London Socialite Sees The Light

LondonGirl252

PS siggy updated with new debt balances. Its coming down!

quantic

Just had a read through your thread, I know how difficult it can be when everyone around you is always doing things its really easy to find yourself getting into trouble financially. Great work, it will feel amazing when you get to the end of your journey!

Horace

Well done on passing your exams - I know I was away from MSE for a long time trying to sort myself out plus I forgot my password.

The holiday sounds great and the new flat does too - far better to share with nice people than ratbags.

Good luck with the debt busting too - you are doing great, if only I was but I am managing and have now got my cc debt down to under £500 but I still have no job so am living on dole money. I have been attending college and gaining new qualifications so I have shiny new typing qualifications and best of all I did brilliantly well with both my maths exams:eek: I am not the world's best when it comes to maths and when I was given homework I didn't do it so before my exams I spent a full 8 hours learning about fractions and stuff like that. When it came to my exam which came in two parts I decided to do the harder one first which was without the calculator and somehow I managed to get 90% and for the one with the calculator I got 83.3% but then I do know that I got some wrong because I was having difficulty reading the computer screen as some numbers were in a pale fuzzy grey. Still I passed which is all that matters.:j

Hope to catch up again soon xx

Erme

where art thou? LG?

Not heard from you for months :O

LondonGirl252

Hello hello!

A mighty lot has happened since I last posted! Hope you guys are all well,

We completed the migration at work and my employment transferred over to the new company, I haven't enjoyed the process and whilst settling in now, I am not enjoying it and feel very stangnant alongside the previous issues with my manager which were still there. The new team is much smaller and my potential for career development has been very much limited. I received all my shares in cash, paid of ALL my credit cards and now have a nice sum in SAVINGS!! SAVINGS! For the first time EVER!

About a month ago, I began to check out the job market and an excellent role came up for a different but v well known company. I must have done well in the interviews as I have signed the contract and begin work there in August I got a lovely pay increase and the role should challenge me, its a big company with loads of room for development. So I am very happy. The week after I resigned here, my boss was asked to leave the company and she is now no longer with us. So my resignation threw a bit of a spanner in the works I think! oops! Anyhow, onwards and upwards!

I bought myself a lovely car a couple of months back, I am loving the freedom and getting around and about much more its so nice having a car again!

The flat is still fabbo!

Money wise I still budget really well but not so good at keeping to budget. I go over most months so I'm trying to get that back down as I dont want to dip into savings, I've been eating out a lot recently and so I think just by cutting back on that I can bring myself back in line.

Also weddings are costing me a fortune this year, 5 of them this summer alone! I have budgeted for them all but 1 is not in this country, and the others are all outside of London and so require hotels etc. Its nice and I'm looking forward to them but it does add up!!!

Well, thats all from me for now I think!

LG

mark55man

yay - that's good to hear.


a good few months for you - enjoy all the weddings I know they are expensive but they are a great laugh. not sure what you are doing for presents but I always gave a bottle of champagne (or if they were close 2 - one brut one rose).


Those were the days - then it was all christenings now its divorces, funerals and coming of age parties !!

Matilda80

It's taken since the beginning of June but I've finally read the entire thread!

Loved it. Feel like I've read a really good chick lit book.

Didn't half chuckle and the hair v lighter incident.

I so want to be you! I'm gutted the updates have slowed down. Hope you start posting lots again.

Love from your stalker.

Matilda x

lulabelle

Yes London girl where are you?!

LondonGirl252

Heya

I'm here again! Will promise to start posting more Need to keep my stalkers happy!

Took your great advice re the chamgpagne gifts Mark and they're going down a treat - thankyou for that. My brothers wedding was last weekend and it was such a lovely day made even better by some of the "lads" from childhood days coming which was a lovely surprise as my brother hadn't mentioned he'd invited them! Great fun... until I headed to the hotel my parents had booked for the night only to discover my room was right above a wedding being hosted there, when I finally managed to fall asleep through that noise at 2 am the fire alarm when off for an HOUR!!!! The next morning on check out though, I also mentioned to receptionist that the cleaniness of the room was not great, I never want to know what those stains on the curtains were! Anyway she refunded us almost half the price of the room so that was a win!

I also was very lucky to be invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace last month my boyfriend (casually dropped in there that there is a boyfriend... ) was invited through the army. It meant buying a new hat (thanks Debenhams £35) but totally worth it to be allowed in and to be able to say I've eaten a cucumber sandwich (no crusts) at buckingham palace! It was a lovely experience, The Queen, Prince Phillip and Harry were all there. There was a band playing and the rain held off!

I am winding down at work - how hard is it to stay motivated once you've resigned?!?! And am on course to leave at the end of July
Now, I've let the budget take a bit of a hit here as the new company gave me the opportunity to take a few weeks off and start at the end of August and after doing some sums I realised I could indeed afford this and it will be worth the savings taking a hit as I really need a good break and then once I have my payrise I can try and make up for the shortfall for not being paid for almost a month.

This then prompted me to re-asses my budgeting. I still dont have any credit card debt but I always find i over spend each month and have to dip into my savings when this happens, I have everything budgeted for, it really is just eating out and socialsing that does it! So I thought back to when I first started debt busting and how I spent £10 a day and I've re-installed in this at £15 a day and for any days where I have plans I add in a budget for these. I got paid today and therefore this is day 1 of the budget!

This morning I withdrew my weekly cash allowance and am on track to come in on budget today, it kinda gave me a shock becuase after buying breakfast and smoothies this morning I was already £10 gone with lunch and dinner to deal with and I had't thought recently how it all adds up. So I ate lunch in the canteen and tonight I'm raiding the freezer for sups.

From tomorrow I'm going to use my canteen allowance better so that I dont spend so much of my budget on food! The idea is that I underspend in the week so I have more to spend at the weekend, no wonder I've been overspending each month at that rate!

Other than that I think my budgeting is working well. I have separate current accounts for bills and my spending budget and then I have seperate savings accounts for the car, holidays, my ISA and the "budget" (gifts, xmas, dentist, horses riding, clothes etc) and its working well. It helps me to keep the money seperate and I have enough of a buffer that if anything happened I have some set aside. Just need to get the spending back down so I stop dipping into savings to cover the shortfall each month.

Right, off home now. I'm having a bit of a re-organisation of my bedroom, I have some new shelves and getting rid of a useless table so taking the opportunity to have a sort out. I have 2 ball dresses and some shoes which are going on ebay this week.

LG x

mark55man

Glad your friends enjoyed the champagne.


Before I discovered MSE I used to give Pol Roget White Foil (Winston Churchill's favourite) - now they would be lucky to get a white and rose Chaumet from Lidl (Sparkling Perry @ £1.29 and £1.99 for Brut and Rose respectively)