A trilogy in seven parts.....hypno's latest efforts

Yorkielass

10 items at a time sounds good to me :T

Seems like a good start on your list to me - I had such big plans for my week off work at home - unfortunately I'm 8 days down, 2 to go and I'm no way 80% through the list

hypno06

Too early.......bleurgh.......

Keeping_Positive

Great day yesterday on the get things done list Hypno. Enjoy your ski trip/day.

As for me I cant remember the lat time I ironed but I did managed to clean the cooker and wipe work surfaces down yesterday so not too bad . Aim today is to nag kids into their chores and bake Bil a birthday pressie.

hypno06

Hi, KP - I'm not off skiing today.....just needed to get DS off and out as I managed to get him a lift.

I get to do the paper round instead :rotfl:

I have spent the last hour drinking coffee and doing the budget.

If I stick on minimum payments, the budget calculator says we are perfectly ok, based on my minimum pay and OH minimum pay.

If I add in OH second job, it says we should be able to afford a winter holiday and a summer holiday and Christmas presents.

If I make overpayments to the debt, we cannot have winter holiday, summer holiday and Christmas presents.....

If I stick on minimum payments, the DFD becomes 3 years again - not acceptable......

So, my conclusion is:

• If OH loses his second/third job, we can cut back on overpayments, skiing, holiday, etc and still survive......DFD would go back to 2012 but we would not be at risk of default.
• If OH loses his main job, the numbers say we should be able to scrape through, but this would not be sustainable for more than about 3 months in reality. This would take an awful lot of discipline and effort, and I am not really sure if it is as doable as the calculator tells me.
• If we have holidays/skiing etc, the budget doesn't allow for overpayments.....leaving the DFD at 2012

Therefore, at the moment, we are still some way off where we need to be because we:

• Are reliant on OH having extra jobs
• Are unable to consider ski training/holidays and treats as "within budget" whilst still becoming debt free in 2010
• Have very very little in the way of savings to fall back on in an emergency so would be stuck if the car died or something similar happened.

So.......we need to:

• get to grips with sticking to food and petrol budgets as this is where I am failing every month.
• focus more on what we are spending and how to reduce it by way of meal plans and more organised grocery shopping.....
• be ready for a reduction of income at any point - squirrel away a little more in the way of savings to see us through.
• keep doing the MSE stuff, to throw at the overpayments to provide a bit more leeway in the budget - when OH egg loan is paid off, that is an extra £193.74 we have to work with, for example.

But it does show:

• That as long as we keep our eye on the ball, we can do this
• We have not had more than three bank charges since August, so we have improved our position immensely.
• The worst is that it takes 3 years to clear the debt - is that such a disaster?
• We are in a better position than we have been for many years.
• Once the debt is gone, we will be quite comfortable!

I think that sort of covers things.......now, off to do that paper round!

mooomin

Probably not much help, but in terms of groceries I was failing dismally too, but now am in budget every month thanks to:

• Tinned veg etc - all Smart Price or similar
• Only do shopping at certain times - last Sunday I went to our local shopping centre at 3pm and got reduced meat from M&S (Quality and tasty - woo!) and good bargains from Morissons (1.2kg gammon £1.99, pork belly 99p!)
• Make a list and stick to it
• "Ready meals" - batch cook and then you have things you can fling in the microwave when you can't be *rsed cooking
• Nearly bought takeaway on Friday as it was payday - would have been about £30 for four of us from Dominos. Went to Asda instead and got three pizzas and two garlic breads for £6, so savings to be made there too
• Do you use a slow cooker? I am now officially in love with mine!

Must dash - sunny day and so masses of washing to be done :rotfl:

Karmacat

I love the detail in what you've done, Hypno. Am I right in thinking, tho, that the budget for "minimum payments only" doesn't include *any* money you make from dfw work? I understand the need to be cautious in these projections, but the reality is that you do a *lot* of dfw work, and there'll often be that extra couple of hundred pounds (or more) coming in.

