Positive Balance: Focused on Budgeting

Back again...

...so my mortgage, water and union fees have gone out today.

I tried to make a £1 extra payment on my CC but it is still pending authorisation, apparently. Strange.

I missed my exercise class this week so that's £6.50 put in the CC pot.

£65.00 spent on bust pass for the month plus £7.00 for a day pass to get me to the start of the month. This takes me over my monthly budgeted amount already. Grr.

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

well done on putting the money saved from missing exercise class into cc pot rather than spending. Aren’t you still within your travel budget? £72 spent and £74.10 budgeted?

Why do you need a month pass and a day pass?

Hi ES :wave:

I was very tired last night and not doing the sums properly. Essentially, it WILL take me over the budget although it has yet to do so cos the remainder of the budget was for the odd random tram fare I have to take.

Bus passes where I live are 28 days. If you buy a 28 day one it works out as £7 cheaper than buying the weekly version. I paid the £7 so that I could buy the 28 day pass on the first of the month so I don't have to buy the next before I get paid next. This will only work this month as it is a perfect 28 day month so I'm going to have to figure out a cycle for this. Or get my bike out once the weather improves a bit!

I forgot to mention that I need to get a new passport this month and therefore passport pics and pay entrance for a charity even I will be doing in a few months. Due to some good luck it will cost me less than expected.

I"m about to get off the bus to work so I'll update that later, along with everything that has vanished from my account these past two days.

Bills, bills, bills to quote Destiny's Child. :rotfl:

So here I am, promised!

It turns out that I was out with a few of my figures...

Budget:

Mortgage: [STRIKE]£268[/STRIKE] (nearest whole figure) £263.10. Will be £267ish from next month. Random.
Council Tax: zero (all this month and all next month )
Water: £27.90
Gas & Electric: £50.00 (was less but just upped DD cos winter)
Food: £200.00 (guestimate)
T'interweb & landline: [STRIKE]£39.50[/STRIKE] £40.99 This seems to have snuck up. Again. Au revoir, sneaky provider!
Mobile: [STRIKE]£10.50[/STRIKE] £20.47 WTAF! Think you'll be following the sneaky broadband peeps! :eek:
Public transport: £74.10 (hmm...going to be more)
CC min: £109.97
Union @ work: [STRIKE]£8.87[/STRIKE] £8.96 annual increase applied ruthlessly
Xrcise class: £27.00 (missed 1 - £6.50 - so have put in savings)
Clothes*: £50.00
Holidays*: £50.00
Presents*: £50.00
Fun*: £50.00
Prescriptions*: £8.60 (none this month so sent to savings)
Parental expenses: [STRIKE]£50.00[/STRIKE] £400.00. Blown out of the water. Wasn't expecting it to be this soon.
Moggy flea treatment: £4.00 (totally forgot to factor this in)
Total: [STRIKE]£1074.44[/STRIKE] £1432.09
Difference between base pay and this month's expenses: [STRIKE]£181.39[/STRIKE] £65.87 (excluding Council Tax)

What a difference a few days makes!

Right, so the mobile phone bill is huge in comparison to normal. I know I snuck over on data a tiny bit at the end of last month, but that seems extreme, even for that. I've been planning on getting a new monthly deal for a while as I'm only just keeping to my 1GB data allowance, but I could get unlimited EVERYTHING for that kind of money, so I think changing just rocketed up my list of priorities.

Same with t'internet and landline: I need to have a high number of minutes calling abroad which limits the number of deals I can get, but I've had enough of this provider and how they sneak price increases in a very underhand way. You are also on my sh*t list.

Parental expense: I was hoping this wouldn't come so early in the year but I should have realised that it probably would, so I think it's fair to say that this particular part of the budget has been well and truly overshot. Thank God I have the money there when I needed it!

I've just created a 2 page spreadsheet to keep my spending accurate and up-to-date and even a few days into the month I have managed to lose some receipts (I think!) and rack up more of a food bill than I had hoped!

I won't bore you with any more in this post as it would be far too long but I will come back to it again shortly.

Before I go:

Credit card: [STRIKE]£4999.67[/STRIKE] £4886.20
Mortgage: [STRIKE]£74,100[/STRIKE] £73955.82

Yesterday's spends £6.50 for my exercise class.

More updates to make but typing on my phone so I will wait til I get to my laptop else the number of typos will be horrendous! :eek:

Hi Wanabee,

I started replying to this message so many times but kept getting pulled away every time I did. That's not a bad idea. I have looked at several SIM-only deals over the month but not quite got round to sorting it our properly, so perhaps this had better go back to the top of my To Do list.

The same for my landline and broadband as my provider is apparently putting up prices next month. And I think my fixed rate on my gas and electricity comes to an end this month as well.

Oh dear - I'm going to be very busy! :rotfl:

Thanks for the advice and I'm glad to see you are doing so well over on your thread. x