The Secret Dreamworld of a (Scottish) Shopaholic

scottishspendaholic

Hey everyone!

I have been doing quite well with sales of things & general money making over the last couple of days, & as a consequence, only have another £84 to make in the next 21 days to meet my money spending & snowballing target - that's £28 per week - I can do it!!!

I had been a bit worried about how I was going to cope this next week while I'm off work with £0 to my name and a complete unwillingness to spend anything. We've got lots planned which is already paid for, but inevitably there's parking & petrol or train fares, ice creams etc...Anyway, I suddenly remembered we had (jointly) put £30 away in a tin in the kitchen - yay, holiday spending money!

DH is out for the next few nights, so I'm going to try & list at least 3 items a night.

Must go to bed, we're off to the book festival to see Julia Donldson at 10am!

cazmanian_minx

Well done on the money-making - £28 a week sounds very achievable Hope you enjoy the book festival today!

scattyspice

I think you're doing great Scottish. School holidays are such a challenge (physically, emotionally and financially!!) Remember this debt repayment thing is a marathon not a sprint!

Daisys Christmas budgeting is great. I get in such a mess over Xmas, it usually throws my whole year.

Back from our holiday in Whitby now so need to think about school uniforms and then start Xmas saving!

scottishspendaholic

Thanks so much everyone! Yes, Christmas is on my radar too scatty! Daisy, I know you're right re. Xmas & other frivolous spending, it's just trying to relearn bad habits that's so tough, isn't it? You'd have been proud of me the other day, I had a surprise hour to myself in charity shop Mecca (rich seaside town), I browsed and even picked up things, but ended up not spending anything - yahoo! I have some real weaknesses - clothes for me (as I feel I can't afford to buy them elsewhere), but I can't be bothered trying them on in the cRap changing rooms and also because in my head I'm only a size 14 (really a 22/24 :eek:), I inevitably buy things that are too small; I also buy clothes, books, toys, DVDs for the children and put away for Christmas, but I end up with mountains of stuff, too much & not organised so I'm going to try a new approach this year. I'm learning!

Thanks Pippi, I know you're right. I don't think it helps that we are the poor neighbours in a richish village surrounded by wealthy farming families dressed head to toe in Joules & Boden. Most parents are in their forties (we aren't young parents but are only approaching our mid thirties) and they seem so sorted & always seem to be off skiing & have playrooms/horses/music lessons etc for their children. I don't really care about keeping up with the Joneses, but I would like my children to be able to do swimming lessons/Rainbows/other activities/go on school trips like their friends.

So, as usual it's been up & down. I have been quite careful with my holiday spending so far (2 days in). We started with £53 (£30 joint contribution, £23 my contribution) and have spent:-

£5.00 bus home yesterday. Should have been £4.60 but I didn't have the correct change, however I did get DD on for free (she's 6 & it's only free under 5 yrs) by ushering them upthestairs before the driver clocked her (she's tall too, so looks more like 8 I think)
£2.00 in newsagent getting change for the bus, only got £1 coins though, no silver, bad planning (see above re. 40p bus overpayment)
£3.50 today swimming (paying for OH only, kids free during holidays & I watched)

£42.50 left

Julia Donaldson was great. I really wanted to buy 'The Gruffalo's Wean' ('The Gruffalo's Child' in Scots) which we saw heard the first reading of- to get it signed, but resisted! :money::money::money:. We took a (dog eared) book each from home to get signed instead. We took a picnic lunch & avoided the ice cream stall - result! We have lots on the next few days - book festival again tomorrow & my Mum is going to teach me how to cut the kids' hair, Thursday we're off for a picnic with the grandparents & free cinema, then book festival again on Saturday. The kids are back to school/nursery a week on Wednesday.

So, the 'down' bit - not really the end of the world, but my friend offered to send me something I need (for free, pay P&P) - great, says I. I didn't realise how heavy items would be. She emailed this evening & I owe her £12.92 for postage. Gah, wish she'd said how heavy it was going to be - I'm grateful for her kindness, but would've arranged a (much cheaper) courier! So £13 down in my budgets. Sounds silly written down, it's only £13...

