January

Gosh it is well into January and time is flying again.
I have listed a load of books I have been reading in the past year on amazon.co.uk and check each morning to see if I have a sale or not, usually not but I have sold about four books since mid December. Snow flaking is up and running then.
I was given some money to look after a neighbours dog over the New Year and used that as my spending money up until this week and so haven't until today taken any money out for day to day use.
Went out and had coffee with friend today and he paid so that saved me some money. My £5 a day spending plan is an old habit I enjoy and I have started once again to put what I don't spend into a coffee jar - a little more snow flaking (every little helps - as they say at Tesco's).
My current account has not looks so health since before I went on holiday, the drag is that I will have to use most of it to pay my end of January taxes. Still at least they will be paid up and done with, Frugal Dad calls tax debt - Ugly Debit! And I agree you don't mess with the tax man.
Still I will end the month in credit, my tax bill cleared and having paid more than the minimum payment for both my debt accounts.
Off to the gym tomorrow so that will mean another fiver in the jar and a pound or two lost? Oh well here's hoping!

2011 Clearing my head

Oh Man!!!
It's the start of the year again and the Tax man is waiting for his cut at the end of the month and once again I am using my January pay checks to clear it, not the worse part even. While on my second holiday to NZ last year (yes that is correct - second) I have clocked up debt on my credit card and my flexiloan. So now is the time to get rid of both.
An emergency situation with my god kids has meant that I have added to the trip debt on my card. Not what I had planned but as they are my god kids I do feel I had to do what I could.
So back to clearing debt, something I have to deal with every time I come home from a holiday.
My flexiloan is up to £2,500 and my card is at about £3,700 not including my tax bill which is just over £2.5k.
The Tax I will clear by the end of January - no problem and then it is just working on snowballing the card and loan, something I am aways doing. I am back to my £5 a day budget and will start up going to the gym (yep put a few pounds back on will away too).
As VAT was raised to 20% from yesterday I am sure the gym has changed it's prices, so will need to check what it is now. My coffee is 10p more than it used to be and that has got to be more than 20%. Thank goodness the gym is a monthly pay deal that you can stop at any time, should my job end and I need to move on.
Closing both my flexiloan and credit card are going to be quite hard to be honest. That is where the emergency funds account comes into being I guess. Does that mean I need to have about £5K+ in an emergency account to feel financially safe? Weird when you really think about it, will I be different about it if it was my own money and not borrowed from a bank? Lets hope so!!
Goals 1. to clear my debt 2. save emergency fund of £5000 3. savings over and above this amount to fund house building fund.
So that is all settled - see easy - what made it seem so hard to sort it all out.

June and July

Well they have both whizzed by...... I haven't gotten around to doing any blogging of late. It's that time of year - weather has been great and these so much else to do!
I have been spending on my card mostly books and DVDs but am still keeping the costs way down.
My tax due at the end of July is the balance left on my flexiloan, so that will be gone in a week or so and after that the Credit Card will be down to zero again.
Life is manageable - an't that grand!

May's End

Well it's almost the end of May and I am waiting for my last cheque to clear and my next pay cheque will be a day late as it's a bank holiday on Monday. So I wont updated my records until they both clear by the end of this week.
I have been bad these last two weeks as I have been buying up some books on Amazon, for some reason or another I have really gotten into reading apocalyptic and post apocalyptic stories. I have read quite a few of the well known ones but if you can recommend a title that you enjoyed reading then I would love to hear from you!
I have been very good with my weekly spending of £30.00 and have fulled up my little piggy bank and have now started to put my spare change in a jar. "Why not put it in a bank account?" you ask, well at the interest rates that are currently on offer there is not a lot of point, so the jar will do for the moment. As long as I don't start dipping into it I will keep it there.
How are you doing with your slog? How are you getting your debts down?

May

May is coming to an end and we have been enjoyed some lovely "summer" weather here in London, so here's hoping for a hot summer (for once)!
As yet I haven't been paid for last week and should be getting a cheque tomorrow but too late to bank until Friday, which means that cheque will not clear till next week, probably Wednesday. So that means that I will have too cheques clearing next week and so no update till then. If your clearing debt too you know that feeling of elation, that buzz you get when you see the numbers heading down, down, down. Okay I get to have a double buzz next week!
End of July means a large tax bill too pay and as soon as I have cleared my credit card I have then to work on saving up to pay that off next. The idea is to credit the monies into my flexiloan account and so clear the balance (which saves me on interest) and then at the end of July pay my the tax bill in full and then work on the balance on the flexiloan.
Need to sort out what will happen for the rest of the year, I don't know if I will be coming back to my current job or if I will have my current job by then. Making plans for the future is so hard to do!!! Don't you think??

