Floozie does Frugal 2010

Intergalactic_Floozie

Hi Moo, I genuinely thought an annual wage was pro-rata'd if term time only was stated. It would be great if the wage was £19.5k, but I'll not hold my breath (listen to me as if he's already got it).

Ollie - might be PM-ing you for advice nearer the time if he gets an interview if you dont mind.

Well spent hours and hours and hours on my spreadsheets last night and am no nearer an answer. I seem to be £-26.27 overdrawn in the spends account, and when my child benefit / tax credits and last DD to debit the account hit it, the grand sum at the end of the month in the bills account will be £-89.88 overdrawn. I was £15.84 overdrawn in that account the day before payday so somehow I have miscalculated by £74.04 and haven't a clue how I have managed it! Oh well, I will have some money left after the loan payments have gone out so I'll pay both overdrafts off with the leftovers.

Talking of loan payments - nice big payment into my spends account this morning. I rang A&L to pay off the first one. What a performance. They will accept payment by cheque but I also have to still make a full loan payment at the end of the month?!

Phoned Natwest to pay the other two loans off. They will only accept payment by debit card from the account that the direct debit comes out of! So I will have to transfer the £9k from my HSBC account to Bills account so that will take a few days I think as I heard faster payments are only for amounts of less than a certain amount. Oh well, at least it is going to happen eventually.

Days to payday: 10 (although I could cheat and get it a couple of days early because I can access a Monday credit on a Saturday).
Money in Bank: £-26.07 (nothing showing as pending)
Money in Purse: £29.40
Grand Total: £3.33

Receipts I still have in my purse:
£0.15 - library fine (1 sodding day)
£4.02 - groceries (wednesday)
£1.77 - 3 x greetings cards

Things I know I have spent money on:
£1.00 - donation to Sally Army
£2.00 - breakfast butty this morning
£0.60 - can from vending machine (forgot mine this morning)
£3.99 - KFC for lunch yesterday!!!

Uhm....I think that's it, maybe not as bad as I thought??

Olliegami

Hey~

That's no problem~! Here's to hoping he gets an interview! -crosses fingers-

As for the money situation, it could be much worse! You could have decided you really deserved a Louis Vuitton bag! =D

Intergalactic_Floozie

God, just had a major heart attack. Logged onto Natwest and for some reason instead of the current account being at the top of my list of accounts (it has loans and savings showing as well) one of the loan accounts is at the top, so I looked at it expecting it to be my current account and it said "balance minus £3309!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! especially scary as my overdraft is 'only' £1800 plus I'd transferred half the loan money into it (bloody faster payments limit is only £5k so I couldn't transfer the whole lot). Anyway I'll transfer the rest tomorrow and then ring the lending department to get the 2 x loans paid off.

Days to payday: 5 (I have decided to cheat and get paid 2 days early even though it'll make next month a long month).
Money in Bank: £-124.55 (ARRGGHHH)
Money in Purse: £20.50
Grand Total: £-104.05

Spends (those that I can remember anyway.....)
£2.00 - lunch today (Quiche & Chips - v v nice)
£0.60 - Wrestling trading cards for DS2
£0.50 - DS1 for a can of pop.
£65.98 - Groceries (inc £3.64 = magazines // £4.68 stamps)
£5.00 - Put in a birthday card for a party DS2 was invited to.
£22.50 - Primark (Pyjamas, top, necklace, bed socks, scarf)
£3.01 - more groceries
£7.79 - on 2 x wraps, 2 x hot chocolates whilst DS1 and I were at the soft play centre that DS2 went to the party at.

