Inkcircles Celtic spiral

I used carries creationjs fall limited edition threads klthat I had in my stash for a couple of years now.

Green -Spinach Leaf
Yellow - Golden Oak
Light Pink - Berry Smoothie
Was planning on using medium pink Mulberry Jam, but decided instead to go with the dark pink, Barn Rust.

Life begins at 40

Morning all,

I'm going to put up a fortnightly quick note to just to help keep me on track for the goals I have set for myself to accomplish in the next 12 months.

Goals for 15 August 2011:
Pay off /pay back all loans
Weight 69kgs (a curvy size 14 for me)
A BMI of 30 (my GP will determine this)
My possessions decluttered.

Yes I turn 40 on 15 August 2011 and I want to be ready to embrace the next phase of my life.  Even if I was turning 38 or 43 I still would be making these arrangement - I just figure that 40 makes a catchy title :)

My landlords return in February 2012, so I'm using that date for my exit strategy. I want to be financially, emotionally, physically ready to move on. I know that in the course of doing all of the above, I will be letting go of a lot of mental clutter and emotional baggage. Its all part of the process.

23 August Progress:
Loans: Behind schedule (current prognosis 15 October 2011)
Weight: Food intake and dietary changes are being arranged.
Fitness: Not yet arranged. Looking at best long-term options.
Decluttering: Not yet arranged. Looking at options.

I am officially an adult!

OK I turned 39 next week but I finally feel like a responsible adult now.

This post is only going to Debbie, mum and Julie (so say hi to each other) because its about money and finances and I really really hate having to admit to myself that I haven't been paying this as close attention as I should have been.

So feel free to ignore, otherwise I wouldn't mind any constructive advice or criticism - I'm open to suggestions. I'm also happy to send my spreadsheets if you want to see what I've done more closely.

Finally Wednesday night this week, I came to within a hair's whisker of coming a cropper financially speaking.  My pay comes through every second Wednesday night. Only this week it didn't.

Wednesday night found me with no food in the house, no petrol, no money apart from a few coins and a car registration that had to be paid *right now* or I couldn't legally drive it on the road.

So I sat and I got depressed and I wondered how I got to this place yet again .... it seems every few months I fall into a hole, then it seems to go alright for a while and then wham! out of nowhere I'm in a hole again.

So over the past few days instead of stitching or playing Warcraft I've set myself up a set of financial spreadsheets in Excel.  Its nothing fancy but it does the job.  I have all the raw data on the first worksheet, all the big money owing on the second sheet, and then all the regular and irregular bills on successive sheets thereafter one per month for the next 18 months.

Now I usually have a fairly good handle on my living expenses. I put aside money each pay for the regular and irregular bills so how come I'm getting in a hole?

By listing absolutely everything I pay regularly (loan repayments, phone, internet, electricity, cat food, vet trips, hairdressers, foxtel (cable TV) migraine medication) I've discovered the problem.

I'm used to receiving a much larger disposable income than I currently am.  When putting money aside for bills I have not been putting aside money for medications, hairdressers, cat food etc because that's just been paid as needed out of the disposable portion of my income.  I don;t have that disposable portion anymore.

So now I've included everything I can think of in that series of spreadsheets, no matter how big or how little, if its money I spend regularly, its gone in there.  And based on my current figures I will be $3300 short by August 2011.  I spent $3300 more on regular items per year than I budget for. 

So what to do to bring that figure into the positive side of the equation ...

1. I have not renewed my cross stitch magazines subscriptions. I have three UK mags I've been subscribing to and these are all due now. I'm not renewing any of them.
2. I've rearranged some payments, so I'm putting $50 more per pay into the ongoing bills and $50 less per pay into the big three.
3. I'll be cancelling the Foxtel. I have a big enough DVD library and my work gets in a large range of movie and TV series on DVD that I can cope.  I can also torrent any new stuff I can't wait for ....
4. Cancelling the hairdresser and going back to dying my own hair.

These changes mean that I will (with a little topping up on a couple of months) make it through to October 2011 with all bills covered and paid for and the big three paid off. Using the snowball method, working from highest interest rate to lowest, I should achieve:

• Personal loan paid off mid-March 2011
• Credit Card paid off late May 2011
• Debbie paid back in full in mid-October 2011.

Now all of this is worked on my current 54 hours per fortnight base wage.  It also includes allowance for:

• $50 or one tank of fuel per fortnight
• $28 for parking per fortnight ($4.00 per days for 7 days)
  
• $100 food for me and canned food for the cats per fortnight
• $40 for everything else

Everything else includes, buying lunch at work occasionally, going out with friends from work, buying cross stitch supplies, birthday presents, christmas cards, plane trip home to visit mum and Alison in October etc etc.

