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

immoral_angeluk

Evening all! WOW life has been chaotic of late, I've been so busy I've not known whether I've been coming or going! Haven't just been busy with work or my photography business, but just with life in general everything seems to have been taking up my time.
We're in the process f redecorating the girls' room after having a rearrange and discovering the little blighters had drawn all over the wall. That's cost about £60 so far for the paint but it looks much better. Still need to get them a new chest of drawers as theirs is broken so going to look in the second hand furniture charity shops. They also need new curtains and a lampshade as I managed to get paint on it, oops.

This weekend me, the girls and one if my best friends are off to Cardiff for the weekend. We got one of the premier inn £29 rooms (£50 inc breakfast for all of us) and are staying at the Barry island one. Going to have a day in Cardiff/Cardiff bay and then a day in Barry island and surrounds, really looking forward to it. I was born in Cardiff so it always feels like home. The girls can't wait either.
Had a bit of a windfall this month, so have bought the girls all new winter clothes and with what was left treated us to an iPad. It's actually come in really useful for all of us including for the business and dp's hyper local site so was money well invested. Just need to work out if I can claim it as a business expense!
The debts are coming down slowly. I've had my standing orders set up to overpay the cards each week (£42 and £7 respectively) but I need to update the balances and my sig. Will try and do it tomorrow. Still have the loan overpayment and mortgage savings going out too so everything is ticking along. I'll update the figures tomorrow hopefully when I get chance. We were painting again tonight so haven't had much chance and I'm too lazy now :rotfl:

Hope everyone is well anyway.

immoral_angeluk

Ooh, forgot to add that I took the old summer clothes for the girls that were no longer needed/suitable to cash4clothes and got £5.60. Hurrah!

beanielou

have a great weekend

immoral_angeluk

Have updated my debt/savings balances although it took me half an hour to find all the damn passwords. :rotfl:

Here's the updated details (including the additional standing order payments to the card due to go out tomorrow)

Debts:
Barclaycard £2,703.42 (this is slightly higher due to an unexpected bill at the beginning of the month. :mad: am going to get it back down to what it was after xmas)
Very 0% June 12 closed £0.00
Barclayloan £2,555.00
Barclaycard closed £0.00
Halifax 0% til Dec 14 £399.00
Capital one 0% Oct 12 closed £0.00
total £5,657.42

Mortgage deposit savings (5.5% for 12 months renewal due Jan 2013) - £761

Tax/NI savings - (20% of all income from my photography business gets set aside in an ISA just in case, but I'm not expecting to make a profit this year) £86.86


My budgets are currently looking like this...
Food £40.00
Petrol £45.00
Bills £497.97
Halifax SO £7.00
Barclaycard SO £42.00
Hotel £50 (inc breakfast)

Total out £557.15
Total in £774.71

Surplus (which is going to be used for Cardiff if we need it) £117.56

I also have £80 in my purse cash ready for Cardiff, so £197 budgetted altogether for food, entertainment and tickets to Techniquest and any other bits we need/want over the weekend. This is our last weekend away until probably May next year which is when we normally go away (was thinking of maybe doing Butlins again..) and after this it's going to be all spare money on Xmas shopping so I don't feel guilty about us having a bit of a splurge in Wales Really looking forward to it! Yay!

immoral_angeluk

Hello!
Haven't had much chance to update this week as have been a busy busy bee!
We had a fab weekend in Cardiff although may have spent a little bit more than I'd budgetted (Not much though, only £30 or so but it was worth every penny. ) If you've never been, Techniquest in Cardiff bay (a science museum) is AWESOME. Definitely making plans to go back (but without the 7 year gap this time

Have had to rejig my budgets due to some unexpected bills, including my gas/elec who decided to put my bill up to £103pm (for gas/elec) without me noticing until the payment went out today. Guess I didn't take much notice of my last bill. Very annoying but I'm going to leave it just in case we have a bad winter again like last year and I need to use it more.

I've updated my sig with the new debt/savings levels, although until after xmas I've stopped the standing orders to barclarcard and halifax so I've got a weekly budget for xmas presents which I'm going to start getting after next week. Next friday I've got to buy the girls dance show costumes at £45 so can't start til the week after, although I have started grabbing random bits like a couple of books.

We've also started redecorating a bit. Hae pretty much finished the girls' room which cost £50 all in. Now starting on the landing/stairs but have paint left over from the girls' room so am currently using that so it hasn't cost anything yet.