DS1 has 'negotiated' a pocket money rise. He doesn't actually get pocket money as he's really good at saving his birthday money, paper round money etc so I've decided now we've got a little more money, his hard work at school deserves to be rewarded. SO I said I would give him £1 for each goal he scores on a Sunday at football, £1 for each merit he gets, and 50p for each piece of homework he gets an A for as of payday next week. If I tell you he has scored 20 goals, and got 72 merits since September, I might be paying out rather a lot! I just want to try and keep him motivated when it comes to his school work. I was actually toying with giving him £5 per week pocket money anyway but I didn't tell him that (tee hee)

PS - did a mystery shop on Saturday and it was a REALLY REALLY bad report!!! The worse I have ever had to submit, and I think it was quite a serious one too as the assistant had no clue about a piece of company policy!

PPS - look at my Xmas fund! DS2 didn't go to footy practice on Saturday as he had a footy match to play so I have been able to add that fiver to my Xmas jar which comes to £165.04!!! Nearly halfway there

mooomin

Right missus, where are those daily updates?

*stern face*

Intergalactic_Floozie

Hello Moo's, I'm still about but probably will do a daily update tomorrow when I get in from work. No idea how much money I have got etc etc but I spent about £200 yesterday!!! (I'm noting it all down though). Definitely going to continue with the spending diary because I can see (after yesterday) how easy it is NOT to think about spending and just do it.

moo2moo

Hellooo! At least today is payday

Intergalactic_Floozie

I'm back!!!

Days to payday: 31
Money in Purse: £0.00
Money in Bank: £494.50
Grand Total: £494.50

Groceries: £280.00 / £280.00 left
Petrol: £130.00 / £74.50 left
Everything Else: £60.00 / £60.00 left
Personal Spends: £80.00 / £80.00 left

Okay, not really sure where I am with my money, but I think the above is correct.

As you will see I have budgeted a little bit more for petrol this month, £20 extra in fact. As much asI would like it to, a full tank does NOT last me half a month and it's currently priced really high, so an extra £20 will stop me having a massive tantrum a few days before payday.

Ditto, the grocery budget is larger this month too, although I do still want to try my best to keep it below. Some people might not agree with this but I am replacing my breakfast with a protein milkshake and the powder was £20 for 1000g (each 1 pint takes 40g so by my reckoning it should last me 25 days). Anyway I'm also trying to make my diet more protein than carbs so I feel fuller for longer, so I've upped my grocery budget in anticipation of buying more meat, fish, eggs & nuts all of which are far more expensive than doughnuts, pasta and packets of crisps. I know once I get into the swing of things the sugar cravings will stop and I wont need to snack as often but I need to get all the sugary cravings managed.

I've devised a £60 'everything else' budget, which is cheating a bit as it's not really everything else, but I think this is mainly going to be counted as kids money. Hopefully the little blighters wont cost me £60 a month however DS1 went and scored a hattrick yesterday and got 5 merits today (£8 it's going to cost me, the clever sausage).

I'm allowing myself £80 per month pocket money, which sounds a lot I know but again, I'd like to have some left at the end of the month. I intend to draw £60 out in hard cash and keep £20 in the bank (just in case I get the urge to buy anything online). I will put the £60 in a separate purse along (Mother's Day present) with my bus pass, and this way I'm not taking my debit card out with me which will resist my urge to spend at lunchtime and after work because I HATE paying out cash. However this has to pay out for everything that only benefits myself and this includes newspapers, haircuts, clothes, extra food etc..

I will keep my debit card purse at home and pay for groceries on the debit card.

Exciting news is that I have £200+ leftover each month now (pending mortgage rate rises) so this is my official 'everything else' money which will pay for the boring and crappy things such as dentists, birthdays, household repairs & goods, and treats, luxuries, entertainment and fun (hooray).

So - spends today: £0.00 so far, but I do need to go to Morrisons when DH gets home with the car.

Good news on the council tax front - my 2010 payments are only going up a quid a month!! (paid over 12 months). Usually that takes a largish chunk of any pay rise I get.

I was able to transfer £20.70 into my Xmas 2010 fund:
DS1 bus fare - Budgeted £22.00 (22 days at school x £1) - actual £10 (13 days at school x 0.90p minus £2.10 left on card from last month) savings = £12.00
DS2 - School dinners: Budgeted: 5 x weeks in month x £7.25 = £36.25. Actual: 3 x full weeks, 4 days = £27.55. Saving £8.70.

