It's been forever since I posted, and I won't apologize since it seems pointless (even though I am sorry). I hope you all know how much I still love reading your blogs, and that it's been a very hectic two months. I have gone on a whirlwind trip of England with my family and am expecting more whirlwindedness over the next month with visits from friends. 

I am catching up on my budget, having fared reasonably well over the vacation season. I dropped my camera in the Edinburgh airport, resulting in some major damage to a major lens, with, other than resulting in many tears and curse words, will most likely result in a hefty repair bill. We'll see.

For now, know that I am still around, and still catch up with your lives on a daily basis. Adieu.

April Fool's!

Hello everyone and welcome to April Fool's Day! Now that I've been paid and settled and everything, I thought it was about time to do my March re-cap. 

I didn't do great in March, I ended up over-budget, and it was all because of food. I bought and ate way too much food, as well as went out too much. I don't often eat out, mainly because I don't have a lot of outside work and flat friends, but I did end up going out a couple times with friends to celebrate random things, and that all adds up - especially at the end of the month when I know I have no money left.

So, in all its glory, here is where I stood at the end of the month:

So there it is. It would be, in fact more than that, if I hadn't had some extra cash gifted to me, which I used almost exclusively on food. Food seems, now, like such a waste of money, since it's not something that sticks around... it's just fuel. 

Don't get me wrong, I love food - and I enjoy food a lot, but I can't keep spending so much money on snacking. I've been good the last week when it comes to food (mainly since I had no money left!)

I'm still toying with my budget for April. I have extra money set aside for the spring (to the tune of £1,500 - but I'm not sure how to work it into a budget. I think that I will create two budgets, one to cover the basics then another one specially designed for the trip. I'm already starting to buy things now for the trip, including plane tickets and boots and such, and it seems odd to ding my curent budget and drain it of all its fun money to buy things for next month. 

We'll see how it works out! Will definitely be better than March, though. :) 

Credit Reports and the likes

While I'm a bit of a space cadet tonight (I don't really know why, I'm just all over the place), I'd really like to write a post. I don't think my brain can sit still long enough for a well thought-out post, so I'd like to share with you some thoughts that I've had recently:

I just looked up my credit report through Equifax (I opted for the paid one, rather than have one sent to my house in Canada where I am not)... and I'm pleased to announce that my FICO score has risen from 744 to 756! I have now officially jumped to the 'average' section from last year's appearance in the 'slightly below average'. It would be higher if I hadn't forgotten about a measly $10 I had charged on an HSBC card and paid 1 day late (back in 2006). Oopsie!

Other than that I like to know that everything is in order, which it is, although they still list my employment as Subway, when it hasn't been Subway in a while. Not sure if it's worth it to change it when I'm not working at all in Canada.

I have many credit cards on file (6 in total!), and I only use one of them regulary. Not sure if I should close the rest when I get home, especially since some of them (like the HSBC one), I've long since destroyed the card. Hmmm. 

My flatmate has just left back home to South Africa to scramble to apply for a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa before the end of March, since the UK Goverment has changed the rules and he would no longer be eligible under the new rules. He is still waiting on one last peice of documentation which was supposed to come in the mail Friday (and didn't...), so we're hoping it comes tomorrow and if it does I will have to scramble down to the Post Office and send it as fast as I can to South Africa. I am stressed for him, because I think at this point I would be a wreck of stress if I were him. 

I made sushi today! And I didn't do as miserable of a job as I thought! Yay! I made the rice a-ok, although it was a bit too soft I think (less water next time), and made one roll with crab and avocado and cucumber, and another with salmon (I used trimmings.... not as good as salmon steaks, but I didn't want to spend the $$ on high-grade salmon) and cucumber, and I made a couple hand rolls with shrimp. I'm very much pleased. I bought a big thing of Kikoman soy sauce (sooo good), although it was a bit too dark, it was very satisfying. I didn't buy any wasabi or ginger, since I don't really like either. My only problem was the knife - way too dull. I'm going to need a sharper knife next time around, as I pretty much butchered the sushi trying to cut it. I'm sure Waitrose or M&S has a cheap, sharp knife around. 