All this is worked on my base pay.  I am often asked to work additional hours and some weekend overtime shifts but they are additional so I can;t rely on them.  Any that come through will certainly be put towards plane trips, presents, framing costs and helping pay off the Big Three faster.

So now I have a proper plan.  Barring anything wayward like spending hundreds of dollars per fortnight on car repairs or medical specialists, I should be a ble to manage this.

Given that my fortnightly income should be around $1500 (subject to change - as they are in the process of reclassifying all of our positions!) my simple set up is:

Money goes in to a BankWest account.
Money goes out to:

• Bendigo bank loan account (personal loan)
• Bendigo Bank credit card (credit card bill)
• ING Savings Maximiser Account (paying of Debbie)
• Bendigo Bank standard account (where all regular and irregular bills come out)

Given the very small amounts I'm working with I haven;t set up any investment accounts or short term money markets or anything weird.  Just simple, money in and then money back out to where it needs to go.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

WIP - Wild Thing

Ruby Slipper designs

Ruby Slipper designs

A project for Alison's 50th Birthday in late August 2010.

Dragonfeathers Afghan

Fantacat Designs

I've had the chart for years but only finally acquired the afghan fabric courtesy of Colours Down Under in July 2010.

Mel's Sunday Update

To start I'd like to say "I'm sorry" to everyone who has been expecting communication from me and hasn't been getting it.  The migraine pain is back despite the meds. Also despite the meds, the migraine has. never. gone. away.

The combination of the two has made me quite depressed and miserable. I'[ve been faking it well at work but I just don't have the energy to fake it at home, so I am sorry.  I will get to that backlog of correspondence as I can :(

On a happier note, I did force myself out in the sunshine yesterday and went to the WA Craft Fair.  In some respects it seemed smaller than the Craft & Quilt Show I went to back in May but the vendors and crowd here seemed to be more serious crafters.

There are apparently only two major craft fairs in WA annually.  Having been to both it seems like the May fair is the "oooh look honey, you always said you'd like to try X, lets get a beginners kit"  whereas the July Fair is "here's my shopping list of things I need and a notebook to jot down this year's trends".

I could be wrong but that's how it seemed to me.

I took a certain amount of cash with me and spent the lot, mostly on consumables.  A couple of hand-made food vendors were there - including a bakery opposite the ColoursDownUnder stall who was selling gluten free food.  I have enough GF bikkies now to last me a couple of months worth of meetings ...

Janine also had in for me the black afghan fabric required for Fantacat's DragonFeathers Afghan.  There was also some joking around about if I could get this one finished in time for the May Fair next year.  I stretched the fabric out this morning - EEP!  There are 32 blocks to be stitched on this - that's more than one block per week! Especially as I can't even start it until October!  And you know how hot Aussie summers are .... somehow I'm not sure this will even get started before May 2011.

The only other stitching related purchase was one piece of royal blue fabric big enough to stitch Golden Cat and Golden Peacock.  OH and I gathered supplies for another birthday gift, but can't talk about that here {grin}.

At present I'm frantically stitching Alison's (Best non-stitching friend) Wild Thing.  It suits her to a T and she's moving mid August back to Canberra, so this will be a combined 50th birthday present and housewarming gift.

Unfortunately I was disappointed yet again at the difference between the cover picture and the Real Thing.  The recommended fabric is Picture This Plus Cashel Heather.  In the cover photo the fabric looks a mottled blue.  When the fabric arrived, it was, as you can see in the photos, a mottled mauve/pink color.It did disturb me when I started because the cover pic was of cool tones and there is quite a bit of black and ecru in the border, but the warm Heather does seem to be quite fine so far ....

After that its onto a number of round robins (one current one and a couple I'm behind on) and then another birthday present and then I can start thinking abort stitching anything else :)

In the rest of life I'm just plodding along.  Stitching or in World of Warcraft when my migraines allow it, picking up any extra work I can to make the bills and then Gusty getting through each day.  Today I have been productive: I have stitched on Wild Thing, made a large batch of fried rice to take for lunches all week. Done the washing (its out on the line drying) and I have a loaf of bread in the oven.

The top photo is of Trubs protecting the bread as it is out in the sun to start to rise.  Yes it is covered in plastic so it wont dry out or get covered in cat hair :)

Just to mop the floors and change the cat litter and that will do for the housework :)  Tonight some of us from work are planning to go out to the Hare Krishna's Food on the Jetty. Lots of good vegetarian food, mostly gluten friendly and you pay what you can afford.  A few of us decided rather than going to a mid-range fancy restaurant, we would go here and spend the same amount of money and feel good that we are helping a charity. Apparently the food is superb and there's lots of it!

So that's my update.  Mmmmm - that bread smells ready to be taken out of the oven now :)