Gifts bank account now stands at £165.31 plus £21.43 in my coin jar, which is in total £186.74, so I am now 50% of the way there!!!

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't touched any Toluna so I need to get back into a routine with that. Maybe I can do it when I am watching Coronation Street etc...

DH has applied for that job (the term time only one) and he's told his current boss (told him last Friday). Anyway he's just texted me today to say his boss had had a word with him about applying for the other job but he'd tell me all about it when he got home. I don't think it's anything bad but I have a feeling it's going to be a "Please don't leave me, I need you" kind of thing. However I will have to tell DH to be strong because current job doesn't have a pension scheme, doesn't have as many days off, doesn't have any sick pay and is less money.

Car Fund currently stands at £430.59
Emergency Fund: £723.41
This month's everything else money = £278.83 (a bit more than normal as DH got some overtime).

So that's the money post. I promise faithfully I will post a spending diary every day. I've felt kind of rudderless over the last few days with not posting and have been spending money willy nilly.

Oh let me tell you about my bargains! In the Daily Mirror last week there were two coupons for Superdrug for Sarah Jessica Parker's "Lovely" for £9 (RRP £21) and Lacoste Touch of Pink Gift Set for £18 (RRP £26). It was a Mother's Day promotion but I have bought them and put them away for Christmas. That's 5 presents I have so far, although I am very tempted to keep the Touch of Pink for myself but then it wouldn't be a bargain would it??? (oh but it smells so good)

Right - speak to you tomorrow!!!!

natsplatnat

And a post of that length deserves all the smugness you can muster! lol

Hi IF - your 'new plan' sounds very workable - Nothing like a good plan to make you smile!

Nats x

Intergalactic_Floozie

Days to payday: 31
Money in housekeeping purse: £52.00
Money in Personal Purse: £54.00
Money in Bank: £358.07
Grand Total: £464.07

Groceries: £280.00 / £263.57 left
Petrol: £130.00 / £74.50 left
Everything Else: £60.00 / £52.00 left
Personal Spends: £80.00 / £74.00 left

Spends: £30.43
£6.00 - tea fund (paying weekly, 5 x Mondays this month but I am off for one week).
£8.00 - DS banged in a hattrick at footy over the weekend, and he came home from school with five merits (GRRRR) hope this isn't going to cost me a fortune, I might have to negotiate to 50p per item rather than a quid.
£16.43 - groceries at Morrisons (Monday) - 12 items, £0.20 multisaves.

Got home to a letter from Tesco Credit Card informing me they were whacking me with another £12 overlimit fee. So I rang them and was informed that I was overlimit for one day which meant I got billed for it this month. I grovelled and asked if they could waive the fee this once seeing how it was only for one day, and they said YES! I should think so too, they've had enough out of me over the past 4-5 months.

I had a great Lightspeed Survey today, for 190 points, so thats taken me to 395 points, which is another £3 payout.

Diet went good yesterdy, got weighed this morning and had lost 1.2lbs.

PS - DS1 has just done a Lightspeed survey for me too for 250 points so balance is now 645 points. Only need another 45 points then I am at £6 paypal

Intergalactic_Floozie

Days to payday: 29 (seem to have lost a day)
Money in housekeeping purse: £52.00
Money in Personal Purse: £54.00
Money in Bank: £358.07
Grand Total: £464.07

Groceries: £280.00 / £263.57 left
Petrol: £130.00 / £74.50 left
Everything Else: £60.00 / £52.00 left
Personal Spends: £80.00 / £74.00 left

Spends today: £0.00 (although I do have to buy DH's step-dad a birthday present today, which I have left until the last moment, so I'm going to call in at Morrisons and see what aftershaves they have. That will come out of the £278 I put away on payday though).