A Year of Living Frugabulously

Lula-Hula

Karmacat wrote: »

All sounds well, Lula - in fact, all sounds great! I didn't realise you'd done home-job full time originally - outside work sounds better, indeed it does, even with Grumpy involved :cool:

I kind of fell into home-job after a set of circumstances of which the short version is : arrival of little DD, redundancy due to company relocating, shortly followed by relationship breakdown all within a year !

I wasn't very well after that lot & with a teenager, baby, no car & rapidly expanding CC it was the most cost effective job I could find. It didn't require any childcare costs & could be done around other stuff. It was a life saver at the time as it gave me a bit of focus, timetable to stick to & with some benefits enough to scrape by on. It was only minimum wage though & when I say 'full time', I mean it was 4 days a week so never enough earnings to qualify for 'creditworthy' status .

They were very bleak times, my self esteem was rock bottom & I never thought I'd have a 'proper / normal' job or life again, but although other bad stuff has happened since, I'm stronger & more in charge of my life than I've ever been .

Hmmmm I was really messy back then.

vasseur

Quiet day at work so have been reading your diary. You have a lovely way with words and I've taken your tip about Maybellin Gel Eyeliner on board

I'm (very ) newly single, nearly 40 and have one DD who is 7.

*subscribes....*

Lula-Hula

Hi polesalot & thanks for joining in

It's been a bit of shocker today;

I'd stripped the beds & set the washing machine in motion before we left home at 8.15. By 8.45 I was haring round Sainsbugs hurling stuff into the trolley & home again by 9.50 in time to set the laundry free, put the next load in, unpack the hsopping & down more coffee to keep the momentum going.

Damage at Sainsbugs =

Cat food £3

Toiletries £4.65

Household stuff £13.71 - yes I do need 4 lovely scented candles

Groceries £48.62 - includes lots of stock for storecupboard & yummy curry - on offer at just £5.25

I spent rather more than I intended & yet a lot less than I expected by the time I got to the till. Thankfully, I had the trusty CC with me as I'd forgotten to go to the cashpoint before & only had £1.95 on me :rotfl:. I could have just used the debit card but it seemed silly to let go of the cashback opportunity & I wasn't entirely sure I remembered the number.

Note to self :

* MUST REMEMBER TO GET CASH OUT & STOP USING THE CC :wall:*

Having managed to cram all the goodies into the cupboards, fridge & mini freezer I whizzed round with the vacuum, made the bed & hung laundry on the airer - having put the car away I wasn't going to get it out again to drive to launderette to use the dryers .

Chopped up a bunch of veg, threw it in the slowcooker, waved my magic wand & wished for a tasty veggie stew to appear in about 6 hours & then sat down with coffee to check emails ...

and damn nearly spat coffee all over keyboard when I saw the mobile bill .

They did send me a lovely little note when I upgraded to warn me that my first bill might be " a bit more than usual ".

No !!!!!! Vodafone - £133.83 :eek: _pale_:eek:.

Now, bearing in mind that I'm used to paying about £15 a month & had to think long & hard about upgrading to a £31 a month contract (ok, the shiny new i-phone was a contributing factor ) I nearly passed out when I saw that, as I was expecting maybe £60. I clearly need to find the app that calculates call time.

It's thrown a large mucky old spanner in the financial works too, I was going to clear the Sainsbugs spends from the CC immediately, but I don't have enough in my account to cover that as well as the Vodafone bill, other direct debits & DDs lunch money sooooooooo I've had to 'borrow' cash from the Buffer Fund ( yes, the one I'm supposed to be paying back to the ISA ).

I now have to repay £300 to that fund before I can repay the other £1,000 Grrrrrrrrrr.

So, I've paid for DDs lunches today & hope to have a run of NSDs next week & then the week after I can start to pay it all back.

I need to be very very careful, it's so easy to slip back into bad overspending habits.

vasseur

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Hi polesalot & thanks for joining in

It's been a bit of shocker today;

No !!!!!! Vodafone - £133.83 :eek: _pale_:eek:.

God I hate it when things like this happen. You work so hard at all other areas to keep costs down and something like this just b*ggers things up.

Cherryjack

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Hi polesalot & thanks for joining in

It's been a bit of shocker today;

I'd stripped the beds & set the washing machine in motion before we left home at 8.15. By 8.45 I was haring round Sainsbugs hurling stuff into the trolley & home again by 9.50 in time to set the laundry free, put the next load in, unpack the hsopping & down more coffee to keep the momentum going.

Damage at Sainsbugs =

Cat food £3

Toiletries £4.65

Household stuff £13.71 - yes I do need 4 lovely scented candles

Groceries £48.62 - includes lots of stock for storecupboard & yummy curry - on offer at just £5.25

I spent rather more than I intended & yet a lot less than I expected by the time I got to the till. Thankfully, I had the trusty CC with me as I'd forgotten to go to the cashpoint before & only had £1.95 on me :rotfl:. I could have just used the debit card but it seemed silly to let go of the cashback opportunity & I wasn't entirely sure I remembered the number.

Note to self :

* MUST REMEMBER TO GET CASH OUT & STOP USING THE CC :wall:*

Having managed to cram all the goodies into the cupboards, fridge & mini freezer I whizzed round with the vacuum, made the bed & hung laundry on the airer - having put the car away I wasn't going to get it out again to drive to launderette to use the dryers .