Not really news in terms of my personal money making, but I got a code with my LoveFilm TCB free trial, for £14 off a £70 spend with first time online shopper with SAinsBurys. I did my online shopping last night & got it delivered tonight £70 worth of shopping for £60 inc. delivery, v. pleased with that. I'm hoping its going to last until next Wednesday.

I got an email re. The Commonwealth Games tickets going on sale soon. I don't really understand how the ticketing for this works, but it's similar to the London Olympics & balloted I think. A bit tricky for budgeting!!! I would really love to take the kids to something athletics or swimming, they love it on the tv.

Not much else to report - signing off now to do a couple of hours of money making before DH is home.

scottishspendaholic

I have had a so-so day. I'm not sure our holiday budget is going to last another 7 days, but will try my best.

We were back at the Book Festival today, this time with my Mum. I know I need to be grateful for what she does do for me , but I am a bit annoyed my Mum didn't offer to pay something towards the tickets, buy the kids a book each or buy them a snack or pay towards our travel, my Mum is really good at the big stuff, but is (& always has been) grippit about getting her purse out (she can afford it). We'd (DH & I) spent £18 on the tickets, I thought she'd at least offer something or get the children a book...! Am also cross as I took over a French Connection purple winter coat I'd bought in a charity shop for £6 that is in beautiful condition but doesn't fit me but is my Mum's size, I said I was going to sell it on eBay, but did she want to try it on first & get first refusal...well, she loved it, but said she wasn't giving me anything towards it...:eek: I thought it'd be churlish to snatch it back to sell as originally planned (but really wanted to!). That's the second time this month I've gone over with something I was planning to sell & come home empty handed. I don't like feeling so petty, and wish I could afford to give, give, give but I can't!

We had a nice day in the end, late home though (train at 18:47, hence the McDs!)

So out of the £42.50 holiday spends left, I spent:-

£1.70 Kinder Eggs - bribe for getting my children happy to have their haircut by Granny (with me as the apprentice) - worked a treat!
£0.30 busker
£5.20 ice creams
£8.97 McDonalds
£2.50 Co-op (chocolate for me & rolls)

=£23.83 remaining

I am actually really proud as I could have really easily totally blown the budget today, I really wanted to buy the kids books at the special bookshop, but resisted - am so glad I did as I came home & found we had some of them in compendiums etc - ok, not fancy & new, but we have them!

We've a quiet few days ahead & I'm going to try not to spend much. I am on the promise of a lie-in tomorrow, then it's a free visit to a big local park, on Thursday we're meeting the other set of grandparents for a park picnic (have everything we need) then free cinema (possibly have to pay for parking but we'll avoid it if possible & maybe some crisps & snacks). On Friday we've no plans yet, but desperately need to do housework.

On the money making side, I have listed potentially £50 worth of items on eBay tonight, yahoo!!! I am fairly certain these will sell for what I expect & some have bids already, yahoo!!! I haven't heard from Cex re. my items I sent to them, so I will have to chase this up (£22) and I've some other bits & pieces of ££ I need to chase up too.

In the shower today, I was randomly thinking about how stupid I've been and remembering at least twice when I used my Next account to order £200/£100 giftcards, then sold these on eBay for a few ££ less than face value minus fees and used this cash to fund my debt minimum payments :mad:.

See you later!

MrsSmith2013

Well done on managing to keep the spends to a minimum yesterday, I know how difficult it is with kids wanting stuff while you're out and about!

Thats a shame your mum ddin't offer anything for the jacket you took her. Even if she'd given the kids a penny instead of you it would have been better than nothing.

As for selling next vouchers to pay next, thats all in the past now and you're on the right path!

scattyspice

My mum is like yours I don't know whether its a generation thing or whether she thinks that as she's a pensioner and I'm working I must be richer than her (doesn't work like that though does it?)

