PigginSkint's DFW Diary

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!

Greenbynature

Hi Piggin

Well done you on getting under £30k :T:j bet that felt good??

How's OH enjoying his play???

dawnybabes

Think I'm off to London next week, do you think a fidgetty 6 yr old boy will like it ?

PigginSkint

Greenbynature wrote: »

Hi Piggin

Well done you on getting under £30k :T:j bet that felt good??

How's OH enjoying his play???

Thanks Green! Yes it did feel really good! Looking forward to the next milestone, which isn't far away - to have reduced total debt by 30%. I am managing to fill in lots of 'squares' (Hypno should have that concept patented) and I have already filled in more so far this year than I did for the whole of last year.

OH is having a whale of a time - he says it is like a busman's holiday! The company are lovely and he has also said that it is like being back at school - they have a lot of fun!

PigginSkint

dawnybabes wrote: »

Think I'm off to London next week, do you think a fidgetty 6 yr old boy will like it ?

It is not really suitable for very little children - there were a fair few babies and toddlers last time I was there. But a 6 year old would love it!

OH is playing Cookson so look out for him - OH is very tall, so he is hard to miss!

When are you planning to go down? I don't think I am going to go this coming weekend but I do plan to be down there the weekend of 25th July - they are doing The Planets at the Proms, so I am dying to go to that!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Feeling very tired today, but the good news is that I have no Avon to do tonight - yippee!!! :j This means that once I have taken DS’s stuff to him at his Dad’s I can just collapse in front of the telly!!

I have decided to include some countdowns in my diary (if only to spur me on to posting a bit more often!) :

16 days to go until payday
18 days at work (after today) before I break up for my holiday
27 days to go until I go on holiday

I forgot to mention before, but OH has been earning some overtime recently (very welcome as you can imagine! :money:). Tinkerbell got injured 2 weeks ago, her understudy is back end of crocodile and OH is understudy to back end of crocodile – so OH has been doing back end of crocodile (earning an extra fee every time he did it). This was until Wednesday last week when the puppeteer also got injured – 2 other actors covered Nana and the Neverbird, but OH had to do front end of crocodile instead of back, and someone else had to do the back end. This was something that hadn’t been planned or rehearsed for, so they had to do frantic rehearsals on Wednesday before the performance – the reason for this is that OH knows the moves of the crocodile but is also the only one with the physical strength to lift the head! Anyway, I have just spoken to OH and apparently Tinkerbell is back but the puppeteer is not back until tonight (I think that means that he will still be doing the front of the croc for this afternoon’s performance).

Anyway, I suppose I had better get on with some work (just as soon as I finish having a little play with my spreadsheets! ).

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I have just responded to a voicemail that was left on my mobile phone by LTSB – I was in the local branch the other day asking how I could set up a standing order to make a regular small extra payment off my loan using my internet banking (the space for account number is only 8 digits and my loan account number is 12). So I thought the message was to answer my query. Wrong!!!! They were trying to persuade me to take out a consolidation loan or remortgage to pay off my overdraft (currently £5K) and all my other debts. :eek:I told them very politely that although it was something I had considered the answer was thanks but no thanks!!! Exactly how does it help me to increase my regular outgoings?! Have they never heard of snowballing?! And as for saving me money – 17 years worth of interest instead of about 3 (God willing!)! And 33 years to pay off my credit cards if I only pay close to minimum?! I have spreadsheets, I have a plan and I have a priority list!!!! Yes I do want to tackle my overdraft, but not yet – I plan to clear other stuff first. If they decide to remove or reduce my overdraft facility, then I will consider other options (a super balance transfer, then a 0% APR deal or LOB deal spring to mind) but not now! :mad:

Anyway, rant over!!

PigginSkint

Almost forgot!

15 days to go until payday
17 days at work (after today) before I break up for my holiday
26 days to go until I go on holiday

PigginSkint

Hi All
I have decided to set myself a few mini targets. I have BIG targets, 2 of which I have recently achieved – to reduce my total credit card debt to below £20K and to reduce my total non-mortgage debt to below £30K. My BIG targets tend to be big milestones in reducing my total credit card debt and total non-mortgage debt. My small targets are for the same things but measured in smaller steps – the next ones are to reduce my total non mortgage debt by 30% (quite close to this one actually) and to reduce total credit card debt to below £19K. My mini-targets are ones for individual credit cards. I have set myself 8 (total number of credit cards that I currently have balances on), in the order that I think I will achieve them:

Mini Targets
Mini Target No. 1 To reduce balance on Halifax card to below £7000
Mini Target No. 2 To reduce balance on Amex card to below £500
Mini Target No. 3 To reduce balance on Egg card to £0 following holiday
Mini Target No. 4 To reduce balance on Capital One card to below £800
Mini Target No. 5 To reduce balance on BA Amex card to below £1000
Mini Target No. 6 To reduce balance on Sainsburys card to below £5000
Mini Target No. 7 To reduce balance on Amazon Halifax card to below £3000
Mini Target No. 8 To reduce balance on Intelligent Finance card to below £1000

Of these, the first 2 are actually about to happen anyway but I have included them because it is a good morale booster. The last 2 are quite a long way off, but I am thinking that once I get through the other 6, I should be a lot closer to achieving 7 and 8.

I think that is nearly all the news for now, but as Columbo says, just one more thing:

14 days to go until payday
16 days at work (after today) before I break up for my holiday
25 days to go until I go on holiday

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

Hi All

It’s Friday!!!!!!!! :j:j:jThank goodness – so tired again!

I saw in the Metro this morning that the Torchwood team were doing a DVD signing at HMV on Oxford St this lunchtime so texted the details to OH. I managed to find the phone number for the store and he phoned them up to see if he was still in with a chance – no, would be the answer! Apparently there was a big queue outside at 9:00am for one of the 250 free wristbands to get into the signing. Oh well!

DS’s school breaks up for the summer today so he has gone into school dressed in his army gear – new combat trousers and t-shirt that I bought for him at the weekend – as it is non- uniform day today. I have managed to negotiate with the Ex for me to have DS for the weekend before he goes there for 3 weeks. This means the treat for us both that I hoped to do, we can now do tomorrow – we are going to see the new Harry Potter film. OH will be coming back home Sunday night and he wants to see it, so I think we are going to go on Monday night – so I will get to see it twice! But at least I won’t be paying twice!! :money:

Right, I suppose I had better get on with some more work (not that I feel much like doing any at the moment) – with any luck I can get away early this afternoon.

13 days to go until payday
15 days at work (after today) before I break up for my holiday
24 days to go until I go on holiday

Bye all!!