My Restaurant Has Caught Up With Me Again

My Usual Ostrich Act

This time I definitely know it's my fault I took my eye of the ball expected others to do the job for me and now I have to face the consequences. It seems that every time I get complacent Murphy visits, every time I think I have my debts sorted I get sideswiped.

When I walked away from The Restaurant thinking that I had sold it, I left behind a Dishwasher, a Restaurant quality one which I was leasing for around $19 a week. The couple who were buying the business from us had agreed to take over the lease, before they changed there minds and left me high and dry. Once my Sister and I closed down the bank accounts for the business the standing order to the rental company got cancelled. This payment came out weekly so about 2 days after the payment did not go through I was contacted by the Rental firm to check on why. I was very ill at the time both emotionaly ( I had a complete breakdown ) and physically ( a bad case of shingles ) and so I gave them the Landlords name and mobile phone number and left it up to them to make the arrangements to pick up their machine.

At this time I only owed 1 payment and 6 months on my lease agreement.

Should I have followed this up, sure, did I follow this up, no. I stuck my head in the sand and hoped it would all get sorted and then it would just go away. But it has not and yesterday I received an email from the company demanding I make a late payment of almost $900.

I must admit I got really angry probably not the right emotion, but why the hell did they not pick up the machine ? Why allow someone to run up months of back payments and never contact them to tell them this was happening ? So they have been gaily slapping on charges for a machine they knew I no longer wanted !!!!!

I sent them back an email yesterday which they have probably responded to by now, but I have stuck my head in the sand again and have not checked my inbox. I never slept again last night worrying about The Restaurant. How many times is this going to happen, instead of giving me great joy this Restaurant has caused me a world of pain. I thought it was going to end up a legacy instead it has ended up a nightmare........

Pros and Cons of Being More Frugal Part 2

Losses and Gains Part 2

After posting my losses yesterday it's now time to look at what I have gained by losing. I neglected to say yesterday that I have also lost paid income, but that in itself has provided me with many gains.


GAINS

1. I think I will start with one which is of real importance to me and that's self respect, I used to feel so guilty about where I was in my life and I used to worry about what my Grandchildren would think of me when they were old enough to recognise me for what I was. A financial disaster, so as a way of preventing them from falling into the same trap I started bank accounts up for them as soon as they were born. I still give them a little money each time I see them and allow them to only spend a portion of it while saving the rest. I am now hoping that as they grow older they will see me as a good financial role model.
2. I have now gained good sleep patterns, I no longer walk the house in the wee small hours counting and recounting money. This stage in my life was particularly bad when I was running the Restaurant and it was time to work out wages and pay bills, during that time I would be surprised if I got more than a couple of hours of sleep a night.
3. I have gained a wonderful Husband, for years we were on a different page financially we worked our wages and bills as a you and me type of situation with both of us refusing to talk about how much savings or debt we had incured. This was especially frustrating for me when I finally saw the light and The Foxx did not. Now we plan together and spend together and save together, how sweet does that word together sound.
4. I am now slowly crawling my way back out of debt. At last I am gaining control of what I thought would be following us into retirement. I now know that by sticking to our plan we will be debt free before The Foxx retires.
5. I no longer pay bank fees I have gained control over my bank accounts, there was a time when all of my direct debits would be late and at $40 late fees per time this happened I was struggling to get through the month ( I have since changed my account name and the fee would now be $10 ) I think now I would be happy to look my bank Manager in the eye.
6. I have gained my home life back and because I am no longer working we have gained a carer for my aging MIL. I now enjoy cooking and cleaning and everything involved with running my home. I remember a few years ago I hired a cleaner to come in weekly and do the work which I never had the time or the inclination to do. Now making my own cleaning products and trying to find ways of living better for less are what occupy my days now. I love being a housewife and The Foxx is loving coming home each day to an organised home with wonderful new recipes to eat ( all bought with my budget in mind ) I am contributing things which money just could not buy.
7. I have gained my own fruit and veg shop as we laughingly call it, this is my backyard. I am growing herbs, veg and we have a few fruit trees. Putting my hands into the soil is so therapeutic I love it. There are some aspects of gardening I just can't manage like heavy digging and spending hours bending over. So I have set up a high bench for all my seedlings and for potting and by regular weeding I don't have to spend a lot of time bending over. And if I need any heavy digging done I have a fit and healthy Son and Son-in-Law.
8. Last but by no means least my financial journey has brought me in contact with some wonderful bloggers who are a wealth of knowledge and support. I have gained some facebook friends through this as well maybe some day we might even meet.

