Young And Dumb

Mx_Emmin

daintydaisy said:

Hi, I found this blog a couple of days ago and have been hooked reading through your journey since. 

Your experience has actually inspired me to begin my own debt free journey and for the first time in my life I feel excited about budgeting! 

I love how you categorise everything and reading your blog has made me realise how much little spends can add up. Until reading your blog I just used to throw a £10 here and there on my CC but it’s catching up to me now and making me realise I should be more careful with money, especially as my “emergency fund” is currently sitting at £140 😬 

Thank you for making this blog, I hope you keep updating it as I’ve enjoyed keeping up with your journey. Good luck for the interviews 👍🏼

Thank you so much! 💗 I'm proud of you for starting, that's often the hardest step! 
 

Humdinger1 said:

@Mx_Emmin good luck for the interviews! Your tracking is looking fab; now you mention you're in finance it fits together.   Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Technically I work in Finance - but realistically its currently more like Customer Service. If these interviews go well however I would be taking a definitive step into the actual Finance sector, so fingers crossed! 
 
~*~
 

My laptop has died rather dramatically, so posts may be rather sporadic for a little bit

Hopefully not too long though; I have a game plan to fix it

Mx_Emmin

My laptop troubles continue. I have managed to resurrect my previous laptop for Facebook and WordPress purposes but it’s simply not strong enough to play sims  This is laptop is so old it’s pre-pandemic, I had to install Zoom on it the other week! I have time off coming up and I wanted to log some serious sims hours  I am sending my laptop off to the nominated tech guy in our family to have a look at, as he wasn’t able to help me over video call. Not his fault; my laptop is being stubborn.

Otherwise, so much has happened in the last couple weeks!

~*~

Regarding the Tamora Pierce books. Because I’m looking for them in a certain cover style, I could only buy second hand books as and when they became available. Initially I was going to wait until I had all 4 from the first series/quartet before starting to buy the second series/quartet, but then I realised that if the cover style is important, maybe I should just get what’s available when its available. I currently have 6 of the 8 books I wanted, and the last two are on their way!

~*~

This next update is perhaps less thrilling, but it is funny.

Last week I was doing my batch cooking today for the week ahead. I did a breakfast burrito recipe I love, but I tend to measure with the heart rather than have set amounts. After I made the filling I took a break and only started portioning them up later in the evening.

Turns out I made 22 burritos

It probably doesn’t help that this is literally what my recipe looks like. Maybe I should put amounts in future…

I don’t really need instructions on how to make it, I know how to make, I just struggle to remember what goes in it

I mean it tastes great. It may genuinely last me a month but it tastes great.

~*~

Now, rent & housing.

I still haven’t found a place that I could buy. There just isnt much available in my price range. I know people who currently own would dread a house price crash but I’m sure i’m not the only first time buyer kind of hoping for a little dip….

In October my rent is going up by £40 per month. Given that my rent is inclusive of bills, I can’t fault that really. Could be worse. Speaking of worse! The lead tenant has told me that he’s moving out in January, so I need to find a new place by then. Part of me is pondering taking over the tenancy, but then if I can’t find housemates, the entire rent & bills is on me. I haven’t been able to think about it too much because I’ve been so consumed with job stuff.

~*~

Speaking of job stuff!

A recruiter spotted my CV on a job site and took me on. As I understand it, the recruiter works for a bunch of companies, the companies are his client, they ask him to find people who meet X criteria, and I am, essentially, the product lol. But I am apparently a saleable product so thats nice.

He first contacted me on 1st August, and today I got a contract for an Office Admin at Pensions firm!!!! I probably can’t say more than “pension firm” without accidentally doxxing myself.

But I am so excited!!!!

It is a slight raise – about 2.5k to base salary, obviously at my current (old?) job I did get keyholder pay and overtime too, and with cost of living doing what its doing, it probably wont feel like much… but the emotional benefits will be worth it. I just feel stuck at my current place.

Next month I need to buy an office wardrobe, as currently I’m supplied with a uniform. My new role will start on 3rd October.

~*~

Oh, and also my bus fare is increasing by £5 per month from next month. There wasn’t really a casual place to slip that in haha.

daintydaisy

Huge congrats on landing the new job!! A raise is better than nothing, no matter how small it may be! & a new role means new progression routes too. Sounds like a difficult decision to make re: the flatmate situ. Hopefully you can work something out soon - there is an app called SpareRoom that may be of use to you if you're looking to find tenants. One of my friends used it when she was homeless so I can vouch for its reliability. 

Hopefully your laptop gets fixed too, technology is great when it decides to work... 