Get Me To The Church On Time

Okay, so I booked my flights for the wedding and as we all know the earlier you book the cheaper the ticket. I chose the dates so that I had a good week and a half before the wedding date it's self for any re wedding get together's and all of that. When lo and behold I get a phone call from my Mum to tell me that dates have changed and he's now getting married at the beginning of October and not the end! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!
The travel agent calmly tell me that to change the ticket it will cost me £150 - each way!! Okay there is no way I want to pay £300 more for my already purchase air fare, so that means I will have to keep the return section of my flight and change the departing section. All in all it means the ticket has cost me an extra £150 and I will have to stay for 7 weeks instead of the planned 4 weeks. Also, I will arrive at about 1:30am the day before the wedding so will be totally jet lagged for the wedding.
Now may be an extra three weeks holiday in New Zealand could be most peoples dream but I have just had a two month holiday at home in January and February of this year and besides I had such plans for this year as far as saving money for a house deposit. So that is all seriously screwed now!
Oh I love my brother but I could quite happy strangle him at the moment!

Getting Back On Plan

Well I came back from New Zealand with some debt on my card and having used some of my flexiloan account. The latter would have been cleared by next week but I have just had some news from home which changes all of that. My older brother is getting married at the end of October this year, so I will have to make a second trip home. So that adds £800.00 to my current debt (best to buy tickets early and pay less).
It's not good that I just cleared all my debt and here I am back in the red, again! But not for very long. The end of April sees me with a debt balance of £3,650 - which includes the following:

£ 800 October Trip*

£ 169 Eye Test (and 2 new pairs of glasses)*

£ 560 Flexiloan Account

£2,180 Credit Card (only card)

______________________

£3,650 Total Debt (*new debt from April)

In May I will clear the Credit Card and cancel it as my new Debit Card is a Visa, so hopefully I can use it when travelling. The old Debt Card only worked at ATM's in New Zealand but the Visa one should work anywhere (in October I can really confirm this).

In June and July I want to have cleared my tax for 2009/10 and work on the rest of my debt.

In July I had hoped to have started saving towards a my house deposit, but I will still have about £1k still to clear and on top of that I have to take a holiday in October and so time off work etc. Not good when I had such plans for this year!

It's been four years since I had an eye test and as that is not included on the NHS, I decide to bite the bullet and get it done and take the two for one offer, hence the two pairs of glasses. Still it is about £40 cheaper than last time.

I am hoping to build up a deposit of £5,000 before I go home again in October - that is the goal!

We will see .............. :)

Back To The Grind.....

I had a wonderfull holiday........ This is a view of Queenstown, with two para-gliders sailing down towards the town, something I will have to have a go at next time I am in town! The green roof structure at the bottom of the photo is the platform for those mad enough to go "bungy jumping".

This is the view I had to put up with from my hotel room - oh well, I have seen worse huh??

A view of the Remarkables from Queenstown airport.

There are amazing views all around what is known as the Southern "lake district".

This is a photo of the Huka Falls located in the the central North Island of New Zealand. The mighty Waikato river which is usually about 100m wide, is reduced to rushing through a narrow passage of rock only 20m and drops down 20m. Quite a sight!
Just some of the sights from my trip downunder - I still have the tan of Summer even thought I am now back in a London winter. Well Spring is around the corner, if not already here.

O N E

Can't wait - the big count down for my trip home is now down to four days. Still haven't finished packing and have so much other things to get done between now and my last day at work which is Sunday.
Will get to see my god kids really briefly, which is a real drag but as I haven't seen them at all for about five and a half month even one day is a blessing. They are good kids and understand the situation.
Christmas is done and I haven't put a penny on credit so am feeling very good about myself.
Hope you have a great Christmas and wish you all the best for 2010!

T W O

It really feels like Christmas is here - we have had snow and could well have a white Christmas too. I am sitting in front of a nice warm fire and have some lovey smelly candles burning to add to the cosy feeling inside. My shopping is mostly done and everything purchased has been wrapped and ready for the big day. It is wonderful to pay cash for all my purchases, not a piece of plastic in sight!
My big trip home is now only about 10 days away and I have now got to think about packing and sort out things here at work for my replacement. Two whole months off work, I just can't wait!!!
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Get your goals dusted down for the new year and go for your dreams - this is your year!