The Edcawber Principle

edinburgher

That is so impressive. I have just reflected on your post in the summer, where debt was mildly uncontrolled (never totally, in your world, I think) but you had made some home and family choices and that money was maintaining payments and not positively contributing to family life. It is all going the other way, with mindful spending and conscious debt reduction.

You are sweet to say so SL, but I still struggle with impetuosity! While I didn't buy rugby tickets on at least 3 occasions and also decided to let the chance to see the live action version of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" pass us by (oddly enough one of DD's favourite films?), we still overspent on Christmas to the tune of £100 or so and I've just had to buy groceries for the coming week using our embryonic EF. Well, I did say it would cover groceries for a week

An early Christmas present from generous rellies will help to make up the damage and I get paid on Tuesday.

I am optimistic that this debt will be gone by the Christmas after next.

beanielou wrote: »

Will today be the day?

The deed is done! I have submitted a claim for mobile phone contract cashback and am paying it off in advance as it's "money in the bank" (it isn't, but it will be)! That, a few pennies of other cashback and a TT came to £36.15.

The new total is £16,464.85. Might try and get that to £16,200 by Hogmany :think:

I had a wonderful day with DD today. Mrs E is out for her works do tonight, so I worked hard to exhaust DD so as to get any down time. We went to the swimming pool, play gym (think mini gymnastics), made a Christmas decoration from felt and had a long discussion about extinct animals. It is truly scary how quickly they mature from the cute floppy lumps they are as babies into little people with empathy, curiosity and brains! :smileyhea

edinburgher

Ah - !!!!!

Found a screw embedded in one of the car tires, that's £90 I hadn't budgeted for :eek:

edinburgher

edinburgher wrote: »

Ah - !!!!!

Found a screw embedded in one of the car tires, that's £90 I hadn't budgeted for :eek:

I'm not as badly behaved as I thought. I clearly had a premonition, as I'd restarted car maintenance payments two months ago. This covered £60, the rest had to be robbed from a general "travel" line in the budget (bus/train commuting and parking costs). The travel line also paid up a small shortfall for petrol costs (<£10) and I had to juggle a few £ between our two separate cat budgets...

Not as bad as expected

£0.31 paid off a CC

beanielou

Freat news on target reached :j :j
Boo to tyre.
Glad you have had a lovely time with DD

Suffolk_lass

Well done. I remember two years ago DS had to replace two tyres in following weeks in December on his little car - we ended up funding these as his Xmas present. Now that is what your EF is for - part fund, part soft landing. It doesn't matter if it is not 100% - don't regret that. Just reflect on the fact there was £60 there and you could shuffle the rest. We did that when DH wrote off the car (Samantha Civic). Some cash, some interest free credit, some from CC, he was back on the road within three working days in a smaller version (a nameless Jazz)

edinburgher

Re. not regretting things - you know me so well SL!

Had a leisurely lie in this morning, then took DD to the park. Mrs E has now taken her to SIL's, so I'm sitting her procrastinating about doing my housework

£0.80 paid off a CC, thank goodness I get paid on Tuesday.

edinburgher

Continued with the Christmas clean up. Tidied away all the random crap in the kitchen, cleaned every surface and poured a strong solution of soda crystals down the sinks. Polished my work shoes, got food ready for tomorrow (porridge, fruit and HM veggie lasagne). Filed away paperwork, did a quick hoover and cleaned out the tumble dryer filter (recently bought a heat exchanger brush with long plastic bristles that really speeds things up).

Might have had a :beer: or two to keep me going

edinburgher

£1.94 paid off a CC.

The weekend didn't end as well as it started. I got stressed out wrapping Christmas presents and acted like a bear with a sore head with Mrs E (the bear was also a cheeky ******). Feel like I owe an apology, but it's too late for that :think: Maybe offer to put DD to bed and cook her dinner so that she can relax this evening?

Get paid tomorrow, I have literally a tenner left.

edinburgher

Merry Christmas (holidays) everyone :j

The year has ended on a massive high note after an improved pay offer was received from Cosla. They have now offered a 3 year deal that will be worth nearly 10% by the end of the 3 years (technically 2 years as these things always lag a bit)

• I'd expect £500-600 backdated wages early next year
• New wages will be about £100/month higher
• Pay bracket will now top out at over £40k by 2021 :beer:

None of this is intended as bragging - anyone who has read my diaries will know that I'm not very confident when it comes to the workplace - so this is all just lovely finance news that I'm sharing because we're all money nerds here :rotfl:

More importantly, it now means that the sorts of houses that we would "dream" about will be a realistic proposition by the time I turn 40 in 4-5 years time. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it feels like I won the game for once

Edit: £1.99 paid off a CC

beanielou

So very chuffed for you ~:j :j