Freebie alert

Free sample of Herbal Essences "new magical range" at http://new.herbalessences.co.uk/.

As an aside, it always makes me chuckle to see shampoo, cosmetics, laundry products, etc, described as "magical" or "miracle" or "revolutionary".

Still, I'll enjoy using my free 10ml sample to "magically" clean my hair by virtue of, erm, washing it. Ciliciadeduco!

Getting ready for a new year of debt reduction

It's my first day back at work after a fantastic and fairly frugal Christmas. I'm glad I've had 6 days off, as I'm straight back onto a double shift today and another tomorrow! I've driven 812 miles since last Tuesday, but managed to time my top-ups perfectly so as to use my Sainsbury vouchers for all four fill-ups, and my tank this morning should last me for a couple of weeks now. I got almost exactly 10 miles to the litre out of this round of travel, which us about 45mpg - a good result for my engine class.

Unfortunately both S and myself were poorly over Christmas, me with a stinking cough and cold and him with an upset tummy. So we didn't exactly do justice to the food and drink that I'd bought in. This has resulted in some food wastage, but I packed some stuff off with littl'un for him to share with his Dad, and I'm planning to send something to my sis and her husband as well.

S was very pleased with his pressies and I got some lovely books and a DVD and some bath stuff too. I'm so glad we did the £10 maximum spend thing for the adults.

I had a disturbing moment when I realised that my "little boy" now has armpit hair and hairy legs!! and by the next time he comes to stay (Easter) he'll probably be taller than me! Time is slipping through my fingers... it makes me more determined to pay this debt down and have him living with me full time!

So: I don't do New Year resolutions, but I have already posted my goals for 2009. I've already made a good start on the selling books front, and have started listing my comics, and have bought some resources to help me get some new products to store (both were on sale, so I took the opportunity.) I feel pretty confident that I can meet and exceed my 2009 goals as long as I remain focussed on the long-term benefit.

My non-financial goal for this year is to start a photo blog detailing a year's walks around Rother Valley Country park. The idea with this being to force me to get out at least once a week for a long walk (long for me. I'm fully aware that more seasoned walkers will think of it as a 2.5 mile stroll!) while having something interesting to show for my time. Plus it's FREE!

To help me stay on track this year, I'll be creating a monthly plan and posting a check at the end of the month on how I did with it.

Merry Christmas

In a few short hours, I'll be setting off to go and pick up S from his Dad's. Can't wait!

I don't think I'm going to have time to go to the bank, so I'll have to leave my extra payment until next week. I wish I could do it online or on the phone, but apparently there's no facility for that, annoyingly.

I've continued with another couple of book sales through Amazon, and getting my comics list online. I've also worked on a couple of reports for my boss, and went to head office yesterday to tick some more items off my development plan, which is all part of my overall drive to achieve that pay increase, my review being due in January. I've got some overtime in, too.

The only thing I've really missed on was making a start on any products for my store. However, with S about to arrive, I would have had to put it all on hold anyway, which really isn't the best as I like to give a project my full attention. So I'll be cracking on with that once I've taken him home next Monday.

Happy holidays and a prosperous new year to everyone on my reading list :)

Been paid

For some reason, we all got paid today instead of on Monday which was when we were told. Oh well. This probably means there'll be humongous amounts of sick calls tomorrow as our young and feckless staff decide to go out on the piss. Grump, grump.

Have paid my overtime wodge into the ISA. Won't have a chance to go to the bank on Monday and pay a wodge off my loan, as my boss has asked me to visit our other site on Monday, so I'll have to see if I can nip up there on Tuesday when I get out of work. It'll probably be heaving, I'll have to remember to take a book to read in the queue...

Good news is that my new colleague has started and he has agreed to work 3 earlies/1 late week, so I can do 3 lates/1 early. I very much favour this as it suits my natural rhythms much more and enables me to get a lot done in the evenings. Rather counter-intuitive I know, but my most productive and creative time tends to be between 9pm and 1am. I'm truly a night owl these days.

OK, off to list some more comics now.

Photo credit: sxc.hu

Christmas budget

Time to lay out my spending for the holidays.

Gifts still to buy: £10 on my Mum's pressie
Everyone else is sorted

Travel: Petrol should be covered by my Sainsburys vouchers. I am expecting to spend about £80 on petrol for the trips to collect S, plus about £20 on a tank fillup afterwards.

Food: All the shopping is done/ordered for the actual meals at home. I'm budgeting £30 for the meals we'll need to eat on the road, including drinks. I could try to economise here and bring sandwiches or whatever, but that's offset by the need to keep energy levels and body temp high on what is a very tiring drive. (The drive down on the evening of the 23rd will be the worst in this regard: I won't be able to keep drinking coffee, because as soon as I get there I'll have to go to bed so as to be up at 5am the next morning. So I'll have to keep myself awake with nuts and chocolate.)

Accommodation: Travelodge cost £19.

