PigginSkint's DFW Diary

PigginSkint

hypno06 wrote: »

Things are looking much better in the piggin household! Long may it continue!

Oh I hope so!

I didn't mention it before, but my SM had words with him a few weeks ago. I didn't find out until afterwards but I have been waiting to see whether OH would tell me - he hasn't, but I have decided to let sleeping dogs lie!

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am still at the work at the moment because the train I wanted to catch has been cancelled. Grrrr! :mad:

Much excitement in the PigginSkint household last night – the ad that OH filmed in September was aired on telly! Terrestrial telly and British telly at that! Everyone watch out for the John Lewis Christmas campaign ad – OH is the one towards the end, wearing a burgundy (I think!) shirt, just before a brain trainer thingy! OH got a text at about 10:30 ish from a friend who had been watching Paul Merton in India and saw it. Over the next hour we managed to see it about 3 times by channel hopping! Woohoo!! :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j

We’ll be glad when the money arrives – I have advised OH to stash it in an ISA ready to pay his tax bill. He also said that he wants to use some of it to pay off the huge NI bill he has just received – a very wise move in my opinion.

In other news – I am hoping my Avon delivery has arrived. It hadn’t by the time I left for work this morning, which happened last time as well. Last time OH took it in for me and said that it wasn’t the usual driver. I wonder if the same has happened this time. I also wonder whether this means that my usual driver has been sacked – it wouldn’t surprise me, he was a lazy g*t! Always wanting me to take in other people’s deliveries because they ‘weren’t in’ – couldn’t be bothered more like!

Anyway, off now to try and catch the next train!

Bye all!

dawnybabes

ooh thats soooo exciting - will hunt out the ads now and not just fast forward :-)

PigginSkint

Hi All

I am not really in a work mood today (shame I’ve got to do some really!) so I thought I would do an update.

I have made a couple of decisions today. Given the fact that OH is now paying me a regular weekly amount of money and also that very shortly I will have to start paying back my tax credit overpayments, I have decided to pay off the balance on my Littlewoods account. I won’t need to pay off the whole £83.84 as I earn 10% cashback on everything I pay over £20, so in fact I will only need to pay £76, ask for them to deduct the cashback off my balance, and I will be left with only a matter of pence to pay off. This will free up £20 a month which can go towards something else – the first instalment to TC will be on 1st December.

Once I had made that decision and adjusted my spreadsheets accordingly, I realised that given the fact that I am currently making decent daily payments to my Egg card, by the 1st December (when I update my figures again) I will be within spitting distance of the following 2 things:

· Getting my total credit card debt down to below £23K
· Getting my total non-mortgage debt down to below £34K

By the way I am not counting my TC repayments as debt – as far as I am concerned they are a ‘bill’. Others may disagree, but it makes me feel better O.K.?! I need all I can to make me feel better at the moment! Plus, of course, once my new claim is sorted I shall start receiving payments again, which will be almost the same as the amount I am paying back – mad and sad but true!

Anyway, in order to achieve these 2 goals, I needed to make some decisions about what I could do to make it happen by 1st December. So I have decided on the following:

· The day after my Amex minimum payment goes out, I will make an extra payment of £16. This will have the added bonus of bringing the balance on this card down to below £700 (and is enough to keep it below £700 once the next lot of interest gets added).
· I have decided to double the next payment on my Capital One card. This will bring the balance on this one down to within spitting distance of getting it below £1000, which if I can afford to do it would be nice to do – we will see.
· Continue chucking as much money as possible at the Egg card in the form of daily payments.
· As soon as the balance transfer goes through on the Virgin card, pay off the balance transfer fee and start making small daily payments – I have worked out that if I pay £3 a day, the balance should be cleared by the time the 0% APR expires.

One of the effects of these extra payments will be the fact that my minimum payments will be smaller, which will obviously ease the monthly cashflow if things get tight!

In other news, I have discovered today that Avon Campaign 1 contains Christmas products – this is the first time this has happened in my recollection. This means that Campaign 1 should see a good level of sales. In previous years, the delivery has tended to be just before Christmas or between Christmas and New Year and because the book did not have any Christmas products in it, sales weren’t that great. Campaign 2 tends to be even worse! As it is, I think the Campaign 1 delivery is about a week before Christmas, so it should be quite good!

Anyway, I think that is all the news for now.

Bye all!

PigginSkint

Hi All

Had a very lazy weekend as I was feeling very tired and, to be honest, not very well. On Saturday I had a horrid sicky headache which I couldn’t shift all day – I did my Avon (collected books and did one delivery) and that was about all I managed to get done.

