PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

Hi All

It's the first of the month and so it is the day when I update my debt totals on my spreadsheet and in my sig. The big news for me this month is that my total non-mortgage debt has now dropped below £30K! Woohoo! It is such a good feeling that is now £20K something, rather than £40K something, which is what it was originally! Feeling very proud of myself today! :j:j:j:j:j

Will post more later - better do some work first!!

Bye All!

dawnybabes

:beer:Thats brilliant news, well done you :beer:

PigginSkint

Thanks Dawn!

penguin83

Well done Piggin on being sub 30k - I managed it this month too and its a great feeling x x x x

PigginSkint

Hi Penguin

Well done to you too! It is a good feeling isn't it?!

penguin83

It is definitely a good motivator - I am trying to work out if I can be below 25k by the end of the year but we will see! x x

PigginSkint

Hi All

I have been extremely busy at work this week, so have not had much time to update on what I have been up to. Work is not likely to let up much for the next few weeks - I shall be ready for my holiday when it comes around. Only 5 weeks left at work - woohoo!!

I have been home alone today so I have taking advantage of a rare opportunity to go and have a mooch round the shops - charity shops, TK Maxx, Matalan etc. I have treated myself to a few new clothes and managed to get myself quite a few nice things and they only cost £25 altogether - not bad eh? It was a rare treat so I think it can be excused!

I have also just treated myself to the Proms Guide - with OH working in London and we will be camping down there in August, it is too good an opportunity to miss to go to a Prom or 2! I am going to retire to the sofa now to read it!

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

penguin83 wrote: »

It is definitely a good motivator - I am trying to work out if I can be below 25k by the end of the year but we will see! x x

It is always good to have a target - even if we don't quite reach it, we will end up closer to it than otherwise!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I’m suffering the aftermath of a migraine at the moment – well, the aftermath of having to take a migraine tablet, more like! The tablets do work (I can see now and my head doesn’t hurt as much) but they make me feel like a zombie – all I want to do right now is sleep!

I have managed to do some work today – when I could actually focus – but I don’t feel confident about signing it off as done at the moment. I think I had better wait until tomorrow to check what I have done and make sure it is right.

As well as getting my total non-mortgage debt figure down to below £30K this month (woohoo!) my LTSB loan is now under £5K – hooray! :j

I have just phoned LTSB to ask whether it is possible to make overpayments to pay it off quicker – and it is! That is excellent news and it is certainly something I plan to do – once my holiday is out of the way!

Talking about my holiday, I think perhaps I ought to mention what my plans are moneywise. I have now booked my car hire and paid my deposit for my camp site pitch. I have put this on my Egg card along with a few other holiday-related expenses (A-Z for the area we are travelling to, new sleeping bag liner, etc etc). I am also trying to put some money aside into my LTSB ISA to pay off at least some of the cost as soon as possible (not a very good interest rate but it is just easy to transfer money over to that account by internet banking) – at the moment there is £100 in there, which I know isn’t a lot but at least it is something! So anyway, the plan is as follows:

· Pay off current balance on Egg card by 1st August (currently about £140).
· If I have any money left over at the end of this month (hope so!) transfer some more into ISA/Holiday Fund.
· No monthly delivery from Sainsburys in August – just buy what we need as we go along (this should save some money).
· Apart from daily payments to Egg card, keep PADs (Payment a Day – see challenge thread) small. There will be no PADs while we are away anyway, so this should help the cashflow situation!
· Do as much as possible between now and when we go away (10th August) to maximise income and minimise outgoings (surveys, Amazon Marketplace sales, no Christmas present shopping, etc etc etc).
· Set up all minimum payments before I go away (including those where I won’t have received the statement yet), so I don’t run the risk of forgetting any while I am still in holiday mood.
· Only pay minimum payments, or just above (e.g. rounding up to nearest £1 rather than nearest £10) for the time being, except of course for Egg, until Egg is paid off.
· While on holiday, put all expenses except for food onto Egg card (don’t want to run the risk of exceeding my overdraft limit!).
· When we return from holiday (which will be just before payday), pay as much as possible off Egg card.
· Then, pay off Egg card as soon as possible – preferably no later than the end of September.

In other news, my Avon delivery should have arrived this morning – it hadn’t arrived by the time I left for work but I am hoping it arrived before DS left for school. If not, that means it will have gone to someone else’s house and I will have to go and fetch it – and hope they are in!

The Avon:Holiday balance should work quite well – the next order after the one I am about to start, is due in just as we go on holiday. This means I will just need to do it a couple of days earlier than I would normally do. The delivery will arrive while we are away but after we come back I will have about a week before the next one to do my deliveries and get all the books out to everyone (except work people as I won’t be back at work until the day the order goes in). This is perfectly do-able especially as I won’t have to take books to work – this means I will get round my customers more quickly.

This favourable balance (the fact that I won’t miss any orders and I don’t have to put 2 books out together – never good for sales) means I should be able to make a decent amount of money from Avon over the summer, which will definitely help to pay for the holiday!!

We had a bit of a crisis in our house on Sunday afternoon – the kettle broke! I changed the fuse but that didn’t work – I think the element had gone. I had to manage with my camping kettle which I fetched out of the shed. Anyway, yesterday I went and bought a cheapie one from Argos - £4.79. I had £2.50 of nectar points so it actually only cost me £2.29! Bargain! :money:

Anyway, I am going to attempt to do a bit more work before it is time to leave – hope it is not raining as much when I leave as it is now otherwise I shall get very wet!

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

Morning all!

OH is back for a visit - he came back last night and will go back tomorrow. He has to go to the dentist this afternoon and it just so happens that I have to go to the podiatrist this afternoon, which means I get to leave work early!!

I went to a wedding on Saturday (just the registry office, not the reception) and a Christening yesterday – so a busy busy weekend!

When I get home I have got to get my Avon books ready to go back and then put them out. This evening’s other job is to do all OH’s washing ready for him to take back with him tomorrow morning.

I have been looking at my finances again this morning and it is looking a bit tight! Do-able, but tight! My priority to is to get the balance on the Egg card back down to £0, which I can do, but it doesn’t leave much for other things, e.g. going to London on the odd weekend to see OH. Oh well, I will just have to do a bit more flogging off of stuff on Amazon, surveys etc and hope that my next Avon order is a bit bigger than the last one! Early indications on this last point are quite good though!

I did manage to get a bit of housework done over the weekend, plus a bit of decluttering, so my house is nicer place to be at the moment, which is good! Lots more still to do though!

Oh well, better get on with some work – less than 3 hours to go before I leave for the day! Woohoo!!

Bye all!