Entertainment: This largely depends on the weather. If the weather is fine, then we will likely go for several walks, which obviously costs nothing. If rainy, we may go to the cinema on the Saturday. I'm going to budget £30 for entertainment costs. We will probably spend most of the days watching DVDs, walking, or playing games at home, anyway.

So that's a total budget of £89 for the whole week - well, actually for the rest of the year. I shan't be doing anything for new year, so I don't need to budget for that.

I do have another minor spend due, which is to pick up a few more Xmas decorations, since the existing ones are rather tired. Gonna nip to B&Q on my way home for that, as they have some really nice ones at fair prices. I promised S that I would wait to put up the tree until he comes on Xmas Eve, but I do want to put a few things up... otherwise it doesn't seem very festive :)

*

A good start with the Amazon sales this month: I'm 8 books/DVDs down and £26 up. I've also found a solution for my comics sales: I've installed ZenCart, which is a free shopping cart software, to my web server, and registered a domain name. I've started putting my catalogue online, and then the plan is to drive traffic there through a variety of advertising strategies, primarily free. Later today I'll be making an investment in some software resources which will enable me to push my creating pay up a notch. This latter is especially timely as I have a new colleague starting tomorrow, enabling me to actually go home on time every day, hurray!

I am currently debating how much to pay off my loan this next month. We get paid next Monday (22nd Dec) but then it's a long stretch until January's pay - 5.5 weeks. The thing is, I want to make the payment on the 22nd Jan (payday) - I won't be able to get to the bank until the 29th, otherwise. I've got the bit between my teeth now and I want to start making payments asap!

Image credit: sxc.hu

Finding my why

For me, this debt reduction is always about having my step-son back to live with me again.

When I first split from his Dad, littl'un spent every weekend with me, and as he got older I was looking forward to a time when he'd be able to catch the bus from school, and come and spend the evening with me a couple of days a week as well.

However, his Dad moved to Wales to be with his new partner. And because of the huge distance, and the price of travel, this means I can only see littl'un a few times a year. It's hard, to say the least. We speak on the phone every day, send emails and photos, and so on. It's not the same as being there, though.

When he visited in August, he'd grown taller than my Mum. I hope he hasn't overtaken me yet!

So for the last year or so, the agreed-on plan with my Ex has been that when littl'un turns 15 (which is in July 2010) he will come to live with me, for his last year of secondary school. By this point he will be mature enough (hopefully) to be able to get himself to and from school on time and cope with being on his own for the odd Saturday. I'll be able to use my holiday to cover about half the school year, and he can go to his Dad's for the rest.

Childminders simply aren't an option at his age. When we were first splitting up, I tried everything to keep him with me, but I simply couldn't find any facility for kids of his age. There is a massive gap in the market there, if you ask me: affordable, reliable childcare for kids between 11 and 16.

Anyway, that's the plan. The catch is, I really really want to move to a good area, within the catchment area of a good school, ready for when he comes. Because he has mild learning difficulties, and because his Dad finds it hard to support him educationally, he is already up against the odds. I need him to be in a school that will support him, where he can concentrate on studying hard and getting himself up to speed for his GCSEs. For preference, I also want to hire a private tutor for English and Maths, to give him the best chance of passing those two crucial subjects.

If I am still in debt when he comes to live with me, we're going to end up either staying where we are, or moving to a worse area where he'll end up in a crappy school. The local school is not very good (going by exam results.) I will not be able to afford any extra tutoring. Likely result: he leaves school with no or very few qualifications, and enters a depressed job market where he will find it very difficult to get anything except menial work.

If, however, I've managed to get myself debt-free (or very nearly) then I will be able to afford considerably more rent, and some tuition. Hoped-for result: we live in a nice area, where he makes some good friends, is happy at school and able to concentrate on working hard and improving his levels, and leaves school with enough qualifications to get a better-paid job or onto a NVQ course or apprenticeship.

So that is WHY I am so focused on paying down my debt in a short amount of time.

Xmas Xcess

I decided that last night was to be Xmas Shopping Night. Not that I needed actual presents: I've bought all those online. No, this was for Provisions.

A few years ago, when I was living the lifestyle that got me into debt, my Xmas shopping list looked somewhat like this:
Nuts, crisps, vodka, crisps, beer, crisps, party snacks, whisky, nuts, mince pies, wine, cream, champage, nuts, popcorn, high-grade vodka, 12 bottles cola, 12 bottles lemonade, crisps, wine, nuts, beer, Alka Seltzer.

Last year it looked more like this:
Nuts, wine, vodka, turkey crown, basic veg, gravy, basic crackers.

Last night was just surreal. It was like worshipping at the altar of Mammon. (Going shopping with my Mum is always like this.)

My Mum maintains that she hates Xmas and would just as soon not have it. That's not an option this year since I have littl'un coming.

So this leaves me feeling like I should let her buy anything if it helps her get into the spirit. Especially since she is cooking Xmas dinner, hehe. However, given my Mum's expensive tastes, this makes it, well, expensive.

For example... "Littl'un will need a new duvet cover." Why? We've got duvet covers spilling out of the cupboard! "Yes, but they're all a bit feminine." He won't even notice! It's not like they're pink with flowers! "Oh, we could do with a unisex one anyway..."

