My Diary v3.0

natsplatnat

So, this is where we are......


house-sitting still not paid
council tax up £5.00 a month (a bit steep)
Water in and waste water up - going on a crusade now to get that reduced
Been paid yesterday - all money moved as necessary.
Just paid £528.56 off my student loan - this will reduce the balance before the interest is next calculated. Need to give them my P60 details for contributions over the last tax year so I can change to DD and run it down to £0.00 without over-paying.
Hen weekend was fab - round journey wasn't so much fun.... got to do it all again in just over 3 weeks for the wedding.
New trainers, new dress, new PJ's, new shirt and new underwear recently purchased.


Credit card bill to be sorted.
Must complete some surveys on Pro.Ac and get to £20.00 for payout (currently at £16.00).
That's it from me for now - catch you all later xxx

natsplatnat

Ok, so house-sitting paid = happy Nat.


Birthday yesterday - received some lovely presents, very lucky girl.


Why is it so hard trying to update my Student Loan Balance? All I want to do is take control of the last portion of my repayment so that I don't over pay. One day I am told that I can update with the annual total taken from my P60... the next day, when I have my P60 with me I am told that as we are still in the current tax year they would have to put the values in from each payslip. All well and good when I was paid weekly until September of last year. Have now been told I can call back on the first day of the new tax year and give them the lump sum from my P60.... what a total faff!


Off to a free art exhibition and having a takeaway this evening (though we would treat ourselves to a takeaway as we went out for a birthday meal last night and through some offer vouchers and loyalty vouchers, a three course meal for 2 with 2 drinks each cost the grand total of £16.72! Not bad at all).
Working tomorrow (will be a bit of shock to the system after having the last three Saturdays off, but can't be helped!)
Sunday I am hoping the weather holds and we can get out for a nice walk somewhere!
So, that's me up to date now. Have a great weekend all xxx

natsplatnat

Ok, so the art exhibition was free.... but the art we bought wasn't! EEK!


But I do love what we bought and will use the money from my mum at Christmas to cover its cost.
Car is in for service and MOT today - not heard anything so hoping all is good!


We are off for 5 nights in the Lake District after the wedding in Leeds - made sense as we are nearly there if we set off from Leeds as opposed to home.
And........... I have just cleared the last of my Student Loan. £430.19 and loan closed! Was going to change the repayments to DD, but it was proving to be a real faff, along with a 4 month delay in the DD starting. So, I have 'borrowed' some money from myself to get rid!! I will repay this over the next 4 months (max) from my wages! Even now there is a small chance they may take some money as a deduction from my wages at the end of this month... which I will then have to get refunded! P A L A V E R!!!!
So, this weekend the plan is....
Collect piece of artwork from exhibition.
Get some bits on fleabay.
Check that I have everything needed to wear for wedding and week away (I am thinking layers and wet-weather gear mainly for the week away!)
Find a deal on a cashback site to place some bets on the GN (usually do ok at this!!)
Take some rubbish to the tip.
Measure carpet for lounge, hall, stairs and landing.
and much more - lets see how much gets done!!

natsplatnat

Car service and MOT all good - they even washed and hoovered it! Cost £182.00, could have been worse!


I am hoping I have reached £20 on Pro.Ac - then I can make a withdrawal to put towards repaying myself for my student loan!

natsplatnat

£20.90 withdrawn from Pro.Ac this morning - should be in my account within 5 days.


Found some cashback on a new online betting account for the GN. Returned £18.00 on top of my initial bet... and should return £30.00 cash back as well. Fingers crossed - this will all be going to top up my account after paying out for my Student Loan!


Withdrew another £2.42 from Q.co over the weekend too! That will be going the same way!


Did buy a new dress for the wedding - not convinced about it, so won't remove the tags just yet (but will need a handbag to got with it if I keep it!).... dress cost £16.99 so not a budget breaker!


Right, eyes down at work as we are short-staffed, just for a change! And in the lead up to Easter Weekend it is going to be mental!!!

natsplatnat

Morning!


Second day working this bank holiday weekend! Boo.
Pro.Ac money arrived in Paypal account and withdrawn to my account.


Just raised a claim for my cashback on my grand national betting (not surprised!)
Just requested a withdrawal of £4.88 from TCB.
Priced up some new carpets yesterday. For the lounge, hall, stairs and landing we are looking in the region of £550 including fitting - so that's not too bad. Although we rent, we really haven't decorated much since we moved in in 2005! The carpet is looking really dated and a bit worn in places, so its time to make our surroundings a bit nicer!
Have a great weekend all - don't eat too much chocolate! xxx

natsplatnat

Hi All!