So there we have it, my gains. I am sure there are heaps more which by now I am taking for granted. But after reading back over them I notice that the biggest gains are all about how I feel about me. It's shocking that it has taken me till I reach 61 years of age to find out things I should have always known. Still better late than never..

Broke and Bills Bills Bills

I am going to be joining Lena in her fiscal fast for what remains of June check out her last post http://http://frugalandthankful.blogspot.com.au/

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I wanted to save $1,000 this month, well I now know that that is just not going to happen, Murphy visited us with car repairs and now 2 bills have come in. I was absolutely not expecting one of them as it was a toll fine, and I was positive that I had paid off and finalised all payments. But this one is for November last year and I had completely overlooked it, what is my head full of cotton wool ???
The other one is our monthly phone/internet/cableTV account and it is $50 dearer than last months I expected it to be a little higher as I phoned Mum every day after her accident, but I am blown away by the amount.
How am I going to manage to pay all of these bills and still save ?? Well I'm not something has to go and it is savings. So this is one p****d of blogger.

On the plus side I managed to save $50 off of our food bill from last week and I managed to keep my fuel bill down as well so this morning I went and banked it, I also have around $60 in my snowflake jar which I have still to bank so I will be OK with the bills it's just the lack of savings which is getting me down...

Murphy Pays A Visit

Murphy Got Me Again

Bill payments, food shopping, debts, fine and computer payments come out today. These are fortnightly payments except for food which gets paid weekly. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to have a shortfall of around $60 to meet these payments.  It was right from the word going to be a difficult week.... And then Murphy visited.....Last month while extremely bored I paid $1.99 to buy an online game, this came out of my paypal account and I had the necessary funds to cover it.

Today I opened up my online banking to check my balance and to pay my bills and instead of having $450 in there I only had $433, let me tell you that when every penny counts this was quite a blow. Without realising it I had joined bigfish's monthly online club and this was the monthly payment to paypal ( which they had to take from my bank account ) of $7.71 plus a $10 overdrawn fee from my bank, I immediately contacted them to cancel this monthly amount and to let them know how annoyed I was to have my accounts hijacked by them. So within minutes I received an email from them canceling my payment and promising to return my $7.71 back into my paypal account. I will now have to speak to my bank and see if they will reverse the fees, fingers crossed.

Anyway here is a breakdown of my figures.

Gas Bill                     $50         ( this is the first payment of this Restaurant debt )

Driving Fine              $50         ( this is my second to last payment )

ANZ C/C payment    $25         ( this is an ongoing payment I will be taking this one to my grave )

Advertising               $148.00  ( my last Restaurant advertisment payment)

Computer Payment  $135.00  ( A monthly payment )

TOTAL $ 408.00

This leaves me the grand total of $25.00 to cover my food and petrol for the week, is it looking to you as if the CC is going to take another hit Grrrrrrr

Still no sign of my new Grandson yet, I am staying with my Son and his wife for a couple of days as they have all got heavy colds and they need a little TLC. So I am nesting, you would think this birth and labour were going to be done by me. LOL

Today Debt Chased Me

I Got The Dreaded Phonecall Today

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was waiting to get  Lawyers letters from the Companies which I still owe money too from the closing down of my Restaurant and today the Gas Company sent me their Lawyer's letter demanding final payment. I was expecting the letter and was even keen to get it so I could start putting a payment plan in place.

I phoned the Lawyer's right away and they put me straight through to their call centre, which was as usual overseas where once again I spoke with someone who had virtually no understanding of what had been the build up to me receiving the letter, nor cared. This female was so demanding she complained about the amount of time this money had been overdue and expected me to make huge payments. The amount is so overdue I tried to explain to her, because I have had to wait to hear from a recovery agency before I could start to make part payments and because I am not working I can only afford to pay $50 a fortnight. She was not happy to accept this but I was insistant and eventually she accepted my terms, but could not resist having one last go before we hung up. " And make sure you are never late with your payments " was her parting shot.

What makes people on the other end of a phone who have no idea of your financial situation treat you like something they just stood in ?? Am I going to have to go through the same thing for the Electricity account and the Telephone account ??

Anyway as from Thursday I wll start making my payments and I have made out a spreadsheet for them. According to my dates it will take me until January to pay this debt off, but I am going to put everything into making sure I pay it off quicker than that.

