Everything is possible if you try!

Tea&Kittens

Hi Cherryjack! Feel free to jump on I'm happy to have people along for the ride, I'm hoping it'll keep me on the straight & narrow!
I looked at the moneyplanners in paperchase, considered buying one but then looked at some bullet journal ideas for money planning/tracking and used one of those ideas instead in my journal, as that's something I already use!
Giving up smoking is a biggie, that should help loads financially. I've been in that boat so I know what that's like. If you need moral support just shout!

I've a friend visiting this weekend, making chicken katsu curry for tea (planned and purchased the ingredients I didn't already have in stock with last weeks food budget. The plan is to lunch out tomorrow, but will be having the rest of the meals at home. Also working at home today, so no need to worry about taking lunches anywhere

I do need to do some jobs around the house before visitor arrives though, quick wipe around bathroom and put fresh bedding on her bed etc. Oooh I'm getting quite excited!

Nonnadiluca

AleMrsT, I use the spending tracker which has the wallet logo and find it really keeps me on budget.
Teaandkittens, enjoying your diary and think you're doing great!

wishingthemortgaheaway

I love it when friends come to stay. Have a lovely weekend. See you on the other side.

EssexHebridean

Hope the weekend was lovely T&K!

Cherryjack sometimes spending a bit extra on something that then means you will love using it, and so STICK to using it - can actually not be a bad thing. I'm with T&K on the bullet journal idea - that's what suits me, but it's definitely an "each to their own" thing!

Tea&Kittens

Hi! Had a lovely weekend with old friend, had a couple of cocktails friday eve for a birthday event, then we went out for lunch on Saturday, but had the evening in playing boardgames (whoop, free entertainment!). Plus it was a good excuse for me to do some kitchen pottering, I concocted a pretty damn awesome prawn katsu curry.
Changes at work are making me a bit stressy and down. I think this combination might be a "frippering money away" trigger, as I found myself *almost* buying things I really don't need, as if it's going to be some kind of panacea in my head. Stopped short of actual purchase though - partly at the thought of coming on here and admitting to you all that only a few weeks into this I'd failed.

In short, it looks like my job is going to change a bit - different reporting line, more responsibility across another of our sites, and up one grade. Though I haven't had the formal confirmation yet, the last I heard is that they want all this without a salary increase. The grade up gives me automatic entitlement to company car or cash allowance, but doing a bit of number crunching last night looks like I'll be out of pocket if they do this without increasing salary.

On top of this, a medical appointment last week saw a change in medication, which I'm still adjusting to.
On the plus side, I did have a good tidy round the house before my friend's visit, so hopefully will be easier to keep on top of!

DebtFreeDuo

Well done on not actually going ahead with the purchase, we all have blips along the way but realising them and getting past them is what shows that we are really ready for our journey I think.

Not good about the job changing with no salary increase, is it something you could potentially disagree with if they don't give you an increase?

117pauline

The job thing sounds really difficult and doesn't have an easy answer. It's great they have seen your value but it is not fair it comes with no salary increase, particularly if it means you out of pocket.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pauline117/

This is my pinterest board and it has quite a lot of pins about bullet journals. There seems to be hundreds of ideas for pages. As someone else mentioned, it really is a case of try it and see. Some ideas work for me and others don't. But to be honest, I love looking at the ideas and dreaming!!
Take care
Pauline

Willowtree222

I love board games so that would be an amazing night in for me!

I love bullet journals too. X

Plush

Tea&Kittens wrote: »

In short, it looks like my job is going to change a bit - different reporting line, more responsibility across another of our sites, and up one grade. Though I haven't had the formal confirmation yet, the last I heard is that they want all this without a salary increase. !

So many companies are doing this, mine included... it drives me nuts. They expect us to have more responsibility and do more work yet no pay increase. Hope you find a solution to it. I haven't. I'm hesitant to change jobs at the mom as my debt is too high, so that's out of the Q. Good luck!

Tea&Kittens

117pauline wrote: »

The job thing sounds really difficult and doesn't have an easy answer. It's great they have seen your value but it is not fair it comes with no salary increase, particularly if it means you out of pocket.
Pauline

Plush wrote: »

So many companies are doing this, mine included... it drives me nuts. They expect us to have more responsibility and do more work yet no pay increase. Hope you find a solution to it. I haven't. I'm hesitant to change jobs at the mom as my debt is too high, so that's out of the Q. Good luck!

So, I had an update on the job front this afternoon in the form of a telephone conversation with the person who would be my new line manager (so far all info has come from my current line manager which means he wasn't able to answer all my queries).
So far, as it stands, someone in the upper echelons of directory management stuff has decided that all the people who do something on similar lines to me should be put in the same group/team, rather than being attached to individual sites.
So, there's 2 positions - one of which was filled a couple of months ago (I did see the job advert for this but didn't apply as it's nearly 80 miles away). Now they've decided that I should move onto a team and do a parallel job, so we'd cover 2 sites each. One of mine being the site I'm currently at, and the other is 70 or so miles away. NO PAY INCREASE!!
While it's on a higher grade, with a larger bonus it also has private health care (more tax for me), company car (more tax for me), the tax benefits in kind will mean take-home pay is less.
I don't expect miracles, but at least not be worse off than I am now for doing more. The line-manager-to-be let slip that my salary is "nearly as much" as the person doing the equivalent job (with less experience of this type of work). Grrr. Frustration. Wondering whether I could pull the "gender pay gap" argument out for that .....
It's all rather frustrating, they've kind of got me in a corner, as my job as it is at site will no longer exist as there will be no budget for that position with all this jiggery pokery.
I'd love to be able to tell them no, but really not in a financial position to be able to do so atm.
High stress/anxiety in head atm.

Nicnak wrote: »

I love board games so that would be an amazing night in for me!

I love bullet journals too. X

Hey Nicnak! Always lovely to find another board games fan, what kind of games do you like to play?

117pauline wrote: »

This is my pinterest board and it has quite a lot of pins about bullet journals... But to be honest, I love looking at the ideas and dreaming!!
Pauline

Lovely Pinterest board Pauline. Lots to look at there I love looking at other peoples bullet journals, and sometimes wish I was better at arty stuff to make mine prettier. I follow a few on instagram, never really got into the pinterest thing!
My instagram is full of boardgame pictures