Pollyanna

Fortune_Smiles

ChopinonaBudget wrote: »

If my calculations are correct, I'll have paid £1000 off my debts this month. That's the weird thing about fluctuating income.... Months like this one do have to happen to balance out the last few months of hell!

Well done Chopin - that's amazing! :T:T:T

Fortune x

ChopinonaBudget

musogirl295 wrote: »

I stumbled upon your diary this morning and have read it all today with interest. I too am a private piano teacher and can totally sympathise with you on the unpredictable income thing. I don't know how you manage to keep it all straight by yourself. I find it difficult and my husband brings in a regular monthly wage!

It's good to see another piano teacher on the boards, hello! :j

I have a very detailed financial spreadsheet on my laptop, I have all my students listed individually, (private and contracted through my PAYE teaching), everything is added up into a yearly figure then divided into a workable monthly amount. I do make sure I stay on top of things by adjusting this figure constantly as students come and go or adjust their lesson lengths.

I don't know how you run your billing system for students

I bill cash/cheque/BACS payment weekly - I toyed with the idea of a termly contract (shoved into it by an ex, really), but I hated the idea. Most of my students are pretty good with cancellations, and because I'm a single mum, I also need to occasionaly cancel at very short notice, so informal payments work better both ways.
I do make it clear, however, if students persistently cancel for no good reason, that I cannot keep their "prime time" slot open for long as it is needed by other students who will turn up. That usually does the trick.

I'll be continuing to read your diary and might pop in every so often if you'll have me! I love self employment but it can be so isolating sometimes.

Feel free! The more the merrier!
And yes, our profession can be qutie isolating at times - today I'm working from home on the laptop all day fiddling about with scores for a visually impared student. I won't see a soul till my students start turning up!! :eek:

ChopinonaBudget

Fortune_Smiles wrote: »

Well done Chopin - that's amazing! :T:T:T

Fortune x

Thank you!!

I'm holding off the celebrations until it's done and dusted - I'm still not convinced I've got my calculations right - and I'm running two current accoutns concurrently at the moment as I'm transferring over to Nationwide, so it's really tricky to work out what the bleeding heck is going on! But...... That little box on my spreadsheet marked "total debt", does look like it takes a siginificanf dive when I add in all my estimated income for the rest of this month - so I'm hoping....

ChopinonaBudget

I finally finished the transcribing work in between teaching today - I've emailed all the copies to myself to print out at work on Friday (it's for work's student so they can pay for they copious quanties of printer ink required for my visually impaired student's specialised and enlarged score!) (oh, and some bits and pieces for private students that might have um fell into my email box accidentally....):p

I made a reasonable amount of cash today Beer was cancelled but should be on tomorrow instead :beer:

I'm throwing all my available cash at the two overdrafts at the minute - once the end of the month is here and I can see how much money is in which account, I'll work out how to split the cash and see how much I can junk Barclarse by

ChopinonaBudget

Downside is the bi-annual reports have come through for me to do It's the only part of my job I dislike, I love the rest of it, even the transcribing!
I'll be taking my laptop to the Arts Centre, and spending a bit of cash on tea and coffee next week, as the only way I can force myself to do the b****y things is to get out of the house and put myself somewhere where there are no distractions ...

ChopinonaBudget

It's been an interesting morning - Full of good financial news, and not great news with my one remaining bunny She is starting to get a bit thin now too, time to take her in to the vets and get her checked out. I hope she's ok, she's the same age as her sister (same litter, not just siblings), she's well into her 7th year, that's old pensioner age for bunnies. She's still eating, (like a pig, oink!) so at least she's got her appetite. Will see what vet says tomorrow...

On the financial front, I got my payslip through, and it's dated tomorrow, so I do get paid early for Saturdays :j I can never remember that one! And for the first time ever, my gross pay hit over the £1000 mark :j I've got so many more students than I used to (changed pesonal circumstances) and it's paying off in many more ways than one. Not least in literal terms.

PAYE and NI took it down by roughly £100, but for a brief moment there, I saw that £1012.48
I had a look at my full year breakdown, and I've now earnt more already this year (year ending April) than in the entire tax year last year, so I'm rather happy with that!

Onwards, ever onwards....

I need to get the bunny in the carrier criminally early tomorrow as she is a bit um temperemental, hates being picked up, can get a bit bitey if she feels threatened (i.e. being bundled into a pet carrier) and is generally a grouchy old sow unless the world is going her way.
So I'm giving it 2 hours to get her in there. That includes locking her in the hutch, wrapping bath towels around the pointy end, and fighting with the scratchy flaily bits to get them all in. If I can do it quickly, she'll show her displeasure by growling and thumping continually everytime anybody walks within ear shot of her carrier.

We love her, really. And she's a darling when she's not being harrassed! Comes up for cuddles when she's out in the garden, but it always has to be on her terms, or else! :eek:

ChopinonaBudget

After a wee bit more earnings today, my % paid has hit 4% Payday in 30mins, I'll be asleep by then!

Bunny at the vets tomorrow Poor wee thing.
My daughter's gerbil has decided to have one of her more peculiar senile moments today and hac pulled the hair out around her nose. Very odd. She has these moments. They don't last long. She's a pensioner too, she's albino, visually impaired, a little bit deaf, slightly senile, but daft enough to still be happy. And her little world becomes nothing but fairy lights and baubles when I call her name and she can smell pumpkin seeds near her cage!

ChopinonaBudget

Got paid! Nationwide is currently £1340 IN CREDIT I haven't seen a bank account that looks like that in a very long time!!!!

It won't be for long, I'm transferring £800 out to pay off some of the £1500 Barclays overdraft that's left. I'd like the keep Nationwide in credit (but close to be wire) as much as possible rather than using two overdrafts at once, so unless Barclays repeal my overdraft I'm keeping it as a flexible payments loan

Of course they'll repeal it next month, but it'll be nice while it lasts!

ChopinonaBudget

Bunny is in the kitchen in her carrier. She is not happy at all.
I used a new technique for catching her (she hates being picked up, never mind being stuck in a pet carrier) - Let her out round the garden (ok, technically that was her idea not mine, she sensed something was up and legged it...), wait till she gets engrossed in eating the weeds (about 3 seconds), throw massive bath towel over her and pick her up ready-wrapped with all her pointy sharp bits nicely bundled in soft towelling :j

She was a very angry for a while but she's calmed down a little now.

Appoinment at 9am. I always warn the vet this one comes with anger management issues and hawking gloves are not a bad idea ....

ChopinonaBudget

And on the financial front - I bought an iPad !!!!!! :eek:

Well, there's a little more to it than that.........

It's a Christmas present, and I'm not funding the full price

Today is Apple's one day event, and after being convinced there would only be discounts on very high end stuff (Macs) and very low end stuff (shuffles), it turned out I was wrong, iPads have discounts too....

So.....

Christmas present for daughter works out like this....

iPad orginal price £399
iPad on discount £368
My Christmas budget for daughter £150
My Mum's Christmas budget for daughter £50
Daughter's savings garnered through pocket money, dogsitting and selling everything she owned on ebay that wasn't nailed down £168

She's been after an iPad for 3 years (conservative estimate :rotfl:) and is now so excited after this morning that she can barely contain herself.

She also said she really likes the feel of having saved and contributed herself and mentioned that she would like to do this on subsequent birthdays and Christmases to give herself more expensive items that she knows I couldn't possibly afford (she has a real passion for Techie stuff - whereas she's happy with clothes from New Look and ebay)

I'm dead proud of her :D:D:D