I don't need another skinny Latte

Skinnylatte

LOL you guys are funny!

The book I've just started reading is we are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Fowler, to early to say if it's any good though.

DDs 18th was just perfect in very way, the cake was fab and every one had a great time, she really enjoyed it. The expense was worth every penny, definitely what I call value for money! The cake was £36, although I gave her £40 as I was that delighted with it, and the meal £65, though I asked EX to go halves with me which he was happy to do. Before I would have been too proud to ask, stupid I know.

Paris next week:j

I've sold some perfume and curtains on FB today, so £20 better off than I was this morning.

Payday has been and gone, and to be honest I didn't really notice, as I already had plenty around me in the bank. But I do have a fair surplus that I need to work out how much I can pay off the debt.

Now my plan was to use my bonus next month to completely clear my debt, but all good plans and that.....an email came round work today to say that we could if we wished have our bonus paid into our pension pot instead. If I take the bonus in cash it's worth £2600 after tax and NI, if I elect to have it paid to my pension the whole £4600 goes in, which will of course earn interest over the next 20 years and could be worth £10000-£20000.

It's seems ridiculous not to do this, so it looks like I will be running this diary for a bit longer than planned, my 1 remaining debt is interest free until October, so there really is no pressure, just a delay in celebrations!

I haven't filled the form in yet though, that is going to be painful!

I need to withdraw my ebay funds, and topcashb@ck owe me £60.54, so some more in the pot soon.

Trudge, trudge, trudge

Feeling a bit demotivated today, and have decided not to go to book club as all I want to to is wallow in the bath with a hot chocolate

Ali-OK

Congrats on a great bonus :T .Have to agree the taking it vs. pension pot is a no brainer - feel your pain with it delaying being debt free. Completing the form through gritted teeth it shall be:D.

Lovely to hear how well DD's birthday went, cake sounds like a bargain, I paid that sort of price for DS's 1st birthday! Roll on Paris.

Enjoy a pampering bath and hot choccie whilst allocating your surplus and other bits and bobs - nice job to be done.

Skinnylatte

Thanks Ali, the pampering bath seems an age away now!

The weekend was good, saw some old friends last night, although I drove home, so no booze for me :A We did plan a trip to the festival womad though, which will be amazing, but it's expensive, I'm going to look at the stewarding volunteering option in return for a free ticket.

Also took 2nd birthday pressie to my nephew, I shopped around for the best value duplo set, and found it in John Lewis of all places. Now I've never been in that shop before, how I walked out with ONLY a duplo set I'll never know lol.

I was passing the company shop so dropped by and filled up the freezer, packs of 2 breaded haddock fillets 2 for £1, and 750g mince packs for £2. However I really do have too much food around me, need to stop buying!

January was a spendy month, and I went over budget, but with DDs birthday it's not a surprise. Also over £200 spent on fuel as my work mileage has been quite high, but that means a big mileage claim so it's all good.

I have been able to pay off £1082 this evening, some of it due a good mileage claim paid in January, ebay sales and the other due to now using my credit card, so spends have been delayed for a month.

This leaves me £250 holiday spends for our Paris trip this week, and £200 in my emergency fund. I'm leaving buying the Euros until Tuesday as Asd@ promises to have a 'rate sale' starting Tuesday morning, so lets hope it includes euros.

Oh and my bread making course was fab, I now know all the tricks of the trade, and my bread was delish. £65 was a lot of money, but for a skill like that that I now have for life it was good value. We made italian stuffed bread too, where you roll out the dough, top it with pesto, cheeze, chorizzo etc and roll it up before baking it. It was heaven.

Skinnylatte

Had a really lovely holiday with DD, but did over spend. I also spent the holday feeling a bit panicky, as I didn't seem to be quite in control of the spending Out of my comfort zone, I couldn't shop around for the best bargains, and DLP is just SOOO expensive.

I think I've now got the post holiday blues.

The new website I bought might be a bit of a lemon and I made an expensive mistake with a customers order this week, £1500 worth, I'm so annoyed with myself I could cry. :wall:

Ali-OK

Glad the hols was good and goes to show how bargain hunting has become second nature.

