Shellgirl's Smart-price Value No Frills budget

shell_girl

Am trying so hard to stick to budget lol! Am racking up NSDs and watching every penny. Have had to make cuts in the official budget figure of £300 as I'll be going away before I get paid again... and although I'm not planning to have a shopping spree before I leave there are somethings like suncream etc that I can't not buy.

Going home tomorrow for a long weekend- can't wait :beer: catching up with friends and family is top of the agenda, but am not planning anything expensive- lucky really as we're on about £20 after petrol to take us to a week tomorrow :rotfl:
If I can stick to that I'll be delighted, as I'll have shaved a whole week's spending off the budget. We've got enough in the at home freezer for at least two meals... and I'm hoping my mam will feed us once
Next week we'll mostly be eating whatever I can buy reduced and batch cook this weekend.
I posted on OS last week about a turkey leg I'd picked up reduced in Morrissons- paid less that £2.50 for it, roasted it (under a foil tent as I read they're stringy and tough otherwise) for a lush sunday lunch and then casseroled the rest on monday night. Veg I used had been reduced to 19p for a mixed bag, and got a huge bag of potatoes for 29p. Splashed out on some organic new potatoes that were reduced to 39p and felt extravagant :rotfl:

Debt busting wise there's only really going to be movement once a month when OH gets paid. There should be more movement after august once I've cleared my OD- that'll free up about another £250 for debt repayment (or budget enhancement as my OH is hoping:rolleyes:). Speaking of the OH- he's done fab selling some games on fleabay this week so gold star for him... which is taken away immediately for needing to use some OD clearing funds to avoid charges on an old account :mad: lol. It's not his fault really... but the sooner we get on an even keel with his many bank accounts the better!! Feels like we're always juggling them to avoid charges... another two months on the budget and we should be back in constant credit all round... a balance of 7p still counts as credit right?:money:

LeChuck_2

Oi Shell_girl, you haven't been updating this at all!! Talk about "doing it yourself" eh...typical!!

Hello, I'm the 'OH' as she puts it, and lots has happened since the 8th July! The £300 budget for last month worked...just about! It got complicated by the fact that I had to go away and work for two one week periods and needed spends for food. This was a nightmare due to my colleagues' insistence we ate at exclusive restaurants rather than my preferred 'cheap and cheerful' pubs. It was an uncomfortable situation when I had to basically explain to people I wasn't close to, that I couldn't do this every night as I 'was skint'! Eventually I managed to limit the damage to £35 over 5 days, the second week away was easier and I got away with spending £25 on food. During this time Shellgirl was sunning herself on a two week holiday (ok, she worked hard during it fair play!).

August was all over place as it was a bit of a 'mad month', but we've now both been back for two weeks and don't have to go away again. The £300 budget starts again in September, meanwhile I'll be paid good overtime for those 2 weeks I did.

Whilst Shell_girl was away, Lloyds TSB kindly decided to throw a big black horse shaped spanner in the works by hitting me with a whopping £165 charge for an unplanned o/d on an a/c I don't even use, another £165 is due on the 1st September. To clear this and cover the upcoming charge we'd have had to come up with an impossible £330 immediately, which was just not an option. I explained to their Customer Support Unit that I could not even attempt to pay this before wages day, which was 15 days away, in which time yet another debt would have accrued. Having endured two very unhelpful characters I had a breakthrough with the 3rd, I've set up a temporary 8 month overdraft to cover all charges and have simultaneously set up a standing order of £50 p/m...it will have cleared by January (at which time the a/c gets shut down forever!).

Also, 1 hour after Shell_girl arrived back home a drunken idiot decided to throw a wheelie bin through the windscreen of my parked car outside our house, cue police involvement and a potential £200 repair bill. We haven't paid this yet as I've mothballed the car for now until we can better afford it, hopefully I can do it through the insurance in a couple of weeks which will bring it down to £50.

In the face of all this comedy-drama we're actually in a good place would you believe. That overdraft I sorted has taken a lot of pressure off us and freed some money, the budget has enabled us to keep payments on Shell_girl's overdraft of £750 (due in by 31/08/09) on target.

We've also been selling non essentials like there's no tomorrow and have amassed over £200 all-in, according to our calculations we only have £40 to go until her overdraft is paid! This means that from next month onwards we'll have an extra £200 p/m to go towards other debts (cards). We've also stopped all potential charges on all accounts/cards and have a fair amount of money left this month with enough food already in the freezer to last us until the end of August.

If we continue on this breakneck pace we've figured out that we can actually be debt-free (yes that's DEBT-FREE!!) by Xmas 2010...possibly earlier.