Lol @ the burritos. At least it will save you time making breakfast in the morning. My SO loves a breakfast wrap. Not sure if you have ever tried turkey bacon but he swears by it and it's not as bad for you as normal bacon  

I just re downloaded Sims 4 the other day. Can't decide whether to purchase some expansion packs or just play the base game - do you have any favourites? I've heard rumours about Sims 5 coming (possibly) next year and wondering if its worth spending money on a game just for a new version to come out. 

Mx_Emmin

daintydaisy said:

Huge congrats on landing the new job!! A raise is better than nothing, no matter how small it may be! & a new role means new progression routes too.  

Thank so much! I'm so excited!  

daintydaisy said:

Sounds like a difficult decision to make re: the flatmate situ. Hopefully you can work something out soon - there is an app called SpareRoom that may be of use to you if you're looking to find tenants. One of my friends used it when she was homeless so I can vouch for its reliability. 

I've used Spareroom a lot before, I'm most likely going to be using it again this time around 
 

daintydaisy said:

Lol @ the burritos. At least it will save you time making breakfast in the morning. My SO loves a breakfast wrap. Not sure if you have ever tried turkey bacon but he swears by it and it's not as bad for you as normal bacon  

I'm vegan personally but maybe I should put This Isnt bacon into one some time... ironically these are actually primarily for lunches, not breakfasts, I just call them breakfast because of the scrambled tofu & sausages 

daintydaisy said:

I just re downloaded Sims 4 the other day. Can't decide whether to purchase some expansion packs or just play the base game - do you have any favourites? I've heard rumours about Sims 5 coming (possibly) next year and wondering if its worth spending money on a game just for a new version to come out. 

My favourite is whichever one I most recently bought haha 😅 
 
I'm not sure about next year, though - they're getting too much money from TS4. There'd be more a gradual wind down, in my opinion, and teasers and Easter eggs of TS5. I'm pretty sure in TS2 they added posters to the game of the plumbob, with a description talking about great things to come, etc...

Mx_Emmin

Good News: my brother has fixed my laptop, it will hopefully arrive back with me Tuesday or Wednesday, I may have time for **one** sims day before my annual leave is finished

 

Bad News: the laptop is older than I thought (I did get it 2nd hand) so it may just be reaching the end of its lifespan

 

Good News: I have a "Next Laptop" fund

 

Bad News: I was hoping to raid the Next Laptop Fund for a house deposit 

 

Bad News That Makes The Previous Bad News Less Bad: there's no houses out there in my price range anyway

Mx_Emmin

Laptop on it’s way back to me, but Royal Mail are on strike today **muffled scream into pillow** here’s hoping it comes today…

I am autistic and forcibly cut off from my hyperfixation. I’m just going to be refreshing the royal mail tracker all day it seems.

The website says
We will deliver as many Special Delivery and Tracked24 parcels as possible
And
We will not be delivering letters (with the exception of Special Delivery)

And my laptop is Royal Mail Special Delivery, under normal circumstances Guaranteed by 1pm

So…. maybe I get it today? Probably not, but maybe?

Once I get the laptop I need to figure out how much data I’ve lost

I’m back to work on Friday, I really wanted to get some solid simming in before then

Lets distract ourselves with some (not so pretty) numbers instead

~*~

On 31st August 2022:

My Bank Accounts Net Worth was £13,645.20

£1,605.53 was in my “Next Month Income” category

£3,132.53 was in my “Emergency Fund” category

£2,815.13 was my H2B ISA (House deposit, though I’ve got a secondary category I’m trying to save a little more for the house deposit in by the end of the year)

£1000 was in my “Next Move” category

£846.45 was in my “Gym” category, waiting to see is I can get any help with that and move this money elsewhere

£836.57 was in my “Next Laptop” category (spent some of it on laptop repairs this month)

£750.01 was in my “Next Phone” category

£500 was in my “Canal Boat” category

And then the rest is in smaller categories

Banking Net Worth August 2022

My Investing & Pension Net Worth is £13,881.14

£13,324.17 of that is in my work pension, to which I am currently (since my March Paycheque) contributing 8% and my employer is contributing 12.5%

£453.30 is in my bank’s Investment service, I put £25 a month in there and some fund managers do hopefully smart things with it. It’s telling me that over time my investment through them has gone up in value by £3.61

£72.30 is in my Freetrade Account, where I like to pretend I know how to day trade. I dont contribute to this on a regular schedule, but so far I’ve put £71 in it so technically I’m making a profit.

£11.29 is in my Paypal Crypto account, where I like to pretend I know how Bitcoin works. I dont contribute to this on a regular schedule, but so far I’ve put £20 in so I am making a loss at this point.

