Finally reaching out for some help...

danetastic · 20 February 2012 at 5:48PM

Evening Hun how's it going Kettles on come for a cuppa

PinotGrigio41 · 20 February 2012 at 5:51PM

Kerri, you are uncharacteristically very quiet !! Hows you ?!:D

Cherryjack · 20 February 2012 at 6:56PM

yes.. i thought something was up with my inbox hehe... very scared of my spreadable butter!!

x

kerri_dfw · 20 February 2012 at 7:33PM

:happyhear:happyhear:happyhearAwww I'm missed :happyhear:happyhear:happyhear
The problem with having a proper job, not one you hate, is that you don't get much time to waste on the tinterwebs.

Anyway, I've gone off the rails a bit because of it oops, but also because of MSE I've had my bottom saved

I shall explain in a mahoosive update

Put the kettle on a have a sit down whilst you read and sip ya cuppa

Right, so what's been happening then... somehow I have £160 left this is all the money I own in the world eep! I had to take money out of my pots and out of the emergency, emergency pot (well that's what it's there for) in order to pay for petrol and food for the past week. What I really should have done is to not have paid off Freemans...oh did I forget to mention that? Let's start at the beginning then

All my fleabay items that were listed and sold had their monies come in, apart from one where they've paid for one item but not the other two. I fail to understand why this is and refuse to send one item without them paying for all of them. This meant I had the £240 that I needed to pay off Freemans in full this month :T:T:T So as I knew I had £40 in my pots, and £160 in the emergency, emergency account I decided to bite the bullet and reduce the amount of creditors/debt I have :T:T:T

1 down 4 to go:T:T:T

However, I should probably have held back as I've had to pay travel expenses for travelling to and from various parts of the country. Last Monday I was in the Birmingham office which was 200 mile round trip, then I was in the City office which I can't expense. Today I was in the Reading office 100 mile round trip, back there again tomorrow. The petrol soon adds up.

As work have ballsed up my account I can't actually setup my laptop which, given that I'm an IT engineer is a bit silly, means I can't do any work until I get it. We've raised this as the highest priority ticket with IT to try to get it solved everso quickly but I'm not going to hold my breathe.

Hmm...what else? Oh OH has come to stay with me since last Tuesday, this meant a mammoth riverf0rd order of veg so we have a stocked fridge and a big conversation about how he doesn't want to know when I get bargains but if we ever live together I can be in charge of the food shopping. Winner! As I had no work Thurs/Fri to do we went down to stay with my parents for the weekend and they fed us. We took my nephew out on Friday and Sunday to give my sister a break from a 2yo running round screaming 24/7 and as this was to the beach & woods it cost nothing

We are going to treat ourselves to a dish from the chinese tonight, mostly because I want to but we're going to be MSE and make our own rice

I'm putting a £10 limit on it.

I've found out I can claim 40p/mile for the first 10,000 miles I do in a year, which when I drive at £20 for 100 miles seems fairly reasonable

I'm going to have to set this money aside, so when I claim back my expenses I will put the excess towards one of my debts.

The next debt to tackle is going to be the overdraft, at £600 this is going to be interesting, particularly as I live in it permanently. I'm hoping that if I can overpay into my online savings account until I get to £600 then I should be able to transfer the money from there into my current account and then remove the overdraft. When I do this it'll be the first time I'll have been without an OD for forever! Then it'll be the lloyds OD to conquer after that.

I've got numerous items that need posting in the next few days, but as before people are failing to pay me on time which is really frustrating. Why purchase something if you don't intend on paying?

I'm also really annoyed that someone has opened a claim against me on fleabay. I posted 3 items in the same parcel to someone in Brazil. They have confirmed that 2 items arrived however the 3rd item failed to arrive. I fail to see how this could be the case unless the parcel was tampered with. I have asked them to tell me the condition of the parcel when it arrived, although fear I may lose out on £12.18 because of this and not sure whether I can claim back through RM either as it's airmail

On the whole I've been really good, I'm remembering to be MSE where possible and even making sure when I go anywhere with the OH that we don't buy anything unnecessarily. In 4 days time I'll have paid £2k off since I started my diary in November. I'm inspiring my OH to think about his finances and my sister is now looking for whoopsies. I've got cupboards full of enough food to last a good month, and money in my pocket the week before payday for the first time in ages.

I have been reading all your diaries, and need to catchup since yesterday. Although, I've been using the tablet which is a bit awkward to type on so more lurking than responding. I'll try to post more often though, I don't want you thinking I've disappeared and you all help keep me on track

Oh and here's my current debt total:
Lloyds tsb: £387.17
wescott: £1670
HSBC: £600
Vanquis: £500
[STRIKE]Freemans: £0[/STRIKE]
Total o/s: £3157.17
Total paid: £1872.83

Ooooh I'm sooo dropping into under £3k on Friday :T:T:T

Expenses expected:
mileage: £120
mobile charge: £15

Cherryjack · 20 February 2012 at 8:03PM

Its all looking so so good :-)) next thing to suggest is getting emergency money behind you.. i think its suggested so many months.. just so you have a back up plan to pay for rent etc..my brother got into a bad situation at christmas. The landlord gave him notice and he had no moving money saved or deposit money (in case he didnt get it back) and was worried sick.. food for thought.
Amazing yv paid off freemans and so glad your enjoying the job yipeee

)) xx

kerri_dfw · 20 February 2012 at 8:29PM

Thanks Cherry, I'm going to start up the emergency fund again when I get paid although I might not get paid from new job until end of March eep!!! Hopefully will get work c/c before then though so I will be able to stick expenses on there instead of out my own pocket. The idea is to pay the extra mileage money towards my debts and put the petrol money into my emergency. So for instance out of the £120 mileage, £40 will be back into emergency as that's what I paid for petrol, and £80 off debts. I think SuperScrimpers said to get 6-12 months behind you, but as my rent alone is £811pcm it seems infeasible to do this until I'm debt free.

My minimum payments are now £115ish, so I will put aside £450 on payday as emergency funds (been paying £500-£600 off each month). This way I will have something to fall back on, or if I haven't I'll clear the OD on March payday. My tax rebate of £1000ish is due in the next few weeks for 10/11 so whichever comes first will clear the HSBC OD. Then the remainder will clear Lloyds & Vanquis. It's going to be such an amazing feeling to only have one creditor, I can't believe I'm only a few weeks away from it and I didn't realise until now! Although, chickens & eggs...

Cherryjack · 20 February 2012 at 8:32PM

That a brilliant plan, didnt want you to have nothing behind you xx oh my gosh!! that musy be the most amazing feeling EVER

)))

kerri_dfw · 20 February 2012 at 8:52PM

Wow you get nothing from me then you get loads at once but just checked my online banking and....

OMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG! :jOMG!:j

21 FebCRHMRC SA
1,221.14

Do you know how happy that makes me??? Tomorrow I shall be clearing my HSBC OD

but I need advice... I now have my sensible hat on... do I open a new bank account and get my wages paid into there until I have £600 in savings then delete the OD, or do I suck it up and just delete the OD? £600 is a nice cushion, but I might get tempted to spend it. Help!!!

Either way, have just called OH and told him that tonight we shall have a feast. We were going to have 1 or 2 dishes from the chinese and make our own rice, but I think we'll let them cook the rice instead

What's £2 when you're paying back £1k.