Moooving on up!

mooomin

Morning

I felt like it was time for a new thread to go with my new outfit (Well, new username anyway!) so here it is. A little background on my situation:

I've been a DFW before, clearing almost £10,000 of debt in all over a two year period when I joined MSE. I was debt-free for less than a year when I took out a £5,000 loan for a new(ish) car which I cleared in under a year, so I'm still debt-free and very proud of it.

I got made redundant at the end of September and am currently looking for work. I'm struggling at the moment both with motivation and with the fact that **nobody** lets you know you've not been successful in an application so you just send things off and hear nothing. I've got a grand total of 17 jobs saved in my account on a job website, so the job for this week is applying for all of them.

In terms of MSE activity, I have no income :eek: but did get a reasonable redundancy package so am lucky in that respect. I have enough to, in theory support me for the next year if I'm VERY frugal but I want to get back to work ASAP so I can use the money for fun things. If I get a job in the next couple of months, I might even treat myself to a holiday with Mr Moo which would be the first one we've taken abroad ever and we've been together for 12 years :rotfl:

Proper post with money and things to follow...

mooomin

Money

As I said in my previous post, I was lucky to be given a redundancy package from my old employer so do have savings. Here is the current breakdown of my monthly spending - I'm transferring £1,000 out of savings on the first of the month to cover bills etc.

Income - £0
Transfer from savings - £1000

Outgoings

Mortgage - £210
Council tax - £122
Virgin Media - £35 (Phone, telly including TiVO and 30MB internet connection, we're tied in for another 6 months at least)
TV Licence - £12
Home insurance - £18
Gas/electric - £54
Gym - £13
Mobiles - £51 (for both of us, both tied in to contracts for at least the next 18 months. Not my brightest move...)
Monthly savings - £20

Total outgoings (direct debit) - £535
Food - £200 for two adults and two old cats (both needing special food)

I transfer over £1000 of which I put £600 into the bills account in case of unexpected items and £200 for food which leaves me £200 for other spends through the month so all petrol, clothes and other expenses. It seems generous now I've written it down though so I'll see how I feel about reducing that next month. I could probably reduce the food budget with careful cooking and I've been trying to do that this month with varying degrees of success.

Christmas is obviously coming and that's a big expense, but most of the presents are bought and I have £16 sitting in my Amazon account to help with presents. I have another £10 in vouchers due in the next few days and will have another £15 by the end of the month as I do Swagbucks for vouchers and can usually earn £25 per month without too much trouble. I have other survey companies I use, but they have been the most reliable.

I'll be posting any MSE successes here and anything I'm struggling with. The struggle will definitely be my passion for crafting as it costs me a *lot* of money, but I'm hoping to reduce that as the months go on and my willpower goes up

Well done if you got this far in my waffling

JayJay14

Hi Moo,

Lovely to see you.

Is there a reason you are not signing unemployed? You are entitled to it and you have paid the money into the system over the years. The day you were made redundant you qualified for 6 months worth. It's not much but it is yours.
I know the signing on bit is a pain but you are acitvely looking for work so you would have no worries there. I had no problems last year and I took voluntary redundancy - it makes no difference if you jumped or were pushed.

urstuffplz1

mooomin wrote: »

Christmas is obviously coming and that's a big expense, but most of the presents are bought and I have £16 sitting in my Amazon account to help with presents. I have another £10 in vouchers due in the next few days and will have another £15 by the end of the month as I do Swagbucks for vouchers and can usually earn £25 per month without too much trouble. I have other survey companies I use, but they have been the most reliable.

Hi the mooomin, hope you are well.

Well done with all your superb debt clearing skills. Definitely an inspiration to myself and many others.

I have a question regarding Swagbucks; what is it? how do you do it? I've not heard of it before!

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the day,

Stephen.

fallenwiccan

JayJay14 wrote: »

Hi Moo,

Lovely to see you.

Is there a reason you are not signing unemployed? You are entitled to it and you have paid the money into the system over the years. The day you were made redundant you qualified for 6 months worth. It's not much but it is yours.
I know the signing on bit is a pain but you are acitvely looking for work so you would have no worries there. I had no problems last year and I took voluntary redundancy - it makes no difference if you jumped or were pushed.

Yup and if nothing else whilst you're signing on it keeps up your NI contributions for you so better in the long run

mooomin

urstuffplz1 wrote: »

Hi the mooomin, hope you are well.

Well done with all your superb debt clearing skills. Definitely an inspiration to myself and many others.

I have a question regarding Swagbucks; what is it? how do you do it? I've not heard of it before!

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the day,

Stephen.

Clickity click for Swagbucks (this is a referral link, just for clarity which gives me points when people sign up and use the site, you can also google Swagbucks if you prefer.)

SB is a "pay to surf" site where you earn points daily for doing things like searches using their search engine, daily polls and surveys and watching videos. I use the site every day for varying amounts of time and have been making £25 per month in Amazon vouchers for the last few months from it. I cash them in at £5 each time in case of any issues with the site.

There's a brilliant thread HERE which gives all the different ways to earn and they are great at answering questions.

rising_from_the_ashes

Happy new username & happy new diary (Hope Mr Moo likes his new name too;))

Your list of outgoings seems tiny compared to mine :eek: so really need to revisit mine sometime soon!

mooomin

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Your list of outgoings seems tiny compared to mine :eek: so really need to revisit mine sometime soon!

It's suspiciously small tbh. Now that I have no money coming in, I've stopped making payments to the Christmas, car and cat accounts. I have a small balance in the Christmas one, £300 in the cats one and £420 in the car one - and the car gets his first MOT next week :eek: They used to account for £200 per month or thereabouts in terms of regular savings. Once I have income again, I'll have more outgoings if that makes sense

Good to "see" you. I will have to catch up with you soon - probably me coming to you rather than the other way about going by the look of your diary. Xx

rising_from_the_ashes

mooomin wrote: »

Once I have income again, I'll have more outgoings if that makes sense

Perfect sense!:)

mooomin wrote: »

Good to "see" you. I will have to catch up with you soon - probably me coming to you rather than the other way about going by the look of your diary. Xx

Ahhhh *sigh*, yup, things have been a bit errrr up and down recently - but on the mend now .

That would be nice & was just going to say if you're planning on being down this way, please let me know & I'd love you to stop in for a coffee.:)

mooomin

My £10 Amazon vouchers turned up this afternoon, so I have £26.42 sitting in my account now ready to be used. Most presents are bought (around half are wrapped too, which I know is insane but Mr Moo is going north at the weekend so he can deliver them all to save me posting!)

Most of the day has been spent doing housework and catching up with crafting (I design cards/altered items for a couple of websites) but there's football on tonight which will give me plenty of CV time while Mr Moo yells at the tellybox

jules888

I wrapped all the presents i have last week and wrote some xmas cards so you"re not alone!Like to get it over with and also means if anyone in house goes snooping for presents they"re wrapped up!