She also bought loads of chocolate. I don't begrudge this, because she always shows me diet solidarity and doesn't eat snacky things usually, but bloody hell it's expensive!

I mean, I don't really begrudge her any of it. It's just that I know if it was just me and littl'un for the holidays, I'd have spent less than half of what we did. And if I was really pulling my belt in, I'd probably have spent less than a third.

Still, having those Sainsburys vouchers from work meant that it didn't cost me anything in cash, and still leaves me plenty of vouchers to use on petrol and further shopping.

Speaking of petrol, I've got my plan for the trip to Wales and back when I fetch littl'un (and take him back.) I can't quite get to Wales and back on one tank of petrol, and what with having petrol vouchers, I wanted to only fill up at Sainsburys so I can use those, get Nectar points, and not have to pay the extortionate prices that you tend to get on the motorway service stations.

So I thought, OK, I'll fill up here before I leave, and then fill up again when I get to Cardiff. Only problem is, the Cardiff Sainsburys all shut at 10pm, don't open until 7am. And while I think and hope I will be tucked up in bed in my Travelodge by 9.30pm, considering it's 2 days before Xmas, I can't count on the traffic being in my favour. And the following morning I'll be picking littl'un up around 6am.

So with the aid of the Sainsburys store locator and Google maps, I've decided to break my journey at Worcester to fill up. While this will add 10-15 mins to the journey time, I'll be glad of a break from the motorway by then anyway.

*

Just when I think I've got all my ducks in a row, I do something stupid like leaving my lunch at home - negating the whole bring-my-lunch-in-to-avoid-spending thing. Chalk that one up to insufficient caffeine before leaving home...

Image credit: stockvault.net

Amazon = WIN

Came home from work tonight - thought I may as well make a start and listed 4 DVDs and 2 books on Amazon Marketplace.

Went to eat my tea, came back to the PC and two had sold! £13 on the turntable fund, ka-ching!

Strategy for 2009

So, I've decided on my strategy for achieving next year's goals. Essentially this is pretty much the same as this year's, except with different goals.

1. All my overtime will go into my ISA fund. (This ISA is my Emergency Parachute fund. Otherwise I wouldn't be going against Martin's advice and saving while in debt. I need this buffer zone just in case something expensive and unexpected happens, but also I need it for my own peace of mind.)

2. The entirety of my admin pay and product testing pay every month will go into paying off the Cashback loan.

3. All "creation" pay, plus any income from eBay, Amazon, comics, saving change, etc, will go into the turntable/camera fund.

And... although it's only 8th December today and there are still three weeks until the new year, I'm officially starting on my goals now :)

Image: sxc.hu

Camera and USB turntable

Here are the two big purchases I intend on making next year.



Panasonic - Lumix DMC-TZ5

This camera got 5/5 at PhotographyBlog.com and appears to be the best option for someone like me, i.e. I have a good idea of what I'm doing and how to compose my shots, but not the knowledge (nor the time to acquire it) on exactly what settings to use in each situation.




Similarly, this seems to be the best solution for the non-DJ. Not terribly expensive, not particularly sophisticated, but does what it says on the tin.

So that's the particulars sorted - now I just need to set my strategy of how I'll be saving for these.

Onwards and upwards...

2009 goals and plans

I was inspired by a post over at paidtwice.com to make a list of 12 financial goals for next year. Here they are:
1. Achieve a payrise of at least 5%. I would like to aim for about 10%, but given the current economic climate, I need to be realistic. Achieving this goal will mean making sure I complete not only my assigned duties, but also add value to the team by volunteering for tasks, improving our processes, and taking every opportunity to increase my profile.
2. Reduce my Cashback loan by £5k. I will be aiming to over-achieve on this, strategy to be decided.
3. No unexpected late charges throughout the year. This year I missed a payment on my catalogue due to stupidly forgetting to advise them that I'd moved.
4. Fill up my ISA to the maximum annual limit (£3,600).
5. Find a different way of selling my comics (like, one that doesn't actually cost me money - thankyou eBay for raising your prices, you asses.)
6. Sort through my music collection and then sell the CDs through Amazon. Those that don't sell will be charity-shopped.
7. Sort through my books and list at least 50 on Amazon. If they don't sell, it's the charity shop for them too!
8. Add 5 new products to my online store.
9. Buy a USB turntable.
10. Buy a new digital camera (before holiday in Sept 09.)
11. Start putting my loose change in a tin, to be periodically totalled up and snowflaked off my debt.
12. ...Here is where I ran out of inspiration. Any ideas?

Image: sxc.hu

Major goal achieved!

Thanks to another unexpected windfall, I've just COMPLETELY paid off my Barclaycard!!

I had completely forgotten that I get a Xmas bonus from my online work, which I have just received. $800, thank you very much, which is £542 thanks to the strong dollar. So with my previous windfall PLUS my usual payoff, plus this, I have just cleared the card completely... and I cannot tell you how good it feels! Yeah!

