Complaining is worth it

I received a new debit card about two weeks ago and needed to activate it with my bank so I called the activation line to speak to a customer advisor. From the outset of the call the advisor tried to sell me identity theft protection, I politely declined, and yet he still continued with the hard sell. He started to tell me I could end up in court protecting myself which could cost me thousands and I politely declined again, telling him I was in no position to afford it. He then actually put the phone down on me!

I've banked with this bank for 15 years and never once had a reason to complain, until now. I sent them a letter explaining everything that was said and how upset I was by his attitude. I was assuming he was on commission and really needed to make a sale, however there is no excuse for rudeness.

The customer services department telephoned me last week to apologise and yesterday I received a lovely cheque from them for £50. August extra income is up and running.

July Extra Income wrap up

My final total for July was £80.99. I'm quite pleased with this and snow flaked some to my debt, however the car boot cash went into my purse and just disappeared. I have no idea where as my spending diary entries were non existent for most of July.

-£15.68 Cash back sites
-£8.62 Amazon
-£3.00 Ad income
-£53.69 Car Boot sale

August Budget

Outgoing:
£800.00 - Bills
£300.00 - Snowball
£490.48 - Loan payments
£20.00 - Savings
£20.00 - Birthday
£130.00 - Child costs, includes new school uniform
£70.00 - Petrol
£180.00 - Grocery
=£2010.48

Incoming:
£20.04 - Balance BF
£2010.81
=£2030.85

Goals re focus August 2008

This is a repeat of my 2008 goals post:

''My main goal this year, which is financial , is to pay off £15,000* more of my
debt.I've also decided to set some other goals which are not all directly
related to money, however will assist me in achieving my dreams for the future.
I have a lot of catching up to do in financial years and I won't do that by
sitting on my behind!''

Financial:
-Double EF to £1000 - Not gonna happen
-Increase pension contributions as company scheme changing - Done, not by much, but done
-Increase income by at least 10% - earned £1081 extra income, £104 behind target

Career:
-Take at least one external course - Not yet
-Learn staff training plan inside out in order to diversify my role - Done
-Get chosen to be on a second working party -Done

Business:
-Brainstorm my business idea - Done, website up and running
-Be ready to start business in 2009 - Done, however no marketing done yet

*My main financial goal for 2008 has changed, I'm now only aiming to clear my No1 loan balance by the end of the year. The balance outstanding this morning is £6,982.

My August budget will take the balance down to £6,400, I now need to brainstorm ways to make an extra £500 a month. I know I need attainable goals, however I can't just sit back and pay the minimum payments, it's not in my nature, I need a challenge.

There will be new goals!

This weekend I'm going to set myself some new realistic, attainable goals. It's no good beating myself up every week. This debt will be gone in the very near future, whether it's in 17 months or 22 months is not a major problem. I just need to keep plugging away.

Thank you for all the lovely comments and emails I've received, they really encourage and motivate me. As Frugal Trenches tells me, I need to keep my 'eyes on the prize'

I have to focus...

I think I'm definitely at the stage in my personal debt repayment journey where I've hit the wall. I seem to be taking one step forward and then two back. If I'm honest with myself it would of been very difficult to do this for five years and not have a few setbacks on the way, and yet in the main I've avoided them, until now. At least my debt is not increasing, and never will, its just not decreasing as much as I would of liked.

In the past I've made some massive over payments and I think this is making feel like I'm getting nowhere, although I realise I am.

I have to focus on the positive:
-I have no credit card debt
-My loans are at fixed rates
-My debts are still decreasing

This post is purely for me to get the negativity out of my system. I was extremely stupid to get myself into this mess and I need to make sure I get myself out of it.

Snowflakes in July

At last I have snowflakes in July, small snowflakes but snowflakes none the same.

• £15.68 Cashback site
• £5.59 Amazon

As soon as these clear in my bank account I will send them to my loan.

Since my update last week I've spent money on fuel and grocery only, and this week we're aiming to eat from the cupboards. It could get interesting by the weekend!

Pinyo at Moolanomy held the Carnival of Snowflaking #10 last week, go on over to his great blog to read the entries.

Returning to normal

Today in an effort to get back to my normal organisation, I've emptied my purse of receipts, updated all my excel sheets and worked out the balance of my checking account. I have £1,250.47 in there and £103.80 in cash.