:eek: on the new business, hope you can make it work out ok.

Hope the blues pass soon

Skinnylatte

The blues have passed Ali.
My £1500 error turned into a £165 fix, I wouldn't have been happy about it but the customer was, and even placed another order :T
I've had my first purchase from my new website, finally, I was getting a bit worried that it didn't work!

An affiliate payout, and a topcashback payment meant I could pay off another £104 tonight. It would have been a bit more, but I need to get my bike serviced as the gears are skipping which costs £60 :eek:

I'm working away until Wednesday, so hopefully no spends and some mileage expenses plus free food. No free toiletries in this one, AND I forgot my conditioner so had to buy an emergency bottle, Asd@ 80p

Ali-OK

Really pleased to hear that order turnaround and website order too - great stuff. :T

Another chip off the debt too.

All looking positive. Never realised bike parts were quite so costly and they need servicing too! Still cheaper than cars though

Skinnylatte

Yes the bike service was quite a surprise :eek:

Another order through the website today, so that's fab news, keep them coming!

I filled in my bonus sacrifice today, it was a painful experience. I was talking to a few people at work about it, and I can't find anyone else doing it. Some didn't understand it, some hadn't even read it, and others considered me lucky for not needing it, like I was really well off or something, if only they knew
Anyway it really opened my eyes to other peoples attitudes towards money, and how much mine has changed.

DS has run out of money after having his phone mended (broken screen) so half his clothes are now advertised on Gumtree bless :rotfl:

Parents evening tomorrow, I said I'd buy him a new pair of trainers if it goes well.

I hope your week is going well and you're staying frugal x

Skinnylatte

Parents evening went so well, I'm amazed his head could fit out of the door on the way out. He does need to buckle down and get some revision in though.
DD is working a night shift tonight 10-6am, poor thing, an extra 50p per hour, thankfully dad has the early morning pickup shift.
So close to debt freedom now, one last push, what else can I sell....?

Skinnylatte

I seem to be having a bit of a wobble and spent some serious dosh this week. £191 on new clothes, £70 on trainers for DS and then £10 for the cinema, £30 on makeup and a chinese takeaway :eek: and that's on top of overspending on the paris trip last week, a total of £461 non budgeted spends. What on earth am I doing??

Now I have to say that what I have purchased was well considered and will get used, and I also searched for and used every discount code I could find, but !!!!!!.

My emergency plan is to only put £3000 of my bonus into my pension and take £1600, which should leave me about £900 after tax, which will easily cover off my over spending. But that's not the point, the point is WHY am I doing this?

I sort of had the idea of taking some of my bonus as cash last week, justifying it by 'I deserve it' then went into a spending frenzy.
Old habits die hard I guess. I don't think the spending on the credit card thing is really working, I don't feel in control of my spending any more, I can't seem to make the connection between what I have in the bank and what I am spending on my card.

I think I'm going to go back to the debit card, with the money in the bank budgeted for. That worked well. OK so I don't get the 1% cash back, but it's a small price to pay for being in control. If I'm going to make a large purchase or online I can use the credit card and transfer the money across straight away.

Talking of credit cards I did apply for another, and got accepted this week, but there is a good reason for that. When I travel abroad, which I do often, any purchases I do make incur a fee of £2-£5, the new credit card I'm getting is fee free for overseas spending, and the exchange rates are excellent, so it is definitely worth it, again I will just transfer any spends on this card straight across and only use it for planned expenditure.
Actually it wasn't an additional card I applied for, but an upgrade on my current one, but I still needed to go through a credit check.

On other matters, I've been for a cycle and a walk this weekend, with a run with DD planned later, have washed the car but 24 hours later I can't tell, it's filthy! I need to do some designs for a customer small shop and clean the kitchen, but all I want to do now is curl up in front of the telly with the fire on.

Oh and I joined another dating site called OKcupid, seems like I can't keep away for long. I've had lots of propositions from very good looking religious men in the states, but that's about it :rotfl:

Ok I'm going to do the designs, clean the kitchen, shop and go for a run THEN curl up in front fo the fire (on low)

Hope you're having a great weekend x