£20.08 is in a Crowdcube account. This doesn’t seem to change in value so I think it was more of a GoFundMe rather than an Investment.

I haven’t had been tracking data long to do much of a graph for Investment Net Worth, but here we are

Investment Net Worth August 2022

~*~

I think part of what may have broken the laptop is putting it into an unsuitable bag. The issue was largely software, but apparently if the battery gets jiggled wrong it can cause this issue? And right before it started acting up I was trying to get it into bag sliiiightly too small…. I’m debating whether to try fix my old laptop bag or just buy a new one. I was very excited for my old bag when I bought it, but the metal buckle broke. I’m told I can buy new buckles but I don’t have the tools to attach it properly. Plus I need some sort of leather cleaner as its been at the back of a cupboard for about a year. 

~*~

I’m going to experiment with shopping with Asda and having it delivered, rather than going Aldi. Part of me feels outrageously lazy for doing that – but maybe it’ll stop impulse buys from the Specialbuys section? But also less access to discounted products… worth an experiment I think.

Mx_Emmin

Good news! My laptop arrived!

Now to reinstall Sims… normally I only download one sims pack at a time, as I buy them, and I hadn’t given any thought to how long it would take to download 29 packs plus the base game… and the sad thing is, that’s only like 1/3 of the packs available to buy, they just added up over time.

It’s been an hour and the base game is 51% installed.

~*~

In terms of budgeting for the month, I’ve put extra money into clothes so I can buy some office wardrobe (£50 instead of the usual £25)

I didn’t put any funds in Charity or RPG Night, I did have £15.26 spare because of it but I’ve put that in “holding category” in case I do decide to buy a new laptop bag after all (I had this one in mind)

~*~

My next life challenge will be to find a new place to stay before January. Spareroom my old friend…

~*~

Also, a few months back one of my prescriptions got adjust, but the GP still hasn’t corrected the prescription so the pharmacy still isn’t giving me enough meds for the month. Despite me asking them twice to fix it.

I have called and emailed (to have it in writing) and they’ve replied saying they’ll pass the message onto the doctor, but they said that last time too.

Humdinger1

@Mx_Emmin all sounding good! Your net worth and ability to track it are impressive onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Mx_Emmin

Humdinger1 said:

@Mx_Emmin all sounding good! Your net worth and ability to track it are impressive onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Thank you so much!

Mx_Emmin

My meals for this week are Orange Mac & Cheese and paella. I call it Orange Mac & Cheese because I stir pureed carrots and sweet peppers into the sauce.

I’m very excited for the Mac & Cheese, I dont always let myself have it as often as I want because I cant shake the idea that its unhealthy, blending veg into the sauce helps a lot.

I mentioned before that I’m experimenting with shopping at Asda and having it delivered instead of physically going to Aldi.

I’m hoping that I’ll be less likely to impulse spend. Potentially there might also be a cooling off period for most ideas, a lot of people try to make themselves wait a day or a week when online shopping, to test if they truly want it, I’m hoping the same will apply here.

The downside of this experiment is paying for delivery, and not being able to pick my own substitutions

~*~

I think a task for October will be to review my bank & savings accounts set up. It’s long overdue, and when I stop working for my bank I will lose some benefits that come (but they’re not substantial). I’ll probably end up with less in my current account, and more in savings account, but I need to find a decent instant access savings account. Those exist, right? Those totally exist :P

~*~

But mostly this week I’ve been playing a lot of Sims, since getting my laptop back. I’ve been trying to get minecraft installed as well but it keep crashing for some reason.

~*~

I need to sort out a proper laptop bag. I think the reason my laptop broke before was because I was trying to cram it into a too-small bag, my brother mentioned sometimes the battery disconneting wrong or being jiggled can cause the type of error I had.

I can either fix my old laptop bag, or get a new one. I know it would be better envriomentally speaking to fix the old one, but I think I might try get a new one. The old one isnt very ergonomic, its more pretty, but messenger bags are terrible for my back.

And I’m not saying I’ll never fix it, just not right now

I think.

This is the broken bag, just remembering how much I spent on it haha, so I do want to fix it at some point, but the one shoulder strap isnt great for my back

This is the bag I’m looking at getting instead

I noticed I have put £30 in my online shopping category, but i dont remember why, I thought I put all my laptop bag funds in a different category…. but if I dont remember, hopefully it wasn’t important

Something is just making me hesitate, but I can’t put my finger on what. I’ll wait a week and then I’ll order it.

~*~

I finally had a text from Dr to resolve my prescription. They were saying to take five a day, but then giving me 112 a month. Which obviously doesnt divde by 5. They sent me 10 more to cover this month, so now I have 132? But they’ve also adjusted my monthly amount so I’ll take it.