I have been costing up my trip to Rome to see how I am going to budget for it. Yep - doing everything backwards I know. I have really only put aside £100 for my trip so far but the break-down currently goes like this:
Flights £ 76.20 (includes baggage chargers)
Accommodation £149.87 (Paid £70.00 on credit card)
Insurance £12.29 (for one adult and two kids)
Total £238.36 (Paid so far £146.20)
So my current account overdraft has been taking a hammering and I am breaking one of my rules of not getting into more debt. I should be able to clear the overdraft and pay for the rest of the trip with my tax saving.
I am all set to pop into the post office on the 28th and present a cheque for the full 1st half of my IRD payment. So after that I should have about £400 available to pay for the trip and for spending money.
Yes I know I should be using this money to clear my debts. But as I haven't had a holiday since last May and I have been promising my god-daughters a trip to Italy for the last 2 years, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone - so to speak. And well a trip to Rome for 3 for four days at under £500 is good isn't it??
Friday, 18 January 2008
Friday, 11 January 2008
I Love Reward Cards
On Wednesday I went over my weekly budget, I did something I hadn't done for almost a year - yes ....... I went and had my hair cut. It was all because of a comment I read on a PF Blog or was it the Motley Fools Dealing with Debt board. It seems we female PF blogger's have the same hair do. OK it's not quite an Essex face lift, but we just brush it back and tie it with a band. Well that was me, I was conforming to some unknown standard type and I didn't even know it. How could this have happened. So it was time for some action, probably some really delayed teen aged angst and it has ended with a totally new hair do and £27.50 over budget for this week, the third week of this new year.
OK you may say what does this have to do with Reward Cards? My totally new hair do will now require a few extras that my "dwd do" didn't need ie. a ceramic hair straightener and some hair gel. I was in Boots yesterday and saw the above named items on sale (you just have to love the January sales) and I also remembered that I had almost £20.00 on my Boots advantage card. It didn't take a lot of thinking - £5.00 for a straightener and I get it for free cos I have faithfully been shopping at the same store. I love reward cards! And yes, I still have just over a tenor left on the card.
OK you may say what does this have to do with Reward Cards? My totally new hair do will now require a few extras that my "dwd do" didn't need ie. a ceramic hair straightener and some hair gel. I was in Boots yesterday and saw the above named items on sale (you just have to love the January sales) and I also remembered that I had almost £20.00 on my Boots advantage card. It didn't take a lot of thinking - £5.00 for a straightener and I get it for free cos I have faithfully been shopping at the same store. I love reward cards! And yes, I still have just over a tenor left on the card.
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Welcome 2008
Well the New Year is here and I am back to my old ways - but hopefully better prepared than before. I have promised my god-daughters a trip to Europe and I have finally booked it for February, which is low season. If I am really good between now and then, I should be able to cover it all in cash. But that means no dinning out or any shopping for the next seven weeks. The flights including taxes are £20.00 and I am looking to get accommodation for no more than £160 for three nights. Just hope weather is nice for us - I don't mide gray and cold just don't want rain.
January also means tax payment and I have to pay for the first half of the 07/08 tax year. This year I am ready - and will be able to write a cheque for the full amount, which is wonderful!
Last year I had the tax man breathing down my neck some, for the money.
Then, it's all clear until the end of July.
I have an account were I have been paying in each week monies set aside for my taxes and have been putting aside more than I really need. (I still haven't received any billing from the IR as to how much is going to be due at the end of the month) But whatever the outcome I know I have more than enough if I go by last years chargers. Will probably use some of the money in the tax account to help fund the trip in February.
Oh I didn't say - I am taking the girls to Rome!!
January also means tax payment and I have to pay for the first half of the 07/08 tax year. This year I am ready - and will be able to write a cheque for the full amount, which is wonderful!
Last year I had the tax man breathing down my neck some, for the money.
Then, it's all clear until the end of July.
I have an account were I have been paying in each week monies set aside for my taxes and have been putting aside more than I really need. (I still haven't received any billing from the IR as to how much is going to be due at the end of the month) But whatever the outcome I know I have more than enough if I go by last years chargers. Will probably use some of the money in the tax account to help fund the trip in February.
Oh I didn't say - I am taking the girls to Rome!!
Thursday, 27 December 2007
2008 Goals (part 2)
Well I have received my last pay cheque for the year, which I can't bank until Friday so it will not clear until the end of next week. But I will not repeat myself on that topic.
My employer was really lovely and got me out of paying any tax on my Christmas bonus and then rounded my pay cheque up by £75.00 which was even better.
