My New Toy and a Sweet Little Boy

I don't often show things I've bought whilst charity shopping (once, if I remember right) and this sweet little boy wasn't from a charity shop anyway, but from the car boot nirvana we in So'ton call Allington Lane. Cost - 50p.

He's about 6" high and is moulded all the way round...didn't photograph the back though, sorry. There's no maker's mark, it just says 'Foreign' underneath and he's hollow but I'm not sure what you would put inside to be completely honest. Flowers probably, but I think that'd look a bit odd personally. Maybe the remains of a tin of beans in the fridge like in the Heinz advert.  The painting of his skin is really delicate but with time his lips and inner eyes have chipped and almost come off...it wouldn't be too hard to repair with a bit of....mmm, probably enamel paint I'd say. Like boys painted their Stukas with back in the day.

Totally remedy-able worn-off pupils. 

How old are we thinking he might be? I'm saying 50s. Might he have cost 10/- new?

My new toy is something I've been after for a little while and is a useful tool (or so I told Big Man when he said 'don't start getting obsessive about this now!'). It's an OWL electricity monitor. I kept looking on eBay for one but got outbid a couple times; however driving to Wales we were listening to a talk-in about power price rises and someone was saying they had a monitor, which put the idea back in my head. Prices on eBay for BIN are generally anything up to £35 so when someone put this one on at £5 I pounced!!!

If you don't know what these little yokes do, you attach one part of it to the cable between your fuse box and electricity meter and it wirelessly sends data to this bit of the equipment - this shows either how much electricity you are using or what value you are using, depending what you want to see. Obviously you need to put in the price per kilowatt hour. I think it's going to give a very good 'rough' figure but because we have three different prices on our tariff I had to use an average so it won't be exact. In about 24 hours we used £2.25 (ish) worth of electricity. Hopefully it will show us what uses the most electricity, though I'm pretty sure it would be the tumble dryer, were I using it. The kids need training...this morning when I got up at 10:15 I discovered that Mr Charming's bedroom light had been left on since he and Big Man went out at 6:00. Smack hand Mr Charming!!!!

February SitRep

Well, I know we're nearly half way through March but, better late than never!

Again I am a happy bunny - we have brought our debts down by £1969.67 in February and I am feeling extremely proud of myself. We managed to pay a whopping £930 off of one of Big Man's credit cards, mainly by using what we would have paid on council tax (if it was April - January) and other bits of additional income (including just under £300 on mystery shopping). February was the first month where I was back on my full-time (to me) wages so I had half as much again. We paid off a house phone bill and a business one that we don't use any more and have now closed. The best news is that, since the start of the year we have reduced our debts by £3530.45. Isn't that great???!!!!

On the minus side we are now going to be laying out an extra £75 a month to pay off a £1500 fine from Companies House for late filing of our accounts. Although it's technically a business debt our business is hibernating for now and because we don't want to wind it up we have to pay this fine somehow. We are also paying out £100 a month to cover a personal guarantee from another business we had that failed. And will be paying for a very long time unless we win the Lotto. We have also had to up our electricity payment to £175 a month from £135 to pay off a big bill caused by EDF not reading our meter properly (and my not reading it myself, apparently). Oh dear, I'm making myself quite depressed now!! It looks almost unsurmountable. But it isn't.

I am expecting to be able to bring in quite a bit of additional income from the end of this month, through April and into May with my Census Collecting job and also the poll clerking I am doing on 5 May. My hope is to make £300 on eBay too in March. I am going to be a busy little bee!!!

Not So Lazy Sunday

I usually blog at night but I've got such a lot to do today that I'm grabbing a few minutes whilst Big Man and Carb Addict are on one of their jollies to B&Q and before I make lunch. Washing, changing beds, wrapping parcels, e-learning for the Census Job, photographing items for eBay (free listing today!), making dinner, finishing a lemon meringue pie for pudding tonight, updating my financial spreadsheet, maybe ironing (but only if there's no avoiding it!)....phew!!!! I've just had a week off work and I've achieved nothing as far as I can see. It's funny but I seem to get more done when I only have a limited amount of time to do it in. Let's see if that's the case today!! I'll let you know tomorrow what I actually get through.

Here's to a good week ahead xx

January SitRep

Well, one of the main reasons I started this blog was because I'd been so inspired by other frugality blogs that I thought it might help me. And also because I like to write and share things that happen, but that's by-the-by. At the end of my first month of frugal living I want to share how we've got on.

The great news is that we have paid off £1403.86 in January! I am really made up about it. It was a combination of spending more wisely and income maximisation. I made just under £250 through eBaying; an extra £386 through mystery shopping; and as a result of car scrappage and a water rebate we got an additional £329. A couple of things have been paid off altogether - a small overdraft I had on an account, which I then closed; and a business phone line bill...we are getting rid of the line.

Not so good. I budgeted £200 for food for the month to cover me, Big Man, Carb Addict at weekends and Otto our cat. I also had Red and Mr Charming for the first bit of the month. The food came to £259.26 so 25% over what I'd planned. I did menu plan each week and stuck to it but it doesn't help that Big Man buys things he fancies for his lunch that are not budgeted for - Dairylea Cheese Spread..pate..tubs of sandwich filler...cream cakes. I have been including those costs in to the overall spends but I'm wondering whether I should leave them out. He pays from his own money so....hmmm. What does anyone else think?