While on the subject of money I phoned the UK tonight to find out what is going on with my pension payments and when I can expect to receive them. If you remember I faxed them off my bank account details on the 3rd of this month. The lovely Lady on the end of the phone told me they did not receive my fax and could I give her the details over the phone and they would ring me back within a couple of days to let me know how it is going. So fingers crossed I get my pension this side of Christmas LOL

I am absolutely going to have to make sure that I bring in a little extra money every week in order to cover my debts. I don't care whether it's doing Tupperware parties, selling Avon or starting an Ebay business I just have to make this happen, any ideas ??? 

The Foxx and I have got $510 worth of bills, debts, fines and food money to be found by Thursday and only $450 available. Looks like the C/C will have to be used again, so we are not happy.

Pension and Superannuation Frustration

 

Today I'm Chasing Money

Last night a received a phonecall from a lovely lady in England, she told me she was just about to process my aged pension claim when she noticed I had not added my banking details to the forms. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had sent off the forms and expected to hear from them round about Christmas. So imagine my surprise to learn that apart from the banking details we are ready to go.

I don't remember there being anywhere on the form for these details, but I suppose there must have been. Anyway she gave me a fax number for me to forward on all the necessary information. She also mentioned that she would send me a form to fill in in the unlikely chance that they do not receive my fax.

Did I say unlikely!!!! I feel like swearing as I wrote out a letter to fax off to them, made my way down to the Post Office, and the b****y fax would not go. I have googled the details for the UK Pension Dept and the fax number there is different in every way from the numbers she gave me. so it looks as if I will have to wait until I receive the form and this is going to slow down my application.

Superannuation

I also contacted the Australian Tax Dept. yesterday as they have Superanuation of mine which I am still waiting to receive, so imagine how annoyed I was to hear that they are way behind and have not even started the processing, but while I have you on the line I will have a look at your forms she gaily said.

Wait a minute you have not had your photo ID certified looks as if we cant go any further until you send in certified copies of your drivers License. Go any further !!! you hav'nt even started I felt like yelling at her. So while down at the Shopping Centre to fax off the Pension details........ I photocopied the License but it will be around 6 o'clock tonight ( 5 hours away )  before there will be anybody available to certify my copy.

So ask me if I'm mad, ask me if I'm frustrated and ask me if forms are getting too complicated for this old addled brain to take in....YES.....YES......YES.....

My Fiscal Fast Fifth Day

Fiscal Fast Fifth Day.

Day 5 has just ended and I am hooting along only tomorrow to go and as Wedesday is a public holiday I think I can declare this a huge success.

There is still enough food in the fridge freezer and pantry to get me through until after this challenge is over.

I am not sure if I mentioned it in an earlier post but I have sent off the form which hopefully will give me a part British aged pension, the Pension age for females in the UK has been 60 for a large number of years, but it is slowly rising and by 2020 it will be 65, so it has only been this last couple of months since I turned 61 that I became eligible. It will be based on the number of years I worked while living there, I started working when I was 15 and left Scotland when I was 35, but I will not be eligible for the whole 20 years as I took some time off to have my children.

So it may only be a token amount, but as I am too young to claim an Australian pension until I turn 65, every little coming into this house is going to help.

I have been warned that this could take some time to process, so fingers crossed.

Today my Telstra account came in, nothing unusual in this it comes in every month. Only every month it is wrong. This account includes our landline our internet and our pay TV and comes to a hefty $250 a month or around that figure. Way back in December I missed a payment as I was in control of that bill and I just did not have the money. Then in January I left for a couple of months, The Foxx did his best single handed to cope with the debt I left him. But like me he fell behind, then Telstra changed it's bill format and the b****y account got harder to read. In our last three accounts we can find no sign of payments made and our bill just keeps getting higher and higher. We have been frantically trying to get this sorted out but we get put through to call centres where the staff just don't have a clue what we are talking about.

Since I returned home we have been paying Telstra back $200 a fortnight and according to our calculations we have caught up with the arrears, but according to our last account which arrived this morning, we are now around $1,000 in arrears.

Well The Foxx went into battle and although it took him through 10 different departments and well over an hour on the phone he eventually got it sorted out and our $1,000 bill went down to this months payment of $250.00, at last we are back in charge and although we have no idea where it went wrong Telstra have agreed to look into it to make sure it does'nt happen again.

Heading down to the bank tomorrow to take another $100 out of my snowflake jars and deposit it into my savings account, 4 months and only $200 still it's better than nothing.