In January I'm going to review my standing order situation and look to up them and have a final push to get this debt cleared. My target date is Dec 2013 so I want to bring that down as much as possible. Other than the girls' birthdays I won't have anything really to budget for like holidays other than a work exam in June at £300 something so can start throwing everything at the debt again. Although I haven't any specific savings which I was planning on doing earlier in the year, I do have £761 in the 'mortgage deposit' account which is due for renewal (was 12 months @ 5.5%) in January, plus my photography savings which is 20% of any income plus any deposits I receive (for weddings etc) but I'm not going to even consider touching the photography savings. If there was a dire emergency though I will be able to access the morgage deposit savings after January with no interest penalty so will have this as my fall back whilst still adding to it. That way I can throw my money at the debt without stressing about the 'what ifs'.

Hope everyone is well anyway! Looking forward to xmas, have yet to look at my budgets but will do this in a bit as I've already spent an hour this morning review my finances as it is! lol!

immoral_angeluk

What a crappy week. Have had some unexpected bills come up so have had to use my tax/ni savings to cover them. Oh well, I'll pay it back ASAP so I'm not too concerned. I'm just frustrated! At least I have savings to cover it so didn't need to use my credit card!

I have used the credit card to pay for a one off advertising thing though, which was £180 for a special insert into a wedding supplement in a regional magazine. I ummed and aahhed over it but decided to take the plunge as it was discounted from £400, I'm apparently going to be the only photographer in it and even if I get one booking out of it it'll have paid for itself. Fingers crossed!

Having a quiet weekend this weekend after a really stressful crappy week. We're carrying on redecorating and need to finish off the girls room and the landing/stairs/hall.

I sold one of my basses today as it wasn't getting played and got £80 for it, so might put that towards some petrol and paint for the hall etc.

Hope everyone is well. Looking forward to relaxing this weekend and forgetting the past week!

immoral_angeluk

Dear god what a manic couple of months.

December was ridiculous, with one off bills left right and centre as well as Christmas, but I managed to sort it all out without using the credit card which is all good. I have had to cash in my mortgage deposit savings to cover some of it, mainly my insolvency course which I'm about to start, but although I've sacrificed the interest I still have the majority of the savings left and also am getting a few more bookings for weddings and stuff in so will replace it as/when.
I'm back in full debt busting swing now so excuse the silence during mental december. This year is the year. By xmas 2013 I WILL be debt free. It's going to be a slog but this was always my grand plan and it WILL happen this year.

Here's the current state of play.

Barclaycard £2,977.22
Barclayloan £2,230.00
Halifax 0% Dec 14 £387.00
total £5,594.22

The Barclayloan has it's monthly CMI payment of £161.28 going out each month plus an additional £60. According to the snowball calculator that's enough to have it cleared by December.

The barclaycard is now probably 50/50 0% and interest bearing at 26.9%. The CMI is £68ish pm at the moment, and starting friday there is a standing order set up for £50pw to be paid off it. According to the snowball calculator this should clear it by Jan 2014, so I intend to pay extra as/when I can to make sure it's cleared by Dec.

The halifax card is totally with a CMI of £5pm. As of friday there is £10pw standing order to pay this off which should clear it by around August. However, I've just been notified that they're increasing my limit from £500 to £1000 so I might see if there's any BT deals to shift some of the barclaycard onto it.

I currently have £500 in savings, and as/when I get extra money coming in I intend to do a 50/50 split and pay half into savings half off debt. I do have some bills coming up, such as I've just booked youngest's birthday party for the end of the month, and I'm also in process of having my back tattoos redone but these will be factored in. Also need new carpet in the hall/stairs/landing but again anything that's left over or coming from my photography will be what goes into savings/off debt.

Feb/Mar are nil council tax/water months as well so this will help towards those.

I'm not keeping a spending diary at the minute, but instead am going to rigorously stick to my budgets. I'm on a mission!

immoral_angeluk

Have done my shopping etc tonight and updated my budgets. I've moved over £17.86 to the savings as this was spare from my budgets this week. I've also rejigged my standing orders and have cancelled the £60 savings standing order and added an extra £40 to the loan overpayment. According to the snowball calculator this will now clear it by Nov 2013 so an extra month early. Hurrah!

Tomorrow another £50 will be going off barclaycard and £10 off halifax, so will update my sig and debt totals once it has

immoral_angeluk

Standing orders hae gone out and my sig's been updated! Hurrah!

Barclaycard now at £2927.22 and Halifax at £377. Ooh that reminds me I was going to have a look at BT deals wasn't I...

Have a few more enquiries for wedding photography as well so hoping I get some extra bookings/deposits in very soon

Only bad news is that I've realised my car tax is due this month. Bum! Pesky cars and their expense. Anyone reckon if I trade it in for a horse I'll save money?

emily_jackson

Are you able to use your photography skills to generate any extra income?