Simple doesn’t mean easy

Hollyberry

CaroleM wrote: »

I’m busy hatching plans for May – It will be quite a tight month in some ways, but if I can pace my spending money throughout the month then I should be fine. That’s always a problem for me; I have grand plans of sticking to a weekly spending limit, but blow almost the whole lot in the first week and a half, which means I have to be super stingy for the rest of the month, leaving me feeling deprived – and the feelings of deprivation set me up perfectly for another spending binge on the next payday.

You are sounding really organised. :T Congratulations on the many miles walked and on getting ready for the Three Peaks. Peru sounds really exciting; a friend of mine went a couple of years ago and every single photo was amazing.

You make a really good point about splurging at the start of the month and then getting into the cycle of stinginess/blowout/stinginess. I do exactly that, and although I never blow the budget, it does make for a rather boring last week of each month. For the first time this month, I should actually have some money left on Friday, so there may be hope for me yet.

Good luck with the savings. And I love the idea of the "credit where credit's due"; it's too easy to reflect on the bad stuff, and positive reinforcement's a great thought.

Edit: PS just thought that we should call it the binge & stinge cycle...

mummytogirls

:T Well done Carole on:-

1. your 14 mile walk!
2. your determination to keep that money in your purse! Money burns a hole in my purse if I dont spend it!!!

Really enjoyed reading your diary so far.

Mummytogirls x

CaroleM_3

Hollyberry wrote: »

You are sounding really organised. :T Congratulations on the many miles walked and on getting ready for the Three Peaks. Peru sounds really exciting; a friend of mine went a couple of years ago and every single photo was amazing.

You make a really good point about splurging at the start of the month and then getting into the cycle of stinginess/blowout/stinginess. I do exactly that, and although I never blow the budget, it does make for a rather boring last week of each month. For the first time this month, I should actually have some money left on Friday, so there may be hope for me yet.

Good luck with the savings. And I love the idea of the "credit where credit's due"; it's too easy to reflect on the bad stuff, and positive reinforcement's a great thought.

Edit: PS just thought that we should call it the binge & stinge cycle...

Thanks Hollyberry, 'binge and stinge cycle' is the funniest thing I've heard in days! I will defo be thinking of it as this from now on. Congrats on having money left over - I dont think I've ever managed that, but I live in hope!

mummytogirls wrote: »

:T Well done Carole on:-

1. your 14 mile walk!
2. your determination to keep that money in your purse! Money burns a hole in my purse if I dont spend it!!!

Really enjoyed reading your diary so far.

Mummytogirls x

Thanks Mummytogirls! I was really proud of the walk but a little horrified too - I cant believe I managed it!

My money is really not happy about staying in my purse at the moment - I ducked into Accessiorise at lunchtime to avoid someone and mentally spent about £100 - ouch!

moo2moo

The Three Peaks is great fun apart from all the driving. Scarfel Pike was a dream. I first hiked it aged 10 on my primary school trip to Robin Cottage in the Lakes (obviously). They breeds kids tough in Yorkshire. We now live an hours drive from Snowdon and can see the Clywdian Ranges from the window. At least if you do Snowdon last you can always take the train to the summit . Its quite frustrating to hike up it only to find a family with a pushchair picnicing at the top or worse still an outing from the local pre-school. Its perhaps the only mountain in the UK where you can't quite get away from it all but you can at least get a cuppa or a glass of wine and a hot lunch from the cafe whilst sheltering from the Welsh weather.

If you can make a weekend of it nearby Betwys-y-coed has some fab well priced outdoor shops and has some fabulous hikes and an excellent ice cream shop.

CaroleM_3

Thanks Moo2moo - that’s really good to know! At the moment its feeling a bit daunting, but I spose that’s the point, it wouldn’t be a challenge otherwise.

