Hypno's "just for today" diary of rediscovery.

Karmacat

I remembered just as I was typing, lol - hope there's nothing too horrendous.

hypno06

Horrendous?, no not really in the grand scheme of life.

But if I am to stick to my budgets, I have £1.77 leeway - that is either good budgeting, or poor budgeting, depending on which way you look at it!

I can, of course, raid my debt pot, but as you all know, I am desperately trying to manage on my regular income, rather than to use the MSE money which I am putting away for emergencies/clearing the loan early.

Verbatim

Brilliant result on your MSE money Hypno, that's huge. What a nice start to the day.

Is that emergency/ loan pot also to cover the skiing for the children?

hypno06

Yes, V - the idea being that if nothing blows up in the hypno household, there is a chance that they can ski a bit next winter. But they know that things are tighter than ever, so they are not expecting anything at all. We shall just have to see how the year pans out. Expecting both the unexpected, and nothing at all!

Race fees and summer training fees come out of my grocery/household budget though - they have to be incorporated amongst the Tesco shopping and petrol requirements etc.

So, the household/shopping budget for the rest of the month shows that after race fees, bus fares etc, We have £37.45 per week to cover food, petrol and all incidental expenses. This has to include whatever we do when we go to London for the day next week, so is fairly tight, but I have already done a big Tesco shop, so just need bread/milk/fruit & veg hopefully, and I try and use the car as little as possible now so keeping petrol as low as I can.

In the "bills" account - there is £1.77 spare once everything has been paid....so I will be putting the debit card that goes with that account in the cupboard when I get home so I can't use it by mistake as even taking £10 out of the cash machine would mess things up there.

Tight, but doable for those of us who like a challenge. I can do this

Karmacat

Wow, Hypno, I'm full of admiration for you! The non-mortgage debts are due to be paid off by the end of next year, aren't they? So it won't last too much longer; but while it lasts, its really really tough, and of course as you say, its worse than it has been for a long time. You *can* do it!

hypno06

I'm not sure if it worse than it has been for a long time, really, KC, because it is only within the last 8 or 9 months, I reckon that the monthly payments on the debt have really reduced.

This time last year, for example, I was still paying over £400 a month on my egg loan, plus over £400 on my barclayloan.....now the egg loan is gone and the barclayloan is £317 a month.

So although my income is drastically reduced, without OH contribution of wages, the outgoings have also come down too.

Things could be a whole lot worse.

Also, the £317 that I currently pay to the barclayloan, for example, I really need to "keep" in the budget going forwards, as at some point my car will need replacing (it is 8 years old now, so won't go on for ever) and that is the sort of monthly figure I will need to put away to save for a new one.

If things stay as they are, with the MSE opportunities coming in, I am confident that I can manage. As you can see from the post above, there is no great leeway in the budgets, but I am not living in the overdraft or on credit cards any more, so I am definitely on the right side.

If the MSE money disappears for whatever reason, then things will be much tighter, which is why I want to put it away for longer term/savings/debt reduction/emergencies etc so that I can be confident that I can manage, plus have some to fall back on if needed.

se999

It's not fun when the budget's are that tight, I remember years of doing annual budgets at the start of the year, and always starting with a negative number, and then having to find ways of tweaking to get it to at least break even.

Hope the mse money keeps coming in, it does seem so far that normally when one thing fizzles out, something else crops up fortunately.

hypno06

se999 wrote: »

It's not fun when the budget's are that tight, I remember years of doing annual budgets at the start of the year, and always starting with a negative number, and then having to find ways of tweaking to get it to at least break even.

Hope the mse money keeps coming in, it does seem so far that normally when one thing fizzles out, something else crops up fortunately.

It does also mean that there is no room for complacency - and the eye must absolutely not be taken off the ball - one missed item in the budget or an over-exuberant grocery shop would throw everything out considerably.

BUT, as I said before, it could all be a lot worse. I am just so so grateful to this site and those that contribute to it, otherwise I would still be drowning in it rather than seeing something that can work :T

se999

Just spotted there's a new tesco 500 points for a min £6 spend in the Grabbit section of the forum. It's on cd's/dvd's.

Edit - It's included in todays newsletter, there it says min £7 spend

sallyx

hypno06 wrote: »

Right, that's sorted then - I have booked you in.....bed, breakfast, evening meal, and some polyfilla

Bring your trainers and you can drag me around the block at the same time for the full "holiday" experience :rotfl:

Your on...trainers will def be coming lol