near Edinburgh! His income is now non-existent but his money is his money and my money is our money hmmm.

Still onwards, upwards and I'm only a year away now. I should be hitting 2009 soon - it sounds like I've invented time travel. I'd give anything to beam here and there, oh and a phaser set to evaporate for certain key individuals.

Must run, diary to read.

taxi73

Glad to hear that the job is going well.Perhaps thats the answer...a full time job.

40somethingmum

Hi Seawyn

I am in trouble as I have made the error of starting to read your old diaries and now i am hooked. I should know better as I have been wading through the lovely Hypno's diaries for weeks now and am still only in 2007:eek: I have not read a book in weeks.:o

40SM

Seaxwyn

Hi 40SM, I'm amazed at anyone reading my diary. I feel I should delete it as I'm such a bad example. Everyone read Hypno's or Taxi's or one of the umpteen other proper DFWs' instead!

Kissjean, I'm really sorry about your husband's stroke. That's an awful thing to happen. I hope he is recovering but I think you said he is blind - bummer. Does he have good prospects of working again or is he going to continue living on your money? I sympathise as much as we love our OHs, it puts a strain on any relationship if one partner is dependent on the other, and disability must make things extra tough. Good for you keeping so optimistic.

I've updated my signature for the new month - and it's up again. £2235.85 higher than 1 May. That's because of buying a season ticket and BTing money off a CC into my current account to keep afloat.

A sobering detail - my debt is only £717.48 less than it was 18 months ago.

But the good news is that things are changing from now on. No more roller coaster debt total - from now on it will go DOWN every month. To mark the change from the insolvent Seaxwyn of the past, I will start a new diary and hope it makes more edifying reading than this one has of late.

kissjenn

I'm delighted the jobs are going well.

OHs are sent to try us. I'll do what needs to be done to keep us all going, exactly the same as ever other person I've met on here. What's nice is having a support network where you don't have to put on a brave face on the days you need to rant.

Delighted to report that following the completion of your diary at stupid o'clock the other morning, I signed up for Amazon and listed some books. It was delightfully easy compared to ebay and I actually sold one today. Amazon are giving me £3.22 after taking all their bits, then I noticed it's off to Italy so £2.44 postage. Ho hum a learning curve I think we call that.

So muchos volumes of bulls**t bingo to be listed. I have some great titles suggestions if you're still looking for procrastination and harnessing creativity reads.