This means I will be able to start paying chunks off my loan pretty much from this month (once the money has transferred from Paypal) which is well ahead of the new year goal I had set myself!

I'm even more pleased that my first impulse has been to snowball it onto the payment, and not to run out and buy something expensive... which is what I would have done this time last year!

Goal achieved!

Thanks to an unexpected windfall of £120 (cashback from when I renegotiated my bank loan last year - I'd forgotten all about it!) I've just topped out my MP3 fund, and ordered my new player. WOO-HOO! and it should be here tomorrow since next-day delivery was free. EVEN MORE WOO-HOO!

I can't wait to get synching! LOL

Since the windfall more than covered the remaining money required for the Mp3 player, I'll be snowflaking the remainder to my credit card. So that's 605.89 to go, plus my tester pay and £250 of my admin pay for this month.

One slight drawback... after the problem with my main bank account last month, it was payroll deadline the day AFTER I discovered the problem, so I advised Payroll to pay my wages into my other account at a different bank. Then as soon as I'd been paid, I did a funds transfer from that account to my new account, but it hasn't shown up on my balance yet, so I'll have to wait until that's complete to pay my credit card. I got a good whack of overtime this month, so I've£605.89 to pay off, great stuff!

Tough going

I've just been advised that I have a new colleague starting the second week of December.

While I've been glad of the unlimited overtime over the last couple of months, I'm definitely feeling the strain now, and I'll be glad to slip back to some semblance of normality.

I'll still have plenty of opportunities to do overtime as and when - after all, we each get 30 days holiday a year, plus there are always trips to other sites, training courses, etc, which require covering.

It's times like this, I'm forcibly reminded that I'm not as young as I used to be, and not in the best of health. Although I have extraordinary reserves of energy, and an ability to process information swiftly and grasp concepts and relationships that far exceed the average, there is a finite limit to that energy and intellectual ability. And the one exponentially affects the other - the less energy I have, not only am I slower to grasp things and complete tasks, but I have less enthusiasm and drive to get things done.

I'm about to take a rare day of leaving at my contracual time, so I'll leave this now, but I'm sure I'll return to this theme.

Flexible benefits = win

As part of my salary from my main job, I get just under £2,200 per year in "flexible benefits". Basically you then choose to take this extra in a bunch of different ways, including things like insurance, pension and childcare vouchers, and (the biggie) shopping vouchers. The choices for vouchers are "Love2Shop" which is a variety of high street stores - Woolies, Wilkos, HMV, etc - or Sainsburys, Asda, M&S or John Lewis/Waitrose.

Alas, no Tesco or Morrisons option.

So I plumped for Sainsburys because a) my Mum likes shopping there and we buy several things there that we can't get elsewhere, b) nectar points, and c) you can use them for petrol.

If I was living on my own, I am confident that my vouchers would cover almost all of my monthly food/household spend. However, since my Mum is a bloody-minded spendthrift who refuses to buy own-brand stuff*, we've retained our Mum-buys-the-monthly-groceries-and-I-pay-for-everything-else agreement. My initial plan was that I'd give Mum the Sainsburys vouchers, and she'd give me the cash; but since qualifying for flexible bens last month, I've been doing so much overtime that we've done all the shopping online.

Therefore, my current plan is to buy ALL of the Xmas shopping with my vouchers, or at least as much as possible. That's presents AND food. I will also be checking out the distribution of Sainsburys petrol stations on my route to pickup littl'un from his dad's at Xmas (it's a round trip of 800 miles so I can't do one leg on one tank; I usually can only get 350 miles out of one tank. My car isn't particularly economical.)

So, if all goes to plan (ha ha) my Xmas spending will be tightly controlled. It's fairly tightly-controlled anyway since we've agreed between me, Mum and my sis that we won't be spending more than a tenner on each others' pressies, but it's buying littl'un's gifts that has previously got me in trouble...

*When and if my Mum eventually moves out in about 2 years' time, I'm going to have to acclimatise myself to own-label stuff again. Kind of annoying since I've already gone through it once. I still buy own-label stuff for myown use as often as I can in the hope that I won't give in to the luxuriousness of quilted toilet roll and whatnot.

Muesli freebie

Free sample of new Jordan's ruity Fibre muesli

I've not enjoyed Jordan's products I've had before, but I'm willing to give it a go...

Robbed!

Whilst doing my regular bank statement check on Wednesday of this week, I noticed a charge to [BANK X] CREDIT CARD. I sat and looked at this for a moment, and then I said to myself, "Hang on, I haven't got a credit card from BANK X - I closed that card ages ago!"

I looked on my previous statement, and there was a charge last month as well. I remember seeing it last month, but as it had gone through at the same time I'd paid my actual credit card bill, I think I'd mentally just gone "credit card, yeah, that's right" without noting the actual name.

So there I am with a £99 charge and a £111 charge and no clue what it was for.

