£15,000 to 0

Silver_Queen · 29 June 2017 at 9:43AM

Well, today's another day. Checking in now and having some chilled out time for about 10 mins this morning because I know today will be obscenely busy.

Didn't bring lunch today because I fell asleep at like....8pm last night and didn't have the chance to make it.

The other half has gone back off to Never Neverland aka the wasteland that is the midlands :rotfl: I'm sure someone will come and slap my wrists for that comment shortly :rotfl:

Budget should be done this evening. So far I've spent £40 out of my pay, which was petrol money.

Thinking of revisiting my 10-year plan finances wise. The initial plan was to save around £400 per month for the next 7 years until I'm 30, so I'm set up with a deposit to buy a house. Boyfriend and I are apparently both dreamers, and have decided we want to actually go on an epic America road trip which we have both always and forever wanted to do. This will be expensive. I'm not sure whether it should wait until after we're financially secure and have a house etc etc or just do it whilst we're young and don't have kids to worry about. He should finish his qualification at around the same time as I qualify in about two years so it would be great to go then, but I refuse to have such a big blowout unless I've paid off all my debt.

So basically, the jist of that long rant is that I need to pay off my debt ASAP!

Silver_Queen · 29 June 2017 at 9:46AM

Forgot to mention...one of my colleagues who is a good 3-4 dress sizes smaller than me accidentally bought an item of clothing that was too big for her so she gave it to me. It's lovely, and I was like

:D:D

And then I quietly ooked the item up...turns out it's designer and the price made me go :eek::(::(:eek::eek::eek::eek:

I feel guilty for taking it now, and slightly baffled as to how the other half live...

natsplatnat · 29 June 2017 at 10:21AM

Silver_Queen wrote: »

And then I quietly ooked the item up...turns out it's designer and the price made me go :eek::(::(:eek::eek::eek::eek: QUOTE]

Is it possible it came from somewhere like TKM4xx?

EssexHebridean · 29 June 2017 at 11:48AM

On the basis that you love the item and it was clearly given for the right reasons Silver I'd be inclined to try to put the :eek: feelings aside and maybe just buy her a small bunch of flowers or something as a thank you? As Nat says it could be that it was bought at a discount in any case, as otherwise I would imagine she would have taken/sent it back for a refund?

Silver_Queen · 2 July 2017 at 12:41PM

Thanks both. Her last day was Friday and we went out for a meal so that was nice. I would like to believe that the skirt was heavily discounted but she comes from an awful lot of money (owns a flat in Soho etc) so I suspect it's just a case of it being too much effort for her to return it, and she may as well gift it to a friend. I appreciate it, anyway.

It's the weekend again! I love the weekend. I like my work but I like lazing about too, haha.

First weekend of the month, when I feel particularly flush. I have noticed I have two main times of the month where I spend the most money - 1. just after I get paid, for obvious reasons and 2. the third week of the month where I start feeling hard done by and just end up splashing the cash. This is something I need to work on.

My overdraft has NOT been reduced, surprise surprise. I have moved the money over just in case, anyway.

My aim for July is to have the remaining £1k for my overdraft saved up in my 5% account. I've decided I will not pay it early but will instead keep it in my high interest yielding account.

My weight loss goal really is not going well! I need to get off my lazy !!!! and actually do some stuff rather than yapping about it on the internet.

Silver_Queen · 3 July 2017 at 10:18AM

Today I feel like a puppy who should be forced to wear a cone of shame.

The amount of spending I did at the weekend. The shame. The shame.

My train ticket was £55 less than anticipated because for June's trains were so delayed and rubbish that they had to give us void days to discount this month's fare.

This would have been excellent, but then I went and bought some work clothes for £150. I do need new work clothes since I'm still wearing the same things every day that I bought five years ago, but did I really need a designer dress, even if it was on sale? Hmmm. Well we will see whether I like it enough to justify it, once it arrives.

The Clarks shoes that I bought in the sale arrived, and none of them fit! They will have to go straight back. Do I have the world's weirdest shaped feet? I suspect I will never find new work shoes.

