lilmissmup - 2012 - return of the debt free diary

lilmissmup

Time for another diary as its 2012 in 15ish hours!

2011 has been a good year; I brought a car, moved in with Simon, managed to pass my driving test at last, had a holiday to Tenerife and started college and got a new job!

Only bad points of 2011 were stress of old job leaving me in tears some days and the bad news about my teeth.

So I start 2012 off on a fairly level playing field!

My aims for 2012 are as follows:

1) Get my teeth as healthy as possible. Looking at about £1000 to achieve this, more maybe depending on if I need 2 replacements this year or if they will last a bit longer. I am thinking another brace is probably out the question now, I need to learn to “like” my teeth, they are miles better than they were and I guess my genetics are going to always win on this one! Though if I win the lottery I am getting all removed and implants!
2) Get out of debt ASAP
3) Get savings up to £12,000 (this will be hard but I will try!!!)
4) Complete first year at college and start 2nd year
5) Have another holiday abroad
6) Get our house decorated/bathroom done so we can sell it late this year/early 2013
7) Have £300 Amazon vouchers saved for next Christmas.
8) Possibly buy another car (I have fallen in love with the Suzuki swift, am trying not to buy one right now!)
9) Lose ½ stone before best friends wedding in September
10) Improve my swimming skills

Most of these are easily achievable but you never know what life will throw at you, hopefully 2012 will be a calm year like this year!!

Hope I dont bore you all enough to have a few readers

mariagti

Happy new diary!

I hope you manage everything you want for 2012 and have a good one.

Your doing so well on changing jobs and going to college, what are you studying?

On the teeth thing, i was only 18 when i had to crown front teeth put in on the NHS so there cheap...well i say cheap they cost me £500! They have metal silver back on them so im paraniod about laughing and swinging m head back so people see lol but apart from that there ok. I was in a club and me and a friend head butted each other resulting in her teeth knocking out half of one of my front teeth. Dentist said they would look better if both were crowned instead of one and i agreed.

x

Shoe_Gal

Happy New Year :j

lilmissmup

Very MSE start to the year, 2 NSDs in a row and paid off £250 off my other credit card!

I have lunches for next 4 days at work too so should have another 4 NSDS, I must start taking lunches to work as working opposite a Tesco now means I buy useless stuff each day!

I need to find £1000 by beginning Feb for car insurance and teeth......not looking likely!

I still have £80 christmas money and £15 my friend owed me that she gave me back, that will all go on hygenist next week. :cool:.

lilmissmup

Time for an MSE day, will try earn some extra pennies some how....

I am doing well on NSDs, managed 6 out of 8 so far, spent £2 on lottery for work and went to Nando's Friday night.

Got lunches for next couple of days at work although Tuesday I am back to college so will have to go to get some snacks to eat there so hopefully will get a NSD in Monday and Wednesday.

Thursday is hygienist day, need to get another £5 to go with the £95 I have already budgeted for it.

Got £9.13 budget per day at moment for next 16 days before pay day and no social events planned. Might go cinema a few times but unlimited cards cover that.

Hoping to end month with some spare cash.

I managed to claim a £5 amazon voucher yesterday with the nielson app on my phone so thats gone into the christmas stash fund.

Also managed to stop my mcafee from auto renewing at £55 :eek: I missed that last year and ended up paying it, can get protection for lot less than that or even free!

Going to spend couple hours looking for some comps or mse things to do as Simon is playing with car parts, I do have one piece of college work to do though that I should have handed in before christmas

lilmissmup

Managed another NSD today

But I forgot to budget the Nandos into my calculations yesterday so my daily budget after todays NSD is actually £8.25 per day.

I am going to dig round the cupboards later to see if I can make a snack for college to save my going to Tesco before but not sure I have much.

Have to do my college work tonight, I must get my butt in gear and not leave it until last minute!

lilmissmup

Bad news on the money front!

I got home from college to find an email from paypal saying they had taken £15.11 to pay for my ebay.com seller fees! :mad:

I don't have an ebay.com account so have opened a dispute and changed password etc, checked bank account and it seems ok but will check again tomorrow.

I have cancelled the Paypal DD for now hoping the cash wont go out but it might still do or go off my credit card.

