End of August

Been quite a while since I wrote a blog on here. I'll keep it short and sweet.

Here are a few of the things I've been up to since I last posted:

Buying new cars
Going on holiday (Prague in February, Turkey in May)
Battling space zombies
Working - a lot
Remodeling my back garden
Running around on powerbock tilts (and falling over on them a lot too)

The space zombies were the best part; I kicked their asses!

And now for the things I will be doing in the near future:

Working - even more
Battling Magneto's mutants
Remodeling my front garden
Redecorating the bedroom

All of that to come, but for now I'll just sit tight and watch The Da Vinci Code on channel five, even though its crap.

To The Weekend That Was

Since my last blog I've fallen foul to a series of unfortunate events. Most of these were fairly inconsequential but one was not: I had a nasty car accident and wrote off my shiny new car. Bugger!

Fortunately both me and Hayley left the accident unscathed, albeit Hayley is currently suffering with a bad back because of it. I guess it could've been a lot worse, but still I was absolutely gutted to wreck my car that I'd only had for 5 months.

Nonetheless life goes on which is why I spent the last few weeks since the accident looking at new cars, and finally chose one yesterday, which I will be picking up on Friday.

This brings me to an update on progress towards the 1 of the 3 goals I previously set myself: Pay off my debts.

Because I got such a good deal when I bought the Corsa back in July, 5 months and 5000 miles after buying it, it was still worth only £300 less than I paid for it (and considerably more than I still owe on the loan). I used this as a chance to buy a car on a lower budget, meaning that I've got a chunk of cash leftover from my insurance after I pay for the new car.

This remaining cash will be used to pay off my Natwest Credit Card that's been haunting my credit report for a few years, and will pay off the vast majority of my Capital One credit card as well.

Also in the next fortnight I will be selling my old Ford Escort for the scrap metal value, which will give me enough cash to fully pay off the last of an old HP that's been around for donkeys years.

After this I have a long term plan going forward to pay of the last of my Capital One card and my remaining HP within 6 months, so that I can start making double payments on my car loan and get that paid off way ahead of the scheduled 3 years.

While I'm at it I can also update on progress of my other 2 goals.

Quit Smoking: Done! As of today I haven't smoked, not even a drag, for a full month. Easy.

Get in shape: I've been hitting the gym pretty much every day since Christmas. And by 'the gym' what I mean is the spare bedroom, where I've set up a small home gym. It's much easier to get motivated to work out when you only have to walk upstairs instead of having to drive across town.

That's all for now kids. I've got places to go, people to see.

New Years Resolutions for 2011

I don't normally do this, mainly because I don't think you should wait until a set date before trying to figure out how to improve your life. Rather, it should be something you're doing every day. But nonetheless here goes my New Years Resolutions for 2011.

Pay off my debts
This means my £1200 Natwest credit card, my £400 Capital One credit card, and a handful of HPs that I'm paying off very gradually. And of course my £1300 overdraft. This will require learning to control my spending very strictly.

Quit smoking
It's not like I smoke a lot anyway, and for the last few weeks I've been cutting down and smoking less and less, which should help. Cutting down from 40 a day would be difficult, but stopping from 10 a week should be easy peasy.

Get in shape
Santa brought me some home gym equipment for Christmas and I am determined for 2011 to be the year I finally get in shape.