Had a very sociable weekend and went out three times, which was nice but also meant that I spent about £60 over the weekend for socialising. The sad thing is, this is already drastically reduced from how much I would have spent a couple of years ago! The killer was the bus fare - I walked the three miles into town but had to take a bus back because I needed to be home by 5pm and ended up nattering for so long that I didn't leave town until 4.45. It cost me £5!!! FOR A SINGLE!! I was scandalised.

Now time to nurse my poor bank balance and do some proper budgeting for the month.

Silver_Queen · 11 July 2017 at 2:13PM

Quick life update :j

Natwest: -£913 (£1087 available)
Amex: -£167 (expecting refunds of £93 (paid and waiting for it to show up) and £84 (not yet processed) which will bring it to a positive balance)
Nationwide: £800
Help to Buy: £401

Parental loan: £12,750

So my debt stands at approximately £13,750.

Waiting for £14 from PA and £5.50 from WeBuyBooks.

I think it may be a good idea for me to stop using my student account with the overdraft and instead use a different current account. I have got another current account but I have no idea where the card is (in one of my drawers probably) and I don't know the PIN. Ho hum.

EssexHebridean · 12 July 2017 at 11:39AM

Silver_Queen wrote: »

Quick life update :j

Natwest: -£913 (£1087 available) Now I'm going to slap your wrists for this - you do NOT have £1087 available - you OWE £913 -
tsk!
Amex: -£167 (expecting refunds of £93 (paid and waiting for it to show up) and £84 (not yet processed) which will bring it to a positive balance)
Nationwide: £800
Help to Buy: £401

Parental loan: £12,750

So my debt stands at approximately £13,750.

Waiting for £14 from PA and £5.50 from WeBuyBooks.

I think it may be a good idea for me to stop using my student account with the overdraft and instead use a different current account. I have got another current account but I have no idea where the card is (in one of my drawers probably) and I don't know the PIN. Ho hum.

Yep - I totally agree. having that overdraft there it's easy for your thinking to get skewed to "I have that money available to spend" rather than "eek - I owe x amount" and that isn't always helpful. While the OD may be free of charges or interest the issue with overdrafts is that of course they CAN be pulled at any time which does give a degree of instability.

What about your Flexdirect account - can you not use that as your current account rather than just for savings? You'd just need to keep track of how much you have saved in there and set that as your own personal "zero" - mine is outside the first year now but I keep a £100 float to avoid the risk of it going overdrawn if something gets forgotten - but whatever the balance is I just remember to subtract £100 from that.

Doh - typing that has just made me think. why on earth have I got a lump of savings elsewhere earning less interest when my flexdirect even now pays 1%? I need to be kicked - I also need to log in to the banking and sort that out. Silly moo!

Silver_Queen · 30 July 2017 at 9:25PM

Making an appearance again after a month of largely just lurking. Debt busting is still going OK but as usual, I could be doing better. Got to about the 23rd of this month having loads of money left over and feeling smug, but then went on a short break with the boyfriend and we managed to absolutely burn through our money. Slap on wrist again but this seems to be a recurring weakness of mine

Round-up of debts and accounts:

Student overdraft: - £918.16 (£1,032.47 available) ***
Parental loan: £12,750 owing
Nationwide: £1,800
Help to Buy: £401
Amex: £0 but about £32 waiting to clear on it.

**** EH, I know you will have words about this! But I say available to make it clear what the true balance is in the account because sometimes I have transactions pending that don't show up in the "current balance" but do show up in the "available balance". For example....

Also purchased some work clothes (common theme!) but yet again they don't suit so I should be getting £35 back into my account.

Now is my "rich time", just after I've been paid but before anything gets paid out. I do try to allocate it ASAP so I don't get into the mindset that I have loads of money when I don't.

Weight-wise, our short holiday has done me NO favours. Getting back onto the wagon though.

EssexHebridean · 31 July 2017 at 3:52PM

:rotfl::rotfl:

Well as long as you know what that wording really means, that's fine!

If you had a lovely time on your short break and didn't get yourself into further debt to cover the costs then I'd call that a bit of a win.

:T

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