Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

misstara

Hi AleMrT

I agree with twiggy, it's not where you have a party that matters it's spending the time with your family and friends. If you went for the cheaper venue, then you could maybe afford Amsterdam as well. And Amsterdam at Christmas sounds amazing

AleMrsT

Thanks Twiggy and MissTara.

I was thinking along those lines tara, that I could go for the cheaper party, price up the cost of doing the food ourselves, and then we can go to Amsterdam too. I need to sit down and talk to OH properly.

I've made more money on sales, but need to post tomorrow so I'll work out my profit tomorrow when I've posted the items.

OH is working late tonight so I'm going to make the most of having the house to myself, going to wrap up the parcels ready to post tomorrow then have a nice long bath and get an early night, as I've not been feeling well today. Will try and catch up on diaries first.

Had an EDF bill come through for the new house, it is for the period between moving in and the supply being switched to our existing supplier, I have money to cover it but I didnt factor it into the budget so it is going to eat into the profit from the ebay sales, but at least the money is there.

I have two colleagues leaving work to have babies next week, and we're doing a collection, so I owe £5 for one and £10 for the other, then we're out at a charity event on saturday night, the tickets are £5 each and then drinks (we'll be taking the car as its too expensive in a taxi and I don't drink anyway) so have budgeted £30 total for that including the tickets. If we're both drinking soft drinks that should be plenty.

If I could get rid of my wedding dress it would pay for Amsterdam!!! UGH. Stupid wedding dress. I've listed it in so many places now its ridiculous.

Anyway, off to catch up on diaries then wrap the parcels ready for posting. MrsT.

AleMrsT

SALES SO FAR:

blu ray box set £30 profit
local landmark plates £45 profit
lace bolero £30 profit
curtains £25 profit
old furniture £75 profit
scrabble fridge magnets £2.69 profit
shoes 99p profit :rotfl:
lamp - £1.11 loss :eek:
second lamp £2 loss :eek::mad:
tassimo racks £12.91 profit
shelves £10.50 profit

Total made: £228.98 :j

Need to add to this, forgot OH sold the wii U for £150
Bag £5.61 profit
Bear £6.88 profit

TOTAL SO FAR £391.47 :j:T

In other news, I've sold a couple more items this morning, including my wedding dress!!!:j:j:j:j HOWEVER, it sold for £139:eek: thousand pounds worth of dress for less than £150!! I did make money on selling the bolero separately, but I could actually cry. Ah well, at least its sold and its money I didnt have before. Although the bid only finished this morning and the buyer hasnt paid yet, would prefer cash on collection so will see what happens. With the final sale fee that ebay charge though it probably wont have been worth it! I don't know why I still use ebay, the fees and charges don't make it worthwhile at all.
Ah well, what is done is done.

OH has said we can go out for sunday lunch today (I forgot to get meat out of the freezer -- AGAIN!) so that will be a nice treat.

We had a very frugal night out last night, we paid £5 each for tickets, and then because we drove and it was a charity event in a village hall, the drinks were just cans and bottles that they'd bought in, so we spent about £6 on soft drinks (and crisps as I'd not eaten since finishing work) all evening! So a night out for two of us for £16 :T:T:T It was good fun.

I've spoken to him about Amsterdam, he didnt realise the price was for both of us, not EACH, but he also said there is a rule at work that things cant be booked at christmas until the christmas rota is sorted, its to keep things fair for all of the staff so they can cover the reception desk during the christmas meals, if they let people book time at christmas in advance, it means someone misses out. So we can't really book it. HOWEVER, OH already did the christmas day shift a couple of years ago, and its only from 23rd to 27th so I'm tempted to risk it and book :eek: Not sure though.

Decided it is definitely too expensive to have the party at the hotel, but the hall we went to last night was only £75 to hire, so that might be another option.

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday, will probably check in later to update on more ebay sales as there are a few more listings finishing today.

AleMrsT

Also, forgot to say, my mum bought me some green table mats which we have been searching for for ages, and my grandma bought us some new kitchen knives which were a complete bargain at £10 due to the shop having a closing down sale.

Need to find out how to dispose of the old kitchen knives now!!

AleMrsT

So.... I cancelled the sale on my wedding dress. The buyer wanted me to arrange courier delivery, and the prospect of packing the dress up, paying courier fees, ebay fees and paypal fees left me an emotional wreck, it just would not have been worth me selling it. So I contacted the buyer to say I was no longer able to proceed with the sale, and cancelled it on ebay (the buyer hadnt yet paid anyway).

It's £139 less in sales, but after feeling so emotional, I have now made a decision that I will not sell my dress for any less than £300, and if I don't sell it for that price, I'll keep it. OH is happy with me keeping it and said we have made quite a bit of money already, we have enough saved for the car expenses next month, so its really not absolutely imperative that we sell my dress.