-£700 Bills
-£500 Loans
-£17.50 Driving Licence (Cost to update photo after 10 years)
-£83.80 Cash (Grocery for rest of July)
-£20.00 Cash (Haircut and colour)

My debt balance is now £18,089 and will remain at that until August payday unless I find some snowflakes.

Free falling

First of all apologies for no posts last week, work kind of got the better of me. Working twelve hour days combined with the end of school term doesn't make blogging easy.
I've had to spend money this week too, which has made me unhappy. I ripped my suit trousers on Tuesday at work, my fault, and I had a big meeting on Thursday so needed to get a new one. The suit I count as essential spending, as I have to have one for work, however the 2 tops and shoes I bought with it are not. This led to a trip to the magazine shop and to the coffee shop. So I failed my challenge after 39 days!

I've still not done a budget for June and its already the 13th, my grocery spending is in free fall, as is my spending diary. No updates all month. I've also spent money on my daughters new school uniform, including shoes, which is loads more expensive than her old school.

I need to work out my budget for the rest of the month, however I think I've spent all my snowball money.
This is the most out of control I've felt in a long time and it's just in my personal finances, the joint account is running along as normal. I'm trying to really simplify my life, however it seems to be more complicated than ever on the way to doing this.

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Carnivals and a new blog

Kimberly at My Good Cents hosted the Carnival of Money Stories this week and included my post, The Possession Crossover Point, thanks Kimberly.

J at Budgets Are Sexy, yes they are, hosted the Festival of Frugality #132

The Money Hacks Carnival #19 was hosted at Sound Money Matters

The Carnival of Personal Finance #159 was held over at Greener Pastures

In other news Kelly from My Small Cents recently became Almost Frugal, go and check her new site. Kelly is an American living in France and to quote her blog '‘Almost Frugal’ is how we live our life. We watch our pennies and centimes but like to live well too''

Make do and mend

My pc has been fixed for a cost of £60, lots cheaper than a new one. I've had it for over 4 years and it needs to last another 4 years as buying a new one is not an option. If it goes again I will just have to share my daughters laptop. I'm making do and mending. I'm not spending money on new things.

A new budget for July?

I'm trying my hardest not to get too down about the cost of everything at the moment, especially fuel and grocery.
In June my petrol expenses increased to £105.00, I'd budgeted £60, and my grocery spending hit £275.14 , against a budget of £200. I don't feel I can reduce the grocery costs that much as I'm not sacrificing the quality of our food anymore and I'm already only using the car when needed and planning my journeys really carefully.
Dh and I are having a budget meeting at the weekend as we feel the January figures for our household expenses are now out of touch in the current climate and we need to make adjustments.

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June 2008 -Net Worth +£1,199

Our Net Worth went up to £39,789 in June, an increase of £1,199 and 3.11% on May's figure.

-Mortgage overpayments bought back in line after re-mortgage 3rd June
-£566 paid off my debts
-9.95% towards our target Net Worth for 2012

Broken computer!

This afternoon my pc stopped working. I'm using my daughters laptop at the moment, which I can have access to most days, however this is not ideal.
I'm hoping it's fixable as I don't have the money to buy a new one at the moment and I won't be buying one on credit.

My emergency fund

If you look at my sidebar regularly you will have noticed that my Emergency Fund total of £100 has not changed for weeks, even though I have a goal amount of £1,000 for 2008.

I change my mind about the amount I need in an emergency fund every day for the following reasons;

1. I feel the need to throw every spare penny I have at my debt. This is understandable as I pay 7.7% interest on my loan and get a lot less than that for my savings.
2. I have a joint savings account, linked to my checking account with dh that currently has a balance of £1,500
3. I can always stop any mortgage over payments I'm making with dh if I need to. Currently £600 a month.

Am I looking at this in the right way, do you just have a joint emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of living expenses if disaster strikes?, which would be both partners out of work, or do you have individual funds to cover your own monthly expenses plus joint saving if the roof caves in on you house?

I know different people do different things, please let me know what you think.

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The possession cross over point

I think its finally happened, I've finally reached the point where I have nothing left to sell from my previous spending habits. I've reached a possession cross over point.
Every item in my home now either serves a purpose, in which case it will be used and repaired until it no longer serves that purpose, or is an item that will be with me forever. I have no clutter left. I have no eBay sales to do. I have no urge to buy more stuff. I can no longer sells items for a fraction of the original buying price and feel like I've made money. In truth some of the items I've sold on eBay since 2005, I'm still paying for, however not for much longer.

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It's not all good, it's not all bad and it's not all ugly..

