My Spending Diary!

Quincifer

Well it seems like a good idea to make myself a spending diary so I can see what i'm wasting money on. I'm currently trying to find £800 for rent by 1st July(as well as still paying off debt!), thankfully i've managed to get a 2nd job which starts in 2 weeks which will add a bit too it, and i'm applying for a different position where I currently work which is 9hrs more per week so fingers crossed for that! I've also applied at mystery shopper sites and have my first one soon and am planning to advertise for odd jobs round my neighbourhood in the next few days. So anyway here goes...

31/05/06:
£7.50 on bread,loo roll,milk,lemonade,yoghurts,crisps(on offer),pepperami(on offer),ice cream(on offer) - not brill but saved £3.50 on offers
£2.70 on small dinner with mates (good seeing as they all spent £10+!)

01/06/06:
Nothing! Have spent the day at home & have work tonight so no going out

Ok straight away I know I didn't need the ice cream or pepperami! Not bad though, £10 in 2 days.

Molanole

Welcome and well done on starting your diary.

I'm not sure if you have already posted your SOA but the lovely people on here are really good and telling you where you are shelling out unnecessarily. Might be worth doing if you hadn't done so already.

Re getting some extra money together have you tried the ebaying your stuff or car boot sale routes? If you have any old mobile phones around you could try envirofoning them for a little more cash (there's an article on here about it somewhere).

Anyway, good luck. Keep us posted.

dazzanator

hi i am to doing a spending dairy to see how much money gets wasted in my household and i am only a few days in and i can see that a lot of it is down to bad planing when it comes to food so well done for doing one its not easy being so honest with your spending and tell all that wants to read but it is helpfull that other people jump on and tell you were they think your going wrong it will be good for me as well to see how other people spend there money hope you get what you need at the end of it all

Quincifer

Thankyou and thankyou for your advice, i'm hoping it'll be a learning experience if nothing else!

02/06/06:
£15 on mystery shop but I will get that back!
£1.30 odd on drink and cake in town
90p on snack+drink at work
£45 phone bill

03/06/06:
Nothing again!! It helps when I don't get up til about 3pm

P.S. I do also now owe my friend £40 for my Guns n Roses ticket, i'm not counting it in my expenditure because i don't know when i'm paying him back!

xxx

Quincifer

04/06:
£7.20 on groceries(bread/cooking sauces/veg/meat etc), would've cost £34 but I finally used my nectar points (£17.50 saving) and got £10 off my OH!

05/06:
£78.22 on quarterly gas+electricity
£43 on G'n'R ticket
Sounds like alot but thats the bills paid for another 3 mnths I guess!

I've not really been too bad over the last few days, maybe its guilt because I know i'm writing this! hehe.

xxx

Quincifer

Haha well keeping up to date with this was a bit harder than I thought! I got the other job at my current place of work so once it starts i'll be getting an extra £45 a week (b4 tax). Also have had 2 more mystery shops aswell! I know I haven't spent much but i'll try to remember as much as I can...

06/06:
Nothing

07/06:
£2 ish on lunch and snacks at work (i wouldn't normally buy anything but i was working a 12 hour shift from 7am and didnt get up in time to make anything!)

08/06:
Nothing - lazy day and work again!

09/06:
£1.50 on bin bags

10/06:
£20 on some new 3/4 length shorts

xxx

Molanole

Hi Quincifer - Just wanted to ask, who are you doing your mystery shopping with? I signed up for TNS and was accepted but don't know how long it will be before I get started.

Quincifer

I applied at TNS too but they never seem to have any in my area and you have to look for them yourself. The best one is Grassroots (https://www.grg.com), they ring you with ones in your area. I can't find the link i used so the best thing would be to go to the main site and search for mystery shopping. I've had 3 so far in 2 weeks so thats £30! good luck xx

Quincifer

11/06:
Nothing, lazy sunday

12/06:
£2.18 on macdonalds in work break, tut tut!!
£12 in sainsburys - bought bread/milk etc and lots of stuff i didn't need, tut tut again!

13/06:
45p on a belgian bun from gregs
40p on a flake at work break

14/06:
£1.40ish at macdonalds, tut tut!

Ok so i think i need to stop buying snacks in my break and maybe bring something with me instead! Having a second job is hard work, doing 6am-12 and then 7pm-midnight every day, sooooo tired!

xxx

tawnyowls

Keep up the good work!

Yes, definitely need to stop spending on snacks. Have you thought about making your own homemade biccies or something (prob need to freeze them though as otherwise likely to snaffle whole lot in one sitting - should then be defrosted in time for lunch).

Phone bill - how long was that for?
Credit card - not much on that; do you pay it off every month? If not, probably a good idea to clear, unless 0%, in which case tackle next most expensive debt.

Quincifer

15/06:
59p on hash brown at maccy d's
£13 on food at sainsburys - bought crisps to combat snack-buying at work, bread, etc (I haven't mentioned before but I shop for me and my BF)

16/06:
£3 at sainsburys - cereal and cordial (forgot yesterday)

I finally got my staff discount card for sainsburys so now i'm saving 10% on all my shopping there (theres no minimum spend to use it) aswell as getting nectar points!
I currently just pay off minimum by DD on my credit card(£4/mth), but now I have 2 jobs I can start paying off more once the money starts rolling in. I pay £40/mth off my loan and will be reducing my O/D limit by £10/mth too.
The phone bill was just for a month contract+extra usage (eek!) but my BF uses it alot because hes on PAYG but has no money to buy credit(he's saving for rent too).