SusieT78 Debt Free Diary

Well, no sooner had I updated than I got the email saying the Swagbucks Mastercard was ready, so used the self-invoicing method and £4.63 has arrived in Paypal - the Birthday/Xmas fund is underway!
And I've just hit the £5 payout on MySurvey so I've requested that to Paypal. I'm still waiting for my earlier request to hit Paypal but once it all starts coming through the fund should soon start growing.

Running totals:
August groceries/toiletries/cleaning: £80.86/120.64 (pro rata for 11 days)
August Petrol: £22.58/£35.48 (pro rata for 11 days)
2017 Paypal Birthday/Xmas fund: £4.63
2017 Quidco cashback: £1.07

doingitanyway wrote: »

Well done on the budget and on the NSD too.
If you are happy socialising at home it will help you get to your target with your sanity intact
Have a good evening

Thank you. Hope you've had a nice few days yourself.
It seems my friend would like to make coming over a regular thing, so that's good, I don't feel like I'm missing out by not going out.

Scott_Weiland wrote: »

Draw it down and put it in a savings account, or pay it to a family member if you cant trust yourself not to spend it.

I do need to have a think about setting up some specific savings accounts. The places I tend to buy Xmas presents from do usually take Paypal though so I'm thinking maybe I'll try and build Paypal up to about £200 and then anything over that maybe transfer to a savings account. Interest rates are so low at the moment I don't think it would make much difference on smaller amounts.

*******************************************************
Hope everybody on MSE has had a lovely bank holiday.
We just spent the bank holiday visiting different relatives and always taking a picnic with us so we weren't tempted to attempt to eat in a pub/restaurant/fast food place.
I've ordered a chequebook for one of my bank accounts where I have no debts, ready for making CCA requests.

The Xmas/Birthday fund is coming along nicely. £4.63 requested from Swagbucks received into Paypal.
I've completed a couple of surveys on Prolific Academic in the last few days and requested £15.59 to be sent to PayPal (after 2.9% + 20p fee). I've had an email saying one of the PA researchers has awarded me a £1.50 bonus - the average time for the study was longer than they put on their estimate so they feel I was underpaid, so that's a lovely extra. And I've requested another £5 payout from MySurvey.

In the last few days I've spent £26.51 on groceries, so only £1.11 left to last until tomorrow, and I've spent £11.29 on petrol so I'll have to pray what's in there gets my partner to work and back,and then I can fuel up in the morning when my budget resets.
I found it quite hard sticking to a strict budget, but I did manage it for the 11 days and I'm just hoping that's it's a bit easier when spreading it out over a whole month. It's certainly made me realise how much money I've been spending without even thinking about it in the past few years.
I'm also very aware that sticking to a budget is just the start, that alone isn't going to help me repay the debts, but at least by the time I do have more money coming in and can make a start at repaying the debts I should be well accustomed to sticking to a budget.

Running totals:
August groceries/toiletries/cleaning: £119.53/120.64 (pro rata for 11 days)
August Petrol: £33.87/£35.48 (pro rata for 11 days)
2017 Paypal Birthday/Xmas fund: £19.70
2017 Quidco cashback: £7.24

Scott_Weiland wrote: »

Its your call but your mad leaving it there, always make the most of your money even if its only a small amount.

Its dead money sitting in a savings account, next if your paypal account was hacked bye bye money. I work for a bank i have seen it happen :-(

They take 5 mins to open.

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-accounts/online-saver

Good point, I didn't even think about Paypal getting hacked, thanks Scott.

**********************************************************************************
I had a £7 off a £50 spend voucher for Tesco so placed an online order for delivery this morning to cover all toiletries and cleaning products for the month, plus enough value pasta, rice, beans and passata to see us through the month as they're good value at Tesco. Managed to spend £61.79 after the voucher had been taken off, but I find it cheaper to order online and pay for the delivery with Tesco because if I had gone in personally I probably would have spent a lot more. At least I stick to my list online and the money off voucher more than covered the delivery charge.

I shouldn't need to buy anything other than food and a couple of birthday cards with the remaining groceries/toiletries/cleaning budget now this month. I'm hoping by doing it this way will keep me out of Tesco for the rest of the month, as I plan on food shopping in Aldi and Iceland.
I've made a weekly menu plan for the first time in ages, I was hoping by planning in advance and making a list that I'd spend less.
Over the next few weeks I want to get 3 different weekly menu plans together, so that there's a good variety of meals and then I can rotate the menus each week. On each weekly menu plan I have written the recipe and at the bottom the shopping list needed for all the meals. Hopefully this will mean that in weeks to come I don't even need to think about what to put on the shopping list because it will be done for me, plus I'll have a good idea of how much I'll be likely to spend in advance.
I'm looking forward to trying out some new recipes over the coming weeks too.
At the moment I'm finding the budgeting an exciting challenge rather than a chore, I hope it stays that way!

Then I went to Aldi, list in hand, stuck to it religiously and still managed to spend £78.81. My shopping filled an entire conveyer belt. The worst bit is, I didn't have to buy many of the things on the original list as I already had them in (I have most herbs, spices, stock cubes and sauces already in my store cupboard and I took the list into the kitchen before shopping to cross off anything not required).
Day 1 of the new month and I've already spent 41% of the budget. I thought cooking from scratch was supposed to be cheaper! I think I'm going to have reduce the amount of meat used in the "with rice" dishes and make this week's meal plan stretch to 10 days instead, repeating a couple of the meals. I also think the amount of snacks like crisps, chocolate and biscuits could possibly be reduced so I've hidden some away from where they're usually kept and hopefully that means we can stretch the snacks to 10 days too.
There was 4 things on my list that Aldi don't sell and have no suitable alternative for, so I will have to spend a little more this week at some point.
But, as long as I spend less than £60 a week for the next 3 weeks then we should come in within budget.

I've put some petrol in the car too, it was almost running on fumes to get to the petrol station.

The good news is £20.60 of previously requested cashouts have arrived into Paypal so the Birthday/Xmas fund has doubled overnight, it goes to show that doing the surveys soon adds up.
I've also requested another £6.70 to be paid from PA.

My friend came over again, I cooked a curry for us all and we watched a film once the kids were in bed so I'm still very much enjoying life even though I'm not going out.

Running totals:
September groceries/toiletries/cleaning: £140.60/£340
September Petrol: £20.01/£100
2017 Paypal Birthday/Xmas fund: £40.30
2017 Quidco cashback: £7.24