I am surprised at how relieved I feel at the thought of keeping the dress. I was so so determined to sell it, and I was totally not expecting to feel so emotional!

Ah well, new running total for the sales -

blu ray box set £30 profit
local landmark plates £45 profit
lace bolero £30 profit
curtains £25 profit
old furniture £75 profit
scrabble fridge magnets £2.69 profit
shoes 99p profit
lamp - £1.11 loss
second lamp £2 loss
tassimo racks £12.91 profit
shelves £10.50 profit
wii U £150 profit
Bag £5.61 profit
Bear £6.88 profit
Dress £2.27 profit

TOTAL SO FAR £393.74 :T

I have transferred £100 from paypal to my savings account, and made a payment from my current account to round the figure up, so I now have £260 in the car savings, and still have £90 in my current account and £104 in my emergency savings. (trying to not count this at all though, don't want emergency savings to become burn-a-hole-in-my-pocket treat spends).

Its my day off tomorrow, I have the estate agent coming round so I intend to have a lazy day, although I do need to get some more packing supplies and take two more parcels to the post office so I will do that in the afternoon, will be able to update the sales total again in the afternoon when they've been sent off.

I have six active listings now, if they don't sell this time they're all getting charity shopped. I just want the clutter gone so I can get the spare room finally sorted out.
At least we're £400 better off than we were at the start of the month:T

Hopefully I won't use all of the money in my current account so I can transfer some of that to the emergency savings, although my wages will be short this month due to the hospital day, so we'll see how it goes.

AleMrsT

Hi Everyone, just checking in as not posted in a while.

The spare room is FINALLY sorted!!! The house is finished and we are actually fully moved in. :T:T:T

TOTAL SALES
blu ray box set £30 profit
local landmark plates £45 profit
lace bolero £30 profit
curtains £25 profit
old furniture £75 profit
scrabble fridge magnets £2.69 profit
shoes 99p profit
lamp - £1.11 loss
second lamp £2 loss
tassimo racks £12.91 profit
shelves £10.50 profit
wii U £150 profit
Bag £5.61 profit
Bear £6.88 profit
(red) Dress £2.27 profit
corner shelves £5 profit
tribal mask 99p profit (I am SOOOO pleased this sold. It belonged to OH and was HIDEOUS!!):T:rotfl:
Vanity case £6.46 profit

TOTAL SALES £406.19 Very pleased with that.

Still trying to convince OH to sell the dishwasher so there may be more to add to it for next month.

I have £11.85 of ebay fees to come out of the rest of my PayPal money on 22nd June, so my PP account will have around £3 but at least all of the fees are covered.

I managed to pick up some light shades for the living room, been trying to find some for ages and got a bargain as they were £3 each in BnQ exactly the colour we needed, think they should have been £7 each originally.

We have had a very spendy week or so, although OH has paid for most of the things.

£9 in Next for fathers day
£13.20 in tesco, rest of fathers day present, wrapping paper and a magazine (oops)
£13.50 in prima*k
£14.60 in tesco getting groceries

OH has spent £32 on cinema tickets for Saturday (we saw Jurassic World, it was AWESOME)
£44.99 on a shelving unit for the storage cupboard :eek:
£48 on petrol and sweets for the cinema
£12 in Tesco getting milk and snacks for last night :eek::eek:

WAY too spendy!!

I have £22.02 in my bank until pay day on 30th, I will be eating jam on toast for work lunch for the next week!!!

OH is on a late shift tonight so its a nice chilled evening for me, going to stick Netfl1x on and get the ironing done. I don't mind the ironing part, its putting it away in the wardrobe afterwards that I hate. Thats why I could never pay someone to do my ironing as they'd be doing the bit that I enjoy.

Ironing for other people is an option, because they have to put it all away. Ideas for a little part time sideline earner perhaps!! :rotfl::rotfl:

AleMrsT

So, it's 2nd July, payday has been and gone, and so have my wages. :rotfl:
Wages £1004.

Rent £550
Debt payment £71 (signature updated)
Furniture £50
leaving £333 for the rest of the month for food, transport, savings and prescription.:eek:

I have paid £90 to OH from the car savings towards the tax, and have paid the contents insurance renewal of £68.91. I'll transfer from emergency fund or car savings, depending what else comes up.
Still getting quotes for car insurance renewal, cheapest so far is £350, unfortunately we won't have enough set aside to pay in one go as we also have MOT and service to pay for, and I think we need two new tyres.

Ah well, as long as the majority of it is covered by what we/I have in savings, then budgeting £30 a month for next year's car insurance won't be so bad.

It's just a shame that everything renews at the same time. Taxing the car for just six months meant it would be due again at Christmas, so we'd be no better off.