You're doing well keeping the spending as low as possible. The only way not to spend money in the holidays is not to leave the house!!

scottishspendaholic

Hey all,

Had a tricky few days tbh. The holiday budget is all over the place, as DH & I have had more than one argument about money this week. I think the key issues are (although he would, no doubt, see it differently!) 1. that since I've found :money: again, I am more MSE in general & don't want to waste money stupidly and 2. that (& this is a big realisation) most of the time and one of the main reasons I'm in such a lot if secret debt is that I fill holes our household budget misses & always have, just to keep everyone smiling & the home fires burning. So if we run out of something & we've no joint cash, I make good with 'my' money to paper over the cracks, which (I think) has eventually led to the situation I'm in now...so this week, DH & I have been rowing & sniping & horrible to each other because I'm either not doing, or very reluctant to spend anymore. I am furious with him for not taking more responsibility for managing joint money but can also see that I like to be in charge of it. It's all gotten silly & petty and we're holding grudges & not having a nice time. However I'm fed up with him not realising how expensive things are & then if we ever do have any money, him wanting to blow it; like tonight we had £4.00 left of our holiday budget - DH suggests we buy a tub of ice cream for us both - erm, we've still got 3 days (well I've got 5 days) left of the holidays & that's the last of our ££, how about no! I am also very aware that I'm carrying this huge stress & secret around & that must make me like Jekyll & Hyde at times and DH doesn't know the reason!!! Gah, roll on June 2015!!!

I look like (fingers crossed if I keep up the momentum) that I will make my August target (£48 to go if everything up for sale sells for what it should & I've no surprise expenditure), so I've been busy planning September. Full of enthusiasm a few weeks ago, I was hoping to make double the amount of extra cash I need in September, so that I could start October by making overpayments & not constantly be in arrears (not real arrears, arrears with making money and making overpayments) and not constantly be chasing my tail - does that make sense? However, while I'm make the added £75-£100 a month payment to the Visa to make up the repayments to what they should be, I think this is just too ambitious, if not impossible. I'm going to revisit this plan in the Spring I think. So September currently looks like this:-

September 2013

Income = £450 (£370 + £30 DCC + £50 exps)
-£180 petrol (estimate, won’t know exact amount until job situation settles down)
-£355 snowballing
-£100 Visa
-£30 hennie
-£40 friends & families’ birthdays
-£30 misc.
Assumed expenditure = £735
Deficit = -£285

Ways to make £285 by 30 September 2013
*Extra salary - old job - estimate £100 nett
*List on eBay – estimate £70 profit
*Mystery shop – estimate £10 profit
*Car boot 8/9/13 – estimate £50 profit
*TCB payout (have £52 pending)?
*Surveys - £20
*???

In other news, my Tesco c/c statement arrived and although its not the one I'm snowballing at the moment, I'm pleased to see tht the balance is going down by £30ish a month as the minimum payment is so high.

Other news 2 - I'm considering buying some cheap stock & getting involved with my local Christmas market. I reckon I could make some good money - I just can't afford and it's too risky to have a big initial outlay, I will keep thinking about this.

So, it's not been much fun here lately, but am plodding on.

cazmanian_minx

((((((((((((((Scottishspendaholic)))))))))))))) Sorry things are rough, hope they get better soon.

scottishspendaholic wrote: »

Other news 2 - I'm considering buying some cheap stock & getting involved with my local Christmas market. I reckon I could make some good money - I just can't afford and it's too risky to have a big initial outlay, I will keep thinking about this.

Have a look at AliExpress. Access to Chinese manufacturers without having to place orders for huge quantities. I use it for getting small amounts of new lines to test the market. The website holds your money in escrow for you and doesn't release it to the seller until you've confirmed you've received the order, so it's relatively safe - just be careful if you're buying anything that has legislation in the UK (e.g. jewellery, kids' toys etc.) that it meets UK standards.

marmiterulesok

Keep plodding.You can do it.