Other than that, It cost me around £20 for the following:

• 2 packs of seaweed sheets (10 per pack)
  
• 1 box of sushi rice (will need to buy more, cheaper at the asian grocery store)
  
• 1 cucumber
  
• 1 avocado
  
• 1 bunch of spring onions
  
• 1 pack of crab-sticks
  
• 1 pack of salmon trimmings
  
• 1 pack of pre-cooked shrimp
  
• 1 huge bottle of soy sauce
  
• 1 pack of chopsticks (can't eat sushi with a fork!)
  
• 2 mini plates
  
• 1 tiny bowl for soy sauce
  
• 1 wooden paddle
  
• 1 bottle of rice vinegar
  
• 1 wooden bamboo rolling mat
  
• 1 bag of sesame seeds
  
• 1 packaged of unagi (seasoned eel)
  

I already had:

• Salt
  
• Sugar
  
• Pots
  
• Knife (although this one was no good)
  

Other than the rice, which will only do me another 3 or 4 rolls (1 c of rice or so), the rest will either do me permanently (chopsticks and plates), or a long time. I still have almost all of the veggies and sauces left. As well, I only used 2.5 sheets of sushi nori (seaweed). I would've only used 1.5 sheets, but I got water on one and ruined it by making it soggy.

I could probably spent the next week eating sushi without using all this up. It took quite a while, especially since I haven't made it in such a long time. Once I get better prepared I'm sure it'll go by faster. But, when I could spent £20 on one night of sushi, £20 for a week isn't too bad. Espeically when £6 of that went directly on some frozen seasoned unagi (eel). Mmmmm unagi. Can't wait to break that shit out. It's gonna be AWESOME!

I'm also glad to report that right now I've got a grand total of £7,507.61 in the bank. AND I haven't get gotten paid by the job, which (hopefully), will bump it up to over £8,000. Anyways. This all means that even if I spend double my budget for April and May (which is what I've planned), I can freaking make it to NOVEMBER on my current money and budget. HOLY CRAP! This just keeps getting better and better. 

During a low time a couple of weeks ago, when the old housemate was really killing my drive to live here (he was a partier/alcoholic - listening to shit dance music and getting out of control and abnoxious - THANK GOD he's gone!), I was really considering coming home sooner rather than later, and I did, at one point, tell my mom that I was thinking of coming home next January, rather than waiting until the summer when my VISA expired. She was pretty bummed, as I think she was planning to come out and visit me again in the spring. She loves it here, and as she doesn't have a whole lot of money, basically said that 'while I'm out here she's got a reason to visit when she shouldn't spend the money'. Now I don't want to be the reason for my mother getting in debt, but she's pretty much going to do it anyways. Now that the horrible roommate has left I'm loving it here again, and am planning to stick it out as long as I can. 

On a completely OTHER note, several of the people that have lived in this house waaaay before I got here (think at least 2 years ago), have gotten increasingly threatening letters from collection agencies about overdue debts. We used to just toss old housemate mail up on top of one of the cabinets, but I cleaned out and decided to send them all back. I opened a couple that were damaged, and that's how I learned about the debts. One guy owes a couple hundred quid, while another owes almost £3,500 to some phone company. No one has called the house as far as I'm concerned, but since we have no answering machine they might for all I know. However I just got a letter today, and peeked through the clear stuff to read "DOORSTEP COLLECTION NOTICE" in BIG red letters. Well shit. I don't want these people coming to MY HOUSE to collect debt for someone who doesn't even live here anymore. I'm not sure what to do. I'm going to send the letter back (I always write "DOESN'T LIVE HERE. NO FORWARDING ADDRESS" on all of them, but it doesn't seem to work). I'm just worried that someone will show up at the house and be mean and agressive. That scares me. I'm not sure what to do! Has anyone has this problem?