Yesterday we went to my Dad’s for dinner so I actually had some wine – alcohol does not feature much in mine and OH’s lives at the moment! My stepsister was there with her 2 small children – the youngest (a little boy) was soooo cute! Broody? Moi?!

DS went to see Top Gear Live with his Dad on Saturday – sounds like he had a really good time. When he came back yesterday evening he came home with his school uniform already washed (we swapped days last week so DS was at his Dad’s from Wednesday until Sunday) which saved me a job. His Dad had also bought him new school shoes, which saved me a lot of money! His old pair were absolutely falling to pieces and I told DS last week that there was no way he could wear them. I had a pair that a friend of mine had given me (she has a son about a year older) which had not been worn – they are the right size but a just a bit big at the moment (if you understand what I mean) so I told DS to just wear them with extra socks. He wore them last week with 3 pairs of socks! I didn’t see the point in buying another pair when this pair will probably fit him within a few weeks!

OH is very annoyed today. Somebody in his family has blabbed in a very public place about something that should have remained confidential! When he finds out exactly who it was (and we have a fairly good idea) then they had better duck!! We had better just hope and pray that it doesn’t have too many negative repercussions – that’s the last thing we need!

Anyway, I am still feeling rather rough so I plan to do as little as possible today and leave work as early as possible – I shall only do what I absolutely have to and probably some housekeeping-type jobs. I don’t think my brain could cope with anything else!

I have got some Avon to do tonight – books to go back out (which are all ready to go) and a few to come back in. Then apart from making some cheese scones to freeze for DS’s packed lunches and cooking the dinner, I intend to just collapse on the sofa and do nothing else all evening except have a long soak in the bath and an early night!

Bye all!!

PigginSkint

One thing I forgot – I have posted a book today that I sold through Amazon. It is my highest priced item so I will make over £22 profit – woohoo!!!

MissOptimistic

Just read back through the last few pages of your diary and want to give you a hug - You sound so busy all the time and it sounds like you do a lot of stuff on your own - take care of yourself and try and find time to relax too.
P.S - Well done on the amazon sale - £22 thats fantastic!

embarrassed_about_my_debt

Hey piggin,

Been away for a week, just catching up with all the diaries! Sounds like your not having a good time again. I hop the money from the oh becomes a permenant thing as its about time!

How are you otherwise?

PigginSkint

Hi All

I have had a very busy morning this morning – an event that I have organised for the first time took place. It went very well and several people commented on how well it was organised (head swells with pride!).

I managed to get all my Avon books out last night and nearly all of the outstanding ones back in. I am just waiting to get rid of one delivery – a customer at work who I think has forgotten! I will give her until tomorrow and then I will phone her again! I have also been planning my strategy for the Christmas and New Year period for Avon – the campaigns are closer together than normal so some forward thinking is required. Normally I put campaign 1 and 2 out together but as this year campaign 1 contains Christmas products and campaign 2 doesn’t, I plan to do them separately. Likewise campaigns 3 and 4 – I normally put them out together but I shall try to do them separately this time. The problem I have had in the past with doing them separately is that some people end up getting 2 different books only a matter of days apart, which is not ideal obviously! However if I plan carefully, work out timings carefully, invest in a few extra books (so I can get everyone done in a shorter time) and miss out all my ‘recanvassing’, ‘do last’, ‘haven’t bought anything in a very long time, and ‘nightmare to get the book back from’ customers, I should be able to have a good clear week between one campaign and the next. Plus, I always do my customers in the same order, so there could be up to 2 weeks between customers getting books for different campaigns, which will be much better for generating sales!

After I got home from doing Avon last night, the rest of my evening was mostly spent relisting a load of stuff on Amazon Marketplace as the listings had expired. As Christmas is only just over 5 weeks away (eeek!) I really must have a search through my bookcase to see what I else I can list that people might buy for Christmas presents.

This afternoon I shall work a little later than usual as I want to make up some flexitime and have a little in the bag! I don’t intend to stay too late though. I think I must have ‘nutter magnet’ tattooed on my forehead because twice in the last 2 weeks I have had nutters follow me up the road on my way home! Hopefully if I leave early enough I can avoid them!

Anyway, I suppose I should try to finish a few things so I can go home soon!

Bye all!

PigginSkint

MissOptimistic wrote: »

Just read back through the last few pages of your diary and want to give you a hug - You sound so busy all the time and it sounds like you do a lot of stuff on your own - take care of yourself and try and find time to relax too.
P.S - Well done on the amazon sale - £22 thats fantastic!

Thanks! I will try to do a fuller reply when I get home later!