If truth be told I've had better months, however June is not too bad.

Debt: I've cleared £566 in June.
This amount should be nearer to £800, however the snowflakes have not been coming. I need to work on this.

Make £200 a month extra challenge: In June I've made £47.31
In May it was only £119.90. On the positive side I have made £1,067.11 in extra money so far this year, which is much better than nothing.

Spending: I've not spent anything that hasn't got a budget.
This means that every time I walk past Starbucks ,I want a coffee, and every time I go past Waterstones, I want to buy a book. The ban on spending has opened up a need to spend but I'm sure this will pass, its like the first few weeks of dieting, its hard at first, but gets a little easier the longer you do it.

2008 Goal: My goal this year was to clear £15,000 of debt from my loans.
This means that by the end of June I should have paid off £7.5k. I've paid off £3,910. Extremely behind! The debt clearance was always weighted more towards the second half of the year, however I'm much further behind than I thought I would be.

I've got another 4 weeks of intense workload and then for the rest of the year I'm throwing all my spare energy at my snow flaking business. I need to increase my income and I have nothing left to sell!

Update to come

I'm still having blog problems, I can only load my blog page when signed in..I've emailed blogger again as I know that some other people have had problems too :(

I'm so overdue an update on my finances, my money making or lack of it and my no spending, which is continuing with success. I've been working very hard at the day job, this is make or break time for my bonuses, which are much more lucrative than eBay selling, so I've given it my all. Time will tell if I achieve them.

Still not spending

I'm having a bit of a lull at the moment, I'm working long hours and there seems no time to do anything, however I've still not spent a penny of non budgeted money in June.

I've snowballed £205.64 to my loan account today which leaves a balance of £7,500 outstanding. This is amazing so I'm hoping this will lift me from the doldrums.

My total debt now stands at £18,875. The original balance was £45,023 so I've paid off 58% so far. When you are on the long haul of debt payment I know its normal to get a little down occasionally, so I'm going to ride it out and hope to be back to normal by the weekend.

Help

For some reason I am unable to load my blog home page. I think one of the adverts is stopping the page loading, does this happen? Is anyone else having trouble viewing this?

I can post and that all!

I've only spent budgeted money this week on groceries and petrol. I nearly got tempted by a magazine in the grocery store but I walked away. Fathers Day next week could of been a problem but my Dad says he doesn't want a present, spending the day with us and seeing the children is all he wants, so that's good.

June's simple budget

Incoming:
£1868

Outgoing:
£1880

Bills £800 includes contribution to mortgage overpayments
Loans £490
Grocery £200
Petrol £60 Increased by £10 due to rising cost
Loan Overpayments £200
Child Costs £130 includes some summer activities

Hopefully I should be able to make some extra money this month from eBay, Amazon and my new business.

Off and running! (well walking)

I'm off and running on my no miscellaneous spending challenge, three days down and not one penny spent. So far its been easy, however I know its going to get tough on occasions.


I've also started to go for a daily walk, 30 minutes a day with my own personal trainer. No I'm not paying for a trainer, my fourteen year old daughter, who has high hopes of working in sports/training when she's older is using me as a test case!

I'll post my June budget tomorrow.

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May 2008 - Net Worth + £1,234

Our Net Worth went up to £38,590 in May, an increase of £1,234 and 3.3% on April's figure.

- No mortgage overpayment made yet this month due to re mortgage currently going through.
- £600 placed in e-saver until able to make overpayment
- £771 cleared from my debts
- 9.647% towards our target Net Worth for 2012

I want it gone!

My No 1 personal loan that is. The balance outstanding is £7950, and the minimum monthly payment is £295.25. I work nearly a whole day every week after taxes etc, at a job I don't like, to pay this minimum payment and I want it gone. This is the reason I'm doing the challenge, to eliminate this loan.

Eliminating a little bit more spending

As part of my preparation for the 6 month challenge today I have:

-Cancelled all my magazine subscriptions. This will save me at least £17.90 a month.
I have so many magazines stored, most of which I've hardly read, so what I'll do is choose a few every month and read them from cover to cover.

-Switched my hair cut and blow to a wet cut. This will save me £5.40 every six weeks. I've decided that haircuts, with my job, are a necessity however getting it washed at the salon is not.

-Swapped my daughters mobile contract. This will save me £15 a month. She has swapped services with her older sister so now her bill is £20 a month instead of £35.

Only one day left now, I'm tempted to go to Starbucks!