I mean, for all I know no one will be here when these people come. Everyone except me works 9-5 jobs, and I'm usually our touristing during the day, so none of us are home until the evenings, but if they came in the evenings, what would happen? I hope they would be nice and leave when I tell them that this person doesn't live here, but if they think I'm lying or harboring this guy? Gaaah! Why can't people just pay their freaking debts! Any suggestions? I guess I could pass on the land lady's contact information and hope that they leave ME alone, but I'm not sure she would appreciate that. They were HER tenants, though - she might have more information. 

Hmmm... what other news to share?! OH!

I bought some UGG boots last week. I know, I think they are ugly too, but have you ever worn them? It's like walking on clouds made of fog. lol. What an image. Anyways, I was looking at their fuzzy-lined rubber boots, since I need a good pair of rubber boots, but I couldn't even get my feet in them (big feet!), so I ended up buying a pair of fitted, slip on leather boots with the fuzzy lining. The damage? £146. Ouch. Yep.

I ended up taking them back 2 days later. I wore them around the house a bit and just decided that they weren't worth the price. I can buy cheap rubber boots for like, £20, and then just buy fuzzy socks. It's funny, I spent a lot of time in the store chatting with the sales lady, who actually ended up going into the back and pulling some of last years old stock for me to try on. She was exceptionally helpful and sweet, and I feel bad since she probably lost out on some comission, but I just couldn't swallow the price. Especially when the UGG boots that are £146 here, are only $146 back home. Same price, different currency. That basically means I'm essentially paying double. Yikes. 

I think by the time I had riden the hour-long bus home I had decided to take them back. And I absolutely HATE taking things back, since I avoid conflict, but everyone was quite sweet. And I had a huge sense of relief when I left the mall, which I take as a good sign. 

I'm still on the hunt for good boots, and will resume hunting next week. 

I have also received my tax refund, which was a fat $1,500. I find this impressive, especially since I don't contribute to an RRSP (I know, BAD pf-blogger!). This means that my office-job was WAY over-taxing me - since I usually only get about $600 back. Yeeeesh! This did help, since it bought me another month in the UK (or the inevitable flight home... lol). I haven't done my UK taxes yet, as the tax year doesn't end until April. I will get my P60 in the mail soonish, and will have to figure out how the hell to do my taxes after that. I don't think I will be entitled to a huge refund through the UK, since I've paid barely any taxes. 

I got a lovely £20 gift voucher from my job this week, as a reward for all us being awesome and winning some competition. I also traded in a bunch of my unused Nintendo DS games that I brought with me (most I haven't touched in over 6 months!), and got £51 on another voucher! I used part of this month to buy a new DS game: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars! I'm very much enjoying it, and will definitely get my money's worth out of it. I still have £41 on the gift card, so I'll be able to buy some stuff in the future. I'm resisting the temptation to blow it all on crap I don't need and save it for things I need - like when my headphones eventually break. Heh. 

Well, I think that's enough rambling for one afternoon. I'm struggling to put concrete, coherent sentances together anymore, and I'm sure my spelling is getting to be atrocious. Maybe I'm hyped up on too much sushi! Either way, I'm very much looking forward to more sushi tomorrow.... after I find a better knife. 

Thanks for reading this far, you're a star!

Steps to Home Ownership

Gail Vaz-Oxlade has written an excellent post about the steps to home ownership. It's in my future goals to own a home, in fact, I'd like to own  one before I'm 30, which is approx 6 years away. If I start to save for an eventual downpayment when I get home (in 2010), that gives me 5 years. 

However, this article really enlightened me about the true costs being buying a home. Of course, things like the cost of new furniture/dishes/other household items, as well as the obvious (bills, mortgage, etc), things like 'closing costs' and other home-buying fees didn't cross my mind. 

