Champagne Lifestyle Lemonade Budget (My attempts to get debt free by April 2010)

Sun_Addict

Phew - managed to come under today's budget (just!) by only spending £15.17. This was because I substituted as much as I could with cheaper alternatives (the MSE way of course!).

Sun_Addict

Woohoo it's Friday :j

I actually don't have any groceries to pick up today! This lunchtime I am off to Boots to use some of my advantage card points and maybe buy myself a magazine out of my personal budget.

OH is planning on doing a BBQ tonight (we have undercover area if it rains). He is so fed up of all this wet weather - now he actually has work he can't get on with it because of all the rain (he works outside in building trade). Typical!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! :beer:

Kerfuffle

Hi Sun Addict,

I hope you had a good BBQ and the rain stayed away.

I didn't want to read and run so I thought I'd let you know that although I had subscribed to your 'old' diary I didn't get chance to keep up with it, anyway I've now read both the old and the new one and I think you are doing a fantastic job.

Although you broke your own rule about not booking a holiday until you've saved up for it, at least you now have something to look forward to and work towards. I think it is better to over stretch yourself and give yourself goals than continue to working blindly, at least then you have a focus.

Well done on all your hard work.

Toodles.

Sun_Addict

Hello Kerfuffle :hello: Thanks for your encouraging comments!

Not feeling too guilty about the holiday as it's only costing us £756.96 for a week in a privately owned apartment with hot tub in Lanzarote, including flights so as we've had to pay £100 deposit and over £400 for the flights up front, there won't be much left to pay after that. I would rather pay as much as I can now when OH is working. I'm aiming to have everything paid for within the next 3 months so we can relax a bit. I made myself the rule about not booking holidays before I'd saved the money as that is how I ended up with a debt in the first place - by paying for holidays on the credit card and then not being able to save enough to clear the balance and transferring it to a 0% card. At its highest my debt was £5000 about 2 years ago so it's slowly going down. I am aiming to be debt free by the time we go on this holiday so we can celebrate (March next year).

Nice to know you've subscribed to my diary - hope it doesn't get too boring! Do you have one of your own? I've found it keeps me motivated even if I don't have much to report. Just lately all I seem to be doing is spending! However, I am much more disciplined with money than I used to be thanks to this site and forums.

Have yet another list as long as my arm for Sainsburys today. Don't know what's happened to all the stuff I bought last Thursday. DD is on an eating mission at the moment and it's driving me mad. As fast as I fill up the fruit bowl and fridge she empties it. Can't blame it on a growth spurt as she is 22 and almost 6' so can't possibly still be growing! I am aiming for a spend of around £15 but hoping (praying!) to get it to less than this. Sainsburys have very kindly sent me a voucher for £10 off internet grocery shopping so I shall be taking advantage of this and getting my monthly delivery from them this time. :T Although I always seem to be shopping I have a basic items delivery once a month when I get all the heavy stuff delivered so in theory all I have to get is the fresh stuff day to day. Doesn't always work out like that unfortunately!

Sun_Addict

Quick update - oh dear today's budget is slightly off target with a spend of £20.03. Don't know what happened here - my calculations must have gone awry! A few things were more than I expected and a couple of bits went in the trolley that weren't on the list! Will have to do better for the rest of the week as it's only 10 August and I am down to £73.39 in the budget! Get paid on 25th so in reality on have 14 more days to last. I am such a spendthrift there is no hope for me!

Sun_Addict

This is becoming more like a spending diary than a getting debt free diary! Today's spends are grocery budget £3.50 (a vast improvement on yesterday!) and £9.85 in Boots out of my personal monthly spends. So now have £68.89 left in grocery budget and £11.60 in personal budget. Roll on payday!!

Sun_Addict

Hi all!

Didn't post yesterday so double update today!