While I am on the subject of money, my superannuation payment has not hit my bank yet, so that may require another hour long phonecall.....

Show Me The Money

Today It's All About money

It seems to me that all I have talked about lately is the weather, growing fruit and veg, my Grandchildren and plans for Easter. Am I avoiding the subject of money, probably !!!!

Part of the reason for this is because now that I am no longer working, I have none. We, as in The Foxx and I, do have income, but because he does'nt get any overtime, and is unable to work 2 jobs what comes into our home on a fortnightly basis never changes.

So every couple of weeks we write down our priority payments, our debts ( most of these relate to The Restaurant ) and of course there is the CC, by the time we have made these payments there is literally nothing left.

So at the moment I am finding subjects to keep my blog interesting and progressive really hard to find, because things are going along on a pretty even keel, so I am financially bored. This is actually where I have always wanted to be, but I imagined myself with a wage being able to contribute more to our finances. You know the old saying " Be careful what you wish for "

Now that I have got that off of my chest, I am going to look into ways of making a little money on the side, I have a few things to put onto Ebay. I am thinking of becoming a Secret Shopper. I am currently doing online surveys again. At the moment my Snowflakes are all change I have taken from my purse and Hubby's pockets, but if I earn any extra it will be Snowflaked and will go towards debt.

Tomorrow I will try and lump our debts together and give myself a number, this is actually going to be a very scary move for me as I am responsible for most of them, fortunately I have the backing of The foxx. Maybe after he see's how much it actually is he will feel less likely to embrace it.

You may have noticed I have changed the look of my blog, this is not a Religious statement, just me trying to bring a little Zen into my life.

Out With The Trusty Calculator Again

A Calculating Kind Of Week

What a massive week for me this week ! I have decided that it's not enough that I count every penny I bank, owe, save but now I am adding a new suspect and it's calories.... YES now it's out there I weigh 196 lbs I have just managed to scrape in under the 200 mark.

I am ashamed of myself but having said that I have watched clothes get tighter and the scales going up for months now and I have done nothing about it and I have no clue why.

So today is day one I am going to incorporate some light exercise into my day and try to eat around the 1200/1400 calorie mark.

What I am not going to do is turn my blog into a weightloss forum, but as I intend to weigh-in every Monday morning I will post my losses, fingers crossed there are some.

OK back to finances, I am still getting it wrong, because today I got a non payment of toll fine in the mail I misjudged my payment day and so insted of paying around $4 for the toll I am having to pay $140 for the fine the paperwork etc, etc. etc. Sucks ehhh ?? I was going to pay it this Thursday but the Government beat me to it. So looks like some of my Superannuation I am still waiting to receive will help towards this.

Now that I am trying to lead a healthier more active lifestyle I am being faced with a whole new eating plan and the concern for me is that this might lead to higher Grocery  bills. So I am frantically googling healthy inexpensive recipes which will also suit the needs of The Foxx and The MIL. Wish me luck with this one...

I have to admit that my slackening off from blogging was a result of some lousy feedback regarding my lack of any real financial knowledge. I thought mine was a harmless personal journey which I shared with my tight circle of   blogging mates. But someone expected more from me and berated me for my trivial meaningless waste of  The Internet.

So I pulled back gave up blogging and gave up commenting and stuck my head in the sand for a while.

BUT I am back and annoyed at myself for letting this hater put me off of doing something I get a lot of pleasure from. So if you are reading this and you know who you are, GO AWAY and leave my blog to be enjoyed by me and mine....... 

Angry Mother-in-Law

Yesterday while out buying my ingredients for my washing powder, my Mother-in-law told me in no uncertain terms how ridiculous I was becoming, how much she hated " that kind of stuff " and surely I could get it just as cheaply at Aldi. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention another few areas where we could save money ( I'll leave that comment to the readers imagination ) but as she is an old Lady with set ideas about how things are done, I let it slide.

I fight my mother-in-law constantly over menus, shopping lists and a heap of my other money saving ideas, she has never ever learned the art of saving, budgeting even switching things off after you have used them and not leaving taps running these all seem to be alien concepts to her.

So now on top of the money she puts in for food she sneaks other food items into the house as she obviously feels my lists are lacking, they say two women in the kitchen does'nt work and now that I am home full time I am now noticing how much control of my Kitchen I have lost over the years.

I want that control back, so maybe some of these issues we are having are as much my fault as hers, so I will continue to go about my frugal ways quietly one fight at a time.........