Just goes to show that even when life's trying to throw everything at you, there's always a way through as long as you keep at it and don't give up!

shell_girl

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Brilliant xx

shell_girl

Excellent- the OH has fed and watered the poor neglected diary, so I suppose I should play with it for a while

As he said, lots been going on but lots of headway been made. There is light at the end of the tunnel now- we can start some serious snowballing after August is over with and the OD gone forever.

Have started doing the free scratchcards a la hypno- not made an awful lot so far- averaging 10p per day but hey- 10p better than nothing. Doing an awful lot of obsessive online banking checking too, moving any odd balance into the overdraft in a kind of PAD thing. Trouble is, because we're not spending very much there's hardly ever an odd balance to transfer... almost makes me wish I had more DDs going out :rolleyes:

Now I know that OH is reading this I feel a bit daft writing this... but I will anyway...:o He's been amazing. He's totally on board with the debt busting and is doing everything he can to bring our DFD forward, grinding away at magpie, fleabay and amazon, and not complaining about everything we eat having a yellow sticker on it.

In fact, he's so on board with it all that I'm sure he'll be totally understanding when he realises that all his games consoles are listed on a certain well known auction site :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

shell_girl

Transferred another £8 ish onto the overdraft that was odd in my other bank account. OD is going down every day... just feels a bit frustrating that we have to wait until payday to hit it with the big guns. I've budgeted paying the last £250 off from my wages, it currently stands at £330 ish overdrawn. We're waiting on cheques from music magpie to the value of around £35ish, and have £7 coming in from amazon on the 27th... or hopefully more now that A-Level students will know what Uni course they're doing and may need to start buying the books :money:C'mon everyone- do religious studies and buy your course books on amazon- you know you want to :rotfl:

Have items listed on the fleabay due to end on Sunday- no bids as yet but a couple of watchers so that will hopefully bring in a few quid.

If I have to I'll be able to put more than £250 from my wages onto the OD, but it would then cut into the car fund, which needs a new windscreen (see LeChuck's post above :mad:) an MoT and Tax all before the end of September.

Planning an NSD today, accidently spent about £7 in the supermarket last night after popping in to buy beansprouts at 50p :rolleyes: All on necessaries though so not too dreadful. Invented a v tasty rice dish that's cheap if you've got a good store cupboard, and bulks up a meal v well as a side dish.

Chuck a handful of desecrated:D coconut in with your rice while it cooks. Ignore until done. Drain. Fry some garlic and chilli in a bit of oil in a large wok, add rice and then a good pinch of any thai spices you have- I added lemongrass, lime leaves and flaked chillis. Tastes a bit like thai green curry and went fab with our yellow stickered salmon. Yum Yum.

dallas85

Hi Shellgirl just found your diary - I love it! Well done on all the good work you have put in so far - how inspiring!

shell_girl

Aw thanks Dallas Always feel like I'm talking to self here but it really does help getting it all down on 'paper'.
I'm calling a NSD for today- dinner was all freezer yellow sticker bargains. Got to say, the more we get in to the MSE way the more you learn about what can actually be frozen!! Another 10p on the scratchcard, but it's ok... every 10p scratchy takes me closer to the £100 one.
Meant to list some stuff on fleabay tonight and not done yet (BAD BAD Shellgirl) so I'm off to do that now... will schedule them to finish at the weekend- please all send me positive fleabay dust!!

slm6002

i think you are doing really well. i keep spending even though i know i shouldnt. its always on things that i will need but not urgent! keep up the good work and you will be debt free before you know it:D

shell_girl

Thanks for popping by slm- help yourself to a smartprice cuppa.

Hypno the debt busting queen does a great no urgent spending challenge. You put £20 in your purse and that has to cover all non urgent/ unnecessary spends. The challenge is to see how long you can stretch the £20 out for.

OH's odd balance finally reached my account today :T so that's another £8.31 off the OD. Had been getting a bit worried about it as he sent it on Monday and transfers between us are usually instant. Perhaps whoever is in charge of debtbusting up there decided to delay it so that I could have a little boost to go into the weekend with? Anyway- has left me feeling v cheerful and positive about the fleabay prospects for the weekend. Am also trying not to sit on the doormat each morning waiting for the postman- we're expecting three cheques from magpie that I need to get paid in by Monday for them to clear in time to hit the target by the 30th.

Might be a little spend tonight as I need to get the train home, but should be enough shrapnel in the purse to cover that. As it's Friday night there will [STRIKE]possibly[/STRIKE] be a little spend on a bottle of something very cheap for myself and a couple of value lagers for the OH. Will keep it under a fiver, and will use my debit card which will give me an odd balance in my account, which will have to be transfered onto the OD. There's method in my madness- honest.

Hope everyone is having a good Friday so far.

LeChuck_2

shell_girl wrote: »

Anyway- has left me feeling v cheerful and positive about the fleabay prospects for the weekend.

There's been movement on it...your Bob 'Mumbling' Dylan's the first off the mark!