Sillyrabbit's facing-up-to-it-properly diary

moo2moo

Helloo!

You've done the sensible thing and moved all your DDs and SOs to a seperate account which removes the charges for bouncing them assuming you remeber to put in enough to cover them each month.

Your SOA looks realistic but do you actually have £400 surplus in a normal month? I know when I did my first SOA what I thought I spent and what I actually spent were two very different things.

There are lots and lots and lots of free bingo sites if you enjoy playing bingo (list on the GIOL board) and free scratchcards which you can do daily too which pay out a minimum of 10p per person per day. Its not a lot but it adds up over a year.

Clearly you like reading. Is there a library near you which would allow you to read as much as you like without any cost. It might only be £2 a book but its £2 you don't need to spend. They usually have some great childrens books too.

sillyrabbit

Ah, no - we don't have that surplus. It's a bit complicated but £100 every week is ploughed back into the DD account to try and cover the shortfall in my salary until I go back to work. Once I go back to work, that money will just be directed over to the nursery for baby2, although I think it will be £160 a week, not £200 so will give us a little leeway there.

We've decided that we're going to plough all the "extras" I can get into paying off the ODs (like CB, bingo wins, ebay sales etc), any change hanging about gets put in the "sealed pot" for Christmas etc

The £200 cheques I paid in - £100 is going on the Argos card and £100 is going to hubby's work to pay for some food we got from them at Christmas.

Hubby gets £30 allowance for petrol for his bike a week for work (won't cost that much, that's the max), and that leaves us with £45 each week. From that we will have £20 groceries max each week (hope to make it much less but until I go shopping I won't know), £10 goes into a "savings" account to start putting money aside for things like vet bills, MOTs, tax etc. That leaves us £15 leeway each week - I can use this for petrol if I need to get any, and we may leave the rest as "emergency money", or even wait until the end of each month and pay any spare money off one of the ODs.

I've written a list of all the food/groceries we need in the house as a bare minimum and where to get them (e.g. Lidls for most stuff, Tesco for the odd bit that Lidls doesn't do). We've already got a polytunnel in the garden along with 6 chickens, so once the veg/fruit starts to get going we should be much more self-sufficient for that, and we get around 5 eggs a day at the moment too, so no need to buy them.

Plan is to pay the Halifax OD off first, then work on the HSBC one and the Argos card before the 0% runs out.

We'll be in a better and clearer position when I go back to work as a) I'll be paid more and b) we can recalculate the SOA and know what we can start to put aside to cover car maintenence, vets, christmas, birthdays etc.

Found a £1 book token upstairs, so that goes in the stash to go towards the girls' pressies for Christmas/bdays!

I do like reading but I actually hardly ever buy books - not going to buy any more for a long while! Quite happy to keep re-reading my old ones anyway...

And I'm going in for the free bingo sites, definitely - love anything like that!

sillyrabbit

Oh yes, hubby bought 2 scratchies today and a lottery ticket for tomorrow before we sat down and talked through the "not spending" thing lol

He won nothing but I won £2 on the one he gave me so got the scratchie money back - will be going straight in the pot! Hey, you never know - we might be millionaires this time tomorrow ROFL

Have listed 5 things on ebay so far, one of which has a bid of £1.99 on it already so should see some profit there at least. Planning a garage sale and possibly a carboot with Mum in the next few weeks to clear the rubbish we're storing in her garage and hopefully make some pennies to pay more stuff off. She has kindly said that if I can sell the futon she bought that is at my Dad's house then I can have the cash for that too!

sillyrabbit

Another item listed on ebay - more to go on later!

sillyrabbit

2 books listed on Amazon today.
2 ebay items have bids already - woo!

Also - complete bonus today as hubby FOUND a fiver in the back of his wallet so I'm off to a concert with my mum

sillyrabbit

Anybody coming out to play today

willsmum_2

Hey Sillyrabbit!

Justa quickie to let you know I am subscribing and I will be back tomorrow - you are doing so well!

WM x x

benbenandme

Hello Sillyrabbit, only just seen your diary but wanted to say hi and wish you good luck. You sound as though you've got your head screwed on right and have thought through your plans.

As you like reading make sure you check out all the other boards, the freebie one can be very good for bits and pieces, especially with small children. I have been using various sample bottles of shower gel that I have been sent as freebie samples for several weeks now and I have loads of samples of fabric conditioner too which will keep me going for a few weeks too

The old style board is wonderful too if you have the time to cook from scratch, and the competitions board is also great Make sure you've joined quidco / topcashback etc and don't buy anything without checking through there first

sillyrabbit

willsmum wrote: »

Hey Sillyrabbit!

Justa quickie to let you know I am subscribing and I will be back tomorrow - you are doing so well!

WM x x

Thank you! :T

sillyrabbit

benbenandme wrote: »

Hello Sillyrabbit, only just seen your diary but wanted to say hi and wish you good luck. You sound as though you've got your head screwed on right and have thought through your plans.

As you like reading make sure you check out all the other boards, the freebie one can be very good for bits and pieces, especially with small children. I have been using various sample bottles of shower gel that I have been sent as freebie samples for several weeks now and I have loads of samples of fabric conditioner too which will keep me going for a few weeks too

The old style board is wonderful too if you have the time to cook from scratch, and the competitions board is also great Make sure you've joined quidco / topcashback etc and don't buy anything without checking through there first

Thanks! I do check the freebie board quite regularly - it was one of the first I started reading!

Have to admit that I get sick of competitions as I NEVER win anything so get quite put off. I did win a widescreen TV once when I was at uni (11 years ago now!) so I think that was all my winning luck used up in one go LOL

And here's today's update - spent £13.19 in Lidl today getting the weekly shopping bits we needed, which included £5 on formula which I certainly don't need to buy every week at the moment. Thinking the weekly shop budget for now will be £15, which along with hubby's petrol of £30 leaves £30 a week for my petrol if needed and the few bits that are coming up that we'll need to pay for:

• Dentist for both of us, which shouldn't include any work for me but will likely include work for hubby which will need to be paid for at the end. Basic cost for me should be £16.50 and hubby's could possibly be the full £198 depending on whether he just needs an extraction, or if he needs crowns/bridges etc. Big difference between £45.60 and £198!!
• Boosters for both cats are due, 1 more immediate than the other - I'm thinking I need to allow £70-80 for this but will book them in at different times to spread the cost a little.
• My car tax ends in April so will need to pay for another 6 months @ about £65.

There's probably more but that's the immediate things I can think of! If I don't need to put any fuel in my car then we can use the full £30 a week. If I can wait until I go back to work before booking cat 2 into the vet then that will be better. In fact, I think if I'm not going to earn loads "extra" in the next month or so then I'll need to put those £200 in cheques aside to pay for the above!! Definitely NOT going to use the ODs though.

I put £3 and something pence into the "sealed pot" today too, and listed 2 books on Amazon. Realised that I could sell the glide/rocking chair I have in our bedroom that is acting as somewhere to put random items of clothing. We paid £50 so you never know, we might get something similar back.

Spoke to mum and on Weds we're going to have a root through her garage, and my dad's garage to see what's sellable, either at a carboot or on ebay. We'll do a tip run too, and have a bit of a declutter! Depending on the weather we're going to try and do the carboot in a fortnight's time when hubby is off to watch the kids.

Crossing fingers that the start of my CB payments come through tomorrow. Still not sure whether to put that (about £100) with the cheques to hopefully cover all the payments I need to cover, then there's no struggling involved. Any thoughts?