I Can Do This

So things haven't been particularly exciting:
- I paid nothing for the niece and nephew this weekend as my brother and boyfriend sorted the money out between them
- the boyfriend did all the food shopping
- £4.99 on a Mother's Day card which has a flying butterfly in it
- £30something on an NUS card which will last 3 years (need to make the most of that!)
- boyfriend paid our travel insurance ready for holiday in June
- £50 petrol (I remembered to go to Tesco so at least I get the points!)

It's pay day (monthly) from my main job this week and it's the first month of higher SC payments and back to paying council tax so I'm going to be extra careful. 3 weeks until my part-time job pay (every 4 weeks) so I've got a bit of a wait.

The dreaded depression hit today. I don't think it's particularly money related - for once my finances are under control and I'm in the best place I've been (financially) since moving into my own place - but it's hit never the less. I can and will beat it and be positive about life.

Yesterday I got a letter saying my Halifax overdraft has refused my DMP payment. I know this isn't really anything to worry about as they will make the payments regardless, it just worries me that they accepted my £1 Token Payment Plan pretty much straight away but won't accept this.

Today I got a letter saying my Halifax loan has been passed onto a debt collection company (actually the same one as Natwest used so I know they're actually nice and easy to talk to/deal with) so my payments will be altered to go to them rather than to Halifax.

It feels like Halifax are doing all they can to mess me around and make things difficult. Two of my accounts with them (loan and credit card) have already defaulted, and the overdraft is still classed as up-to-date and they had agreed to stop all interest. I don't understand why they're doing this now. I don't know whether to try calling them or just leave it a while and see what happens.

In better news, I got a letter from Capital One (the card I paid off fully with savings during my TPP) saying my account was now £1 in credit and they would be sending me a cheque for the amount and marking the account as settled in my credit report. Woo!

Today has so far consisted of an hour and a half Zumba-thon for Red Nose Day and giving the front and back garden their first cut of the year. I've done 7 hours extra with my part time job this past 4 weeks so I'm hoping to have a bit extra to put into savings when that payday comes around (about 2 weeks I think).

I've been trying to set up a savings account linked to my basic Yorkshire Bank account but can't remember my online log in details and haven't had much success with the "forgotten details" feature. I'll keep trying, though, as it will be much easier having the money sat in an account than in my kitchen drawer!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted - best slap my wrist!

I got most of the work done and handed in, just a little more to do for this Thursday but I'm not so worried about this.
I still haven't had time to ring the bank about my online banking but I'll do this after work tomorrow. I've also had my original token payment of £6 taken out of my account by SC (they said this would be cancelled once my DMP was set up but they've taken both) so I'll have to ring them too. Also need to ring Halifax after Dad put Easter money into the wrong account (again!) and I don't want them to think it was an attempt to pay and start the charges again.

I'm spent up until payday (this weekend) but I'm expecting a little extra due to overtime this month so hopefully that can go straight into savings once I get the online banking organised.

Started to set up YNAB on the 2 month free trial. Still getting my head around it really and haven't had a chance to look at YouTube or anything yet. It's on the to-do-list for the week so hopefully this will help me keep an eye on things (I'll keep my little book too because I like seeing it all written down).

Working on an excel spreadsheet with a groceries inventory to help me to stay on top. Had a look at the shopping comparison sites yesterday and found that (with the introductory offer) Ocado was by far the cheapest for my completely made up monthly shop. I've done a stock take of what I have in and made an estimate of how much I think I should have of everything and how much I need to buy to make this up. I'll update it weekly and I'm sure, over time, it will really help. That way I can do a big monthly shop and stop popping to Asda a couple of times a week and spending on things I don't need.
We used to buy meat from Musclefood but lost all trust in them after some dodgy chicken and difficulties with customer service so I'm going back to supermarkets.
I'm going to try to do my top up shops at Aldi/Lidl. I love going to the "cheap" shops like B&M, Poundstretcher, Home Bargains, etc. so I'm going to try stock up on things like bleach, toothpaste, wash powder, etc. when they're on offer here so that once I'm a skint student in September, I might not have to buy any for as long as possible. (I feel like one of those American hoarders you see on that coupon show!)

I think that's all that's been going on in my life for the moment. I'm sure I've missed something important, but I'll try harder to keep up with my little diary.