I called the phone bank facility and asked the somewhat clueless bloke if he could help. He couldn't, but he did put me through to the credit card dept, where I spoke to a more helpful woman. She confirmed that my BANK X credit card had been fully paid off in Jan 2007 and hadn't been used since. She advised me to go into the branch where they would be able to investigate.

So I printed off the relevant statements (I no longer get paper statements because it's a. better for the environment and b. one less way for fraudsters to steal your ID) and went into my local branch that afternoon, which is luckily only a few minutes' walk away.

It's a tiny,old-fashioned branch and I had to queue for about 15 minutes before getting to speak to someone. She had a look on my account, and couldn't work it out, so she ended up phoning credit card services herself. At this point I overheard the words "joint account" and suddenly the penny dropped - it was my ex-husband.

Now when I split with my ex, over 2 years ago now, we had originally agreed that I would open a new bank account and he could keep the BANK X one up, because since he had very little credit history (he had never had a bank account before I added him to mine) he thought he would have problems getting a new account elsewhere. However, he then applied and was accepted for an account at a different bank, so we decided instead that he would come off the BANK X account and I'd retain it as a solo account. I got a form from the bank to switch it to a solo account, and gave it to him to sign his part and send to the bank. He told me that he'd done it. In fact he told me twice that he'd done it, because I sent him a second form after I went into branch and checked whether he'd been removed, and found that he hadn't.

Only it transpires now that he hadn't, because his name was still on the account. And the charges on that account are from the collections department of the credit card, because they've been writing to his old address (he's never informed them that he'd moved) and presumably he's still been using his old BANK X card, and not paying the bill. So they've taken the step of directly debiting "his" bank account because they haven't had a response.

So. Bit of a disaster. My immediate impulse, of course, was to phone Ex and scream my head off at him. However, I restrained myself for two very good reasons: firstly that historically, any time I've argued with Ex for any reason, he's cut off my access to stepson, and secondly, I'd be effectively informing him that he still has access to my account - and he might decide to nip up to his local branch with some ID, tell them he's lost his cashcard and could he please draw some money out.

Instead, I made an appointment for yesterday afternoon to see an advisor in the branch. I sat down with her yesterday and we created a new solo account for me, and transferred all my direct debits and balance into that.

Although I will have to swallow the £200+ charges that have already gone out (I'd need to pursue him via a solicitor, and by the time I'd paid the solicitor's fees it would be more than the charges) in the long run, I'm going to wind up better off. Because the advisor upgraded my savings account to an instant-access ISA, which I didn't even realise you could get on an instant access these days, and it's paying me six times as much interest as my old savings account.

I also came away with some deposit slips all prepared for paying chunks off my loan, which I shall be starting to whittle away next year, as soon as the (real, actual) credit card is down to zero.

Lessons learned from this:
1. Always check bank account every week and scrutinise every charge carefully to be sure I KNOW for definite what it is.
2. When someone says they are going to do/have done something, don't take their word for it - check up on it.
3. Don't have a joint account. Seriously, just don't ever do it. When you split up with that partner, it will just be a huge headache. Even if you are terribly romantic and think you'll never break up with them, don't get one. Because if you have a problem on the account, then you're both stuck with the problem. If you keep separate accounts, then you always have one as a back up, because the chances of both accounts getting hosed at the same time are small.

I now have to work out how to approach this with Ex. There is a possibility that it's not actually him who's run up the charges and that he's been a victim of fraud himself. Because he didn't inform the credit card company that he'd moved, so if they sent him a new card and pin at that address, then whoever lives there now could have had it. If that's the case, he needs to know about it, because he'll have to get legal help to clear his name. (No problem for him - he's got no income, so he'll qualify for free legal help.)

In fact, that would be the best scenario - because if he can successfully claim for fraud, then I might get at least some of the money back. I can't claim for fraud, because he had legal access to the account... so if it was him who ran up the charges, then I can kiss the money goodbye.

Some freebies

Free samples can really help stretch the average budget, as long as you use them sensibly.

Obviously manufacturers and retailers offer free samples in the hope that you'll like the product sufficiently to then carry on paying for it. This can be a bit of a double-edged sword for the frugal, because if you really like the product but it's something you don't normally buy, then it can be tempting to start getting it regularly.

The freebies I like most tend to be "consumables" such as perfume, lip balm, laundry products, or food samples (healthy ones!)

I can only think of a few times when I've switched brands because of a freebie, the immediate one that comes to mind being my Wilkinson Sword razor. I have extremely sensitive skin AND I'm prone to ingrowing hair follicles, so having a decent razor is essential to me.

Anyway, here's a couple of free sample offers I've just sent for:
Moxie Sanitary Towels - click the "Cosmopolitan Mag Promo" link and enter COSMO1 as the code.
Free sample of Ghost's new perfume "Sweetheart" - I'm not convinced mine went through as it just returned to the same page...
Free sample of Coffee-Mate's Latte Creations - looks yummy, although perhaps a bit fattening!

Tips for freebies: use an email address that you don't mind getting spam through. I use the same one for prize draws.

Cheaper petrol - the calculator

Yesterday I talked about working out the cheapest option for petrol, even when the least expensive petrol station is some miles away.

