Totally Uninspiring Diary

killerpeaty

Greetings muggles,

This is a totally uninspiring diary thread on my progress with my savings and other bits. But as I know that you're probably reading this as an interested or less than interested, spectator, I will fill you in with some personal details.

I'm a 23 year old woman with a full time job (good) and a passable level of savings (10ish k) (good). I am still living at home (eh) but I have fibromyalgia (bad), my job is pretty undesirable (bad) and the money is pretty poor (bad) but recently got a raise (yay). However, I will be improving my situation because I'm, well, annoying like that.

So I have some goals that I plan to achieve so I will be popping in to keep track of my progress.

Goals

• Save £7k
• Start and complete AAT level 2 (~1k)
• Start and complete AAT level 3 (~1k)
• Redecorate my room (this is desperately needed)
• [STRIKE]Cut my phone bill[/STRIKE] Cut by £10 a month
• Look at the skill set I need to improve my career prospects
• Get over my stubbornness about pictures to get myself a learner's permit and a season ticket to work.
• Declutter the house
• Earn enough outside of my normal job to buy this badboy
• Start pension and contribute £160 each month.

To expand on my financial aim for 2014:

• Minimum Savings: 1.6k (10% of net salary)
• Desired Savings: 7k (45%)
• Challenge Savings: 10k+ (63%+)

I have minimal outgoings as my mum is very kind to allow me to contribute very little to the house. I'd actually like to contribute more but this isn't a topic for now.

Thanks for reading, if you do, and have a good day.

laurag89

Hey!

I just had a read of your diary, I'm 24 and also still living at home.... I think that's pretty normal now as its so expensive to move out!

Looks like you have some really good goals for 2014, I look forward to seeing your progress! I am hoping my goals will be very similar, but for 2016 as unfortunately I haven't had my head screwed on as well as you have and stupidly got myself into debt. 2016 is the year I will have it all paid off by and be able to start saving.

Anyway sorry for rambling on about me, good luck with your goals. I will subscribe to your thread as I am very interested to see how you get on

killerpeaty

Hello Laura! It's lovely to hear about you so no apologising from you. It's more luck than not being "stupid" that I haven't gotten into debt. When I first went into Uni, it was the year that SF really messed up on the loans and I didn't get my loan until well after christmas in first year. My mum and dad supported me but everything I did I had to ask them for money for and it was mortifying. It just stuck with me.

How are you finding living at home? It's been just over a year for me now, I love my mum but I miss the freedom.

The day's uninspiring update
Today I have:

• Met up with a friend in town. I'm on holiday from work so am filling my time. It was lovely and managed to spend £15 on everything.
• Washed up. I really hate washing up, it makes my hands ache. Urgh.
• Cleaned my windowsill. It's been put off for a fortnight now because I couldn't find the attack duster.
• Earnt £3 on a survey. This should increase hopefully by the end of the night

The attack duster was very much needed, it has a +1 to hit with spider melee and I'm only good at ranged attacks. :rotfl:

killerpeaty

Feeling a bit under the weather today. It's making my pain spike. I'm not sure what to do about it, when I was in Uni I was prescribed some strong painkillers but now my doctors do not believe that this is a good idea. To be fair, the old doctor was sort of scared into it, he touched my neck and I cried and snotted for about 10 minutes. I haven't done this to the new ones.

This is not the way I wanted my holiday to end, I wanted to have a very productive week! I still need to hoover, wrap my presents, do some surveys, clear Peaty corner (I accidentally took over a large portion of the living room) and sort out my phone.. But we have at least decorated the tree today? :rotfl:

Last week I saw some hope in terms of house buying, I found a flat that I would be able to afford given another 10k in cash savings. I never would have thought this possible as I live in the London commuter belt although still quite far away. Give me five years to get my career on track and maybe I'll actually get one.

killerpeaty

Feeling truly rotten at the moment, but I have hot chocolate so all will be fine.

I'm very pleased with myself, after a month of dallying about, popping into my phone provider's shops (different ones each time so no one would get overly annoyed) to ask questions, I have sorted out my phone! I got advice to ring them up to haggle, I was scared to but I did a few moments ago! I didn't even have to haggle, I had what I wanted infront of me on the phone and told her exactly what I wanted and then the lovely girl took off the £10 contribution to the phone AND added and under 24s incentive thing onto it. So I'm getting (literally) over a thousand more minutes and many more internet minutes for £10 less each month! Look at me all organised and stuff. >D

I'm back to work monday, so my survey taking will probably take a dive again... But I'm very motivated right now so with any luck, I'll have my trunk soon.

