Jazee's Diary

Jazee

Wow, more than two weeks have passed since I last posted. Following on from that last post DD and I spent 5 hours at the Trinity but only went in a few shops and I bought some jeans which fitted perfectly BUT attract every bit of fluff and stuff, not good with 3 dogs, so they've now gone in the charity bag. My grey hairs have now been dyed, slightly darker now.

So to bring this diary up to date:

Waste: The jeans, and a shoe stand I bought that was not strong enough for the job so £30 in total wasted there, oh and half a pot of mushrooms.

Finances: Came in under budget on food shopping despite doing a huge monthly shop but now have enough basics - rice, toilet roll, washing powder, teabags, dog food etc to last 2-3 months so will only be topping up with fresh stuff for a while.

Also, although I didn't save any money this month, I only used £150 from savings despite having a weekend away, my day out with DD and a day out with DS and going out with DH. Also paid a couple of little bills off.

General stuff: DS has got engaged. I've done NO piano practice.

Jazee

Still no piano practice but in my defence the paid stuff is still mega busy and there's a lot of good stuff on telly at the moment. Having said that I had a night at the cinema with DD last night seeing a free preview of All You Need is Love and didn't spend even a penny as DD bought popcorn in Mr T first.

And today I have won a competition and now have a £10 store voucher to treat myself with.

Payday tomorrow.

Jazee

MSE positive thingies:

* I am going to be doing another survey this week, so that will be a £5 Amazon voucher coming my way
* When we got to payday, we still had £57 unused from last month
* I squirrelled £5 into our everyday savings account on Friday
* I may be getting a bonus at work but won't be counting my chickens just yet
* As both DH and I will be benefitting from the tax changes, I have set up a small GAYE at the paid stuff, which I won't even notice but I wanted to start giving to charity regularly again
* Spent yesterday at jumble kind of things and spent £7.50. For this I got a picture, a cake, a pot of jam, a dog brush, 3 dog toys, a colander and 2 books. (I also spent a £1 on the tombola, but didn't win anything)
*Got a freebie doggy bag yesterday - jute bag, doggy bags & holder, bone, bandana, water bowl and treats for the doggies.

Not very MSE thingies:
* Had a splurge with my Avon order £50 but I am getting things I use regularly that are on offer
* Gave £50 to DS so he can get himself sorted out
* Had professional photos taken of the dogs

Debts going down nicely, soon one will be finished and my surplus each month will increase, although I'll probably use it to clear the other debts snowball styly.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Jazee

Just had a lovely day out with DH. Got £50 of stuff in BHS for only £23 - a combination of sale items, extra reductions at the till and using a voucher for 25% off.

Also bought today:
New wok (bargain at £20, £45 on line)
New loaf tin
New rug for LR (my cream one finally succumbed not to the three dogs but to DHs beer and wine) - bargain at £25
Little candle as a treat for me £2.99

Had lunch out using tastecard, visited attraction using Nat Trust card, and got some normal stuff (tabs for me and Sickdog and a bit of shopping).

Car service came in at £10 over budget, but hey ho, I can't have it all my own way.

Jazee

Not much to report, keeping to budgets including today's weekly shop. We really didn't need very much as eating out of the freezer again this week, so just got a chicken for roast dinner tomorrow.

Having a really lazy day, weather too cold/windy/rain/hail to do anything out in the garden, so just keeping warm reading paper, spending time on here.

Hope everyone else's day is good too.

pennywisepoundstupid

Hi Jazee, just found your diary and subscribed.

Wanted to wish you good luck with debt busting, your doing really well and seem really motivated and have such a positive outlook.

Wishing you well.

Jazee

Thanks PWPS for stopping by.

Well today when DH and I sat down to go over finances we realised that if we hadn't taken out credit for cars (necessary evil) this is the month we would have been debt free after getting to over £50k in June 2007 (I never did add it up exactly, it was just too depressing). In theory with repayments we still have two years to go, but we should get that down to one year max.

So we have been clearing debt at about £900 per month and have still managed to have a life and I have to say we're feeling quite good about that. Lots of lessons learned.

Hope everyone enjoys their Monday evening. I have a choice - cut the grass or watch Corrie. I already know which will win! Weatherfield here I come.

Jazee

Not a lot to report but debt is reduced by a further almost £400 today bringing under £11k and I squirrelled away another £5 to the ISA. Looking forward to a relaxing evening, bit of Corrie and maybe read my book.

Jazee

Another £5 squirrelled into the ISA today, but I splurged on a pressie for DH for anniversary. Never mind, its something he wants and there was 20% off so still quite MSE.

Jazee

Morning diary. Not a lot of MSE stuff to report but I am spending time on here this morning procrastinating so thought I'd update.

Waste this week: one courgette and three mushrooms

I had planned to get out in the garden today to cut the grass and other tidying but its been a very wet start here and so that is now not going to happen even though the sun is now starting to peep through. So, I need to get dressed, walk the dogs, pop to the shops and make sure I'm back here by midday to record the football for DH who is working today. I would set up record but there's some confusion over the red button. I am not very technical.

DH is doing weekly shop when he finishes the paid stuff so I don't need to worry about that, and tonight we are going out. I hope the show is more entertaining than the last one we went to. We couldn't even escape midway through as there wasn't an interval.

Right, better get cracking, have a great day everyone.