I got a final reading from the Electricity supply to The Restaurant yesterday so I am now sitting with the Phone account the Gas account and the Power bill, a grand total of over $5,000 and no way at present of paying them, so I am going to have to wait until they put these accounts into the hands of collection agencies and then make arrangements to pay these off slowly.

I am now finding myself back where I started  when I first started this blog, seems to me I am going backwards instead of forwards.

Is it all bad news I can hear you asking, not at all everything in my personel life is fantastic The Foxx left me a note this morning and his bankcard, just in case I needed anything, I am staying home today so I can give him it back tonight with thanks. My Daughter-in-Law is 7 months pregnant and we are having a little boy this time, this is my 4th Grandchild and will  make 2 girls and 2 boys. My Grandson will be 6 this month and so I will be looking for a present for him this weekend and my Daughter will be 37 in a week or two and the family are all coming here for her party. This will be the first time since I left that we will all be together and I can't wait.

So am I in debt YES

Am I happy YES

The Last Pity Party Post

I am now a Housewife and Caregiver

I'll bet you had thought that I had exhausted the disasters which I have been recanting in my last 4 blog posts. but no the final, nail in the coffin of our finances was brought about by my MIL ending up in hospital with heart failure while I was away from The Foxx. I have a really guilty conscience about what happened to her as I am almost positive that the strain brought on by my leaving  contributed to her condition. So now I am unable to work as I am needed at home with her pretty much constantly at the moment. I made all the normal enquiries about a Carers Pension but as it's based on the amount of money coming into the home, The foxx's salary is too high for us to make a claim.

So now I am her caregiver without being able to make a claim for financial help, part of me is panicking and part of me feels empowered. For the first time since I can remember I am solely in charge of making sure we can afford to live like this.

So budgeting, menu planning and spending are all dictated by me. I am totally committed to getting us out of debt and living a stress free lifestyle.

I will be counting my no spend days again, taking special note of cheap petrol days, produce market shopping for fruit and veg, remembering to turn off electric lights and even making my own laundry detergent. i feel excited and I know with your help I can do this...

PS Jane can you remember the name of the website we used to use to track our spending ????

The End or is It ????

When I turned the key on The Restaurant door on Christmas Eve I think I knew that I would never trade again, nor did I want too, I had not had a decent nights sleep in weeks the first and last thing I did every day was count money, I had thumping migraines and there was no money in the bank to buy stock to open up again after the staff' came back from holiday.

When my Sister was with me we used an existing bank account of hers and with it came a credit card, this was purely an emergency backup, but let me say that we had a lot of Emergencies, of course when we broke up the partnership we closed those accounts down and opened new ones. so the CC went and the bank would not allow me any line of credit at all as we were a brand new business and nobody was willing to take a chance on it succeeding and them getting paid. Let me tell you that there is no way you can run any business without huge savings or a line of credit and I had neither.

I needed to talk to The Foxx but our conversation lead to the biggest row we had ever had, all of both of our pent up frustrations came flooding out, this was on New Years Eve and by the 3rd of January I had left him, in fact you could say I ran from everything that had gone wrong over the last 7 months. I sent the Restaurant keys back to the landlord and told him to do his worst, but he would not get blood out of a stone as I was jobless, homeless, carless, husbandless and was considering declaring myself bankrupt. 

I must have a Guardian Angel, as my Landlord has wiped my debt and cancelled the 27 months I still had on my lease, of course for that he gets all my fixtures and fittings to do with as he pleases, but I don't care I just want to wash my hands of the whole sorry mess.

The Foxx was not prepared to let me go so easily, although I made things really hard for him and as I was out of the state he could only reach me by email or phone and for the longest time I did not want to speak to him.

And then I got sick ! all of my stress etc. meant I was suffering with a severe bout of Shingles and in unmanageable pain, even the strongest painkillers were having no effect.

So who turned up to Nurse me, my Sister I was housesitting for a friend and because there was nobody there to help me she flew across Australia to look after me, some things are just meant to happen and during the time we were alone we rebuilt our relationship.

I am now back home and The Foxx and I are determined to get our marriage and our finances back on track, we do love each other, but I have warned him we play as a team or not at all. So far so good I'm not sure how he will take the saving and budgeting plans I have been making I imagine that it will be met with some resistance at first as this is a totally new concept to him. But I plan to let him see what a success we can make of this together.

But before we start to save we have got to get rid of the build up of bills we accrued between the house and the Restaurant, but we will do this as a team, wish us luck....

