I need a kick up the ****! Storm's DFW Diary

hypno06

Do as the man says!!

Storm

Thanks guys - bizarrely my horoscope this morning told me to "book a holiday in the mountains" - *freaky*

Going to have to wait until the car goes through its MOT to know exactly what I've got money-wise to spend, but I'm keeping an eye on martin's budget flight checker to try and get a cheapo flight up to Scotland!

Storm

My boss has just booked a time with me tomorrow morning to discuss what I'm going to be working on in the coming months... slightly worried that it might be a redundancy talk, although I worked out I'd get £1326.92 tax free as a redundancy payout (enough to clear HSBC & Egg completely) the rates of pay for temping round here aren't that great, and I would really struggle if I had to do that for too long...

There's been a few contracts come in recently for another area of our company, so I'm hopeful that it will just be that I'll start working on that side more, but with the wonderful nepotism that goes on in this place I'm not banking on it...

Grr! I just want to have the meeting NOW!

Storm

Phew! Just come out of my meeting with my boss - a lot of discussion about what will be happening in the organisation, where I fit into this and what resources I might be needing etc... Finally at the end we got onto the salary discussion, and I will be getting a £2K payrise from 1st September, which with tax, NI & student loan I reckon comes in at about £96 more a month :j

She's also agreed to buy the books I need to take a course, as well as pay the exam fee, which means that I should hopefully get a fantastic qualification that will make me far more employable elsewhere :T

Ho hum, looks like I might be staying here a bit longer after all...

hypno06

Fab news :T A decent payrise, and support for study - that is a result :j

Storm

It's Friday (albeit the 13th) and I'm very pleased with myself!

I bought a pair of jeans recently without trying them on (no changing room as outlet store) for £7 - they didn't fit so I popped them on Ebay figuring I still had time to take them back if they didn't sell... they went for £9.99 plus £4.50 p&p :T Going to post them off at lunchtime, but I reckon even with the Ebay & PayPal fees I will have made about £3 As the outlet shop is only over the road from my work I'm wondering if I could keep doing this...

I also managed to book a flight to go visit friends through the Ryan Air offer - 1p each way (plus £5 for hold baggage) so £10.02 :j There's something ridiculous when it's cheaper to fly to another country than get a train to the next county!

hypno06

Good news on the free flights - I tried to book some but couldn't get anything for the dates that we could travel.. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Jolly good idea about the outlet shop - just don't get carried away. One item at a time would be best. That way, if demand drops off, you are not stuck with a load of clothes that don't fit/can't take back!!

Snaggles

Fantastic news about the payrise Storm, and I agree - get yourself off on holiday and really enjoy it, you deserve it!

Storm

I agree about the outlet stuff Hypno - looking around Ebay tops & things don't sell well, but jean (esp BNWT) regularly go for about a tenner, and I get 2 weeks to return them to the store. The only problem is that the money is sitting in PayPal & I don't want to withdraw it until there's £50 so I don't pay a fee... which means I can't access that money to go buy another pair...

Storm

Been doing some hard thinking over the weekend about how I'm going to clear the debt by the end of the year, and have made the following decisions:

- I'm going to delay my walking holiday in Scotland to next Spring (I'm going to visit friends in Norway anyway & will book some long weekends to visit friends in this country too.
- My £2 coin collection (which is nearly at £100 I think) is going to get paid in and put towards getting the HSBC card cleared this month
- The next one to tackle will be Egg, but as on 0% until October I'll keep the money in my BS account & any extra after I've done my car insurance in September can go towards this too.
- Christmas is going to be completely paid for out of the change jar challenge & if I only manage £50 so be, I'll just have to be a bit more inventive!
- The smoking is going on 1st August & although it doesn't cost me much as I'm on duty free roll ups, this will still free up about £30 a month

One thing I realised was that I was still in the mentality of thinking I 'deserved' to go on a 'proper' holiday - which is one of the reasons I got into this mess in the first place, bunging flights on the credit card! My debts can be paid off by the end of the year, and I'm going to do everything I can to achieve that. For those who are looking at several years to become debt-free then, yes, you need to have a balance of enjoying a few of life's luxuries along the way, but for 6 months I can do without a lot of stuff. I don't think I'm explaining myself particularly well here... oh well!

The payrise in September will mean I can increase my debt payments to at around £540 a month, and once they're all paid off I'm going to allow myself an extra £100 a month for frivolity, £50 a month towards holidays, and the rest is going to start building up a deposit for finally getting on the property ladder.

Oh, managed to get another pair of Next jeans at the weekend, £5 this time! Gonna pop them on Ebay tonight...