Benbenandme's Coffee Shop ... All welcome!

hypno06

Excellent - it is worth persevering! Both my children have just cashed in at onepoll.....£20 each which is very useful to them!

benbenandme

Just realised I missed out a couple of rather large spends earlier today; £33 in sainsburys and £32 on petrol Quite a lot of money really but should last a while I'm hoping. This week, weather permitting, I'm hoping to cycle / walk to school most days.

benbenandme

Morning all, I've just spent £27.50 on Ann Summers sale stuff Not gonna help my frugal spending this month is it, but there were some fabulous bargains to be had and I went through quidco too

Not planning on spending much else today, going to mums later to clean the car and have a roast dinner. This morning I need to do the Davina dvd, not looking forward to it at all as I haven't done it for ages, its gonna hurt

benbenandme

Morning all, I've just spent £27.50 on Ann Summers sale stuff Not gonna help my frugal spending this month is it, but there were some fabulous bargains to be had and I went through quidco too

Not planning on spending much else today, going to mums later to clean the car and have a roast dinner. This morning I need to do the Davina dvd, not looking forward to it at all as I haven't done it for ages, its gonna hurt

benbenandme

Not quite sure why that last post was posted twice?? Anyway, davinas done, wasn't quite as bad as expected, now I just need to keep doing it again ... also the ann summers has tracked on quidco at £6 cashback, so only about £20 spent in effect

benbenandme

Hmm, I have just worked out the budget for July, and due to my maintenance being lower this month after bills I have £200 for food, £60 for petrol and £7 left over for anything else Well, seeing as I've already spent some clearly something has to change here as this isn't going to work otherwise ...

Okay, so far this month I have spent:

£27.50 Ann Summers
£33 sainsburys
£32 petrol
£11.60 day out yesterday
£3.50 lunches

So, if I add all the money together (food, petrol, extra) I have got £267 for the month and I have so far spent £107.60 of it and we're only 3 days in ....
I'm hoping the petrol will last most of the month, I don't have any journeys of more than a few miles planned, I also plan on walking/cycling to school for the last 3 weeks of term. Foodwise we will have to have a storecupboard week going on, although I am eating loads of fresh veg and stuff like that, but will stretch stuff as much as possible. I have got loads of washing powder / fabric conditioner, don't need any smellies for ages, so shouldn't need to buy any of that kinda stuff for a bit either.

So, I have £160 left for the month which already seems basically impossible. I may need to hold the mortgage pot for this month and any money made gets spent on living instead this month. Gonna be a toughie this month

benbenandme

I've also not yet worked out what state the accounts are in, I know I overspent last month as I had a bit of a splurge and also my bike, so there is money to be found to get the accounts back on track too. I think my summer holidays challenge this year will be to get all my accounts back on track, get the budget sorted and manageable and try and get the £10 challenge back where it should be by September 1st

The £10 challenge pot should stand at £2430, currenly it stands at £1758, so theres £672 to be made by then Will report back once I know how much needs to be made to get the accounts back on track too.

benbenandme

Right, all monies accounted for and the situations isn't looking that great;

• This month I have £160 left to last me (4 weeks)
• I need to find £672 by September 1st to stay on track with the £10 challenge
• I need to find another £316 to get the accounts all back on track

So basically, between now and the end of the summer holidays I need to find an extra £1000 as well as live on hardly any money at all

However ... its not all doom and gloom ...

I do have several bits to go on ebay which I have bought from there recently but they don't fit well or just aren't as nice as expected, so they will be going back on there and hopefully generating £50+, I also have a £30 cheque on its way from a survey site and hopefully some money to be earned from the footie sweepstake , so potentially there could be my first £100 already

I also have £70 spare in my xmas/birthday fund although it is ds birthday this month too ... I have already got him a few bits put away and I am not planning a big party this year, think we may have a big family day at the beach or something instead I have £40 set aside for his birthday so don't need to dip into anything for that.

There is a possibility that next month I may get some extra maintenance, so that will be very useful as we won't be at school and therefore tend to spend more money, although if the good weather keeps up we will spend lots of time out on our bikes, in the forest or down the beach

benbenandme

Forogot one other thing ... the car mot is due this month, I have £100 put aside for it but usually its a fair chunk more than that

benbenandme

Another way of looking at it is that the £10 challenge should currently be at £1850 so actually theres less than £100 to find there, so as long as I spend very very carefully this month, I can continue to put any extras into the £10 pot and hopefully manage to find a few pennies there, then have a big push on it all in the summer hols At last I'm starting to feel quite motivated financially and weightwaie again, long may it last :j

We're off out on our bikes now then going to mums where we will clean the guinea pigs, clean the car and have a roast dinner cooked for us