I'm really going to have to sit down in the future and budget a future plan for my home-buying adventure. Check out the article if you're thinking of buying a home in the future. 

Snacking

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a snacker. I enjoy snacking, whether it's on mini-oranges (I can eat them like potato chips!), or on potato chips, toast, candies, whatever really. I find that especially when I'm bored or stressed, I find that I turn to snacking as a way to release stress and waste time. 

I'm also horribly impatient and have a bad attention span, so I have to be multi-tasking all the time. I find movie theatres, while a lot of fun, boring sometimes because I have nothing to do with my hands. I think that's why people like eating popcorn so much, as it takes so long. I don't like popcorn, though. 

(For example, right now, I'm watching Top Gear on tele, surfing the net (blogging), waiting for dinner to be cooked and chatting with my housemates). And i'm still a bit bored.

What is the point, you ask? Well, this snacking has put quite a large dent in my food budget. In fact, so much so that I've eaten all but £16 in my food budget for the month. In fact, I ate about £8 of junk food in the past day and a half. Not good. Not good for me, or my budget. Junk food is expensive. Boo.

On another front, over the past 3 weeks, I've managed to work pretty much full-time (not too bad for only 1 guaranteed day a week!), which will make for a pretty paycheque at the end of this month. I've only got 3 more dedicated shifts at the store before I leave at the end of March for vacation fun-time, which is sad since I'll miss everyone there. 

On another good note, our store won a contest back in January, and as such, we all got £20 gift vouchers! Woo hoo! And I know exactly what I'm going to buy: The new Grand Theft Auto game for the Nintendo DS. Call me what you want, I loooove video games. Especially Grand Theft Auto.

I hope it doesn't suck.

I did it, I broke down...

... and finally bought a calculator! 

Yeah okay, I know that's not that exciting. But it is to me! I've been stuck using the crappy windows calculator and my mouse to do additions - I don't even have a number pad on my laptop! 

Booo...

So the budget and doing simple math wasn't nearly as much fun as it will be now! Yay! All I want is to calculate something. Hmmm. How about the square root of 567? It's 23.811761!

Wow, I'm such a dork.

The Damage...

...Actually, wasn't as bad as I assumed! Turns out that at the beginning of February, I had £7,590.60 in all my accounts. As of today, I have £7,534.25 in my account. How I managed to get through February and all my overspending without putting a dent in my account I'm not sure. 

During this time I earned £728.83 from paycheques over the month (one was a late one from January), so this covered everything I spent in the first couple of weeks (Amsterdam and rent, bills included). This means that I probably only spent a couple hundred £££ (if that) over the following two weeks. I didn't buy much except for groceries and some meals while at work. 

I'm very much relieved to see these figures. This also means that with my current funds, I will definitely be able to make it through the summer. Even if I spend my allotted £1,500 for both April and May, I will still make it to October before being broke. Plus, my current work said that they are more than happy to take me back in July (yay!!), and I'll be working from July through January again, which should give me enough cash to make it through next spring.

The only thing I want to talk to work about is the number of shifts I'll be working. Currently I work between 1 and 5 shifts a week. I need about 2.5 shifts a week (16 hours or so) to cover rent and bills. They only promised me 1 shift a week when I was re-hired in January, which was fine then, but for the summer I'd like a couple more. We'll see what they say. Come September/October, I know I'll get lots of extra shifts for the run-up to Christmas, just like last year. 

We'll see what they say. If I managed to get enough money to cover rent for at least July to October, then I'll only be spending about £300 a month in extras, which adds up to £1,200 pounds. After that if I'm back to working full-time, and netting about £700 a month. This will cover all my bills from November to January. After January, I'm not sure if I'll continue working or not - it depends what my spring plans are.

Here's a little chart I made - this might help illustrate what my future looks like. I always round down my earnings, just to give myself the benefit of the doubt. I'm also not factoring in any money I'll get back from taxes on either continent. 