So my end of year figures look like this:
December 2007 (November)
Credit Card 1 £0.00 (£611.21)
Credit Card 2 £3861.41 (£3897.35)
Credit Card 3 £701.00 (£724.13)
Flexiloan £4545.37 (£4645.16)
Bank Loan £3454.47 (£3838.30)
Bank Overdraft £49.18 (£100.00)
Total Debt £12,611.43 (£13,816.15)
My finances haven't been looking this good for more than a year, in fact this time last year my debt balance was £15,692.84. This figure didn't include my tax bill which was due at the end of January and for which I had not saved for, so wasn't paid off until August. By which time my July payment was due and well you can see the deadly little cycle this creates. This time I am prepared and have monies set aside in a high interest saving account. So will be able to pay January's payment in full!
The two rules I break when it comes to paying off my debt are:
Saving . I am determined to clear my debt's and have money in the bank afterwards. After reading the Richest Man In Babylon, I am personally sure this is the right thing to do for myself. You can call it an emergence fund if you want but I see it as a long term saving plan.
Giving. This is something which is part of who I am - I give to two main charities and even when my debts were at the £20,000.00 mark, I knew that those monthly payments would not be stopped for anything. If any thing I would like to increase my giving to 10% of my earnings. But this will have to wait until I am debt free.
If I was to stop both my saving and giving I could clear my debts by the end of this year with out a problem but I have decided I would rather go over a few extra months and extend my DFD to early 2009.
My employer was really lovely and got me out of paying any tax on my Christmas bonus and then rounded my pay cheque up by £75.00 which was even better.
So my end of year figures look like this:
December 2007 (November)
Credit Card 1 £0.00 (£611.21)
Credit Card 2 £3861.41 (£3897.35)
Credit Card 3 £701.00 (£724.13)
Flexiloan £4545.37 (£4645.16)
Bank Loan £3454.47 (£3838.30)
Bank Overdraft £49.18 (£100.00)
Total Debt £12,611.43 (£13,816.15)
My finances haven't been looking this good for more than a year, in fact this time last year my debt balance was £15,692.84. This figure didn't include my tax bill which was due at the end of January and for which I had not saved for, so wasn't paid off until August. By which time my July payment was due and well you can see the deadly little cycle this creates. This time I am prepared and have monies set aside in a high interest saving account. So will be able to pay January's payment in full!
The two rules I break when it comes to paying off my debt are:
Saving . I am determined to clear my debt's and have money in the bank afterwards. After reading the Richest Man In Babylon, I am personally sure this is the right thing to do for myself. You can call it an emergence fund if you want but I see it as a long term saving plan.
Giving. This is something which is part of who I am - I give to two main charities and even when my debts were at the £20,000.00 mark, I knew that those monthly payments would not be stopped for anything. If any thing I would like to increase my giving to 10% of my earnings. But this will have to wait until I am debt free.
If I was to stop both my saving and giving I could clear my debts by the end of this year with out a problem but I have decided I would rather go over a few extra months and extend my DFD to early 2009.
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Goals for 2008
I still have two pay cheques to collect before the end of the year but have worked out my end of year balance to be £12,573.43. This will depend on my keeping to my budget and not going a penny over. Famous last words...
Goals for 2008 are to clear both my loans in full and get my credit cards down to £3,000.00. Also to have saved £1,750.00 in ISA accounts.
Don't know how I will go as friends have booked a holiday in May and included me, so that will be time off work and off to Turkey, only need to supply spending monies. Also I have promised to go to Africa at the end of the year. For both of these I have been putting extra monies aside in my tax account and hope I have enough to cover the costs for flights and the cost for medical and spending. Malaria tablets will cost me about £50.00 and then there are vaccinations etc. Should have a good idea by May I guess. Watch this space.......
Goals for 2008 are to clear both my loans in full and get my credit cards down to £3,000.00. Also to have saved £1,750.00 in ISA accounts.
Don't know how I will go as friends have booked a holiday in May and included me, so that will be time off work and off to Turkey, only need to supply spending monies. Also I have promised to go to Africa at the end of the year. For both of these I have been putting extra monies aside in my tax account and hope I have enough to cover the costs for flights and the cost for medical and spending. Malaria tablets will cost me about £50.00 and then there are vaccinations etc. Should have a good idea by May I guess. Watch this space.......
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
I Hate Cheques!
I really do hate cheques, and don't understand why they take three days to clear in this modern age of technology. I banked a cheque on Tuesday (which appeared on my account that night) but don't actually have any access to it until Friday. The cheque is my pay for the last two weeks and I need it to clear on Thursday, as I have two large direct debts going out then. What to do, what to do!
