Striving to save and stay solvent!

We had a lovely time at the BBQ as it was. To be fair, not even OH was looking forward as we were all feeling a bit under the weather this weekend, but it was really lovely to catch up with a few people and just have a good chat and lots of laughs. DS enjoyed as he had other children to play with.

Yesterday I took DS to the cinema as promised, OH came along with his little one too so we split a family ticket, but still cost £17 for DS and I. :eek: We took snacks and drinks, never will I buy overpriced cinema snacks! DS wanted McD's and as we hadn't had one for months I agreed, so £8 was spent there, but came from my purse rather than the bank account.

We stopped off at a shop afterwards and picked up a few bits including the squash I'd forgotten, but OH insisted on paying.

We went out to a local event in the afternoon, avoiding parking charges by parking further away and taking a nice walk through a park to get there. We didn't spend any money though, so had a lovely afternoon out for nought.
OH and I used up leftover bits from the BBQ for tea last night and made us each a lunchbox with the last of the bits for today. :T
Lunches for the rest of the week will be bagels with various toppings - I picked up 3 bags of bagels in Asda on Saturday, reduced to 52p a bag, so they've gone in the freezer ready to take out each morning which then defrost by lunchtime. :T

This morning I've caught up with YNAB. The bank account looks low as almost all payments come out on the 1st for me, but YNAB is telling me I have plenty if I stick to the budgets.

Worrying news about one of the parentals this weekend, so that has overshadowed my mood tbh. Trying not to dwell on things too much for DS's sake, but its not easy. I wish I could make everything better.
Speaking of the parentals, they have very kindly given me £200 towards the bathroom fund. I didn't ask them, they just seem to have this sixth sense as to when I'm struggling. They are so kind and wonderful to us, I feel like a bit of a failure sometimes that I'm still having financial help from them in my late 30s.

I had another business order in and a couple of enquiries for pending orders. Not a huge sum of money by any means, but it all helps.

I've transferred a spare £4odd from the business account into the overpayment pot today after looking at my mortgage and seeing that over half of my monthly payment is going on interest. I need to raise £243 in that account before the end of the year to top up the large amount I overpaid at the beginning of the year to make it up to the full 10% of overpayment allowed on one of my mortgage sub accounts.
It's hard to know how to split savings when there are 3 or 4 different pots I need to save towards. Do I split it 4 ways or 'fill' one up them tackle the next? Anyone else find it hard to know what to do?

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

Glad the BBQ turned out ok in the end.

Sorry to read that there is bad news on the parentals.

Fab news on the gift from them - I think there are a lot of adults of all ages receiving support from their parents still. As long as they are not leaving themselves short then why shouldn't they support you and DS?



I fill up all pots at the same time as I like the psychological boost that I am actually learning to budget for the future and that I will get myself sorted eventually.
I like to see the small amounts grow and gaze in awe at all my little savings accounts with names like Car Replacement, Car Repair etc

Thank you Eager_Elephant

I think I may adopt your savings approach too. I've been 'Tilly Tidying' my account for a day or two and have been putting that straight into the first overpayment saver to build it up to my target of £243 before the end of the year. There's £5.79 in there presently it does build up quickly-ish.

I think any sums over £10 I will split between the savings pots though, as you siad, it will be nice to see them all building up slowly.

£8 refund has hit the account so I've sent that over to the first OP pot. I've almost got £40 in there now of my £340 target so when it gets to £40 I'm going to send it over to the mortgage as an OP, then set to work on the remaining £300.
I'm concerned that when my mortgage deal ends in February, the bank will refuse to 're-lend' me the full amount as I'm now part time. I may be worrying too much about this but it wont hurt to pay it down as much as I can before then.

One large survey done and a nice amount of points earned tonight, am almost at £20 payout on that one now. Screened out of another survey with the other company.

Found a stamp so a NSD for me too

Just ordered 2 x £10 vouchers from a survey account. :T It is supplied as prepaid mastercard voucher type thingies so I'll use those to put towards the grocery bill and transfer £20 out of the pot to go towards the bathroom savings.

...the best laid plans and all that...

Didn't get to my soak in the bath, DS was struggling to get to sleep as it's so warm, so he was awake later than normal. Then I started taking photos for eBay/gumtree items, portioned the stew, froze it and washed up. OH phoned with a problem he wanted to chat about and then I started to do an online grocery order for tomorrow as I realised I have the cheapest delivery plan so if I don't get it delivered tomorrow I would have to wait until Tuesday and end up doing a weekend of top up shopping which is where my money usually does a disappearing act to!
So, shopping ordered, list stuck to and a £5 off voucher used. I also had a £7 off one but that doesn't kick in until next week so couldn't use that one unfortunately. Shopping will come in at around £50.

I've looked at my previous orders and it seems that I'm naturally doing a main grocery shop every 2.5 weeks, so only twice a month really and they're averaging between £50-£60 a time. Small top up shopping is definitely my downfall. As soon as I step into a supermarket I end up buying things I fancy or stuff we really don't need. Despite paying £4 a month for the delivery saver, this way of shopping really does seem to be helping me keep my budget down.

I've allowed £175 this month for groceries (which included cleaning products etc) but I reckon I could get it under £150 this month which would be a vast improvement on the £300 + I have actually been spending when I've totalled everything up.

I've received my £20 survey rewards onto the prepaid virtual cards, but forgot to use them towards my shopping. I'm not sure I can anyway as I don't think I would have been able to enter multiple payment types into the checkout, but I'll use them for something else's if not and just swap the cash over from a different pot.

A previous squirrelled away small portion of leftover tagine is out of the freezer and defrosting for my lunch tomorrow and Ds's lunchbox has been made. OH has informed me he's cooking me a rather marvellous dinner tomorrow evening so I'm looking forward to that!