I sat down and did some calculations to try to come up with a formula that could be applied in multiple situations. Here it is.

Petrol price lowest = L
Petrol price nearest = N
Distance difference = D
Fuel efficiency = mpl
Tank capacity = T
Cost of tank nearest = N*T = CTN
Cost of tank cheapest = L*T = CTL
Price per mile = N/mpl = ppm

IF CTN-CTL > ppm*(D*2), then it's more efficient to drive to the cheaper station.
IF CTN-CTL < ppm*(D*2), then it's more efficient to fill up at the nearer station.

Obviously that looks horribly complicated and not exactly quick or intuitive to work out, so I created an Excel calculator that will work it all out for you, and you can download it from here :http://depositfiles.com/files/36xs2tajx

Enjoy :)

Today's Tip - cheaper petrol

I managed to fill my car up yesterday for a better price than I've had since December last year, thanks to a 5p-off-per-litre voucher that I got in Morrisons a few weeks ago.

I usually shop Morrisons anyway since their pricing is definitely better than anyone else (unless you go to Netto or Lidl - but because of the amount of fresh veg and fruit I eat, this isn't an option since their selections are very disappointing in that area.)

The best ways to get cheaper petrol:
1. Join petrolprices.com (you only need give an email, and I think I've only heard from them once since joining two years ago) and search for the best prices. You can make up to 20 searches per day, based on any postcode you input. I usually put in my home and work postcodes and look for stations where I can fill up on the way to or from. Because if you're only saving 0.5p per litre, but you drive more than 3 miles out of your way, you've just lost money. (This is quite a complicated calculation and I'll try to add my method later.)
2. Don't drive when you don't need to. Sounds obvious, but I know waaaay too many people who get in the car to go somewhere less than 10 mins' walk, even when they've nothing to carry.
3. Load your vehicle evenly and make sure your tyres are inflated to the correct psi.
4. Look out for offers such as "Spend £50 and get 4p off per litre" but watch for which supermarkets it is. If the supermarket itself or its petrol is not competetive, then you could end up losing money twice - once by paying more for shopping, and again on petrol if you could have got it cheaper even with the discount. I have been caught like this by Sainsburys before.
5. When you have got a voucher, wait until your tank is low - like below a quarter - before you fill up.

And today's looking like a NSD, hooray...

Holiday target completed!

YAY, I've filled up the holiday fund! Whoopee!

I'm now going to divert the overtime and tester pay into the credit card, until that's paid off.

So current strategy:
All overtime pay + tester pay + £250 of admin pay goes to the credit card bill
All "creating" pay + any bits and bobs goes on the MP3 player fund.

I'm so tired today I could just go back to bed right now. I mean the overtime is great but it's starting to get really exhausting. It's so dark when I get up at 5.30, and then it's dark when I go home from work. And I haven't got time to concentrate on making anything. I'm going to try to finish at my normal time today.

Payday

Ended up with £304.49 in OT this month, so my holiday fund is nearly full, yippee!

Need to start getting quite a lot whacked off the credit card, because I'll need to pay for the flights and villa on my credit card, so that if anything happens between now and then, it'll be protected. What with companies going bust all over the place, it's all a bit worrying.

We are currently looking at a really stunning villa in Kefalonia, waiting on further details from the owners.

Slogging away...

I've been churning out the overtime at work over the last few weeks but particularly so since last Tuesday when my colleague left.

Between two of us we are supposed to cover 8am-8pm Monday-Friday and 8am-5pm on Saturday. This works with one shift doing 8am-2.30pm and the other one doing 2pm-8pm plus the Saturday. (Our hours are averaged over the month.)

So without a second shift person, I'm left trying to cover as many hours as I can. Plenty of overtime for the taking - if I wanted, I could work 8am-8pm every day and Saturday. Bonanza! Realistically, though, my physical disabilities won't allow me to work those kind of hours for very long, not unless I want to make myself ill, and I very much don't.

So I'm finishing at 5pm tonight, making 15 extra hours so far going into November's pay packet. And I think I have about £250 from last month which I should get paid tomorrow.

The money is great but damn, I'm tired. I much prefer working lates; it suits my personal circadian rhythm much better. I have trouble falling asleep before 11pm at the earliest (midnight last night) and with getting up at 5.30am, I'm a little bit wiped.

Moving the goalposts

I had a nice little windfall this week - a £92 rebate on my council tax for the old house. I've bunged that straight to the MP3 fund, which would have been almost full up, if I hadn't just decided to change my mind about which one I want.

You see, I really really want one which I can get a speaker dock for. Especially a speaker dock which has a radio... and an alarm clock. And works as a recharger.

So I am now switching my pick to this:


which I can then get this with:


Yummy!

So now my target has increased, but with this windfall I'm confident I can reach it by Xmas. Maybe even next month!

Exchange rate woes

The pound had fallen last week to about $1.60 but after Gordon Brown announced his bailout plan, it's risen to about $1.72. In fact Paypal have got it at $1.76, which is kind of annoying since I want to withdraw. (I get paid in dollars for my online work since my employer is based in the US.)