I know you want that nice house in that nice road, so ... yep, keep going ..... if you're falling down on your budgetting for food etc, it sounds like flying friesian has a lot of good ideas ... I think you've done it in the past, haven't you? But now you have to give such a lot of energy to your job. And you're still low in energy with mouth ulcers and whatnot. There's only so much *any* of us can do, but if you can fiddle around with the shopping lists the way you can fiddle around with the snowball calculator - like, going back to mysupermarket, for instance - then I bet you can do it.

Hugs for being up and bleary eyed at 5.25 this morning!

shaun40400

flying_fresian wrote: »

Probably not much help, but in terms of groceries I was failing dismally too, but now am in budget every month thanks to:

• Tinned veg etc - all Smart Price or similar
• Only do shopping at certain times - last Sunday I went to our local shopping centre at 3pm and got reduced meat from M&S (Quality and tasty - woo!) and good bargains from Morissons (1.2kg gammon £1.99, pork belly 99p!)
• Make a list and stick to it
• "Ready meals" - batch cook and then you have things you can fling in the microwave when you can't be *rsed cooking
• Nearly bought takeaway on Friday as it was payday - would have been about £30 for four of us from Dominos. Went to Asda instead and got three pizzas and two garlic breads for £6, so savings to be made there too
• Do you use a slow cooker? I am now officially in love with mine!

i think the shopping / cooking is where we all fall down
some great tips their FF!!
Only do shopping at certain times.... when not tired and on a full tummy!!!!
Make a list and stick to it.......do meal plan 1st
"Ready meals" - batch cook ....
avoid takeaways,,,,,

when you can't be *rsed cooking,,,,,this is my biggest danger time,happens 2/3 times a week either kids have worn me down or in pain ,,,and being able to grab something out of the freezer is a life saver!!!!

also having got into the habit of doing babies diners i also batch cook veggies,,
prep time is what you save more than anything as well as quick cook times...

looks like a fabulous morning for doing a paper round:cool:

read last post ,,,still a long way to go then hypno
but your focused,and seem to have a plan of action for most circumstances

dont know how you do it woman!!
hopefully none of the what if situations will come to pass,,
got to go elvin has crawled away and is rattleing something in the kitchen
(must get the manacles and chains out of the dungeon:rolleyes:)

hypno06

You're right, KC, the budget assumes we can make all minimum payments without any extra MSE work - so if all scratchcards, mystery shopping etc dries up completely, in theory we should still be able to make all payments without falling behind. That in itself is a significant improvement to just a few months ago.

At its worst, we were spending over £2000 a month in minimum debt repayments, just on the cards and loans........now that is down to £706.41......so you can see how much we must have been struggling before, especially when we didn't have a regular salary coming in!

I think that my supermarket shopping is going to have to become more organised but online - supermarkets stress me out......so I need to allocate an evening for doing the shop online, and allocate another slot for delivery. I will investigate today which delivery slots are cheapest, and then work from there. I used to do this every week, and it worked really well, but like my housework, I have let it become disorganised and therefore stressful.

FF - yes I do have a slow cooker, and use it lots in the winter, but not so much in the summer. Summer meals tend to be more quick stirfries and pizza with salad type things. (or on less organised days, pizza without salad, or fishfinger sandwiches )

Bottom line is......I just need to be more organised and better at time management!!

Some hope :rotfl:

lilmissmup

That was very intense for 7amish!!!

I find shopping online helps budget wise for food as don't get carried away, you can normally get free delivery from one shop or another. I have tesco coming today, spent about £84 but that includes £30 of alcohol so not too bad.

I need to budget more on it though, do buy own brand but not so much value stuff.

I use Iceland for all my frozen stuff though and some fresh but when I went yesterday they didn't have much that I wanted.

Takeaways are our biggest downfall (think they are for most people!), I did manage to talk OH out of getting a Dominoes last night and eating Chicago Town pizzas I got for £1 from Iceland

lilmissmup

Was posting when you were.

Tescos cheapest slots are Tues/Weds evening for £3.50.

Always worth hunting round for a free delivery code though.