So, not that this is concrete in any way, but it gives me a visual of what the rest of 2009 and 2010 will be like. I upped my budget in September since my Dad is probably coming out for a visit, then again over Christmas since well, it's Christmas. 

If all goes well, I will be in London until April or so. After that I'll probably leave my stuff in the closet upstairs, then head over to the Netherlands again for 2-3 weeks to bother (visit) my friends, then back to London in April or May, when my mom will probably come to visit, then I'll fly back to Toronto to waste about a month visiting family, then finally home. All these plans may get bumped up by a couple of months if the money runs short - we'll see. I have a friend who is planning to come visit in February, so I'll at least be here until then. 

But, either way, it's nice to have my finances laid out for now. Yay!

Financial Post

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Sarah Efron of Financial Post Magazine for some information about an article, and today I noticed that the article was up! It's my first time being mentionned in some kind of 'official' publishing, and i'm so happy!

You can read the article at its source here, but for kicks I'll post it as well!

Trend spotting
Sarah Efron, FP Magazine
Published: Friday, February 27, 2009

Krystal is a 26-year-old marketing coordinator in Vancouver. She's trying to declutter her house, she likes to go rock climbing in her spare time and, if you go to her blog, "Give Me Back My Five Bucks," you'll quickly learn every imaginable detail about her finances. Krystal is a member of a growing online community of personal-finance bloggers now baring their hopes and dreams - and their financial statements - online. Collectively, they're breaking one of the last taboos: talking about money. In a recent post, Krystal laid out her goals for the month: sticking to her $200 food budget, putting $300 in her retirement portfolio and going climbing at least five times. She regularly updates graphs that show how much money is in her travel, emergency and retirement funds. Other bloggers itemize everything from their investment returns to the cost of vegetable soup on their grocery bill.

Their motivation is self-improvement, not exhibitionism. When these bloggers aren't updating their own data, they're reading each other's entries for ideas and strategies. Many are young women, and most, like Krystal, choose not to reveal their real identities. Nevertheless, Krystal credits her blog with keeping her accountable and helping her get a handle on her saving and spending. "When I first decided I wanted to change my life and get out of debt, my friends made fun of me and called me a penny-pincher," she says. "So I turned to the Internet. There, I found such a wonderful, welcoming community of personal-finance bloggers. This blog has been the best decision of my life."

Not only has the blog helped provide emotional support for Krystal, it's also provided some cold, hard cash. In the past two years, she earned $2,239.44 from advertising and by writing sponsored posts - reviews of books, blogs or services - providing money that has helped her reach her goals. In fact, since she started the blog in 2007, her net worth has increased more than $33,000, going from about $5,000 in the red to $28,220 in the black.

Some of Canada's most interesting - and revealing - personal finance blogs

Give Me Back My Five Bucks

A mid 20s Vancouverite chronicles her rise out of debt and into the black.

Million Dollar Journey

A 27-year-old Eastern Canadian doles out investment advice as he builds towards his goal of having a networth of $1 million by the age of 35.

Apples and Telephones

A 23-year-old Canadian photographer living in England struggles to stretch the value of her Canadian dollars.

Fabulously Broke in the City

A confessed shopaholic travels down the path of financial prudence.

Saving4Later

A woman in her 30s details her life and her spending habits.

Northern Living Allowance

A 40ish single blogger fights debt and angst.

So yay for me and everyone else who was mentioned. How exciting! Although, now that I may have a slightly upturn in my visitors for the next day or two, I feel REALLY bad about not having posted in the last 2 weeks.

I've been dealing with some rough homesickness, which had a good bout of 'annoying flatmate' and 'stresses' tacked on. Not fun. It's been a rough couple of weeks but I'm really out of it, I think. I'm very much looking forward to having my family and friends visit this spring, as well as experiencing London in the summer. 