Goals For March

Taking my lead from Carla I am posting this months goals

Financial Goals

• Catch up time this month, as we are so far behind with everything it's not funny.
• I really need to start a holiday fund big trip coming up in August.
• Keeping an eye on housekeeping costs by menu planning.

De- Cluttering

• Not so much decluttering, more extra money making, things for e-Bay.
• Take photos again for e-Bay.
• Catching up with housework.

Personal Goals

• Keep The Foxx on track and motivated.
• Keep up with everyones blog posts.
• Read one self help book monthly. ( any ideas ? )

My Sister and I

 While I really do think that our wages bill crippled our little Restaurant, I have only love for my sister, so let me put it out there. " I love you " and I know that you did not make your decision lightly.

I have spoken too my sister at great length over the last few weeks and she is aware of how I feel and because of our close bond we are still great friends. however some members of my family are putting the blame squarely on her shoulders and are less willing to forgive, however I am working on them....

After the Restaurant was put completely in my charge we experienced a couple of the worst trading months so far, it's because Christmas is just round the corner don't worry about it you will soon be so busy you won't have time to count your money ha ha I believed it all, more fool me. Remember I am completely new to the Restaurant trade.

So I put out an advert in our local newspaper stating longer opening hours during the run up to Christmas and sat back and waited for the bookings to roll in. It was not long before Saturday nights right up until Christmas Eve were booked out, Friday nights were slower but reasonably busy but mid-week nothing changed.

Except of course my Grocery list it got longer and longer and our new trading hours meant more hours for the staff, it was getting really hot here in Queensland and so the air con was on all day and night. and the bar was constantly getting stocked up.

Did I see myself making more money yes of course but it seemed as if there was constantly more going out, but I was still reasonably optomistic, about meeting all of my bills by the time we closed on Christmas Eve.

My chef was going off for a 2 week holiday as were most of my staff and so I had no option but to make arrangements to close the Restaurant over the holiday season, I felt they had me over a barrel with this decision I would have far rather worked on as it was too early in the day to be able to have no money coming in and to be able to meet my obligations, but you can't open a Restaurant without a Chef so I had no choice...

Of course I never made the money I had hoped to make and so when we closed on Christmas Eve I was struggling to pay holiday wages let alone rent and bills................

My financial matters

The Foxx and I sat down last night and paid our bills together then he jumped in the car and went to the bank to withdraw the grocery money for the week. this is the first time ever, in my married life we had kept everything seperately it was always me and you and now it's us.

I have added new debt to our finances as I did not walk away from The Restaurant completely debt free so around $5,000 is now owed outside of  our household expenses so once we get rid of our back bills we will start on the debt.

I have taken my side bars off as they had been paid off and I will think about adding new ones for my current debt.

Off now to take MIL to the shops for groceries........... till next time

The Singing Chef

When my Sister and I decided to buy and run our Restaurant I said right from day 1 that I had no interest in the Kitchen side of the business, so I became front of house and Sis wanted the Chef's position. Firstly let me say that she is an excellent COOK and not a trained Chef. Round the corner from where she lived was a very busy Italian Restaurant where the Chef's joked, sang and interacted with customers and this was where my sister thought we should be heading. Unfortunately our kitchen was a lot smaller and more enclosed in fact you couldent even see customers from where food was prepared. So dream no. 1 was dashed for her.

Running a kitchen must be one of the hardest jobs out I personally could not take the pressure and after only one week of working with our experienced chef my Sister came to me in tears " I can't do this I hate it she said " what is the alternative ? I asked, and that was to employ our supposedly temporary chef on a full time basis. We could not afford to do this but had no option, so from week one our wage bill became our biggest outlay.

Around this time my sister became really unwell and was diagnosed with whooping cough and this coincided with a visit from her Husband ( remember the one she had left 3 months earlier ) from the moment he arrived she leaned on him for everything and it soon became obvious that they were going to get back together. And 3 weeks later she let me know those were her plans, but don't worry she said I will come over every 6 weeks and help out in The Restaurant and help also with the paperwork.

Two visits later she told me she was pulling out completely, she actually bought her way out of a business which she had just bought herself into, we split all the bills some late rent, tax, and our Chef's superannuation and now the business was mine and mine alone.

Was I scared ?? you bet.

All Things Financial

I am going back to where I was before " The Restaurant " planning meals going on no spending months filling up my jars. My sidebars are all wrong and as soon as I get my head around all bloggers changes I will update them.