Its bloody annoying though! :mad: Have to wait 10 days for an outcome too. :cool:

I had a spend day today, spent £3.29 on food. Should be a NSD tomorrow and I will be counting Thursday as one too if all I spend is the £100 on dentist as I have budgeted for that.

Grrrrrr ebay and paypal scammers!

lilmissmup

Oops been meaning to do an update pretty much everyday and due to this I have lost count of my NSD's so have given up on it now!

Paypal issue got resolved and the money didnt go out anyway as I cancelled the DD.

Best money saving thing to happen to me this month was my car insurance, got my renewal through for £989!!! :eek: I was expecting as much after my little car accident at work but I went on confused.com and got a quote from Diamond for £566 for a 10 month NCD booster policy (£80 cheaper than a years worth!) so I went to buy that and they asked me to phone up and I did, because they are Admirals sister company they put me through to them and they matched the quote

So I am glad I didn't pay cash for the accident I had now anyway! Fingers crossed next 10 mths will go smoothly and I will then have a years NCD too.

Also HSBC have offered me another 0% balance transfer offer if I apply before 29th Feb and as my Tesco card has purchases 0% until 22nd March I think I am going to pay the £500 for the periodontist on that and then transfer it over before then so will pay then have 6 more months to pay off £1800.

I do need to pay off the £1200 thats already on the hsbc card though before end of Feb...... thats £600 this payday and next!

lilmissmup

Been meaning to do an entry for ages again! I am either too tired, kids or here and am busy!

I do read posts every day though so am sure its not much more effort to post.

Got paid on Wednesday, chucked another £400 at the HSBC card debt to reduce that and after other bills I have £230ish to last me the month for entertainment etc.

Then last night I thought I would take a look at 0% cards again as although that HSBC deal is good I still need to clear off the £700ish I still owe on it from my last balance transfer before 1st March.

I don't earn enough for the Barclaycard deals so I applied for a Virgin card, 16 months 0% balance transfer and 6 months 0% on purchases and got accepted with a credit limit of £3800!

Which means I can book our holiday on one of the cards and transfer all the debt across including the £500 I need for my teeth to the Virgin card and then chuck about £300-400 into savings for next 16 months! And if I need to buy anything big before August I can use that card too.

I will try and pay off credit card too before the 16 months without savings but I would rather earn on my savings and the BT fee is only 1.99%!

lilmissmup

Back from work and my aim for the afternoon is to earn the 46 swag points I now need to get to my next £5 amazon voucher, I have been slacking a bit on Swagbucks recently and need to keep up with my £300 amazon christmas fund.

I did the £1 for a which trail hot deal last week, waiting for it and my £15 John Lewis vouchers to arrive though as they will go in Christmas fund too.

I joined superpoints too but I think its going to take a whole year to get a £5 amazon voucher on it unless I can find referrals, I am pants at referrals or the people who do sign up then never use the sites I refer them too!

Can't wait to get my Virgin card and start transferring the funds, I might even be able to do a money transfer to put the extra credit into my savings! :T
In personal news one of my best friends has just split up with her husband of 4 years, they had been together for 10 years and have a 2yr old son together so I am trying to help her out as much as possible, they have to sell there house and she doesn't drive so getting around for her is going to be hard as she works miles away from her house and her house is out of town so I am offering to help with shopping etc although shes hoping to move back to our town.

Worst thing is she is the maid of honor for the wedding I am bridesmaid for this year, am sure that won't help emotionally doing wedding stuff for the next 9 months.....

lilmissmup

Redeemed my £5 amazon voucher for swagbucks last night, christmas fund is up to £20 now

Waiting for my John Lewis vouchers still though!

£50 paid off the tesco credit card tonight, I need to work out daily budget still.

Off to the periodontist for my painful gum cleaning Friday going to ask if I can pay the £500 then so I can transfer that debt then too.

Got an email confirming the Virgin card is on its way so once I have that I can sort out the balance transfers, looking to then put at least £350 in my savings each month so by the end of the year they should be around the £7k mark....although I wanted that at £12k so not sure thats gonna happen!

Moving house is still on the short term agenda too!