Getting a grip...and hanging onto it!

Hiddenidenity

Look forward to following good luck

Subscribes

HOK3Y

Very best of luck to you crazylady - I think getting a grip is the easy bit.....holding on is the tough part but we will be here to support you. Subscribing so I can follow along with your progress.

[Deleted User]

Thanks HOK3Y and Hidden Identity, its great to have you here.

A quick post before bed...after 20+ years as a veggie, I think my dearly loved friends have accidentally fed me prawns in my tea tonight! It was all a bit dark around the firepit, but I'd got a long way through my chilli before I found the intruders, and now I'm feeling distinctly ill. Hopefully this is more the idea of it than anything else...:o

I'd planned to come home and keep ploughing away at the paperwork on the table, but instead I've sent a quick email to travel ex asking about the re-found cards situation, run a bath and am going to crawl into bed. Tomorrow its my deadline for the first batch of tasks, and there are still a couple outstanding. Best I get up promptly then I think, don't you?

[Deleted User]

I am particularly ostrich-like about my mobile bill, which has varied between about 30 and 100 :eek: over the past year, leading to some very messy situations. They've even text me about not being on the best plan for my usage and I'm ashamed to say I never got around to sorting it out!

This morning I've got my log on details sorted, updated contact details etc and have been scrutinizing the last few bills. Its been a pretty messy time relationship wise so there have been lots of calls with friends (and most of the chargeable ones are to someone I guess I won't be calling any more ) which might help with the budget a bit!

So currently I'm on Orange Dolphin 15.50 (24mth tie in, been on it 27 months so presumably free to move).
£16.01 /month, with: 100 anytime minutes, unlimited texts, 100mb data.
But - my average spend over the last six months was £62.46 :eek:
Looking at the bills, the excess charges come:

• Calls over the inclusive limit (about 60 extra minutes a month, costing about £22). To be honest, I've never stayed particularly aware of the limit and most of them are short calls that it never occurred to me were mounting up in that way.
  
• International texts - about £3/month. This is linked to our foreign visitors staying (second income stream) so difficult to alter the need to contact them.
  
• Picture messages - about £4/month. I try to use whatsap to send these free where I can, but this is a habit I need to think about, I could probably email the pics for free rather than text them.
  
• Mobile data - after some horrifying extra charges here earlier this year, I altered my phone settings to data not enabled, for day to day purposes - it means I have to go into the settings to access the web if I'm not near a wifi, so I make a conscious choice to do so. However, even with this habit now pretty engrained it still is costing me an extra £4/month (12mb over the allowance).
  

So I guess the starting point is to use the info about what I typically use to look for the best deal across providers, and also to think about ways to alter my habits too.

Feeling a bit silly but a bit like getting a grip is within my reach!

Hiddenidenity

You don't seem to get alot included in your plan for the price, just to compare I am on Three and I get 400 mins 1000 texts unlimited internet and I upgraded my to a new phone for free for £25 a month? maybe have a look around before you tie in to them again?

[Deleted User]

Your right HiddenIdentity, I'm off to look at comparing different plans second thing tomorrow!

·Complete SOA. OUTSTANDING. Still a few areas to firm up on. I’ve made my best guess with things that I can probably only track down through a spending diary, but there are still some things I should know, that I don’t. Scarily this also revealed that I’d cancelled the home insurance when I took out the contents! Scary! :eek:That’s the first job for this coming week then.


·Keep a spending diary for October. ONGOING


·Get to grips with at least one utility bill. ONGOINGOrange Mobile Gripped, but replacement not yet found. A bit more digging to do. On other bills, I’ve settled my outstanding council tax for the rest of the year, after a nagging letter, and have submitted up to date meter readings for the utilities.

·Take lunch to work each day COMPLETED

·Cycle to work when practicable. COMPLETED, every day I could (one was a longer distance than feasible) so 4/5 even in the rain!

·Advertise bedframe. COMPLETED – Sold via FB, so no fees, and being picked up later this week. :j

·Cancel Creditexpert subscription. COMPLETED – thanks to the advice on the thread!

·Return B&Q items – N/A – decided that for £1.98 I’d hold onto them, after someone mentioned it was just what I needed to do the next project!

[Deleted User]

Week 2 –

• Home insurance
• Complete SOA – stick with the admin needed, so nearly there!
• Balance transfer all CC not on 0% to the new 0% offer that’s come out, luckily it is on the CC I owe nothing to (there are a couple of fiddly jobs before this can happen)
• Switch to better deal for mobile phone, based on what I’ve learnt this weekend
• Make the most of my work-paid-for trip to the capital this week…that’ll be me on the first train possible up there and the last one home, catching up with old mates and doing a bit of professional networking :rotfl: including maybe setting up some freebie ‘experiences’ for DD’s holiday there pre-xmas!
• Take lunch to work each day, and eat it. (except the day I'll be on expenses, yum yum).
  
• Cycle when practicable (due to the train, this should be 3/5 days this week, but still no car needed on the other two days!)
• List 5 items on Ebay/FB
• Get my new bed frame (gifted from a friend) somehow this has to tie in with...
  
• I have paying guests staying 3 nights this week. Watch the payment for this and for the bed thats been sold goes straight to the CC, not the black hole of the current account!

[Deleted User]

In light of my final bullet point, best I start tidying my house! This is more tolerable given I'll get paid for it (sort of!) :j Night everyone!

cottage_retreatist

Hey crazy_lady!!!!

I love how organised you are with all your lists and your colour-coding -a woman after my own heart!!!

You're doing so well with this malarkay - you really should give yourself a pat on the back!

Changing and shifting contracts etc is great for the quick wins - once you've done your SOA you can do a snowball to see what debts to then start focusing on to knock that debt down!!

whoop!!
C-R x

[Deleted User]

Thanks C-R, I do love a good list!

Feeling a bit glum today, started badly (after a awful night battling a few nightmares) when I overslept, so in a hurry took the car to work (and beat myself up about that too!), had a day at work where several things didn't really come together, home and had a rare disagreement with DD (probably my over-reaction in light of the above!)...

but...

now we're friends again, and having written all of that down I've realised it wasn't such a bad day after all! Some good things that happened:

I have paying guests staying tonight and tomorrow, and like all their predecessors they seem very very nice (I'm always anxious until they are here and settled in!) So that is a nice payment in a few days time. My house is super tidy almost everywhere (everywhere the guests will see, anyway:rotfl:). DD made pudding - fruit salad - in her cookery lesson, and even better, she was at her dads last night so he provided the ingredients :rotfl: A very good friend is taking me out for a blow along the coast path on Thursday, and on the way back has offered to pick up my new bed, and help install it at my place! So for the cost of some chips for lunch or a cream tea (which I'd probably have bought anyway!) to say thanks, I've avoided a couple of long trips with the roofrack and some awkward one-person lugging of the frame up the stairs! I've got my train tickets up to the big smoke through work, and managed to book one back very late = drinks with old mates. I've also got another work trip for a few days just popped into my diary for next week, in a different direction, but to a town where my best friend lives! Its over 4 hours from here so a good chance to catch up with him too. Just completed the balance transfer so I think almost all my CC debt is now interest free. Need to check that 2mrw. Got some good ideas about sim only deals from the threads here, but more research needed! All in all, I shouldn't be so glum! And on that note, I'm to bed. Thanks all x