Mr. Annoying-flatmate has moved out, thank GOD! He's only been here 6 weeks, and until the final days before he left, I didn't really think that he was the reason for part of my stresses, but looking back on it, after he moved in was when I started stressing a bit. I blamed it on spending the holidays alone, or the bad weather, or working a lot, but when it comes down to it, having him come home drunk (every night!), or high or just plain late at night and then listen to crappy dance music at 2 a.m. (my bedroom is just off the living room). I can't remember now how many times I've fallen asleep with earplugs in. 

*Sigh*. We're just not a party house. And i'm very pleased that the rest of us are not party people. Muuuuch better. Although one of my other fav roomies is moving out at the and of March, and I am sad. Hopefully we'll find someone equally good to replace him. 

I suppose everyone is going to have 'horror flatmate from hell' stories, and as far as i've heard, mine isn't the worst, and thank goodness for that. So far the people we've got in (a couple and another single girl), will probably be here long-term, which is nice. We've had a lot of change-overs recently. It's a pain in the bum and expensive (phone credit, having to stay home to do viewings, constant cleaning) to do. 

On a financial note, as tomorrow is month-end, it's not going to be pretty. I'm a little nervous. Although I kept a lot of receipts once I got home from the Netherlands, I most certainly blew my budget this month, and easily by a couple-hundred quid. I'm saddened by it. In the next day or two I will check all the bank balances and do the inevitable tally.

Another thing that's caught up with us - when our last flatmates left in December, they neglected to pay the gas/water bill, and since we were living there too (we each paid one bill and did the tally at the end), we've become responsible for a £300 bill. Boo. We requested the total from the gas company, and it's come up to almost £650 (including the water, gas up until January 10th.). Our landlady has passed on £75 pounds from the old tenants leftover damage deposit, as well as almost £200 from the pain-in-the-bum flatmates damage deposit, so then me and my fav flatmate will each have to fork out about £200 each for this bill. Booooooo. Fortunately I have saved up about £180 so far (odd and end money, etc) to offset the cost of this bill, which is nice. 

It's a pain, but again, now we know better. Now I pay all bills and get money monthly from everyone. If they don't pay, we can evict them and keep their damage deposit for our bills. It's a much better system. 

Either way, once this bill is caught up i'll feel better about it. Even though it's not my bill - I hate 'owing' people money. 

Keep posted for the inevitable February ugliness....

Illegal/Ok?

I've been toying with the contents of this post for a while, and I thought now was as good a time as any. We all take measures and steps in our personal lives to save/conserve money, and in the last couple of months, I have heard many, many different habits of my friends, coworkers and roommates. Some are similar to things I do, while other are things I'd never do. 

However, I would like to know what you think! In no particular order, here are some of the things that I do/others do/things I've thought of doing. The things that I've done are in bold, the other things listed are things people have mentionned doing or have done.

• Downloading movies (torrenting - not paying)
  
• Downloading music (limewire or equivalent - not paying)
  
• Take extra packages of sauce/ketchup/salt, etc from fast food outlets to use at home
  
• Taking extra packaged/disposable utensils from fast food outlets
  
• Stealing metal cutlery from restaurants
  
• Taking pint glasses from pubs
  
• Keeping the free mini wine bottles/cola cans from airplanes to drink at home
  
• Looping past people on the street handing free things out to stock up
  
• Taking extra pens/pencils/stationary from the office to use at home
  
• Using the office printer/fax/scanner at the office for personal use
  
• Taking bathroom supplies from restaurants/fast food outlets/the office for home use (toilet paper, soap, etc)
  
• Taking all the toiletries provided in a hotel bathroom for use at home
  
• Buying things 'for donation' and not paying/paying very little (think votive candles at churches, poppies for Rememberance Day)
  
• Not correcting a cashier/salesperson when they forget to ring in an item/ring it in at a lower price
  
• Switching price tags on items to avoid paying the full price
  
• Using a student card to get a discount when you are no longer a student
  
• Taking extra ziplock bags from the airport booth (for your carry-on liquids) to use at home
  
• Paying for once movie and skipping from theatre to theatre watching movies all day on one ticket.
  
