3rd time lucky?

IWantToBeFree_2

chevalier wrote: »

My comments are in blue

Hey Chev

Thanks for your comments! It appears I didn't proof read my new SOA when I posted it and made a few typo's....

The electric is not £223 a month (thank god!) It is £22 a month and we are currently in credit.

I will be shopping around for home insurance when it comes to renewal (March). We had a largish claim around 14 months when our house got broken into and we needed work done on the house and also claimed for the contents of my car which was stolen at the same time. It went up because of this, but we will now have 1 years no claims and Halifax also give you £50 cashback every time you renew if you haven't made a claim in the last 12 months so hoping it will drop a bit, and if not, will look elsewhere. This is for buildings and contents, including accidental damage and also personal possessions as I need my wedding and engagement rings insured out of the home - the personal possessions also covers car contents - which was a lifesaver last time as they weren't covered on the car insurance and saved us a lot of money.

The mobile phone figure was wrong too, that was this months bills as I had to make a claim on my phone insurance and the excess gets paid through the bill. It is normally £75 a month - OHs is £30 a month and mine is £45 as I have an iPhone with insurance, I know its a lot to spend, but we both use our phones a lot, and whilst we could probably cut it back, its not like we are on the breadline. We never normally go over our allowances.

Our income doesn't include any benefits, we earn too much to be entitled to any. It also doesn't include anything from surveys, ebaying etc as this is just a bonus and I wouldn't want to count on it to do a budget. The above amounts are simply what we get paid from our respective employers every month. I have done matched betting in the past and also signed upto mystery shopping websites, but I thought that mystery shopping was an awful lot of work for very little return in most cases. If for any reason our income fell, I would consider it again.

Re the £125 a week spends, we are already working towards this and doing quite well - we also don't want an allowance each - we see our money as ours, and not as belonging to one or the other - I would much rather keep it all together and not try and separate it out again.


I've had a good day today, got up early and have only just sat down - tidied all the house, put some stuff on ebay, counted my lose change jar and have got £35 to put in the bank tomorrow and its only about 5 weeks since we last counted it up!

IWantToBeFree_2

OH received a cheque from M:Metrics today for £10 - he hasn't been part of the panel since he got a new phone last June and they have since decommissioned the study, so was rather surprised!

IWantToBeFree_2

Over the past 5 years I have been having lazer hair removal at a private cosmetic clinic, which has been costing me £75 a time with approx 5 treatments a year. The NHS won't fund any treatment as they say that my problem isn't hormonal when it clearly is. This is frustrating as one of my friends was given a boob job on the NHS because one was bigger than the other and causing her emotional distress - yet they fail to take into account not only my emotional distress, but the thousands of pounds I spend because they won't treat me.

Anyhow, after 5 years, and some poor service recently, I have decided to look elsewhere, prompted by the clinic I use saying that the previous nurse had been treating areas that werent in the agreed price and if I wanted to carry on having the area's done, I would have to start paying for them, which is fair enough, but it doubled the cost.

So I've found another place that have said that there is no way I should have been having treatment for 5 years and that going with them would lead to an improvement, so I am going to give them a shot. It is still not cheap, and for the area's I want treated, I am looking at setting aside £150 a month to pay for it. Obviously this doesn't help me with my debt busting at all, but I'd rather prolong my debt free date and feel better about myself than be down in the dumps because I have a stupid body!!

I have had a play with my numbers, and I reckon that even with using £150 a month for treatment, I can still save/pay off debts £600 a month. This would give us £730 a month to spend on shopping/fuel etc (not including direct debits). This should be a doable budget - it equates to around £170 a week which should be more than enough!

In other news, received a cheque for £50 today from New Vista Live, this is the second £50 I have had from them, not bad for answering a few questions every now and again. Also had a few more competition wins, one of which OH friend has bought off us for his girlfriend for Valentines which was £30 and a few more Amazon/Ebay sales so the savings pot is coming along quite nicely - £3,300 in there now.

Been a bit stupid and lost my Egg card - think its either in my house, my sisters house or my mums house, we have all looked and cannot find it so just incase I have lost it elsewhere, I have cancelled it rather than saying it was damaged and carrying on using my OHs card (they have same card number etc). I feel like my arm is chopped off without it, I hate using my debit card, I feel like I can manage what I am spending better when they are separate. Should get a new card by the middle of next week though, hope its not delayed for any reason!

IWantToBeFree_2

Well, I found my Egg card, knew I would as soon as I had to cancel it! Hopefully the new ones will be here shortly as I am going to London for the weekend on Friday and could do with having it for then.

Got some more things on ebay/amazon - hoping to have £3,500 in the savings by the end of the month, however, may need to use some of it as I think we are going to need a new front door shortly as ours is looking a bit tired, and there is a crack in the PVC near the glass and I don't think its very secure.

IWantToBeFree_2

Been organised today and cancelled quite a few of my dormant cards, it will be more than 6 months before I need to think of applying for any others, so hopefully, I will be in a good poisition to get another MBNA card at the back end of the year if required. Halifax are always throwing money at me too so if I need a balance transfer I can call on them.

