McDiary - I'm loving it!!

yeovilmac

After reading so many wonderful online diaries, I thought I'd start one of my own. as promised on the other thread.

Me? I'm a man, 39, 6'4" tall with dark hair, green eyes and a good sense of....oops, wrong forum...:whistle: , sorry. Anyway,where was I? Ah yes, well I'd better post my SOA first and let you analyse, Right, I'm a self-employed courier that's just started my own business hence I get WTC and HB. Based on estimates, these levels won't be maintained next time I have a review.I'm single and live alone. I have four children, two of which stay every weekend from 3pm Friday till 6pm Sunday. They are cuter-than-cute identical twin boys aged six and I love them to bits...:kisses: ... that's me in the middle!!:rotfl:

Here's my SOA anyway, short description below. All figures converted into weekly amounts for ease.

INCOMINGS

WTC £46.25
HB £114.23
Job1 £70.00 - this is a regular weekly job, working every day
Job2 £40.00 - this is an ad-hoc job that averages out at this amount
Job3 £40.00 - this is a job I do for one month, four times a year and averages out at this amount

OUTGOINGS

Rent - £127.00 ( 2 bed flat in Bristol, ex council, huge, value for money)
C/Tax - £3.00 ( low as still receiving HB )
Gas - £8.00 ( arrears of £37 :rolleyes: )
Water - £12.00 ( arrears included in this amount )
Electric - £8.00 ( arrears of £151 :rolleyes: )

Sky - £7.00 ( package not including any movies, sports channels )
BT - £10.00 ( Broadband and Phone inc, on contract, arrears on top of £175 :rolleyes: )
3 Mob - £8.00 ( 400 mins, 250 texts a month, this will be from Oct, I'm on half price at the mo )
H/keep - £20.00 ( inc everything in this, i.e non-food items )
CSA - £6.00 ( low as based on last years assessment )
Football Season ticket - £9 ( paid over 8 months, averages out at this amount )
Football / training - £7 ( this is for the twins )


Fuel - £68.00 ( this includes private and business mileage )
Car Tax - £4.00 ( paid in 6 monthly chunks )
Car Ins - £8.00 ( quite high as includes business use )
TV Licence - £3.00

By my reckoning, this leaves me £2 each week left over. In reality though, there are other ad-hoc jobs I do which aren't in the figures,for instance, I'm going to Chester next week for a client which will cost £45 in fuel but will pay £115. I haven't included tax and NI in this either which will be a problem. These jobs happen several times a year and I never lose money on the jobs.

Looks bad, dunnit? Add to that an account with Provident for which I owe £800 and arrears to the CSA of £2,850 ( all paid to the mother but without receipts, only got the letter last month and it dates back to 1999 ) and I'm sinking fast. I take the twins football training at 5pm on Wednesdays and collect them from school at 3pm on Fridays so the self-employment lifestyle suits but I'm not sure how long I can manage it.

This is my initial post then following on will be my daily updates. Thanks for reading it.

Martin
xxx

PasturesNew

As you are self-employed as a courier ... I notice you don't include anything for the cost of the vehicle. e.g. repairs, tyres, oil, servicing, depreciation. At some point you'll have to buy a new one.

yeovilmac

October 1st - day one - spent £26.44

Petrol £17.00 - bought from Tesco's ( cheap ) and got my Clubcard points.

Lunch £1.95 - Sandwich, crisps and drink as I'd been away from home longer than I though.

Scales £7.49 - bought from Argos at £9.99 but used £2.50 of Nectar points to knock down the price.

I am taking all four children to Longleat this Saturday at a total cost of £21.50 of vouchers which equal the £86 admission price for all five of us. It's always a great day out and forms a good reason to save these points.

The scales? I need to lose five stone in weight and aim to do it by May 1st, my 40th birthday. I calculated that, with fees and "extras", Slimming World would cost me about £150 in the next seven months and even the Boots weigh machine would be about £13 going once a week. With that in mind, a set of scales that will tell me the same story was a no-brainer.

The future

Sent off letters to my main customer stating I was putting the prices up. This will help me bring in around an extra £250 a year based on last years business. Spookily enough, a manager rang to book a job for next Tuesday so the new price will kick in straightaway.

Also cancelled my subscription to match.com. This costs £5.99 a week and although it would be nice to meet someone, I'd rather not force it and besides, there are enough free sites out there anyway.

More tomorrow and thanks for reading.

Martin
x

yeovilmac

PasturesNew wrote: »

As you are self-employed as a courier ... I notice you don't include anything for the cost of the vehicle. e.g. repairs, tyres, oil, servicing, depreciation. At some point you'll have to buy a new one.

