London Socialite Sees The Light

LondonGirl252

Yes that does make sense.

One friend earns about £5k more but I know she realies heavily on credit. Not sure how much exactly....

The friend who I confessed to yesterday earns about £3k less and has a small overdraft. Her parents own her house so she is about £600pm better off than me as she doesn't pay rent and her and her flatmates share the bills.

Others do earn a bit more so I think they are used to having more disposable income than me...

Buffythedebtslayer

I think in my situation mostly when we went out we got drunk, I don't mean seriously drunk just tipsy/merry and once you are at that point (if you are me) sticking another 50 quid on the CC for dinner is no biggie. Its never 50 quid either always more.....Hence the becoming too tired, being ill having work to do and avoiding the whole enterprise!

Most of my friends have cc bills that they don't pay off each month. 2 borrowed extra on their mortgages to pay off their cc. I think you are right Fuzzy, it is normal it certainly was for me to run up bills to pay off one day.

Its just one day came sooner for me then them!

xxx

LondonGirl252

I think I can safely say too much of my credit is alcohol related! i used to jump on whatever band wagon was passing and dance merrily into whichever bar was highest choice that week. I'm also too generous and would pay for poorer friends - MADNESS!!!

It became normal certainly to bring out the mastercard.

Those days are happily over!

xxx

LondonGirl252

Morning all,

TFIF!!!

Well I just had to do some sums to work out if I am in the red or black today!!

Last night was a social event at work which I had decided yesterday I wasn't going to go to as couldn't afford it. Peer pressure saw me giving in at the last minute and agreeing to borrow £20 off my workmate. Was a bit annoyed at myself but the workmate is new and I would have felt bad leaving her to go by herself when she doesnt know many people yet.

Anyway, the event itself was a race night, where they had a DVD game with different horse races and you could bet... I won £17! So once I paid my friend back I was only down £3.. happy days cheap night! Don't feel so bad for going now, but I have learnt the lesson that in future if I don't think I can afford it I will come up with an excuse beforehand so there's no pressure on the day to go.

Tonight I am going out with my flatmate, I have budgeted £20 for this and have had it saved for a while from previous NSD's. It should work out cheap though, as I have a voucher for £150 that I won in a raffle a couple of months ago for a japanese restaurant so we are going there and we won't let the bill get bigger than that!

Using the snowball calculator I can see how much more I need to pay each month towards credit once all the DD's have gone out. I sent another £12 over today and have £44.64 to source this month and send to the credit card to finish the month on target. This will have paid off £550 this month.

I also think Lovefilm have still taken their direct debit despite me cancelling the account of £7.99 so I need to call and get that back later.

This is also the last month I have to pay off my gym membership in full at £39, next month it is cancelled and just need to pay £10 as it pro rate... then nothing. So that'll be an extra £39 per month after that to send to the card.

I have a credit of £10.64 in my account as well this morning, I have no idea where it has come from so need to investigate!

so, looking forward to the weekend.

Riding tomorrow morning - free.

Then no plans.

I need to grocery shop... will make the effort to go to T or S rather than WR so i can earn points! and then I think I'll have another sesh of batch cooking! I have ran out of spag bol :eek: so a few more portions of that is required (with just one portion of meat and bulked out by veg I think) and then I'll make a curry for variety's sake!
I might also go on the hunt for cheap xmas cards and wrapping!

Have a good one all...

Horace

Aldi are selling cheap cards and wrapping paper (nice cards too, I was looking yesterday even though I have a stack of paper and cards left over from 2 christmasses ago:eek:). Aldi have bags of frozen chicken breasts for £3.99 (these are the ones that mum got for me) and they are very nice...it might be worth getting some for your freezer because you can do loads with chicken.

Well done on the winnings though. One day your chums will have their LBM and realise that they cannot live on credit and will start to see where you are coming from.

LondonGirl252

Brill thanks Horace, it might be worth a trip over there. I will have to find out where my nearest one is... it can't be too far!! £3.99 is a bargain for chicken!

Thanks, yes I hope so hopefully by then I'll be able to help them having been through it...

LondonGirl252

£25 is the budget for tonight...

Meal is free so only drinks before to think about...

Will report back tomorrow!

LondonGirl252

Stuck to my budget exactly last night, the food was amazing. The voucher we had was for £150 and our bill came to £149.63! Couldn't have gotten closer if we tried! Amazing restaurant, it was a really nice treat.

Went riding this morning and rode my favourite horse followed by one I hadn't ridden before who was huge! He was very sweet though and had a really nice morning, the park is so beautiful in the autumn.

Then I came back and slept off my hangover! Having a quiet night tonight with my flatmate so hoping today will be a NSD as I have 2 social things next week I really want to go to...

fuzzybear01

Nothing tastes better than free food! Glad you stuck to your budget.

LondonGirl252

Morning, loving the extra hour in bed!

Yesterday wasn't quite a NSD but not bad, I decided to cook a curry for me and my flatmate and making too much so I could freeze some. Then I thought it'd be really economical of me to do some mince and onions at the same time for spag bol, chilli, lasagne etc. So wrote myself a nice list and took some cash... no cards with me.

Then as we're walking round Sain...ys, ive got my phone as a calculator and making sure I don't go over I just felt really self-conscious doing that with my friend there. She didn't say anything but in a way that was worse as it meant I knew she thought it was stupid otherwise we'd have had a laugh about it.... or so that's how it went in my head. So i put it away and just bought the curry things. I think I'm much better doing this by myself as I know my reasons for doing it and I don't want to have to explain myself every time I change a habit.

Anyway, i didn't over spend, the curry was a success, we had a nice chilled evening in and I have 4 portions left over in the freezer.

I might go back to the supermarket when it opens and buy the few bits I needs to do the mince as I have a lot of it already in the cupboards, it just would have been nice if i could have gotten it all yesterday and today would have been a NSD.

I've also discovered the new range of slow cooker recipes and you can buy the spice mixes for them which must be cheaper then buying all the spices individually... so maybe I'll set that going one day while I'm at work then I'll really be stocked up for a while and I'll have to cook less this month which is good as if i can avoid spending on food I can save more money