Chapter 1 (Vanquishing Very) - Here's to 2013 and one debt at a time.

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £0.00
Christmas money: £60.00
Money owed to me: £60.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box £12.00
Money in bank: £-207.51
Grand total: £-1.77
Days left til payday: 1

Where's me cash gone??? £24 to Very, of which £20 was my usual weekly Saturday payment, and £4 was athletics subs because of course it wasn't on. DH took some money for a packet of cigarettes, I took DS2 for his hair cut (£4) and then we went to Greggs for some pasties as a last supper before I start my meal replacement diet on Tuesday.

So overall, not bad to say I've had a 5 weekend month which also included Christmas AND I've paid £200 off my catalogue bill! - See I CAN do it if I put my mind to it.

Although I did 'break' into my £500 grocery & Petrol budget by spending £40.26 on petrol and £7 on groceries, going to do a full shop tomorrow.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, it's not very good at all because the money set aside for the fire, should have gone towards debt repayments as it was my wage rise & christmas bonus, so without it I would be £70 overspent....not good at all!

However saying that, I did have to spend £70 on a battery and £26 on a microwave, and £47 on football tickets...so actually it's not that bad...

I think I'll keep the £120 that I was meant to be banking at home rather than bank it.

StressedSteph

Well done Housework Fairy. Its ups and downs but you are getting there.:T

January is another long month so got to keep your determination going. You can get there.

What will you do when you have paid off Very.? Do you have other bills to start chipping away at?.

xxx

Housework*Fairy

StressedSteph wrote: »

Well done Housework Fairy. Its ups and downs but you are getting there.:T

January is another long month so got to keep your determination going. You can get there.

What will you do when you have paid off Very.? Do you have other bills to start chipping away at?.

xxx

God yeah, I've got shed loads (about 7 CCs's and two overdrafts) but I'm trying not to think of them all as one massive total and instead am just chipping away one at a time. The next smallest to tackle is Post Office card at £1257 (ish) so that'll take a wee bit longer to pay off than a month! :eek:

welshdreamer71

A little bit longer but you won't have xmas battery or a microwave to pay for its amazing what we can do on a mission eh x

Housework*Fairy

(will amend later when I've counted up as DH has just gone to the shop for some cigs)

Money in purse £0.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £12.00
Money in change box (B) £106.70
Money in bank: £415.83
Grand total: £608.27
Days left til payday: 32

(the above is for kid's activities, PADS, savings and general frittering)

There is £389.24 left for food / petrol



PADDED £2 to Very this morning as we used a 4p off a litre voucher given away by Morrisons when I bought DS2's i-Tunes voucher which saved us that £2. DS1 actually did his own paper round this morning *thud* which is typical isn't it when I am now happy to take over doing it for the princely £4 payment.

DH's car is now full so hopefully that should last over two weeks and half of our petrol budget is now spent.

I was going to go to the supermarket and do a full shop but I really, really don't feel like it so I think we'll have a store cupboard tea tonight. I'll probably have to send DH to get something for tomorrow, and Tesco is open on New Year's Day anyway. I think I'll do an online shop for delivery sometime Wed, Thur or Friday and then continue to online shop.

Finally printed off my invoice for lady doctor, enveloped it up, and I shall post it tomorrow.

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £0.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £12.00
Money in change box (B) £106.70
Money in bank: £400.83
Grand total: £593.27
Days left til payday: 31

It's Monday, and the kids have another week off school, do I've paid the school dinners, the bus fare, and the after-school football money (£15) to Very meaning I'm less than a tenner in debt to them now (WOOHOO). I envisage that by Saturday I will be finishing this diary and starting chapter two. Just need to think of something catchy beginning with "P" for Post Office Card....

Assistant Manager rang me this morning when I was still in bed (BOO) to ask if I could change my hours (usually 9.30-5.30) and come in an hour later and finish an hour later as someone has rang in sick. I'm not really happy about it but didn't feel that I could say no as the same person had rang in sick on Friday and my immediate colleague (who does the same job has me) had covered for the sick lady that day. So I woke up at normal time and have just been hanging around to go into work.

We're not going out for NYE - we don't usually go out late anyway but we sneak out early evening for a couple of hours and get DS1 to babysit, however he's informed us he's sleeping at his mates house, so we have no sitter. I've suggested we just get a nice Chinese takeaway and some alcohol instead. I'm starting a meal replacement diet tomorrow so it'll be a last supper...

Ammeretto

Yay to vanquishing very.
How about pulverising post office
Boo to work:(

We are not going out tonight either. Just takeaway (Indian) and booze at home. OH is in work at 7 tomorrow;)

welshdreamer71

Poop to later hour but yay to very finally finished hy weekend ! We are doing the same having a Chinese and a natter night friends free to drop in tho, last 3 new years eve have been complete let downs so we hubby and me are out for a live band day tomorrow instead all local bands hour each so fab day never fails to impress...