My % of credit used was falling dangerously low for my liking, so by closing a few accounts it is at a more acceptable level - not too high for lenders to think I am desperate and not too low for lenders to think I have a load of cards laid about that I no longer use.

I have also cancelled my credit expert subscription, and will revert to just getting the statutory £2 copies every 6 months or so.

In other news, I am quite an active 'comper' and yesterday, I had £250 of Morrisons vouchers delivered which was a very nice surprise! I don't normally shop there despite it being the closest supermarket to my house, but will be doing so until the vouchers have run out. That is about a months shopping for us, so should save us a fair bit of money this month, will be transferring the equivalent of what I have spent into the savings as to not waste them!

Oh and my Egg card has arrived, I am gutted as it is now black instead of green

IWantToBeFree_2

Doing quite well at the minute, went to London at the weekend and did a bit of shopping, but when I got home realised that I didn't really need 3 new pairs of jeans and took 2 of them of the back! The old me would have let them sit in the wardrobe with the tags on for months on end!

Despite having a weekend away, we still have £510 left (after transfers to savings) to last us the next 3 weeks - this comes in at £170 a week and I don't think we will spend anywhere near that, so should have some more to put into savings at the end of the month, this is especially good considering my wage was £85 lower this month because of the repairs to my car (taken straight from salary).

Savings balance is looking really healthy, have over £4,100 in there - if I include the £900 that my sister owes us, that comes to £5k and over half way to my target of £10k for the year. We are adding at a rate of about £1k a month, which I am really really pleased about, everything finally seems to have clicked into place, and I now cannot stand just wasting money on frivelous things

IWantToBeFree_2

Had my home insurance renewal quote today, £450 which is only £15 lower than it was last year despite no claims - it would have been higher had I not rung and they knocked it down 10% - they reckon inusrance has gone up wholesale and they can still offer me the best deal...

I have unlimited contents and buildings cover, but given that I live in a 2 bed terrace I really don't think I need it, so have started to look around and AXA is coming in at about £300 for what I need. Slightly put off by the fact that have to pay extra to pay by DD but figured if need be, will just pay upfront, and then I will have more surplus every month for my savings anyway.

IWantToBeFree_2

Done the new insurance, £323 for the year, paid upfront - one less bill a month to worry about!

IWantToBeFree_2

I have decided that I am officially obsessed by money! I sit for hours looking at my super dooper spreadsheet that I have, trying to find ways that I can save more money, I think I have OCD! haha!

There are now only a few area's in our monthly commitment schedule where I can could cut back, they are:

Life insurance
Mobile phones
Sky

Could possibly get life insurance for half the cost, when we got it, I weighed about 4 stone more than I did now, and due to this, they almost doubled the premium, but we were in the middle of moving to our new house, and they sent the letter stating this to the old one. They gave us 30 days to not take it, but by the time our mail was redirected, it was too late so we left it. Pretty sure we can cancel so I am going to look at the policy once I am at home tomorrow and see if there is scope for reducing it. Would only be a few quid but every little helps! As we are young and healthy, we only have reducing term mortgage insurance at the minute.

Mobile phones are both in contract until August, OH is thinking about going on PAYG and this will save £20 a month, just depends if his phone is still working etc as he will have had it 15 months. I love my iPhone too much to even think about giving it up, I'd rather have that than a bit extra a month, as shallow as it sounds.

Its the same for Sky as well really, its our main entertainment and I would really begrudge cutting it back when its the one luxury we do have.

I've cancelled my Weight Watchers monthly pass, I don't like my leader, she doesn't motivate me, so my OH is becoming my leader and he will weigh me every week, this will save me £17.95 a month too.

IWantToBeFree_2

Not posted for a short while... things are still trundling along - have added to my credit card debt slightly as I have recently purchased mine and my families football season tickets on it, but its a 0% card for such purchases and therefore its just a case of spreading the cost rather than needing the credit.

The last time I mentioned my savings balance was late Feb and it was at £4,100 plus £900 which my sister owes me - It is now at £5,700 plus another £630 what my sister owes me, so doing very well on that front. My wonderful hubby is doing a bit of overtime and has recently passed an exam meaning he gets a bonus, it all added together will hopefully come to around £500 after tax spread over the next 2 months and that will be hitting the savings.

Hoping to have at least £7k in there by the end of may and I think thats very do-able.

I have also had a bit of a pay rise (£1.5k) due to 5 years of service, and it looks like OH will be getting a pay rise too, doesn't equate to loads a month but every little helps as they say!

In other news, Britsh Gas have finalised realised that my Gas DD is probably a bit low, and have increased it by £12 a month to £34, not too fussed as its been coming, i'm surprised its taken them this long to put it up to be honest! My garage rent has slightly increased and council tax has gone up by £2 a month too, probably around £15 a month increase in bills altogether going into the new financial year.

Still not doing amazing on budgetting and find myself dipping into next months (as i now transfer money at beginning of month to savings rather than what we have left at the end), however, we are saving at a good rate, and I don't wanna totally cut out anything remotely fun....