C'est La Vie - Living a glitterful life whilst busting the butt of debt

LaFolie

Managed to overcome the 'need for wine vs. NSD' problem by simply asking le bf to buy it (he owes me WAY more than a bottle of wine, and had half of it, and it came from his money....)

Deccy

You're hilarious!

Congratulations on dealing with your debt. Our levels are pretty similar.

Race you to clear first? ;p

Subscribing to your diary.

LaFolie

Deccy wrote: »

Our levels are pretty similar.

Race you to clear first? ;p

Bring it owwn sista ( / bro)!

Sorry, I'll never do that again - I'm too middle class to 'do' gangster

In other news, with the help of that wine, I managed to bang out an application for a job in 20 minutes (for some reason, I am excellent at writing job applications and cover letters...).

Totally not in the mood for work today; may have to graduate to a harder surface than the plasterboard walls for banging my head off in frustration (figuratively only, I hasten to add!). Hopefully a good hard gym session after work will release all those frustrations, or, if not, leave my head too full of cheesey pop music to care!

We're forecast snow up here today. Snow! That is just unacceptably ridiculous.

Today's glitterful event will be making myself look even more fantastic for work than usual, in order to attempt to boost me though the mediocrity!


x

Deccy

Aha it's bro.

We had snow today as well! Couldn't believe it. )

Good luck with the job applications. Wish I could push them out as quickly as you can!

LaFolie

ARGH, Men! I was all nice and chilled when I got home, having recovered from yet more fun head vs. wall games at 'work' with a nice kick !!! gym session.

Walked into the kitchen, which seemed unusually warm, and soon figured out the cause of this - Le bf had left the electric hob on full blast :mad: turned it off, and muttered to myself under my breath as I went upstairs to change into my PJs (can't stand being in 'real' clothes when mooching about the house!), to see that he'd also left the immersion water heater on :mad:.

Now, let me explain two things:

Our flat has only electricity, not gas, and so the immersion heater acts as our regular water heater. We're on an Economy 7 tariff, so I just switch it on when I go to bed, and switch it off when I get up. Pas de probleme. Le bf, self-indulgent sod that he is, prefers baths to showers, so often turns it on during the day to get enough hot water for a bath. Done in moderation, I have no problem with this, except for the fact that he NEVER remembers to turn the bloody thing off again

Secondly, Le bf starts work at 5pm, and sets off from our flat at about 4:20pm. I got home at 7pm, meaning that both the immersion heater and the full-blast hob were on for way over 2.5 hours. Hence, ARRGGHH!

Have sent him a text implementing a new rule - any time he leaves the hob / oven on when he goes out, he pays me £5. Any time he leaves the immersion heater on when he goes out, he pays me £5. I need to somehow equate electricity to money in his beautiful, albeit rather useless at times, head!

LaFolie

Well, I seem to have woken up in a winter wonderland! How very ridiculous. This means I'm going to have to wear sensible shoes to walk to work in :eek:

Spendy day today, as meeting R after work for drinks and general catch up / gossip. Really looking forward to seeing her! Budgeting £10 for the evening, hoping to spend less!

As I knew that I'd be spending today already, have scheduled in some more purchases, such as A's birthday present, and random stuff that I need such as sheer tights (not that I'll be wearing them any time soon, by the looks of things).

Have to stop off at the supermarket on my way to work, but will only buy what I'm going for, honest, really, promise...

Til later,

x

LaFolie

Had a wonderful time catching up with R last night - hadn't seen her for ages, but it was like I'd last seen her a week ago - and came in under budget at £9.70.

My only spends today should be boring groceries (can't decide if that's boooo or yaaaay) and le bf's easter egg, which I shall purchase chez Mr. S after the gym tonight.

Have done damn well eeking out stuff around the house to avoid spending on NSDs - we're down to only a bit of milk and a few slices of bread. Previously I would have gone to the shops on, say, Tuesday to replenish these, most likely coming away with more than just bread and milk! Yet, by having fruit and yogurt instead of cereal for breakfast, and a wrap instead of a sandwich for lunch, I'm able to be sat here drinking a much needed cup of coffee!

I keep forgetting that tomorrow's a bank holiday. Really hope I remember tonight and don't set my alarm for 6:15 - that would majorly suck!

LaFolie

Keeping my spending diary on a separate sheet in my accounts tracking spreadsheet is turning out to be a bit of a revelation. I've been colour-coding all of my spends so that I can easily add them up in their different catagories at the end of the month. Only ONE WEEK after payday, the totals are as follows:

Bills: £208.63
Grocieries: 57.98
'Stuff': £19.46
Social: £11.44
Travel: £2
Gifts: £11.03

Now, I suppose that most of my bills (apart from rent) have come out of my account now, so this first week of the financial month should have been the worst, but it's still shocking to see it all down on paper!

The 'Stuff' category includes any fripperies that I've bought such as tights, socks, shoes (er, yeah... a really nice and REALLY comfy pair of £12 court shoes may have jumped into my trolley in Mr S...), and alcohol bought for home consumption (obviously, I'm not including the bottle of wine that I sneakily got Le Bf to buy earlier this week ). Summary: STOP BUYING STUFF, WOMAN!

Groceries: I'm pretty shocked seeing the total already, as I know we'll need more stuff as the month goes on, but I'm not too devastated as I did The Big Shop last weekend, and, barring maybe some more milk and salad stuff later this week, we won't need anything in the near future.

I think this might be the secondary LBM, people! I was feeling so good about myself for having spent so little this week, until I actually saw the cold light of day! Thankfully, I'm not a woman to hide in a corner and sulk, or to feel sorry for myself; this has merely spurred me on to taking further action!

Today's glitterful event shall therefore be: being proactive and using my day off work to apply for other work! There's lots out there at the minute, at places where I actually WANT to work, and I know that I can absolutely get the job and do the job as well as anyone else!

:heart2:

beanielou

It's scarey isent it.
Have a happy weekend.

LaFolie

Ooh it's all gone a bit wrong chez La Folie! Even after Friday's shocking realisation (thanks to my spending log), I have spent £76 so far this weekend! And that's without taking into account the DDs that came out of my account on Friday!

A large chunk of this (£30) is linked to my current state of nausea and headache as I write this. My plans for a girls night in last night fell through, and I got a text from a friend asking what I was doing that night. 2 double vodkas, 1 bellini, 2 glasses of (horrific) wine and a shot of Patron later... it was a good night though, so that's a bonus Paying for the taxi home made me realise just how much I miss living on the continent and in capital cities though: it seems barbaric not to have night buses!

Another £20 of expenditure went on laundry money - I don't have a washing machine, so to save me scrabbling around for change every week, I withdraw £20 in £1 coins every month or so from the bank.

The rest, I'm ashamed to say, is just on stuff - found a perfect birthday present for M, so bought that online, treated myself to a nice dinner on Friday, bought a load of toiletries from Boots, and bought Monsieur (as Le Bf shall now be referred to) another easter present.

Sometimes I despair at myself!