PositiveBalance’s Diary: In Search of Positivity, Balance and a Positive Bank Balance

DedicatedDFW

:T on the sale!

:j To concert goodness - its finding the balance isn't it? between enjoying life and not going waaay overboard on the spends You deserve a treat now and again hon and as you say where you will be there is no alternative but to spend some money - so spend it wisely (budgeteering) and enjoy

It's very cold Brr!! And i no longer own a single pair of work trousers :eek: thank goodness for thermal tights :rotfl:

edinburgher

3) Yes and no: that was kind of me factoring something in, but yes, you are right. I'm just not sure how much to add. Ideas, please! It also leads to the following...

I have no idea how much you spend

Seriously, spending diary! It's actually quite mild in Glasgow today, I may even consider jogging home from work tomorrow.

PositiveBalance

edinburgher wrote: »

I have no idea how much you spend

Seriously, spending diary!

I've been doing one for ages, Ed: I'm not a complete amateur! *Rolls eyes*

I guess the things is I don't have a consistent social life: I might go out quite a bit one month, then not a lot at all the next. I don't really go to the pub every Friday night or anything like that.

Today's news:

Another £3 to the lunch pot due to me bravely eating my own lunch again, plus £1 as I really wanted some coke and didn't have any. (I've done a week's worth of lunches in a row...woo hoo! :T)

I spent 69p posting my Ebay item today as well.

edinburgher

I spent 69p posting my Ebay item today as well.

That's well worth noting - whenever we MSE types say 'I made £x' on an eBay item, we tend to count the final value. I used to always pay the final value into my savings and could never figure out why I was skint despite having made half a dozen sales. Apparently forgetting about the fact that postage costs and fees came out of my pocket wasn't entirely sensible

Well done on the packed lunches - I am getting heartily sick of the same rolls with ham and cucumber!

PositiveBalance

edinburgher wrote: »

That's well worth noting - whenever we MSE types say 'I made £x' on an eBay item, we tend to count the final value. I used to always pay the final value into my savings and could never figure out why I was skint despite having made half a dozen sales. Apparently forgetting about the fact that postage costs and fees came out of my pocket wasn't entirely sensible

Guess who made a geeky spreadsheet last night?!

edinburgher

PositiveBalance wrote: »

Guess who made a geeky spreadsheet last night?!

Teehee - everyone loves a girl with a spreadsheet

eBay can be a bit of a nuisance at times. I find £land good for envelopes and brown paper, but you're better off buying in bulk if you can. I bought 100 tiny padded envelopes for about 5p each last year, all gone now!

As for postage, well, not much you can do there?

Plans for the weekend? Think we're having a quiet one tomorrow, followed by a trip to the cinema and a sensible dinner out on Sunday.

PositiveBalance

I'm back from my 'weekend' out, which was fun but exhausting.

I only spent about £20 overall, which is pretty ace! :j

Having said that, it really took ALL my willpower not to return with a stunning item that cost £235 (and I really had to fight it!).

Tomorrow is Domestic Day at PB's place and I need to do food shopping and some cooking as well as a lot of cleaning.

It's also an Ebay free listings day tomorrow, so I may have to do at least part of Dedicated's 20 items Ebay listings.

It's also job application day and I'm also thinking of spending less time on the internet as I seem to be on here quite a lot. I may try to have a 1 week detox. I wonder how I will do! :rotfl:

PositiveBalance

edinburgher wrote: »

Teehee - everyone loves a girl with a spreadsheet

eBay can be a bit of a nuisance at times. I find £land good for envelopes and brown paper, but you're better off buying in bulk if you can. I bought 100 tiny padded envelopes for about 5p each last year, all gone now!

As for postage, well, not much you can do there?

Plans for the weekend? Think we're having a quiet one tomorrow, followed by a trip to the cinema and a sensible dinner out on Sunday.

I hope you are having fun.

Where did you buy all the envelopes from?

edinburgher

Well done for keeping yourself reigned in! I think we both know that over £200 is perhaps a splurge too far?

I'm feeling all virtuous after a successful driving lesson (I have now attempted all of the manoeuvres) and my first jog of the 5th week of my jogging podcasts. The old Mr E would never have gone jogging in the snow!

The envelopes came from eBay. It only works if you're selling lots of similarly sized things (for example, you have 50 CDs to sell), but buying a full box of them from a stationery retailer is so much cheaper than buying them in dribs and drabs. For example, cheapest £land envelopes = 14.x p each, cheapest on eBay = 8.x p each. It adds up.

PositiveBalance

Depends what you are buying. *Reflects longingly*

I'm going to set up a Stunning Item fund so I can buy one next year instead (how sensible!). That will need £20 a month putting in it.

I've just finished the book I was reading which makes me realise that have been lazy and done none of my domestic/Ebay/job application stuff I need to do. I had better get on with it's...