In the pass I would have just used my Flexiloan and transferred monies across till the cheque clear and then transferred the monies back but I didn't think about the extra interest costs I was raking up by doing this. This time I will use my high interest account funds, which means I lose one months interest because of the withdrawal. The lesser of two evils I feel.
I've spent the best part of the last two days trolling through other peoples blogs on personal finance and they all seem to be doing really well. Not many of us single girls at this though I feel and most are American so we don't have the same financial reference points. This is also the problem with most books on dealing with debt, I generally skip the chapters on insurance or retirement, etc. as they are not relevant to someone in the UK. None the less, the slogg is the same and probably just as tedious, and I am sure many of them, like me, want to scream "Enough already!".
In the pass I would have just used my Flexiloan and transferred monies across till the cheque clear and then transferred the monies back but I didn't think about the extra interest costs I was raking up by doing this. This time I will use my high interest account funds, which means I lose one months interest because of the withdrawal. The lesser of two evils I feel.
I've spent the best part of the last two days trolling through other peoples blogs on personal finance and they all seem to be doing really well. Not many of us single girls at this though I feel and most are American so we don't have the same financial reference points. This is also the problem with most books on dealing with debt, I generally skip the chapters on insurance or retirement, etc. as they are not relevant to someone in the UK. None the less, the slogg is the same and probably just as tedious, and I am sure many of them, like me, want to scream "Enough already!".
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Ten days to go till Christmas!
Didn't do too bad this week for my spending - went over my budget by about thirteen pounds after my trip to London. This mostly relates to the purchase of two books, one being The Richest Man In Babylon which I have seen quoted in several books I have read, so decided to buy. Wow - wish I had read this book when I first started working or even when I first come over to England. I need to re-read this book every year to keep myself on track. Everyone should read this book!!
It has got be back checking out the 10-10-80 plan all over again. I mean can I afford not to?
It has got be back checking out the 10-10-80 plan all over again. I mean can I afford not to?
Monday, 10 December 2007
November/December
Gosh it has been a while since my last post. I have just been reading my old blogs and laughed at the Northern Rock loan which I applied for, they said no and wow what a mess they are in today. Not that any of it relates to me or the fact they turned me down. They were probably turning everyone down.
Well my current debit totals £13,816.15 as of the beginning of the month, which I felt is good but the going is so slow. I want it finninshed already!!
I should have cleared my HSBC card by now (I transfered most of it's balance to my Halifax card to get the reduced interest rate) and even had a reminder emailed to me to have had done it. But my spending gets out of control on my day off. Thank goodness I only get one day off. So have decide to try the cash only spending idea last week and it all went quite well. I did take my debt card with me but only used it to get £10.00 on my phone. So £10.00 over my £50.00 spend limit wasn't too bad.
This week I am off to London to have an early lunch with a friend and hope to show the same restrant.
The 10-10-80 plan has been shelved to the time being, as I want to make sure I am putting enough aside to pay my tax payment upfront in January. Currently I have over £800.00 in that account and will have a thousand by next week. Wish I could use the money to clear my HSBC card but I can't.
I don't know if I will make my target DFD of October, looks like it is morely likely to be January 2009. But I will keep working on it and see if I can get back to that date.
One new thing I have started doing is reading up about finance and money etc. I took the book Rich Dad Poor Dad out of the libriary and it was a real eye opener to me. Since then have gotten quite a few books out about finance and the stock market in my thirst to know more about the money/finance, an area of education I am greatly lacking in.
From this I have been looking at opening a share ISA possible with the Halifax as they have a sharebuilder scheme that accepts as little as £20.00 a month. This would be a long term saving plan - more study is needed.
Well my current debit totals £13,816.15 as of the beginning of the month, which I felt is good but the going is so slow. I want it finninshed already!!
I should have cleared my HSBC card by now (I transfered most of it's balance to my Halifax card to get the reduced interest rate) and even had a reminder emailed to me to have had done it. But my spending gets out of control on my day off. Thank goodness I only get one day off. So have decide to try the cash only spending idea last week and it all went quite well. I did take my debt card with me but only used it to get £10.00 on my phone. So £10.00 over my £50.00 spend limit wasn't too bad.
This week I am off to London to have an early lunch with a friend and hope to show the same restrant.
The 10-10-80 plan has been shelved to the time being, as I want to make sure I am putting enough aside to pay my tax payment upfront in January. Currently I have over £800.00 in that account and will have a thousand by next week. Wish I could use the money to clear my HSBC card but I can't.
I don't know if I will make my target DFD of October, looks like it is morely likely to be January 2009. But I will keep working on it and see if I can get back to that date.
One new thing I have started doing is reading up about finance and money etc. I took the book Rich Dad Poor Dad out of the libriary and it was a real eye opener to me. Since then have gotten quite a few books out about finance and the stock market in my thirst to know more about the money/finance, an area of education I am greatly lacking in.