I've not been sure whether to wait a while and hope the dollar increases, or withdraw now in fear of the dollar collapsing completely. Nobody seems to know what's going to happen. Based on what Paulson said last week ("US warns of further bank failures") I'm going to withdraw now. I'm worried that more bad news from the states will cause the dollar to drop even more.

Changing cars

I want to change my car – mine is now nearly 8 years old, and it’s getting to the stage where it’s needing repairs more frequently. Now that littl’un is old enough to come up on the coach or train to visit, and I don’t have to drive to pick him up and take him home (a round trip of over 800 miles), it’s not so important for me to have a powerful car. I’ve currently got a Peugeot 306 1.4, which is a great car; it’s comfortable and powerful enough on motorways to make 800 miles bearable.

However, if I move down to something like a Clio 1.2 (which was the car I hired while I was in Cyprus earlier this year and proved to be a good drive) then I’ll save on petrol, insurance, and probably road tax. And theoretically it should need less repair work, being a younger vehicle. (Famous last words…)

So I’d be looking at about £3k to get a 3-4 year old Clio (or similar; I’m not totally married to the idea of the Clio), and I can probably get £1.5k for my current car if I sell it privately. So I need to save up about £1500-£2000 if I want to do that.

I can get Mum to give me a "bridging loan" so I don't need to sell the current one before buying the new one (which is important, because although it's easier for me to get to work on public transport now, it's also expensive.)

News

THANK GOODNESS I’m finally back online.

One bright note in the whole moving-house-being-expensive thing: because I’ve changed my internet supplier, I’m saving nearly £20 a month on that. The connection speed is not what it should be, especially at peak times, but I’ll just have to get used to it I suppose.

I’ve mad a decision about taking littl’un to Cyprus next year: he’s not coming. I can’t just ignore his exclusion, and taking him anyway would totally invalidate the whole deal. I don’t want him getting the impression that he can just behave the same old way and still get special trips and treats. I’m going to plan to go the following year (2010) on the condition that he’s behaving himself properly then!

In the meantime, I’ve been chatting with my Sis and we’ve decided to go to Crete in September next year, with her husband. Yay! Although Crete is more expensive, I’ll only be paying my own way and not for littl’un as well, so it will actually work out more economical for me – but I’ve left my savings goal the same, as any extra cash will just be a bonus to spend while there. And if I come home with money, it will go off the credit card bill. I’ll be getting about £200 of overtime this month, so with my testing pay, I reckon it will have maxed out my holiday fund. Whoo! I can start saving for something else, LOL.

Still offline

I'm hating not having access at my fingertips. I've been coming to work early and leaving late so I can check my emails. And all the time I'm losing money through not being able to test products :(

Sat down tonight during a quiet period at work and did some research into untapped niches in the market, so I'm going to try to work on some new products while I've got the time and space to do so. That's if my mum doesn't drag me out shopping again, argh!

Daily spend today: £2.99 on lunch, which was a very filling subway roll/crisps/drink. Not too bad considering I'm on a 13-hour shift.

The stresses of moving house

It's never easy, moving to a new house, is it? Things never seem to run as smoothly as they could do and you know there's always going to be SOMETHING that goes badly awry.

In this case, the move itself went pretty well, but we've been beset by unforeseen expenses since we got in there. Mainly of the small but annoying sort, such as there not being any hooks on the backs of the doors, or toilet roll holders, or towel rails, or mirrors. So we've had to buy bits and pieces here, there and everywhere.

Of a more spendy nature, we've also had to buy quite a bit of furniture, as my previous place was furnished, and obviously I had to leave all that there. So I've got a small cabinet, a chest of drawers and a desk - all flatpacked. I've put the dresser and cabinet together, just the desk to go. My hands are bloody killing me! Damn RSI.

Mum is still debating about whether to have her bed brought up from storage, or just buy a single bed, which will fit in her room better. She also needs some wardrobes as she's currently just using portable hanging rails. However, she's very picky about furniture and has an unreasonable disdain for flatpacks.

She actually suggested that we pay some bloke to come round and put my flatpacks together. I refused, so that was money saved, LOL.

T-Mobile have let me down with the free laptop offer. When I checked the signal strength with their online tool for this area, it was showing as good coverage. However, I found that in fact I could only get a 2G signal - even up in the attic - which gives less than a dial-up connection. So I've sent that back to T-Mob. It's a major let-down, because now I won't be able to test any products until I'm back online with regular broadband, which isn't going to be until about 10th October. So I'm losing money there. On the flip side, I now won't be paying the monthly charge to T-Mobile, so it's swings and roundabouts really. Also, I'll have quite a lot of offline time so perhaps I'll be able to work on some new products.

I'm very disappointed this week to learn that Son has got himself a 2-day exclusion from school. This means he has forfeited our proposed trip to Cyprus next year. So I'm deciding what to do with the money for that trip as I don't want to go on my own. Current idea is to see if my sister and her husband feel like coming, as I think they would like Cyprus. But I've yet to discuss that with her. Mum definitely won't come as she doesn't like air travel.

