Time to 'grow up' - the slippery slope to 30.

immoral_angeluk

Hello!
Ash has ended up with today off sick from school, so it's given me chance to have a financial sort out and get back on track. Huzzah! Hopefully this will help me get more focused now that the bulk of the work for the photography business is done. I think I've put enough money into it now in all honesty and I don't want to keep plowing money into it.

So far I have spent £691 with ongoing advertising costs of £90pm, yearly insurance of £90ish and odds and sods such as batteries etc. I have one modelling shoot booking coming up and a wedding fayre to do on the 7th Oct to hopefully get some more bookings, but as it stands I think I want to hold off putting more money into it until I get some more bookings coming in.

With the debt, as far as I can see I'm still on track to have my DFD of Dec 2013.
The car loan is now £2783 thanks to my £60pm overpayments (£221.28pm being paid off it ). Snowball calculator says I'm on track to clear that with the last payment being Dec 2013.
My Halifax 0% card is at £420, and I've just amended my standing order so that instead of £5pm, it's now going to pay £7pw for 60 weeks to clear off the balance by the end of the 0% which is coincedentally Dec 2013.
My barclaycard is now mostly 0% and part interest bearing and standing at £2534.96. I've now set up a standing order to pay £42pw for 60 weeks which bar a bit of interest will also clear it by Dec 2013.
My capital one and very accounts have been/will be closed once they get around to updating their systems.
My halifax card has been cut up, but I'm keeping the barclaycard open for emergencies (ie high cost breakdowns I can't foot out of my own pocket like car repairs, washing machine blow ups etc) although I'm more determined now than ever not to use it because the end is in sight.

I've got £641 in the mortgage deposit savings account, which is growing slowly but regularly. I also have £20.81 in an ISA which is what I've put aside for tax/ni for my photography business (20% of any income I get from it goes into that. Better safe than sorry )

So all in all things are pretty on track I think!

Here's my example budget taking into account the new debt standing order payments:
Food £70.00
Petrol £25.00
Social £10.00
Dance £9.00 (The girls' lessons are now paid in advance, whereas I pay for mine weekly. Until Nov the girls are doing an extra rehearsal for an upcoming show which costs £5 though hence it being £9 not £4.)
Halifax £7.00
Barclaycard £42.00

Total Out£163.00 Total in (TC £162.20 and CB £33.70)
£195.90
Surplus £32.90

Anything surplus I'll be putting in the ISA to account for one off costs/topping up monthly bills/christmas that kind of thing

We shall see how it goes!

Hope everyone is well. I've been CRAP with doing my spending diary. So going to start again from today and stop forgetting about it. This is serious business you know :rotfl:

beanielou

Good to read your update.

immoral_angeluk

Friday! Hurrah! Although in fairness I've totally lost a week. Have been off work since Friday with acute tonsilitis and fever so I've been doped up on painkillers and antibiotics. Finally starting to feel human again now but this past week has been horrible! Looking forward to going back to work. I've not ben signed off for anything in over 7 years and daytime tv is starting to drive me crazy but I've not felt well enough to really do anything apart from collapse on the sofa! A bit concerned that I'll have some SSP to contend with in next month's pay, but not really a lot I can do about that and will just have to roll with the punches...

Anyway, update time now I'm feeling human and able to think again...

Did our food shopping yesterday but also got some shoes for the girls and birthday presents for parties they're going to this weekend. Ended up spending £120 :eek: Dear god....

Don't need to get any petrol this week as still have the perol from last week as I've not been able to go to work!

My standing orders for the extra £7 and £42 payments to the cards went out today and have updated my sig. So much easier knowing that the money is going out without me having to worry about it...

Also had a cheque from capital one for £8.42 which was a credit leftover from the BT. They've now closed that account too. Hurrah!

Despite all my best intentions to restart my spending diary being ill kind of put pay to that, but what I can remember is this so far..

Prescription (antibiotics) £7.68
Painkillers (£5 odd)
Food £70ish
Clothes for girls/birthday presents £50ish

That's as much as I can remember, but I can't really remember that much from the past week! lol!

Hope everyone is well. Everyone I know seems to be ill in some form of late so hope germs don't spread online!

beanielou

Glad you are on the mend & yah to the SO's.

fermi

Congratulation to IA on becoming a BG on DFW and related boards.

Very very well deserved. :beer:

ZTD

fermi wrote: »

Congratulation to IA on becoming a BG on DFW and related boards.

Very very well deserved. :beer:

Yes, I noticed that before. Obviously didn't duck quickly enough when that came round. I mean look at you...you've never been the same since...

beanielou

Congratulations oh great one.
Dont desert your diary though!

immoral_angeluk

Sorry guys, I haven't deserted you. Work has been absolutely manic to the point where I've not even had a spare 5 mins to do my budgets let alone anything else. Why does life always get in the way? :rotfl:

Have been working on photo editing all evening but will do a proper update tomorrow. My eyes are shutting on me as I type.... zzzzz

NorthernLas

IA ... get MSE on advertising!!! Use word of mouth and set up a FB business page. Absolutely, NO NEED for £90 drain if you have friends who could use your services.There are plenty budget or free courses on FB and business network skills

PM if you want more info...

NL x

immoral_angeluk

NorthernLas wrote: »

IA ... get MSE on advertising!!! Use word of mouth and set up a FB business page. Absolutely, NO NEED for £90 drain if you have friends who could use your services.There are plenty budget or free courses on FB and business network skills

PM if you want more info...

NL x

I've been experimenting up to now to see what responses I got. I've had free credit with google and Facebook ads which doesn't really seem to have done much in all honesty. I've got a fb business page and my own website, I do a lot of stuff for dp's hyper local site too so get word of mouth through that.
I've had 3 months in a local 'advertiser' mag which I've had no response from so going to give that up. I am registered with yell.com and in the yell books for weddings for 12 months for 36 a month so soon that'll be my only paid ads.
Oh and I also did a wedding fayre which cost 75 quid but again only have one confirmed wedding booking so far (although have been getting enquiries so it has helped).
Need to have a think about other ways really. This is all very new to me! I've done a bit if modelling and music promo shoots so hoping word of mouth will start paying off!