Overall I am a happy bunny today. The only thing is that now I start to get a feeling that isn't altogether helpful...a feeling like 'oh, we've paid things off now I can be a bit less strict'. I always do that. On diets I'm the same. I've got to be really strong and stay motivated.

You will all help me, won't you?

I ♥ U TK Maxx

If there's one shop that can tempt me out of my self-imposed shopping ban it's TK Maxx. I've already explained here about my proclivity to spend on multiples of items and my obsessions with things - sports gear (which has now almost all been sold on eBay - update coming tomorrow); shoes; photo frames; and handbags all are, or have been 'must-haves' in the past. And there is nowhere I like better to buy them than TK Maxx. We're lucky to have a very big branch spread over three storeys in the city where I live.

I was in the city last week doing a mystery shopping job and just couldn't help having a quick skeg at the sale. Oh, the jewel-coloured handbags! Red, all shades of blue, shiny patent leather, animal skins and that delicious real leather smell!

But I have so many handbags that even I know that I shouldn't buy any more. All my favourites have come from TK Maxx - the one I love most of all is lime green woven leather and cost me £100. As you can imagine I get a lot of use out of that one. The handbag gene continues in Red. At 15 she used her birthday money to buy a £100 Betsey Johnson bag from TK Maxx and now it's thrown in her room, unused and unloved.

I also adore photo frames...we have a very big hall, stairs and landing that is covered with family photos. All family life is there, and many generations too. I use Photoshop a lot to repair old photos that have been ripped or faded and it's great to have those memories 'as new'. A lot of my frames come from eBay but just as many are from...yup, you guessed it, TK Maxx. There were some really pretty ones there but I resisted.

What I didn't do was resist temptation entirely...but I did only spend £3 - an absolute miracle for me. I bought a sweet cow money box that displays how much you've put in. Big Man bought me one a couple Christmases ago but as a result of putting coins in the slot too quickly it stopped adding up. I save copper in a cat, fivepenny bits in a fish and now twenty pences in the cow. I also bought a tin of numerals for cutting out pastry or moulding icing. A steal at 30p I thought, but when I got home I realised that 7,8 and 9 are missing. I'll have to work round that ;P! Then for 70p I bought a pack of 12 lacy cupcake wrappers. Red is 21 next Saturday so I shall wrap the homemade cupcakes that'll have 21 on top, cut with my numerals. Not bad eh? My TK Maxx addiction temporarily sated in a way both cheap AND useful.

Might there be hope for me yet?



Where I Confess That I Don't Know When To Stop

One of the reasons I started blogging was to have a record of my money-saving / debt-paying journey. It didn't surprise me but it did sadden me when I finally wrote down exactly how much Big Man and I owe. £44,500. A big chunk of it is a personal guarantee Big Man gave when he started a business...the business went bust last year with an overdraft of £17000+ which, with interest is now £18600 and which Big Man is personally liable for. We also have credit card debts that arose when we were trying to keep the business afloat. Although they're in Big Man's name alone I wouldn't be much of a person if I stood by and watched him fall so this year (and I suspect many years to come) is all about income streams. With this in mind I have started eBaying again but this time selling, not buying. Looking for things to sell illustrated how I got to this state...very little money to spare, some months living a real hand-to-mouth existence and always trying to hide how hard-up we really are. Here's just one example of my folly.

A couple of years ago I started running and naturally bought some running shoes and some running tights. And more running tights. Name brand exercise gear. T-shirts just for the gym. Heart rate monitor. Exercise ball. DVDs. Yoga mat and blocks. Hand weights. More running tights. More exercise gear. Do you see the buying habits of an addictive personality emerging? Having read on MSE that January is a good time to sell exercise equipment I decided to look out anything sport-related that I might be able to sell. I found about 25 items of exercise clothing ALONE, half of which are still complete with labels, the rest of which have been worn a couple of times and are in pristine condition. This is what I always do...I get a new hobby or interest and go totally over the top, buying anything and everything that's remotely relevant. And I come from a family of people who do the exact same thing. Then we find a new hobby and all the 'old' stuff is discarded. I no longer run.

Of course I'm going to eBay the exercise gear but what was I thinking of, buying more and more stuff in the first place? I think a kind of mania can come over some people, I'm one for sure, where you just don't know when to stop. If you're looking on eBay (my biggest downfall) and you see things that only cost a few quid it's so easy to buy 3 or 4 or 5 items without factoring in the postage. You just think of the thrill of getting a parcel. And then put it in the cupboard and forget it.

This is going to be the year when all that stops. I have to change my ways because the last thing I want is to still be living like this when I'm 50, 60, 70. I know it's going to take longer than 365 days but every journey starts with a single step (or something like that). Writing this stuff down is my first step.

" My name's Keshling and I'm an addict....."

"The (wo)man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones"

-William Faulkner



Double Yolk Day

Today, for the first time in over 30 years of cooking meals, I broke open a double yolk egg. And do you know what, I was inordinately made up about it! That wasn't the only good thing that happened today either - I have six listings on eBay and three have bids. Now I've got to be honest here and say that two bids stand at 99p each and one is £1.25....and that the three items together initially cost me £3.98. So technically I'm not in profit yet - there are watchers though so I am ever hopeful. The third good thing is that Big Man finally seems to be warming to the idea of frugality. I have told him that there will be an amount (one that I think is pretty large) for wine in the budget. The problem has been that until now Big Man like me has wanted to be debt-free. Unlike me he hasn't been willing to give anything up. I am hoping that this is going to change from now on. It's not going to be easy but if we're doing it together it might not be quite so hard.