Can't believe I haven't written since the 15th April - but there hasn't been a lot to report at all.
The end of April saw OH and I attend a wedding up North (wore the dress and bought a handbag to match for £18.00 so not too bad) and have 5 nights in the Lake District. Quite a good sized "ouch" to come financially from this but there is money in the household account to cover it (I hope!).
OH had his car serviced £349 and then broke a tooth £140 - so need to get the money out of him for that!
Received my first paycheck with no student loan (didn't think it would take them 4 months to stop the deduction!). Have moved what I would have paid to the SLC over to my account to start topping up the account from where I paid the loan off (and a bit extra from my wages as I seemed to have more than I thought I would - don't excited it was only about £9!!)
Workplace pension deductions start in the next pay. Once I have repaid myself, I will be diverting the money I was paying to the SLC into my pension. I don't have a pension and at 37 I really think I need to boost the pot as much as I can as soon as possible. I've been used to having a deduction for the SLC that it makes sense to use it for the pension (before I get used to having it!).
OK, so it's not really a confession as such.... but I do have car finance. Have looked ahead and come September time the remaining balance should be small enough to clear onto a 0% credit card. What I'm planning on doing is paying the equivalent to my monthly DD into an account to earn a smidge of interest and have the minimum coming out by DD each month from that account. Nett result should be interest earned and having the lump sum required to clear the card a the end of the 0% (will need approx. 18 months for this).


On the money IN front, I have 3 or 4 days house-sitting at the end of June, so will pop this money into the account to help repay my SLC payment. Won't be a lot, but ....you all know the saying!


Must get fleabaying again. Had some items on there this year, but although similar had sold well in the past they just haven't shifted. They haven't relisted, so will tweak the details and then add some new items. It is bootfair season too so need to choose a date and make sure we do at lest one this year! Any money made from the bootfair will be going into the household account - would be nice to get away for at least a long weekend later in the year, but the account will be quite a bit poorer after our week away.


Just remembered we have a Groupon voucher to use - must do that before it expires.


Also, we are away this Sat night and then we are off to play with some Lemurs at a local zoo (lemurs paid for back in March - just the hotel and dinner to pay for!)


Right, I'm off to dig out the Groupon voucher details. Hope everyone had a great May bank holiday. Found voucher - have 19 days left to redeem!!! EEK!


Nats x

natsplatnat

Morning All!


really not liking this grey weather - has no-one told the universe it's May now??


So, it would appear that my little fleabay blitz the other day is paying off. 2 items sold over the weekend (one which I must have listed about 8 times already!), netting £16.50 after fees and postage. Not going to set the world alight, but that's £8.25 for the household account and £8.25 for my SL account!


Had a great night away and playing with the lemurs was HUGE fun - don't think the bank account will think the same!


Ok, so plan for this week is dig out more items for fleabaying and choose a bootfair date and start getting all the boxes out ready to sell, sell, sell!


Have a great week everyone! Nats x

natsplatnat

Nothing else sold on fleabay so far - one item has a watcher though so I am hopeful.


I am creating a new page on my beloved spreadsheet. My gas/elec supplier want to put my DD up by £13 a month..... have compared the usage last year to this year and the amount more we have used should only equate to about £12.00 for the whole period. I have agreed for the DD to increase by £8.00 until I get a handle on our usage and costs. We are also on E7, so have enquired about changing to a single tariff in the hope that the reduction in daytime rate will outweigh the increase in off-peak usage. Waiting for a call back.
The supplier also suggested I could save money by switching to another of their tariffs (no fee to change) - but every unit price was higher than I am paying now and in the end the lovely person on live chat had to agree that I would not benefit from changing tariff... this was logged as a customer complaint - I wonder if I will hear anything more!?


We have turned down a night out this weekend - after the last few weekends, I am definitely not looking to spend any more money. I am quite looking forward to being at home. May start planning the decorating!


Catch you all later! Nats x

natsplatnat

Slightly miffed this morning! Just been balancing my accounts against my lovely spreadsheet and noticed that no interest has been paid into one account. Upon further investigation it is because I didn't pay the obligatory £500.00 for the month of April.... well, I did - but one payment went in early so caught the end of March, and the other payment went in late because of a weekend and arrived in May. Pah! I know it's only £4.00 ish but it should be mine!! lol
I have jiggled some pennies around to make sure as much interest as possible is being earned.
Just taken the opportunity of a quiet 5 mins in the office to complete a Pro.Ac survery for £2.00 - probably the best survey site I have used over the years.
One fleabay item now has 2 watchers - fingers crossed it goes!
That's it from me for now! Have a great weekend all! xxx