The good news is I was sent a survey on a CD from Valued Opinions to do a 4 hour music survey paying £40 plus an extra £5 if I did an extra survey at the end of it!! :j Did I do it - too right I did - and it only took me about 2½ hours in total. You could stop it and rejoin at any time, you didn't have to do it all in one day. Brilliant! Just lately all the surveys I've had via email I haven't qualified for so this more than made up for it and I really enjoyed doing it as well as it was just listening to and rating well known songs.

The bad news is I've spend far too much money on food yet again. Yesterday I did well in Aldi with a spend of just £6.97 but today :rolleyes: I had yet another list as long as my arm for Sainsburys which came to £18.10. I also gave OH £4 this morning to pick up 4 x 4 pints milk from Iceland. So that's £22.10 in one day! I now am down to my last scrapings of grocery budget and it's still 12 days to go before payday :eek:

Friday tomorrow and a grocery shopping free day thank goodness!

Sun_Addict

It's finally Friday! :j

Trying not to spend any money at all today just paying in OH's long awaited tax rebate cheque at the bank. No groceries to buy today and can't think of anything else I need so will resist temptation and go straight to the bank, post two birthday cards and go straight back to work. (This is the theory anyway;))

OH is firing up the BBQ again tonight and he has treated me to a bottle of Freixenet brut cava (one of my faves) so looking forward to it. What is it with men and BBQs? Must be some caveman type instinct!

Hopefully the weather will be good at the weekend and I can get my sun fix. Have a good one everyone! :beer:

Sun_Addict

Good afternoon everyone - hope you all had a good weekend!

OH took advantage of the 24 cans Carling for £10 Asda offer and bought 6 crates so he is stocked up for a while (he says it should see him through the week ha ha :rotfl:). He's getting there on this money saving lark!

I am getting so fed up of spending so much money on grocery shopping I decided to make some realistic lists of what we actually use each month. I made one for the monthly big shop, one for meat and fish (which I like to see before I buy) and one for the weekly stuff. I added it all up and it came to £320 per month. My budget is only £270. Obviously some things I don't always need to buy or I can get on offer so this is just a guesstimate so some months it shouldn't be as much but then other months you need stuff that you only buy now and again so this amount will fluctuate. Don't know whether to allow myself the £320 and then try to get it down to £270 by shopping around for offers. This is obviously why I am struggling to spend less than £270 (which is my ultimate goal). What a palaver! I've been reading some threads on old style for inspiration and everyone seems to spend loads less on groceries than I do! However, I used to spend a lot more a couple of years back, probably nearer £500 per month so I have improved somewhat I've got a big monthly delivery from Mr S coming tomorrow and I'm going to go home and go through my order one last time to see if I can shave anything off it. Got to do something as I'm really struggling to stick to the budget at the moment.

Sun_Addict

Hi everyone here is today's exciting(?) instalment.

I don't seem to be doing a lot towards getting my debt down just doing a lot of spending. Didn't spend much this lunchtime just £5.32 in a combination of Wilkinson and £1 shop. Now only have £20.83 left in grocery budget to last until payday next Tuesday. Should be able to manage as big shop from Mr S is arriving tonight. This is being paid for on the spending card and coming out of September's grocery budget. As soon as I get paid I will transfer the money into savings ready for when the bill comes in. See what I mean about being a month behind all the time! Whatever is left over from September's grocery budget will be transferred into my food account and money drawn out of this weekly (so not really a month behind as such). Sorry if I'm confusing anyone, I have very complicated accounting systems! :rolleyes:

Hopefully next week when OH's last pay for the month has gone into the bank I will be able to pay something off debt. I don't think I'll be able to pay my hoped for amount of £232 as OH hasn't earned a great deal due to being rained off quite a bit. Whatever I can manage will have to be good enough. It's not helped that I bunged the flights for next March's holiday on the spending card and these will have to be paid for at the end of the month too. I'm planning on lending myself half the money out of my ISA and putting it back next month. :think: I spend more time shuffling money about here and there - I must be a frustrated accountant!