For Heaven's Sakes....!

How annoying is this? I've sold a book on Amazon for £12.50 and I can't bloody well find it. Why is everything so disorganised? I'm almost driven to join one of these de-cluttering challenges that are flying round blogland. But not quite.

Going to bed now to try to dream where I put it. Like that's going to happen...

BTW, thanks for your good wishes for Red everyone. She recovered sufficiently to go to Chiquitos this evening with a friend but I'm still planning to get her an appointment with the doc to check the heartbeat out.

Everybody's Doing It (Pt 2) And A Year-End SitRep

Yesterday I went through my personal goals for 2012 (*and still managed to miss one off!). I also said that I'd give a year-end sitrep so everyone can see what I've managed to pull off in twelve months. I'm only going to do a quick and dirty post because it's freeeezing in this house, and because I want to get into my onesie and watch a film. Something loud and childish.....I'm thinking maybe Transformers 2. Anyhow, at the start of the new year -

- I'm a happy bunny. We reduced our overall debt by £9,387.83 and whilst I'd hoped it would be £12,000 (and we haven't progressed much at all from the end of June) it represents a real achievement for us. We still managed to go on our lovely holiday, which was partly paid for by Big Man's tax refund, and we've stayed reasonably warm and haven't gone hungry. I'm willing to be more strict with myself but I've come to realise that Big Man has his limits (one of which is refusing to eat the same meal two days in a row, making leftovers an unviable option most of the time) and does like his little extras, such as wine and the odd takeaway. Food is an area where we had epic fails every month. I made menu plans and shopped at Lidl all through the year but either we have expensive tastes (don't really think so) or I'm too extravagant in my menus. I budgeted on average £250 per month for all shopping, including Otto's food, and missed it every time. It didn't help that various kids kept coming home for weeks at a time and then permanently, and expected to be fed! I can't complain about that though ;P. Radical rethink needed.

Fab pic from here

My spreadsheet has been very useful in showing me where we are spending frivolously; I think nearly £300 on takeaways and eating out in a year is mighty high but Big Man thinks it's a piddling amount; I have spent over £140 on vitamins and medication that could've been avoided if I put my repeat prescription in on time (a personal goal for 2012); and so on. It's food for thought.

I have come up with a few financial goals but I feel sure that I'll add to the list. I hope they'll help me to shape up!

1. Remember to take my coupons with me whenever I go shopping. I have a special wallet for money-off tokens and I MUST keep it in my bag at all times! I opened an old letter today from Tesco to Red that had two coupons for double points, valid up to January 1. Big Man paid £300 for a new TV from Tesco on New Year's Day and although he used my Club Card I'll only get £300-worth of points instead of the £600-worth I could've had if we'd opened the letter in a timely manner. Scowl.

Nifty little coupon wallet. Handy, and only a chazzed 99p!

2. We paid £333.61 in bank charges last year through our (for 'our' read 'my', since I seem to have ended up in charge) stupidity and lack of attention. I absolutely refuse to pay any bank charges this year. I will be hyper-vigilant!!

3. Paring the expenses alone is useless - I will have to make additional money in any way I can. I want to make £100 a month on eBay; the money will be handy PLUS I will be able to declutter my 'stock'.

4. Pay for everything I can through Quidco. One of my jobs today was to arrange pet insurance for Otto - he's 8 but still quite a rascal so I think it's a good idea. I compared quotes on Compare the Market, found a policy that seemed right then checked on Quidco for cashback offers. The policy is £9.04 a month (£108 the year) but I get £40 cashback, bringing the cost down to £68. Incidentally, it's costing as much to insure Otto, a basic moggie, as it does to insure me. Something wrong there, surely?

5. Go through all our expenses and direct debits with a fine tooth comb to see if I can't bring the total down even more. I pay £6.99 for phone insurance and I plan to call our contents insurer to check out the policy on mobiles. If I can save £84 a year, well, why not do it?

6. Keep an eye on MoneySavingExpert.com every day. There are some great tips and offers on there. It's a brilliant place for advice too. Plus advance heads-ups on free cinema previews, another of my personal goals.

7. Continue to ask myself 'is this a want or a need?' before I waste money on things. For example, I've read several blogs whose owners wax lyrical over their mini-ovens, and according to my Lidl newsletter they will be on sale there from Thursday for £29.99. I'd like one, but do I need one? No. So I won't spend £30....I'll use it for something I really need.