Chopped up a bunch of veg, threw it in the slowcooker, waved my magic wand & wished for a tasty veggie stew to appear in about 6 hours & then sat down with coffee to check emails ...

and damn nearly spat coffee all over keyboard when I saw the mobile bill .

They did send me a lovely little note when I upgraded to warn me that my first bill might be " a bit more than usual ".

No !!!!!! Vodafone - £133.83 :eek: _pale_:eek:.

Now, bearing in mind that I'm used to paying about £15 a month & had to think long & hard about upgrading to a £31 a month contract (ok, the shiny new i-phone was a contributing factor ) I nearly passed out when I saw that, as I was expecting maybe £60. I clearly need to find the app that calculates call time.

It's thrown a large mucky old spanner in the financial works too, I was going to clear the Sainsbugs spends from the CC immediately, but I don't have enough in my account to cover that as well as the Vodafone bill, other direct debits & DDs lunch money sooooooooo I've had to 'borrow' cash from the Buffer Fund ( yes, the one I'm supposed to be paying back to the ISA ).

I now have to repay £300 to that fund before I can repay the other £1,000 Grrrrrrrrrr.

So, I've paid for DDs lunches today & hope to have a run of NSDs next week & then the week after I can start to pay it all back.

I need to be very very careful, it's so easy to slip back into bad overspending habits.

Oh bless ya, im totally sure you will sort this out in a fab way :-) you have to live life.. and these things happen.. x

Souk08

EEk to Vodafone. Not much t'internet at the mo but keep the faith lady and XXX

Karmacat

Blimey Lula :eek: thats the same as selling you the phone!!! Dreadful.

I'm so glad you've been able to get to a more balanced life than when little DD was born - as you say, you haven't bee able to do much social life, but I'm sure that will come very easily when you're ready and feel comfortable about balancing being there for DD. That doesn't sound quite grammatical but I bet you know what I mean :rotfl:

:kisses3:

Lula-Hula

Morning all,

thank you for supportive post re the vodafone bill. I did some thorough investigating & £62 of it was due to paying 2 months 'contract' which I expected.

On top of that though, there was £67 worth of calls over my 300 minutes allowance . I'm actually ok with that as there has been a lot of family stuff going on - relatives in hospital etc - that necessitated making far more calls than normal. Admittedly DD1 & I have both been a bit too 'chatty' about non essential stuff & although it would be cheaper to drive over & visit, due to her shifts, it's just not possible.

I am just glad I don't have her bill though which was an eye watering £196 :eek: yes, you read that right - I suppose that's the additional cost of having a boyfriend to chat to as well :rotfl:. I'm definitely staying single & much as I hated texting on a touch screen phone, I'm learning fast as my text allowance is unlimited .

A major flaw with the i-phone seems to be that there is no way to record how much time you have used on calls :huh:. Please do correct me if I'm wrong on this & just haven't discovered how to yet.
On my old sony ericsson phone I could record all my call time, sent messages & also reset my outgoing call time records - which I did every month so rarely went over my limit without knowing about it.

I can login to my vodafone account to check how much data & call time I've used & how much is left, but it seems very remiss that the phone itself doesn't have that capability. Presumably this is because i-phones are for people who don't need to know what they're using because they can always afford to pay their bill :rotfl:

I just know that someone is going to tell me that I can 'get an app' to record my call time

I had a lovely sleep last night - clean sheets mmmmmmm & we're having a pottering day at home today. Washload 1 is on the line & washload 2 is in progress.

I've realised that my black jeans are looking a bit faded but are otherwise in great condition so I'll be popping to local handy shop later to see if they have any black dye which I'll pay for with my pocket money, but otherwise we need nothing so it should be a NSD .

The garden is a slimy sodden mess of leaves & feathers ... not sure who is to blame for that, but there are 3 possible culprits sat out there, one on the bench, one by the horse-shaped hole in the hedge & mine on neighbours trampoline.

I've not worn my fab wellies for a while so this a great opportunity to get them on & try out the new purple gardening gloves too & rake up some of the leaves :j.

ETA :

I stand corrected in a 'head down slightly ashamed kinda way'

Cheery_Daff

:eek: :eek: at your phone bill Lula! :eek: You probably could have bought the i phone outright and then stayed on your £15 contract for that! :eek:

:j :j for wellies and gardening though

<just sneakily peeking in and reading back over your diary >

Lula-Hula

Hello Cheery :hello:

how lovely of you pop in & bring some of your brightfulness :j. Yep, the phone bill is quite appallingly awful, but there's nowt I can do other than make sure direct debit goes through & that it NEVER happens again.

It's been a very pottery day here, all chores completed & the laundry is done & now in the magic airing cupboard. It was a bit damp in the garden & impossible to rake up any leaves but we had a good nose around & I have a list of things to do when it's a bit drier out there. We have colonies of mushrooms & toadstools all over the place, but the leeks still haven't grown at all, naughty leeks .

I got the clothes dye from the little shop of treasures & now have 2 pairs of velvety black jeans so don't need to buy any more for a while.

I'm now off to cook/heat up our delicious £5 curry & watch some tv