I've booked to have my hair done next week, coloured and cut, and as I'm a new customer she discounted it by £10 so it will be £67 :eek: I will review my accounts and see if I have enough to pay for it with the car mot etc, and will cancel and rebook for next month if not. I could save money and just have it coloured and get my mum to cut it, which I'm tempted to do. We shall see.
Off work today as I woke up with a dreadful headache/migraine, and my vision was blurred. I've dosed up on paracetamol but it's still a bit niggly, so a days pay down for next month, and I have hospital in two weeks :mad: can't be helped though, I can't sit at the PC and type all day when the room is spinning. I don't think the hot weather has helped really.

Anyway, off to sit under the pillow again, hope you're all having a good week so far.
MrsT.

misstara

Hope you feel better soon MrsT

AleMrsT

Well the one day headache turned into a three day migraine, so two days pay down :eek::eek::eek: I'm still feeling exhausted and although my eye isnt hurting anymore, I still have a kind of fuzzy head on the right hand side.

This resulted in me booking an opticians appointment on Friday afternoon, as I had also started to feel nauseous by then because of the dizziness, so cost me £25 on Friday, and I needed new glasses because my prescription has changed (probably not helping the headache side of things that my glasses arent currently the correct prescription), on the plus side, there is nothing untoward with my eyes, just the change in prescription. Luckily the opticians I go to is the place my mum used to work at so the owner kindly gave me a big enough discount that I am only actually paying for the lenses, so my glasses are £97.50. I have cancelled the hair appointment and used the rest of the emergency fund, it is afterall something that I need, rather than a treat.
My mum cut my hair on Friday afternoon after the opticians, so it looks better than it did before anyway.

I've been doing my usual 'looking at things I can't afford', and found a really good deal on a holiday abroad for next September, £954 for 10 days all inclusive in Feuteventura for the both of us :T However, OH has said NO, we cannot afford a holiday and need to pay for the furniture before planning any other spends (sensible).
THEN HE COMES HOME WITH AN AIR CONDITIONING UNIT THAT HE ORDERED FROM AMAZON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad:

£260!! For a hideous contraption that is extremely noisy and will be used about 4 times a year. ("but it does get hot too!" - yep, like the central heating does........) The best part is, he's bought it so we dont have to have the windows open which he doesnt like because of the flies coming in, but the pipe for the air con unit has to go out the window so we have to open the window anyway!!!
Sometimes, I despair!!!

A further annoyance this weekend has been vodafone. I don't know if you remember back in March I wrote that I had finally got my contract cancelled after trying to do it in February and earlier on in March. Well my mum bought a letter round to me from our old address (which my parents friends now live in) from a debt collection agency, demanding £17.30 for an outstanding balance with vodafone. I was not happy. AT ALL. The bloke I spoke to when I cancelled in March specifically said to me, I have added a credit to your account so there will be nothing further to pay. But these arent the notes that are on the system, and of course, they only keep the call logs for 60 days so they no longer have a recording of the call to 'check the inconsistency'.
I spent 45 minutes on the phone to vodafone going around and around in circles, I spoke to 4 people, all of whom couldnt find my account on the system because it is CLOSED, and the final person I spoke with transferred my call TO THE DEBT COLLECTION AGENCY!!!! I was on the verge of tears in frustration. I called back and asked to be put through to the complaints department, apparently they dont have a complaints department :rotfl::rotfl: The final person I spoke with, (a total of 7 people dealt with my 'enquiry') said that he had logged a complaint about the previous person, but the only advice he had for me was to pay the outstanding balance. I then asked 'what is the outstanding balance, as my account is closed?! There is nothing outstanding!!' to which he replied 'it appears it is for usage and cancellation fees for April'.'even though my account was closed and contract cancelled in March?! what was the usage?' 'I'm afraid I don't have a record of that.....' ME: 'I thought as much. Does no one at vodafone make notes that are consistent with what actually comes out of their mouth?!'
I gave up, filed the letter in the bin and will worry about it no more. It already shows on my credit report as a settled and closed account.

So ladies and gents, NEVER USE VODAFONE!!!

On the plus side, I went to asda yesterday at 3pm with my sister and brother in law, we got some awesome bargains! paprika pringles, 74p. Pop tarts, 36p. Golden syrup weetabix, 36p!! So that made me happy after a miserable few days, although me and OH had a lovely day on Saturday and I spent the afternoon with my niece yesterday.

Off to do the ironing now and get an early night as I'm so tired after being back at work today.

twiggy86

Oh AleMrsT - that's so rubbish about Vodafone! I hate it went they send you around in circles and no one knows what they are talking about! You've reminded me that I think my prescription has changed as my eyes have been getting tired recently. Actually no - I've had my eye test and my prescription had changed but I didn't bother with new glasses at the time!