Well that's all for now. I am working a double shift today and on Monday, so that's 10.5 hours of overtime this week, and since my colleague has just handed in his notice, I think I'll be earning quite a lot more in the next few weeks... It's just a question of what I'm going to spend it on!!

Oh god. I hate moving.

I can't even count what I've had to spend in the last two days, and it isn't over yet.

My back is killing me. My head hurts. I'm so tired.

Today's spends

Zero!

Didn't buy a single thing today, yippee! Which makes this a No Spend Day.

Tested another 4 items, about £8 in the bank there.

Hectic day; we were up early and off to pick up the keys to the new house. A few unexpected discoveries there - no lampshades, and no curtains in the main bedroom. So I'll be making some spends tomorrow, damn it.

Off to bed now, another early one tomorrow as we're taking more stuff over.

Today

Bottle of coke: 93p
Various groceries in Tesco: £4.87
Total £5.70

Tested 4 items today, so that's $16... about £8. So I'm in front for the day, hooray!

Also: bought Pepsi Max 4 bottles in Tesco for £2.50, so won't need to buy any at work for a few days. Win!

My income

I have three streams of income.

My full time job, which I go to 5 days one week, 6 days the next. This is 37.5 hours a week, for which I net around £1200 a month (depending on tax, my tax code is being recalculated right now.) I'm also eligible for overtime at 1.25 rate fairly frequently. However this means doing a 12-hour day, which takes time away from...

...My part time job, which is 20 hours per week, 7 days a week. This is doing admin work for an online business based in the states. For this I get a flat fee of $800 per month, which is about £445 at today's exchange rates. (Damn the falling dollar!)

My "freelance" work, which is testing, and providing, digital content for the same online business. For this I get paid per item, a variable rate depending on whether I'm testing or creating. I average around $350 from this, which is just under £200.

So here is where I'm going to assign my cash for the next few months:
All of my "creating" pay will go towards my MP3 fund.
All of my "testing" pay will go into the holiday pot.
£250 of my admin pay will go onto the credit card.
Any overtime I do at my main job will go into the holiday fund, too.
Any bits and bobs that I bring in - prize draw winnings, ebay sales, saving up small change - will go in the MP3 fund too.

I am currently waiting for about £500 of overtime to be paid, so that will be a big boost for the holiday fund this month!

So if I want my MP3 player before Christmas, I need to get off my backside and create some new products.

Today's spends

Final post for today.

It's been a much more spendy day than usual. Mainly because there were a few things I needed to get in preparation for the move.

Mouse for the laptop - £26.99 (I've learned my lesson buying cheap mice. They don't last.)
New cat carrier - £9.99
Laptop case - £29.98 (really good deal from caseplace.co.uk - a Belkin case with shoulder strap, with a lifetime warranty)
Bottle of Diet Coke - 93p

Total £67.89

Only did two product tests today, so that's $8 in. :(

Goals

Goals
I have three goals in my mind right now:
1. Short term: Buy new MP3 player. Creative ZEN 16GB MP3 Player is the one I'm lusting over. I'll need a case for it as well. My little Rio Carbon has served me well over the last 3 years, but it's getting to the point now where I just haven't got enough room for all my tracks on it. It's also really dated in terms of menu navigation and so on. I hope to buy this for myself for Xmas.
2. Medium term: Take my son* on holiday to Cyprus. This I want to do in April 2009, so I need to have this money saved by February 2009 at the latest.
3. Medium-to-long term: Pay off my credit card. Once this is down to zero, I will then be using it for regular monthly outgoings, and paying it off in full every month, as it's a cashback card. By Xmas 2009.

Ultimate long-term goal is to completely pay off my bank loan as well, so I'm fully debt-free. I need to work out how much that is. I think it's around £19k. Once I have done that I'll be in a much better position to have my son* living with me, which I am hoping to make happen in 2010.

We're in the process of moving house right now, so it's hard for me to work out what my monthly outgoings are.

*My step-son, i.e. my ex-husband's son. He lives with his dad, but I consider him my son since he was only 5 when I met his dad, and he saw me as his mum for the 6 years we were together. I am hoping to have him come live with me for his last year of school. His dad is cool with this plan. I wish I could have him sooner, but I have nobody who could look after him during school holidays. Childminders just don't want to know for kids of 13 :(

Hello World

This blog is my attempt to stay on the straight and narrow path to being debt-free.

I’m 35 years old, single, and I live in Yorkshire. Over the last 10 years I’ve slowly accumulated a significant amount of debt (well, significant to me. Compared with, say, XL Airways, it’s probably a drop in the ocean) which I now am determined to get rid of.

Earlier this year, my Mum moved in with me, after my Grandma died. Now, while living with your Mum past the age of 25 is totally sad, it is certainly a great help when it comes to meeting household bills. Plus, she does nearly all the housework. Win! This puts me in an excellent position to make a real dent in my personal debt mountain over the next couple of years.