Next job: decorate the bedroom. Or start a pension.

killerpeaty

Feeling much better!

So progress:

I have ordered £40 from GMT towards my trunk, once I've received that, I'll be up to £70!

Got paid on thursday, very early. So I'm going to have to transfer my money about.

I have a new diary, I'll be inputting dates when I need to shift money around, dates that I'll be getting money in or going out and then my social stuff. I'm terrible at remembering anything.

I still haven't wrapped anything up. :-/

My phone is dying a very undignified death so I'm glad the new phone will be coming soon.

Also need to sort out what's going on with my mattress, managed to wake up this morning by falling between the mattress and the wall. It was strangely comfortable.

Work tomorrow. :eek: Goodbye week off.

killerpeaty

Hope everyone had a lovely christmas!

Mine was great, I'm actually still celebrating as I'll be having a meal with friends tonight and another present. I love presents, giving and receiving. I didn't get very many useful things this year but I did get some work books, pens and thermals. I was almost on budget this year until my sister asked me to buy her gift for mum as she'd changed her mind on what she wanted to give.. Oh well. Plus my present was totally outshone by the boyfriend's, he got me my favourite pokemon card.

Been calculating, I need to save 833.33 a month plus another 83.33 a month average for the second AAT qualification. This is a lot. :eek: However if I allocate 160 a month to a pension (no company scheme unfortunately ) I'm actually saving 200. Swish.

I bought myself a diary to fill in all of the dates I need to remember, payday, phonebill day, days I need to switch money to and from accounts, etc. Then promptly lost it. It's somewhere.

I have received my new phone. It's very pretty. At £16.99 a month, I'm very happy.

I'm trying to work out whether an IGCSE is a GCSE or not. I have two Cs in English and I'd like to get a B at least. However to go on the physical course is actually on a very inconvenient day for me.

Went to poke around the sales today, a dress caught my eye but it was a size too big. Otherwise, the sales were uninspiring.

Things I must do tomorrow:
Arrange AAT level 2.
Do the washing.
Call my ISA provider to work out how to access my money.
Do surveys
Clean the mess that is my home. :rotfl:

Non_compos_mentis

killerpeaty wrote: »

I'm trying to work out whether an IGCSE is a GCSE or not.

IGCSE is an international equivalent of GCSE, offered by the University of Cambridge. It will be recognised by all major employers.

As far as I know, IGCSE is supposed to be more flexible as it is more exam based than coursework based.

want_to_save

hi hun great diary i will be subscribing to this.

glad you had a good crimbo, me too i love pressies and will get more when i see my folks on new years eve

quick question - how large is the company that you work for at the moment as at some point (within the next few years dependent on their size) they should commence auto enrolment?

killerpeaty

Thank you NCM, that's very useful to know. It's also a lot cheaper than the physical courses so I think I will take advantage. I'm also a lot better at exams so that plays right into my strengths.

WTS, oooh, I'd love to know what you get. I don't think I will have any more until the birthday but they're precious when they come.

My company has around 15 people in it permanently but some are contracted in. I'm not actually sure how many are true employees (but I am one) so we're so small that we're not affected until 2018 and that's too far into the future for me. I don't want to get to 70 and think I have to keep working. I'd prefer to go part time at 50 and continue like that, maybe have a part time business...

I'm at the time in life that I should be investing in me and in passive resources. I have my plan for me but not quite there yet with the passive resources as I haven't worked out which funds, how many (probably one to begin with) and how much (thinking 1k every quarter). Then planning on diversifying as my income increases and my skills increase. My biggest issue is that I'm not confident so networking is just terrible. :rotfl:

I'd also like to move out, but the time isn't right. My dad died just over a year ago so I don't want to leave my mum and have her unhappy or lonely.

I spent £30 on the meal yesterday. Ouch! Worth it, but ouch. Then I spent another £30 on things today, I need them as they are storage and bedclothes. Hoping not to spend any more this week other than bills (£150- mixture of household bills and presents).

The washing machine is full. Of things that aren't mine. :mad: This quite annoys me because almost every weekend there are other personal washes going on when I am the only one in the house who works full time. They have weekdays!

Unreasonable venting over, should do something useful now.

laurag89

To be honest living back home is hard, I love being around my mum but when you have moved out before and come back it never really feels the same I don't think.
However on a positive note living back here will allow me to clear my debts and hopefully get some savings behind me before I move out again!

How is your debt clearing going?