• Working 'under-the-table' for cash.
  
• Keeping a close watch on hours earned to cut losses on your paycheques because of forgotten hours
  
• Lying to your supervisors about extra hours worked to make extra cash (lying about overtime, etc)
  
• Stealing sattelite T.V.
  
• Hacking (or plain ol' accessing) a neighbors unsecured wireless to do your internettin'.
  
• Dumpster diving for used items.
  
• Hitting the front of the local thrift stores before the store opens to loot through the donations people have left overnight (that the store hasn't claimed yet).
  
• Using 'free trial software' for the period specified (let's say 30 days), then uninstalling it and reinstalling it, or hacking it to work permanently. 
  
• Shaking a vending machine until a candy bar falls free, for free.
  
• Buying an item in a vending maching from the same slot as a stuck item, so you get 2 for 1.
  

Well, those are all the ones I can think of for now. What would you like to add? You can plainly see the things that I've done - what do you think? Would you/Have you done the same? Do you disaprove of some of these habits, or do you know someone who behaves in a way you disaprove of to save money? Let me know!

Hurt by The Netherlands...

...My bank account was, that is.

I won't lie, The Netherlands wasn't pretty on my budget. This was due to several things: The exchange rate was horrible, transportation between cities was pricy, and I was on vacation. Not that I threw away all concept of budgetting while on vacation, but at the same time, we did splurge a bit on eating out. The first night we went to an awesome (AWESOME!) greek restaurant where a huge, amazing meal costs me €20. Then we went out for the BEST sushi I've had in months in Rotterdam, where the total bill for the three of us was €87. And finally, we went out for some old-school Dutch pancakes where I believe my meal was €14. I don't mind that these meals were more expensive, because I haven't eaten out in a long time. I don't really enjoy eating in restaurants by myself, and therefore don't do it.

I'm still thinking about that sushi thought. Omg it was so good. I ate so much unagi I probably dreamt about it all night. MMmmmmm. I really need to find an asian grocery store in London, as sushi is a lot cheaper (and reasonably simple) to make, as long as you can find the correct ingredients. Hmmm.

Anyways, so here's the damage:

Now, keep two things in mind: My roommates owe me about £50 in bills - as I overpaid their share of bills, plus, I haven't yet paid rent. So, when you add it all up, I've got about £15 to last me 21 days. Ooouch.

I've got enough money on my Oyster card to last me though the month, no problem, so I don't have to worry about Transportation. At the same time, I don't have enough food to last me through the month, as I used up all my fresh stuff before I left.

Here's what I've got in my pantry/freezer/fridge:

• Cereal
• Peanut Butter
• Ragu
• 1 bag uncle ben's rice
• 2 boxes of Kraft Dinner
• 1 can minestrone soup
• 2 bags spaghetti
• 1 bag butterfly pasta
• 12 frozen meatballs
• 1 frozen small chicken
• 2 frozen fish patties (left by old roommates, unsure of quality/state?)
• ice cream

Out of the spaghetti I can get 3 meals. From the roast chicken, if I get some vegetables I can get 2-4 meals. Kraft dinner will last me 2-4 meals. So, I'll be able to last for a while, but I don't have any breakfast/lunch meals. So, I am going to go out grocery shopping today, and I have the following on my list:

• Ground beef
• Green beans
• Onions
• Yams
• Carrots
• Chicken Breasts
• Milk
• Bread

Hopefully this combination of food will keep me going for at least two weeks. I've been lucky enough to pick up 5 days of working starting Friday, which will net me a couple hundred quid, although I won't see that until the end of March.

Siiiigh. Not the best start to February, but this was definitely a wake-up in how much a short 'mini-break' can cost me. I'm going to have to be very careful when I'm hosting my onslaught of guests starting April.