Hi there,

What I do each year / eighteen months is buy an Escort estate for £300 / £350 from one of the guys I work for and he takes a bit off every now and again when I do an ad-hoc job for him. Reapirs, tyres, oil and servicing is treated the same way. My figure above of £70 a week has already had these amounts taken off. Depreciation is minimal as I either run it into the ground or sell it for £150 or so. The guy always looks after me as he is a friend as well as a customer.

In_Search_Of_Me

umm..not great but the flat is dirt cheap, esp for Bristol! No food in the breakdown? Can you get extra work & if not would it be worth considering getting a f/t job that is at least secure for you? What about getting an HGV lisc etc? I know of people who do this & have never known them be out of work but being away from home may be a problem due to the boys...There is a free dating site (any fish or something? something with fish in it - I dont own, or belong to it for that matter!!) and also free dating.com may be of use but I guess dating when you're skint brings its own problems from a blokie POV! Have a look at the old style boards for ideas re food etc and possibly think of a menu plan. There is also a thread on there for loosing weight the old style way...not sure if that helps? Sure someone will be along with useful ideas - struggled slightly as your sums weekly & I am a bear with no mathematical brain (which was possibly why I managed to selectively ignore £37000 of debt!!)...

yeovilmac

Dating when you're skint does bring its own problems. You women all seem to have expensive tastes...

yeovilmac

Thanks for the reply, fishface. ( that looks really rude when you type it, sorry! )

Housekeeping contained my food allowance. Being a single bloke living alone during the week, don't spend very much. This is pretty much a basic shop amount at Asda / Tesco although when I buy the odd thing for the house, this comes out of this amount too.

Will be sending out some letters to potential customers in the next couple of weeks. I go over to Cardiff on the last day of each month for a customer so I'll be writing to similar companies offering a reduced rate to them as I'm going over anyway. Would rather not have an HGV licence but I do have 'grandfather rights' to drive a 7.5ton lorry so could go for temp work there.

yeovilmac

October 2nd - day two - spent £37.00

Diesel £10.00 - out in the van delivering catalogues this morning. Bought from Sainsbury's (cheap) and I got my Nectar points.

Petrol £25.00 - out to Mid Wales this afternoon on a booked job. Bought from Tesco's (cheap) and I got my Clubcard points.

Football programmes £5.00 - went to football tonight and bought two, one to send to a friend and one for me as I collect them.

Bovril £2.00 - two cups tonight as it was cold. Can't take your own drinks in.

The sharp-eyed among you will have seen that my figures are a fiver out, this is because I won a fiver on the lottery on Saturday and I claimed it this morning.

The future

I have four dormant accounts with the Norwich and Peterborough BS that I opened a year ago to get some discount from the YTFC club shop. Wrote to NPBS today to close them all, there is about £15 total and its better in my pocket than theirs.

Rung Provident and negotiated my weekly payment to a fiver a week. They weren't happy as they asked for £30 a week but I was firm with them.

ginger

Hi,

I'm newly single, 5 foot 4, blonde, youngish and.....oops sorry got carried away there.

Honestly don't know where else you can cut down so can you increase your income? What about tax rebates for transport costs? If you're self employed can you increase your hourly rate slightly? What are you using your clubcard/nectar points for?

I too am thinking about going to slimming world - of course only a few pounds (ahem) to loose but am happy to share this with you rather than you incur cost.

Hope you are ok.

G

yeovilmac

October 3rd - day three - spent £26.68

Petrol £20.00, bought from Tesco (cheap) and got Clubcard points.

Shopping £6.68 - mini shop for bread, rolls, coffee, milk and butter

Quiet day really but this has made me realise just how much I actually spend on fuel.:rolleyes:

Jenna

Hey,

Firstly, welcome to MSE :j

Dating when broke, yes no doubt holds it's own challenges, however I can tell you from a woman's point of view that honesty is better. My bf is the spender and I'm the saver ... but if (when we first started dating) he'd have been upfront about his debt, and we'd done cheaper things together rather than him trying to be flash, his finances would probably be in much better shape and I wouldn't have ended up having to lend him several thousand £'s.

But yes, honesty is a good thing in my book, it shows 1) you have the ability to trust her with that info and 2) if you're honest from the start, she won't wonder what else you've been hiding when you finally 'fess up.

Just my two cents worth anyhoo

On a financial note ... it seems like (as you said) you spend quite a bit on petrol, is this factored in to the cost of the job? Do you charge them on a per mile basis or is this done some other way?

The lottery ... £5 or not, I would put this on hold until after you've paid off your debt. Suppose you play £1 a week, not much but that's £52 a year that could come off your debt without any real effort!

Anyways - look forward to reading more! Take care!