From this I have been looking at opening a share ISA possible with the Halifax as they have a sharebuilder scheme that accepts as little as £20.00 a month. This would be a long term saving plan - more study is needed.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
October (what happened to September?)
Well it sure has been awhile and I have been switching jobs and have been all over the UK. I didn't blog in September as I didn't have any of my paperwork to workout where I was up to. Infact I thought I had lost monies or spent way more than I was aware of because I had to pay my (reduced) payment to the Inland Revenue from my Flexiloan account. I had to reduce the payment from £1000. to £740. as my jobs have been only 6 day a week. I only own the IR about £500. now and then that is all cleared until the end of next January. But I am now budgeting to have the monies set aside each week to pay for my income tax.
The missing monies were not lost but rather I was not counting the last week of September - so all is well. I can clear the IR bill in full at the end of next week and really get my teeth into my Credit Cards and Loan accounts.
I have applied for a Northern Rock loan at 7.9% to replace my Flexiloan(14.8%) and clear one of my Credit Cards (19.9%). It seems a good deal - I can make overpayments and pay it off early if I want without paying any penalties. Well I think it is a good deal, they can only say no and I don't think my credit worthness can be any worst at the present.
Currently my total debt is under £16,000 and by the end of the month it will be just over £14,000 so I think I am doing well. In fact I haven't spent any monies for about a week now as my overdraft is at it's limit. And I feel really good about it. My problem is I have been increasing my debt without really being aware I was doing it. But hopefully I have seen the folly of my way.
I am taking up the 10-10-80 philosophy and have rewritten my budget but will have to work out a new DFD. More about that in my next post.
The missing monies were not lost but rather I was not counting the last week of September - so all is well. I can clear the IR bill in full at the end of next week and really get my teeth into my Credit Cards and Loan accounts.
I have applied for a Northern Rock loan at 7.9% to replace my Flexiloan(14.8%) and clear one of my Credit Cards (19.9%). It seems a good deal - I can make overpayments and pay it off early if I want without paying any penalties. Well I think it is a good deal, they can only say no and I don't think my credit worthness can be any worst at the present.
Currently my total debt is under £16,000 and by the end of the month it will be just over £14,000 so I think I am doing well. In fact I haven't spent any monies for about a week now as my overdraft is at it's limit. And I feel really good about it. My problem is I have been increasing my debt without really being aware I was doing it. But hopefully I have seen the folly of my way.
I am taking up the 10-10-80 philosophy and have rewritten my budget but will have to work out a new DFD. More about that in my next post.
Saturday, 18 August 2007
August Update...
(I have been having problems getting back on this site hence my delayed update)
Well, new job and new address and new monthly debit payment amount - and it is lower than June and July by about £300.00. Because of this I have had to contact the Inland Revenue and reduce the monthly payment of £1000.00 that I had arranged with them, to £740.00. This means that I don't clear my IR debt until October.
In the mean time I have applied for and receive a Barclaycard (my first) but they would only give me a credit limited of £850.00 and when I phone them and asked if I could do a balance transfer this dropped to only £775.00. As my HSBC Mastercard has shot the interest rate up to 19.9% I felt any reduction in the balance was a good thing. The Barclaycard is 0.00% for 14 months.
So to date my total debt now stands at £16768.78 aprox. This doesn't include all my payments for this month. Will have to do a final total at the end of the month.
Because of my new job I have be clocking up a debit balance on my current overdraft which is not good. It stands at about £150.00 at the present. I will really have to monitor this one.
I am looking at a DFD in late September/October, I haven't include my Tax for 07/08 which will start to become due in January 08.
Well, new job and new address and new monthly debit payment amount - and it is lower than June and July by about £300.00. Because of this I have had to contact the Inland Revenue and reduce the monthly payment of £1000.00 that I had arranged with them, to £740.00. This means that I don't clear my IR debt until October.
In the mean time I have applied for and receive a Barclaycard (my first) but they would only give me a credit limited of £850.00 and when I phone them and asked if I could do a balance transfer this dropped to only £775.00. As my HSBC Mastercard has shot the interest rate up to 19.9% I felt any reduction in the balance was a good thing. The Barclaycard is 0.00% for 14 months.
So to date my total debt now stands at £16768.78 aprox. This doesn't include all my payments for this month. Will have to do a final total at the end of the month.
Because of my new job I have be clocking up a debit balance on my current overdraft which is not good. It stands at about £150.00 at the present. I will really have to monitor this one.
I am looking at a DFD in late September/October, I haven't include my Tax for 07/08 which will start to become due in January 08.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
