Jumping aboard!

downsizer3

I am now an obsessive comulsive spreadsheet updater. Can't help myself and have just figured out highlighting and underlining on XL - it can only make it worse!

So - latest figures. I think I'll manage to save about £4000 by the time I leave work, with no debts other than a mortgage of just under £28k.

If I can get a job quickly (need to earn £1k pm on 20hrs in school hours - thats the tricky bit) I'll not need to use my savings. Current plan - part time and no child care for a while if I don't get anything permanent sorted first. So how do I manage those hours? Self employed home help/housekeeper/dogsbody? Standard part time job doing all sorts and hope tax credits can help with childcare for hours that don't suit? Hmm. Got till March to work this bit out! Am also going to look at retraining - see if I can do that whilst I have the savings pot as back up.

gallygirl

downsizer3 wrote: »

I am now an obsessive comulsive spreadsheet updater. Can't help myself and have just figured out highlighting and underlining on XL - it can only make it worse!

You need to get into conditional formatting & IF statements. Will automatically change colour etc. or enter text such as 'You're rocking those overpayments' or 'epic fail' (I've done the former but not the latter. Yet..........)

Lois_E

Oooh Gally. You're giving me ideas!

downsizer3

Ooooh - is it wrong to get excited about spreadsheet add ons like that? Am I perverse?............Don't answer please I know the truth!!

Just realised what a lousy interest rate my daughters teeny savings account is getting ( 0.75% I kid you not!) so armed and ready - am off to move her money today to get a pretty tawdry 3% or something. Currently investigating - thats my lunch hour taken care of.

TC people got in touch so I know where I stand now - phew. Will have paid them back by christmas. That will be a cause for celebration. Since Sept 2011 I'll have paid off £5500 in total of random debts. Pats self on back............:j

Lois_E

downsizer3 wrote: »

Ooooh - is it wrong to get excited about spreadsheet add ons like that? Am I perverse?............Don't answer please I know the truth!!

Just realised what a lousy interest rate my daughters teeny savings account is getting ( 0.75% I kid you not!) so armed and ready - am off to move her money today to get a pretty tawdry 3% or something. Currently investigating - thats my lunch hour taken care of.

TC people got in touch so I know where I stand now - phew. Will have paid them back by christmas. That will be a cause for celebration. Since Sept 2011 I'll have paid off £5500 in total of random debts. Pats self on back............:j

£5500 in just over a year is a big achievement. Well done downsizer! :T

downsizer3

Why thank you Lois! Takes a bow......

AND some even better news! In closing DDs building soc account ( where I deposited some of house sale proceeds whilst looking for the new place last year) they gave me £350 interest. Bonus! Put it straight into her new account before I could think of all the lovely things I could do with it....:A

downsizer3

My mum offered to pay a bit of my mortgage off bless her. Think she's worried about when my job finishes.
I said no obviously ( surely I'm too old to be getting help from my parents at 45???) but nice to know she cares.
Was tempted though
7 months till I finish work and veering from excited to terrified. Time to seriously start thinking about what to do. I'd love a couple of months off then work again - that would be the ideal. Or part time straight away. Either way I don't want full time work whilst DD is so young. What can I do?

Lois_E

Aww. How kind of your mum to care like that. :A

How are you getting on with thinking about a new career? What sort of thing might you try? FWIW I think working part time while kids are small is great, and wouldn't have my life any other way.

downsizer3

Hi Lois. I've worked from the perspective of what I need to earn every month - say 20hrs and would need £1k to live pretty reasonably (no fun fund though!!) Figured I could do pretty much anything I can find for that but jobs are scarce of course.
As long as it works around school hours I'd be ok but I guess there's a lot of mums out there doing just that.
I'm doing my investigating at work (ahem!) but can't get my teeth into it until after christmas really as no point in applying for a job until I can leave. Need to update CV etc. I fancy a total change in job - away from what I do now which is professional but badly paid and subject to too many fluctautions in the market - completely dead just now at any rate!!

Have adjusted spreadsheets again (can't stop) and will pay off all debts by christmas (brought forward from March) so thats good - last big push. Its a balance between saving and paying off debts - all interest free so no point in just chucking money at them although I'd like to be totally shot of them.
New 0% credit card comes soon as my back-up. This month is looking so tight I might need it.
Ebaying not going too well but have £20 in the pot - hoping that will back up my funds till end of month so I can avoid overdraft or credit card. Serious lunch time ebay sesh coming up today!!

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

downsizer3 wrote: »

I'm doing my investigating at work (ahem!) but can't get my teeth into it until after christmas really as no point in applying for a job until I can leave. Need to update CV etc. I fancy a total change in job - away from what I do now

Now is the perfect time to update your CV, look into what you might like to do, how you can market yourself professionally for this new role and what skills you'll bring or what you need to learn. Good luck.

I love a good spreadsheet fiddle too!