Pollyanna

ChopinonaBudget

Balls. My daughter's drink bottle broke this morning, leaked all over her school bag. I'll leave her to hunt on amazon for a replacement tonight, she'll review leakages etc etc, she's desperate to find one that doesn't leak as she really hates having damaged books. Bottled water from home bargains till then.

Ah well, swings and roundabouts.....

ChopinonaBudget

Oh balls :mad: I've just worked out why my SOA hasn't been adding up. So I guess that should be a :j. For the realisation.

I've been using mostly gross figures for my self employed income, not net. :eek: Idiot. regular expenses I've included; piano tuning is on there, and the DD to the accountant which I'm not renewing as I'll go back to doing my own accounts next year now I'm under less pressure and can cope with deadlines a bit more, and I've calculated for a lump sum for income tax in January, although it's yet to be seen whether I'll manage to pay it by then....
But I utterly forgot all the little things I buy that I put on the business, like masses of pencils, rubbers, pens, printer ink, printer paper, notepads, folders, batteries for metronomes, scores, CDs (I keep those to a minimum by borrowing from an academic library but I do still need the odd few), iTunes d/loads (ditto, and I REALLY dislike paying for downloads as I don't have the hard copy in my hand for the next 20 odd years like my CDs, but some artists only release on d/load), theory marking sheets, duet books, etc etc etc etc etc ad infinitum and through the nightum. I've added a guesstimate of £100 a month on to my SOA as I really don't have much of clue as to what the true figure as I boogered up my accounts for 2 years running :mad:

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!

Right, that should be sorted now,
repayments have taken a theoretical hit; but tbh, it was only a theoretical hit as the money was always going out, I just didn't see it going out

Pollyanna - at least it's sorted now, better to see the problem than not, it's onwards and upwards from here on

ChopinonaBudget

Well, this has been an up and down day, right from the outset....

1) sussed out new SOA
2) available monthly repayment figures dropped dramatically
3) worked out could make a full £360 if the week goes well, and I've not started termtime at PAYE job yet. (good)
4) Getting a little despondent with lack of available days left this week for NSD (need poppadums tomorrow)
5) Resolve to get more organised with shopping. I could have bought the poppadums at Asda, but got scared at the amount filling up the trolley so ignored my reasoned thinking, and now I have to go back out again
6) Got offered (actually, I asked, but who's counting?) a new (well, I say new.....) 32" (ish) tv (end of parenthesis) (probably) to replace living room one that is working today, but periodically won't turn on, and 10% of the time colours the actors and sets in a lovely shade of red not unbefitting to that of the fifth circle of Hell. Aka it's going down the tube. New (ish) (I lied about the parenthesis) and is free and coming from a neighbour who has retired and is downsizing from a 3 bed house to 1 bed flat. I no longer have to follow the immortal words of Miss Jess Day "In our house, when things break, we just pretend they still work". Well, at least not with the tv anymore anyway.....
7) Seriously considering adding that to my signature.
8) I did it for two years with my laptop. I impressed hardened geeks with my ability to get that dinosaur to run the programs I was running on it. I still maintain that my world does not need laptops that don't give you enough time to nip to the shops for a chocolate bar and bag of peanuts while it boots up.
9) Managed to garner 2 withdrawals out of PayPal before it threw me over to the judgement bodies on the third for daring to ask for my own money that they have taken their fees out of and are now earning lots of lovely interest on. B******s
10) Packed up 3 parcels for ebay
11) waiting for gina***forbrains to get back to me, who bid on a £9 boxset with 3 seconds to go, then sent an email saying "oops I bid on this by mistake". No you didn't, gina***forbrains80%feedback, you bid and then realised you used your fingers for thinking instead of your peabrain. But thanks love, that's going to help me get my cash out of paypal no end. cheers.
12) Well, that's about it for me for tonight. I'll stay optimistic about managing some NSDs, but organisation appears to be the key. And I lose keys

ChopinonaBudget

Another day with no chance of NSD, the poppadums are bought, along with crisps and mushrooms. Could be worse....

On the plus side, I have got my act together and done a proper estimate of my expenses, I've gone through last year's accounts, taken out the stuff I account for elsewhere, taken out the stuff I bought to get my teaching business off the ground when it was floundering after a really bad few years of personal stuff (LOTS of business cards, posh looking flyers, advertising), deducted double-bookkeeping items that I get paid back for (student exam fees, books I buy for them when they can't find them online) and deducted some more due to the fact I bought a massive amount of new scores loast year that I don't usually do. Total = not the previous £100pm guess but a far more realistic £20. (I thought I didn't spend that much on earning money!!!!). Found a numerical error in my spreadsheet as well where \I meant to multiply £30 by 4 but actually threw it into the yearly account box as £304 instead, oops). Total theoretical repayment amount now stands at a more lovely sounding £426.
Much nicer.

Edit: Had another go at finding glitches in spreadsheet, repayment figure now stands at £476.

