Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Cheery_Daff

Let's see if this works then....

Cheery_Daff

Good heavens, it did! :j :j :j You clever lot

So corset was made by a pal a few years ago - she was setting up her own business and loads of us got experimental ones hand made to fit us :j :j I paid £100 for materials etc which given she went on to charge about £600 was quite the bargain for such hand made gorgeousness :j :j

Skirt I made myself - fabric was £6 a metre and I only used about 2/3 of it. Shrug thing I walked round looking for one for AGES and couldn't find one cheaper than £28 :eek:

Eventually found elasticated lace on the market for £1.99, cut it in half and sewed a couple of arms in :rotfl: Grand total of £1 :j :j

Not bad for an MSE outfit

Cheery_Daff

Been thinking about budgets (again)

Mortgage now paid off and I was getting excited about having an extra £277 to spend - until I realised it doesn't come out of the joint account, it still comes out of Mr Cheery's old account, which we haven't been paying into for ages, so it's just eating into savings. So we won't have any EXTRA, it just means we won't be losing £277 of savings a month.

Which is still a bonus

Looks like I'll be working full time for a few months soon :eek: :eek: Not entirely sure how I feel about that - I do love my Fridays off after all!! But it's for good reasons (office pal is pregnant and due to leave before end of our joint project, and I want to get plenty done while she's still here to hold my hand ). And should only be for 6 months or so.

From memory I think I lost about £300 a month when I dropped from full time, so I expect to go back up by the same amount (although I think I'm due to go up an increment on the pay scale this month, and also student loan payments etc change with wage changes so not entirely sure how it'll work. Will find out).

Anyway, should work out an extra £2000 or so over a few months - not to be sniffed at! :j

This month though really need to get act in order A few sillinesses, a bit of taking eyes off the ball and things have gone a bit rocky with my personal spending account

However Mr Cheery did give me £20 back from food account yesterday so I can take that off what I've spent

So.

Today - NSD
Thursday - drink in pub, perhaps £3 (cheap date, me :rotfl: )
Friday - May well manage a NSD, having tea at friends' house in evening
Sat - Will be at least £10 I think, if not £20 if I go to event I was planning to go to...
Sun - Not sure, might try for another NSD...

Hmm, got to be able to claw it back somehow!

Doobop

Sometimes one chocolate bar just isn't enough... inhaling 3 sounds good!
Paper shoes sound excellent but not very hard wearing?

starnac

Wow. Sexy lady. Although £600?? I make corsets like that. I am so undercharging!!! :eek:

Yay to £277 extra savings. And to the extra "full time" money. Sounds like a good trade off if it's only for a couple of months.... Imagine how many races you could enter with £2000 :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Oooh, didn't realise you were also a corsetry making extraordinaire Starnac! wow, such talent I know she was aiming at £600, don't know whether anyone ever actually paid that though and she's given up now... :rotfl: So perhaps I was exaggerating slightly :rotfl:

But as you'll know they take an awful lot of work! How much do you generally charge, if you don't mind me asking? and does it actually cover the work that you do?

starnac

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Oooh, didn't realise you were also a corsetry making extraordinaire Starnac! wow, such talent I know she was aiming at £600, don't know whether anyone ever actually paid that though and she's given up now... :rotfl: So perhaps I was exaggerating slightly :rotfl:

But as you'll know they take an awful lot of work! How much do you generally charge, if you don't mind me asking? and does it actually cover the work that you do?

For a basic one (so no fancy fabric like you had) just a plain one to wear as underwear, the fabric, boning, busk etc costs at least £50. I have sold those for £100-£120 when I did dressmaking professionally. Obviously once you take into account time and tax, NI etc I didn't make much on those but it was usually sold as an "extra" so didn't really matter.

For outerwear corsets I have charged from £200. Fabric is dearer, plus some need lining and strengthening as the seams take a lot of strain. Bear in mind that a proper corset will take at least 2" off your waist. There can be a lot of hand sewing on outerwear ones too.

It takes me 2 full days to make an underwear corset so the price doesn't always cover the work if you think in terms of £/hr. Probably less that min wage. The problem I found was that people see "corsets" in high street shops for £30 and then think you are overcharging. What they don't realise is that those "corsets" are actually "basques" as all they do is smooth you out (sometimes) A proper corset will take inches off your measurements and give you a stunning hourglass figure.

Cheery_Daff

Quite right Starnac! Completely different, I have a high street cheapo one too and it is NOTHING like the same at all, nothing. I don't bend in the middle at all in my proper one, but in the high street one I just bend over and bulge out in all directions, which then bends the wire bits :rotfl:

Proper one has never ripped, bent, broken in any way. Once I'm in, I'm staying in until I manage to extract myself at the end of the evening :rotfl: (although I confess I do usually surreptitiously loosen it a bit over the course of an evening :rotfl: )

As you can see, mine does give a lovely hourglassy shape (although of course I look just like that without it too :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: ). Really pleased with it, not least because I got to pick colour, detail, shape (how far up/how far down it goes etc).

In fact, she made a mock up one with all the seams on the outside first out of calico, and I liked it so much I had the seams put on the outside of this one too :rotfl: Don't know if you can see - down the front, with little beads and pearls etc sewn on Didn't want it to look too 'tidy' :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

love the way i casually said today would be a NSD, completely forgetting about slimming world (last month i had an envelope so it wouldn't have counted, but i foolishly assumed i'd be at target now so wouldn't need it :rotfl: )

anyway £5.50 in total with raffle plus £2 on cereal bars (stopped doing that for a few weeks but was actually really hungry when i turned up, silly girl).

lost 1.5lbs though :j just 1lb til target (of course i've reset my target 6lbs higher than it was because i've now spent 7 months not reaching it :rotfl: new target is actually yhe weight i was about 4 weeks ago, and in april (for one week) - decided i'm so sick of it if i can just get back down to that weight i'm staying there!! :rotfl: should be able to do 1lb by monday, surely... :rotfl:

£2 yogurt on way home

need a bit of time for financial wizardry tomorrow, feels like it's all run away with me somewhat...

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, paper house deeds just arrived in post from mortgage company :j :j

Quite exciting to look at, although entirely incomprehensible :rotfl: It was built in 1898, and has an 800 year lease which also covers some other houses, so there's lots of official documents transferring things backwards and forwards with big swirly ancient signatures