There's bound to be other things that I just can't remember right now - extreme cold has that effect on me. Overall I guess I am aiming to keep a tighter rein on the finances whilst trying to throw as much spare cash as I/we can at our debts. Not very interesting, just more of the same. Grind away.

Anybody else gloomy about having to tighten belts even more? Or is this whole recession thing passing you by?

* Another personal goal is to donate blood this year and I have already booked an appointment for Friday this week. I'm O Rh Neg, a 'Universal Donor', so I am really just fulfilling a civic duty (she says in a holier-than-thou way:)). One job under way - go, Keshling, go!!!! 

 

Tonight Matthew, I'm Going To Be The Little Engine That Could

It's going to take all of my mongrel cunning and guile to finish this month solvent.
I got paid on the 8th and because our Working Tax Credits have just been renewed and were (I thought) not being paid until the end of the month, all the direct debits and such came out of my wages, leaving me with nothing to pay into the credit cards when usually we throw a stack of money at them. I can't work out how this has happened. There were a couple of biggish things to pay in the first week of the month - Babcia and Dad's wedding anniversary flowers were nearly £50 and the newspaper Memorial notice for V's first anniversary was over £50, not that I begrudge either in the slightest. And I'm keeping a good check on the food bills too - we're at £263 out of a budgeted £350 (just whilst all the kids are home for the hols, then back down to £200). Anyway, I discovered yesterday that we got our WTC paid on Friday so I used them to pay this month's Council Tax (a mighty £177 which, considering we don't get any rubbish collected, is high by any standards) and paid some money off one of the cards. Now there's no more money again until I get paid on 3 September so it'll be tough.
On the plus side Red is paying me back £50 a week from her portering job that will cover the money I've had to lay out for her in the never-ending rent saga. Yes, that's still creaking on. I'm waiting on £53 in expenses from work and have another £30 or so to put in. I did a mystery shopping job yesterday for a whole £7 (yay!!!). I have a little bit of money in my ING account but that's really for Christmas. I have just over £22 in 20p pieces in my calculating cow AND between us we have £5.50 in Tesco vouchers. Oh, and I have about £45 in my Paypal account and made £10 in eBay sales this week but one of the things I sold was given to me by Babcia and even though she won't expect it, I'm giving her the money from the sale...she needs it just as much as I do. Am I going to make it? Let's just say I'm going to make like The Little Engine That Could.....I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.......

Actually, this is slightly creepy.....:S

Now, I have a dilemma. You remember that some of Red's rent money was taken by the housemate who was responsible for paying it to the landlord on behalf of all the housemates? And that I paid, as guarantor, £680 which Red is portering to pay back? Did I also say that on the last day before they were evicted, whilst I was helping Red scour out the kitchen, the landlord rang and said that he'd discovered there was a further month when the rent hadn't been paid....another £340 each outstanding? In a nutshell the landlord is saying that the deposits (£680 each) are now in arbitration because Red owes the 'missing month' and the rent thief owes...well, who knows what she's paid. The other three housemates' parents have already paid everything for them, no questions asked. My dilemma is, do I pay out ANOTHER £340 (see above, where do I get it from?) making it a total of £1360 I'll have had to find, and hope that we get the whole of the deposits back? Or not pay it, write off the deposit and still have my £340, bearing in mind that the five sets of parents were joint guarantors, ie we are responsible together for whoever doesn't pay. Even if I do pay, the landlord could say that, since there is rent outstanding from the thief, we can't have the deposits back anyway without covering HER share. I wouldn't put it past the landlord to make up some reason to keep the deposits anyway, since I assumed deposits were for damages, not rent arrears. He has never proved, to my satisfaction anyway, that the money wasn't paid, although with everything I hear about this girl I can quite believe it. But to ring up on the last day of the tenancy and say that he'd just discovered that rent from the previous November hadn't been paid (this was July) just stinks to me. Plus he is threatening to sue the guarantors jointly which is not good as I am the one out of Big Man and I with a good credit rating. Anybody got any ideas because it's driving me crazy. I am so thoroughly pissed off with the whole episode and Big Man is no help at all. 'Sue him!' 'Sue her!' 'Don't pay any more!' He wants to load the gun but let me shoot it. Will this ever end? Help!!!!

Finally, since some commenters were envious of my 49p toilet roll dolls, here they are in all their glory.

I ♥ toilet roll dolls :)