ChopinonaBudget

While wandering about the house this morning making sandwiches and preparing dinner (yup, I was that organised, I have been temporarily replaced by aliens), I worked out a sort of order of financial priorities. None of this makes a huge amount of difference in actuality, but it makes a lot of difference for me to know exactly what I am aiming for, by when, whether I can manage it, and what's next. And what I have already achieved; which helps to know as that's my guideline to know what I can achieve for these scary areas that are up and coming.

Here goes......

From LBM (Feb 12) up till mid July, I went from £2340 o/d maxed out and returning direct debits to bank account being in credit by £300.
Total paid off in 5.5 months - £3000, give or take a few quid.

!!!! that looks better than I thought!

:T

From mid July to mid Sept (2 months), o/d hit £1800 (spent £2100) . Entirely predictable, almost no earnings over summer. Everything up to this point was desperatley saving to accomadate this drop in income. Did it, and the £2100 included - £400 laptop, £250 uniform, £180 vets bills.

:T

Next.........

1) Get bank into credit. Should take a couple of months. balance is lower than at LBM, direct debits are lower, (some cancelled outright), trying to cut back on groceries.
2) Save £900 for tax bill due in January.
3) Save £300 for Christmas (includes presents, food and travel)
4) Make sure bank is back in credit after any unexpected big spends before moving forward
5) Set up direct debit for future tax years
6) All extra money from now on gets split 50/50 between barclaycard and loan to mum. Loan to mum is low/negligable/no interest, but I made a promise I would pay back as soon as poss so can't leave it till last.
7) Have a bit of a breather once £2000 gone off b/card and mum loan. (each)

Think that covers it!

with any luck, repayment figures will go up at the end of this month when I get my peripatetic timetable as old students left at the end of last term so I have gaps that usually get filled each year.

Edit: by on earth would I consider paying my tax by DD? Twit. I would, of course, set up a separate bank account and filter money off into it. They're not getting interest on my money. And i wouldn't want payments goin out over July/aug when I'm on minimum income.

ChopinonaBudget

Oh God that was nasty.
Hoover died today, damn thing spontaneously combusted, house absolutely stank of burning I'm now getting through a hoover a year, and have had enough, so am putting my Argos vouchers towards a Henry hoover instead as it is probably the only thing sturdy enough to cope with the sheer volume of crap that gets dragged through this house due to various pets and their sawdust/sand/peat/straw.
Besides, I've been umming and ahhing about using vouchers to pay for MS office as that would mean I couldn't claim it as a business expense.
I'm trying to stay positive, but trying to not spend money this month honestly feels like I'm trying to fill the bath using a sieve. :eek::eek::eek:
Still, I'm earning properly now, and that money is starting to filter through to the bank account, so I'll keep looking onwards and upwards.
And the paypal withdrawals have cleared, so that's good

ChopinonaBudget

Good News: Just got offered a job out of the blue that would have brought in roughly £4000 p/a :beer:
Bad News: Had to turn it down as I can't be two places at once, and the place I'm already in is more secure and pays better

Good News: Music Service said they would call back if anything else came up

Bad News: It Probably won't

Good News: it might do

Bad News: I spent another £30 at Asda, some of it on buying more b****y tupperware to make sure there is enough in the house for the bulk buying/freezing, homecooking/freezing and daughter's ingredient packing requirements for her GCSE cookery course.

Good news: Tupperware is an investment! More Plastic boxes means more frozen portions means less food thrown means less money wasted :T:T

ChopinonaBudget

Well, I can honestly say I feel like I am bleeding money at the minute, although I am still (I think, difficult to say for definite this early in the month) within budget for groceries - if I can pull that one off it'll be a first ever!

All the money I'm spending is necessary stuff, it's really not as if I'm off out buying a shed load of clothes every day.... that might be why despite my sense of haemorraging cash from every orifice, my overdraft doesn't look too bad - it's all within my budgeted SOA, except the MSoffice :eek:

No NSD tomorrow, I have to buy salad and milk for Mum's visit on Saturday, and I completely forgot to get it today. Fairly typical of me.

ChopinonaBudget

I forgot to mention, my barclaycard arrived today, so I now have the account number to attempt an application for a new credit card to do a balance transfer on. Eeek!!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

I have resisted all temptation to apply for a nice shiny 0% deal, as somewhere deep within my daft head lives the sensible voice of reason who has read the advice from MSE and knows I'm unlikely to pay off the balance before the deal runs out so a long term low interest rate would be a better option.
I'm now waiting with breath that is most certainly baited for Sainsbury's response. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

ChopinonaBudget

Still bleeding money. Had to buy food for mum's visit, and and umbrella for my daughter as hers had broke and was raining as she left the house. She's returning to flute lessons tonight after the summer break, so have taken out cash for that too. I do have enough stamps on two loyalty cards for two free wok bar takeaways though, and we'll cash them in on the way home from flute.
Also bought a wee extra present for daughter's birthday, and will need to go out next week and get a few cheap things to wrap up for her.

NSD maybe one next week? Maybe?