What diet u starting tomorrow I'm a slimming world girl and love it in fact can't wait to get back on it Tuesday !
Hope work flies for you today I'm off so cleaning top to bottom x

Housework*Fairy

Happy 2013! Hope those who celebrated it had a good night. The fireworks in London looked spectacular.

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £372.57. DH went to Morrisons yesterday and bought milk, margerine (bloody £1.80!!!), a cheapie pizza, two stuffed crust pizzas and two bottles of wine totalling £16.67.

The actual cash-in-hand situation looks like this:
Money in purse £0.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £12.00
Money in change box (B) £85.90
Money in bank: £394.35
Grand total: £565.99
Days left til payday: 30

Reduction since yesterday...£27.28

Where did the money go?
£1.98 – two kindle ebooks
£4.50 – Very
£5.79 – I went to Subway yesterday lunchtime for 'last supper' sandwich shenanigans
£15.01 – DH went to pub and bought cigarettes too

As today is Tuesday there is no athletics so the £4 subs went to Very. I also e-mailed my £50 invoice to doctor lady yesterday (she'd asked me to post it to her home address) but I thought “why can't I e-mail it instead?” so I did, and she replied back thanking me and saying she'll send me a cheque out ASAP so that saved me 50p for a second class stamp which I thought I'd have to buy.

So I now only owe Very £3! I could just pay it off, but I'd rather 'work' for it. The kids activities start up again on Thursday with football and athletics so it might just have to wait until my usual Saturday £20. But hey – it'll be paid off by the weekend none-the-less and then I will be PULVERISING ( © Ammeretto) the Post Office.

I might go through the kids clothes today to see if there's anything that they wont wear anymore or doesn't fit them and take it to the recycling shop on Wednesday which pays 50p per kg. Trouble is the shop workers have a tendency to just leave the shops at random hours with those annoying signs on the door saying “back in 5 minutes” and you're still there....20 minutes later....surrounded by black binliners and they still haven't come back. Through the summer I did this on three consecutive days (at different times) and ended up getting fed up and taking about 6 binliners of stuff to Oxfam.

I could spend some of my 'fire repair' money, but I'm bearing in mind that it is DS2's birthday in six weeks and he hasn't decided whether he wants a party or a present so I'd like to try and keep it squirrelled away for his birthday.

Welshdreamer – this is the meal replacement diet that I am doing http://www.slimandsave.co.uk/ I wont be buying any “yet” because I have several packs leftover from when I did it through the summer, enough for three weeks, so I'll see how I go. Realistically I don't want to pay for anymore at full price from the company, but people buy and sell them on a FB group I'm a member of so I'll keep an eye on that if I decide that after the three weeks is up I want to continue. If not I'll do intermittent fasting which also worked for me until I fell out of the habit.

Have a nice day people whatever you are doing. I'm off work for the rest of the week but am really looking forward to getting back into a routine.

Housework*Fairy

Grocery/Petrol Fund: Was £500 – is £369. 34 I spent £3.23 today on bottled fizzy water and some dilute ribena. On my new diet I can only drink pop which does not contain citric acid

Cash-in-hand situation:
Money in purse £0.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box (A) £12.00
Money in change box (B) £61.00
Money in bank: £394.35
Grand total: £541.09
Days left til payday: 28

Reduction since yesterday....£25.00. This was ALL DH, I'm bloody glad he's back at work today. When he woke up yesterday (afternoon!) he promptly said "I'm off to the pub today" and took £20 note out of the tin. He came back hours later having spent all the £20, and then said he was going to buy some cigs so took another five pound note, so yesterday quite a wasted money day. makes me so mad. He reckons he's giving up smoking (again) today but I'll believe that when i see it - he's like me with my dieting.

I've got the January blues today, I really want the kids to be back at school and to be back in a routine.

Did the first day on my diet yesterday - I nearly packed it in late on, but I persevered with it and was glad I did as the scales showed 3.2lbs down, the tape measure showed 2" lost around my stomach, and I feel a whole lot more motivated and lighter.

In preparation for three weeks time when I run out of food packs I've spent around £10 (OUCH) on the diet magazines (just this once, need to get some recipe inspiration) and come on, I've barely spent any money on myself in ages.

DS1 also informed me there is no athletics training tomorrow after all so that will mean I can PAD it to my outstanding balance leaving a pound LOL. However it's great to know that not only will the catalogue be paid off by Saturday, but I can finish this diary and start on Chapter 2 - Pulverising the Post Office Credit Card . Depressing thought that it's going to take me at least five years to reach chapter 10