The Foxx and I are working as a team just now and I will tell you how that came about later in my story,

A big shout out to  my blogger friends, you are all truly inspirational and your progresses financially are encouraging, as well as your blogging skills I have been very impressed by how professional you have all become. I now know where to go for help when I need it LOL

I'm Back And In A Bad Place

It has been nine months since I last posted, at that time I was full of plans and dreams about how successful I was going to be in my new venture.

All of my savings and superannuation money went into making sure that our Restaurant was going to be a wonderfully friendly place to eat, so we sourced the best ingredients, re-employed most of the old staff and opened on the 6th of July 2011.

My Sister was going to learn all she could from our new Chef and so we employed her on a part time basis only, this Woman knew her way round Italian food and her menus and meals were mouthwatering. she did not come cheap, but as we were going to give her few hours we thought we could afford her.

Who would have thought that after a week my sister would have decided that she did not want to work in a hot sweaty kitchen and followed that up 3 weeks later by going back to her husband. Leaving me to run the Restaurant single handed.

It was all downhill from there, our wage bill grew and grew at a quicker rate than our customers and it soon became appparent to me that this venture that I had sunk everything into was doomed to failure.

And so we closed down on Christmas Eve, I am heartbroken jobless and in more debt now than I have ever been.

Obviously there is a lot more to this story and I will fill in some blanks as I blog.

I have had a quick look through some of my favourite blogs and it's great to see the success you are all still making of your financial journeys, unfortunately I can not respond to all your posts as they have changed some of the comment formats and I havent managed to get my head round them yet, still I am out there lurking.

Superannuation Blues

Definitely more going out just now than coming in, plus bad news from My superannuation company, they have told me that because they are currently changing the structure of the company there is a delay in paying out individuals Superanuation, this means ME. OMG I am worried stiff what if it doesent come through in time for the contract to be finalised which is the 6th June.

So once again sleepless nights for me, half of me is getting on with my plans and the other half of me is frightened to make any, on the plus side my Sister is so positive, that I,m hoping it rubs off on me.

My final final final wage came in to the bank today this consisted of about 20 hours of holiday pay and the 16 hours I worked this week, so not a lot but added to what I have already got it will get me through, plus there is a credit card added to our business account with $4.500 available on it, so I may be able to use it and put anything used back when my Superannuation comes through.

We picked up our uniforms yesterday with the Restaurant name embroidered on to them, they look really smart I will be mainly in black with a long Bistro Apron and my sister is going with the traditional chefs jacket and striped trousers, we have bought confortable shoes, and so we are ready for our first service.

Next week my courses start and I,m looking forward to learning the fine art of coffee and alcohol service.

Anyone noticed my 2 sidebars, yippee almost paid off debt 2) cant wait to really get started on debt 1) I am only paying off $25 a fortnight at present so you can imagine how long this is going to take, still there is no interest on this debt so I actually can take my time with my repayments, still I would love to get rid of it.

Heading out with Sister to have a look at Chefs knifes, OMG more money.

The Holiday Is Well And Truly Over

I,m back !!!!!!

It seems like forever since I last posted or checked and commented on any other bloggers posts, so my humble apologies. But as expected with the arrival of my sister, my life has been turned on end, but it,s exciting.

For the first time in a long time laughter is back in my home, my Sister is a very uplifting personality and together we laugh. I have no doubt in my mind, that while alone in bed she grieves for all she has lost and left behind, but she seems determined to get on with things and make a new start.

At the moment she is on the Golf Course, meeting some of the Lady members to see if she can build a social life round her love of Golf. Maybe one day I will join her down there, I have the Clubs now all I need is some motivation.

My holiday accomodation and flights were by far the cheapest part of our trip away, as we seemed to spend an awful lot on food and booze. We choose to stay in Hotels rather than apartments and so we had to eat out for every single meal, this is the first time we have ever holidayed this way and we did,nt realise how expensive this was going to be.

I reckon between food and drink we managed to spend around the $150 mark each day for 10 days so that was a huge lump out of our spending money. Then we stayed with friends for the last day or two and in both homes and I contributed to the weekly groceries.

Actually that annoyed me slightly as you would have thought that both of my friends would have shopped BEFORE I got to their homes ???

Total Holiday Spends ( just for me )

Flights $198

Hotels $450

Food & Drink $ 750

Presents for Grandkids $75

Total = $1,473 ( approx. )

Oh my gosh !!! It,s not until you write it all down that you realise how much a trip away costs, and this was not even our summer break, looks like I may have to up my holiday fund for that one.

