About Me

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I'm single, broke, and in my early 30s... but thankfully decided a while ago to sort my life out once and for all; in particular to sort out my finances, and to move forward into a debt free life. I'm hoping writing a blog will help spur me on through my social life cutbacks, my successful and not-so-successful attempts at dating, my new addiction to the Sainsbury's Basics range, and the general insanity caused by the stress of money troubles.

Sunday 19 May 2013

All gone a bit belly up

Well I haven't posted for sometime, as I've not really been behaving myself on the financial front, and was feeling a bit sheepish!

Partly well, my fault, and partly through no fault of my own I've spent a lot of money recently.

That card I mentioned I had splurged on in my last post?  Well it got up to just over £900!  I did transfer it to a 0% card though, so have until February to pay it off.  Not quite the point though.

Then I was thinking that was all taken care of and I could have a fresh start back on the financial bandwagon, but no, my car decided to break down.  Cue a nightmare day trying to get it fixed/recovered (as was miles from home) etc etc. but eventually I managed to get a local garage on the case and they recovered me and lent me a courtesy car.  However, despite getting a 'mates rate' labour charge the work still totted up to almost £360.  Unhappy Debt Girl.

Later that day I was relaxing in the evening, trying to forget the £360 I'd just spent on the credit card I had just balance transfered from, and then I got a text from my tenant (yes, I don't live in my property, but rent it out, and rent somewhere else myself, weird I know).  There is a pipe leaking through the ceiling that she had just discovered and it needs fixing pronto.  She had a builder she knows come to look at it and he's giving me a quote for the work tomorrow *deep breath*.  This isn't quite as dire as the car as I have about £900 saved in a specific account for flat repairs.  However, I was saving that for the inevitable day that the boiler dies (apparently the new housebuilders put in cheap tat).

Add to all of this that my boss at job numero 2 told me yesterday that our store hours are going to be cut, and I, along with everyone else, will have to take a cut in contracted hours.  That means my contract of 8 hours a week is going to go down to 6 hours.  This wouldn't have been so bad in the good old days when we had less staff and I frequently got 14-18 hours whilst on an 8 hour contract.  However, we had to take on someone from another store in January which swallowed up all our spare hours, meaning I've been nearly bang on 8 hours every week already :(  If no-one leaves (many of us are job hunting and have been for some time) my weekly budget will be even smaller than £30... I think Project Ebay will need to resume!

Starting to wonder if I need to find myself a THIRD job???  Sad thing is I already don't have much of a life, and don't want it to be any more limited timewise than it already is!  I have so much admin to do in my own time from job 1, which I need time to do.  Given that job 1 pays me £25k I need to keep in my boss's good books!

In regards to the car costs, I whacked them on a 19.9% credit card, but have already submitted a balance transfer (been approved, just waiting for the money to move) to credit card 1 at 0% until February.  With the splurge-fest of £900 and the car repairs, this card that was due to be paid off in June, is now back up again :(

I felt rather sick the other day when I worked out that if I hadn't have had a couple of small splurges in the last couple of years plus this year's smallish January splurge, and the recent £900 large splurge, I'd be out of debt already, GULP.  Still, the road to debtfreeness is never easy and I guess I should still feel proud of how far I've come.  New projections are to be debt free by early November... still not bad given that I originally owed £19.5k.