Back at work now and money has started to come back into the house again, but my budget is no way meeting this houses demands, and so a rethink of all things financial will be happening soon. This time I will be expect some input from my Sister and Mil especially with the Groceries.

Great to be back, I am never going to be able to catch up with all the posts I have missed, but I will try and get through everyones last post, see you around

Maureen xxx

Sinking Lower And Lower

I have noticed a pattern forming and it seems as if my fits of depression are returning, this is a surprise as I am currently on my meds, so perhaps I need the dose looked at.

Symptoms for me are highs and lows, when I say high I actually mean I am feeling well and capable, where the lows have me keeping away from friends. Staying away from the Internet ( I call this my Ostrich time, head in the sand )not answering the phone and missing time off from work, so I,m currently at home, and forcing myself to post.

Things are still not good between The Foxx and I, he is once again broke and turning to me to keep him going, but I,m so over constantly being in financial charge.

Yesterday he wanted me to help him in the garden, but I wanted to sit and play games on my PC, and that ended in a row. Yes he is the one with the physical illnesses and I do sympathise and worry about him. But at the moment I am just mentally hanging on by a thread.

I have completely run out of paid sick leave, and so I am not being paid for my time at home, and like it or not I will have to return to work tomorrow.

I am stalking the blogs today, and will make no comments, because my head is not in the right place for making, enthusiastic, helpful, chatty responses.

I,ll be back with meds firmly in place, till then, happy blogging.

A Plea To My Hubby......

Dear Foxx

As you may have noticed I share this blog with nobody, It started it off as my personal diary just to see if I could, because as you know I am not that computer literate. but now I have met some awesome bloggers and I am at last with their help managing to get my head round my finances.

One or two things you have said to me lately lead me to believe that you have found my blog and have been reading it. That annoyed me at first but now that I am writing this I hope you are reading it. We are a couple and finances are definitely an area which we should be sharing.

I get quite jealous of the fact that so many of the bloggers I follow, reach awesome goals and make terrific decisions, together. They sit down discuss their finances and work out a budget which suits their household.

Most of them like you and I get to a bad place first before this happens, they have debt, no savings, no budget and no idea how to get out of the mess. And so along comes blogger and without looking back they dig themselves out.

We need to be doing this, it,s all well and good that I am at the moment in a better place, but this needs to be a joint venture. We need to be sharing information, working as a team and arguing a whole lot less. We retire shortly with bad money habits, and no home of our own.


Our Marriage needs to be in a better place with more trust, sharing and joint decisions.

I realize that it is going to be a while before the trust is there again, we have always been so secretive about our triumphs and failures. We have always had a mine and yours mentality towards money.

Can we get on the same page, for the first time in 40 years, that,s one hell of a lot of time wasted, and a hell of a lot of money wasted.

I love you Foxx can we do this
Maureen xxx

OOps I forgot some things

This zero based budget thing is all well and good but how do you find the money if you forgot something ??

Today is payday, so I stopped off at the bank on my way to work to take out my cash for the week, Grocery, petrol, my money and a personal loan repayment. I had already paid some debt and allocated my savings into a couple of other accounts. All I had left in my main account was money to cover my future bills, electricity phone etc.

I was feeling on top of the world this budgeting thing is an absolute breeze I thought, Ive really got a handle on this I thought, wonder what made me think it would be difficult I thought.

Well you know the old saying that pride comes before a fall, almost the moment I stepped into work I was handed a card and asked to sign it and if I wanted to I could contribute some money to one of my workmates who had lost everything in the Queensland floods. His Insurance did,nt cover him for flood damage and the poor soul had lost everything, as well as which he is recovering from major surgery from bowel cancer.

So of course I wanted to help out and I put $20 into the envelope, a drop in the ocean in comparison to his needs, but hopefully it will help.

But where do I take this money from as it is all spoken for right down to the last cent. I have only allocated myself $20 for petrol so I can,t take it out of there. $100 for Groceries and with 3 adults and a cat to buy for it will be hard to take it from there. I was not about to take it out of a debt repayment, thats way to important. So my only choice was to take it out of my mad money for this week, so with that decision made, what should I do in future.

Do I have to rewrite my whole years budget to accommodate a gift and charity category ? I had intended to fund any gift buying with Snowflakes, should I leave it like that. What would you have done ????