The current state of things:
Money in purse - £0.50
Money in current account - £1.51
Bills to go out - £0
No of days till pay day – 2


And credit where it’s due:
· 3 hours in the pub and only spending £2.80 sounds quite good to me


I somehow managed to hurt my knee yesterday at swimming, quite annoying to say the least as I would have liked to walk to work this morning and had to get the bus instead. Am currently fighting the feelings of paranoia - it goes something like this: ‘Omg what if I’ve torn my cartilage? Carole – don’t be so stupid, you’ve just done something to a muscle, if you’d torn your cartilage it would hurt a lot more than this. But how do you know that – HOW DO YOU KNOW?!’ Which just goes to show how crazy I am. :rotfl:

CaroleM_3

I made the cookies last night, they have turned out quite well, they taste fantastic and are absolutely huge – I had no idea they would spread as much as they did!

The current state of things:
Money in purse - £0.50
Money in current account - -£0.14
Bills to go out - £0
No of days till pay day – 1


I’m not sure if my account being overdrawn by 14p is a problem or not so I will pop down at lunchtime and pay in the 50p in my purse. And drop a library book back at the same time – today is its last day and I need to avoid the fine – so I mustn’t forget.

Credit where its due for the month:

Well, thank god it’s the last day of a 5 week month! It’s been really painful to get through, but looking back I’m actually quite pleased with how it went. On payday I put aside £100 for a weekend in London and I’m really chuffed with myself because I didn’t spend it before I went, and when I did I drew it all out in cash and put it in separate parts of my purse to be used for various things, so tube tickets money went in one part, food money went in another, money for the nights out went in a totally different purse etc, and the system worked perfectly, I didn’t have to worry about money for the whole weekend cause it was all divided up and waiting to be spent.

I spent £55.98 on clothes, down from £200/250 the previous 2 months.

I survived the last week of the month without taking money out of my savings – that hasn’t happened in a long time.

My savings have increased by £48.44, which is a minor miracle as this month I have paid to have a root canal done, and paid for a flight to Scotland for the 3 Peaks. With both of those, I’m impressed that my savings went up at all.

And I have a plan in place to make sure next month is even better!

CaroleM_3

Warning – this post is very long and boring, it’s intended for my benefit more than to be read by others.

A post lunch break update:

50p paid in, the account is now 36p in credit and I won’t get charged as apparently I have a £1 overdraft :rotfl:


On the way to the bank I dropped in a bag of stuff to the charity shop, I had planned to drop it in at the less tempting one halfway up the hill but forgot and walked right past it. So I took it the tempting one at the top of the hill. I managed to stop myself looking round properly which is great, but did look a little, just for 30 seconds or so, and found a really gorgeous belt. It’s one of these strip of elastic and a metal buckle that clips together type ones – I have a black and silver one at the moment that gets a lot of wear, and this one is far nicer – dark blue (not navy) elastic and a gold and blue enamel buckle. Its £2.75 and I’m going back for it tomorrow – fingers crossed it will be there waiting for me!


Just goes to show though, I really should stay out of that shop in future!


And, just to make it worse, I walked past H&M on my way back from the library and saw a perfect skirt in the window so popped in to look for it and investigate further. This may sound odd but one thing I’ve realised from walking to work a lot lately is that walking in tights and a skirt is a lot more comfortable than walking in trousers – you don’t have an annoying seam between your legs at the top, and the tights stop chub rub. So that will be what I will wear for the 3 peaks. At the moment I don’t have a suitable skirt – I had been trying out my denim skirt for the job but it’s a little loose so turns around as I walk and if I get rained on it will take forever to dry out. So I had been thinking that a floaty jersey skirt would be ideal, and they have them in h&m for £8 – perfect! Will pop back in a week or two for one.


The other thing about H&M was that as I walked round I saw loads of stuff I liked, resisting it was really difficult and as I walked out I thought ‘god, that’s £80 worth of stuff to go on my wish list’ but now I’m back at my desk I can’t remember what any of it looked like – so did I really want it and I have a terrible memory or was I just finding stuff to like for the sake of it, to fulfil the old habit? I suspect it’s a bit of both...


Moral of the story - if you go in the shops you will find things you want to buy and you will have to resist them. If you don’t go in the shops then you won’t find things to buy and you won’t have to do the difficult task of resisting them. Note to self – try to remember this in future!

CaroleM_3

Pay day today – woohoo! Sadly, my online banking isn’t working properly, so I can’t start on the fun game of moving my money around – very disappointing! Though, if I remember I will try again later.

Weekly allowance - £35, currently intact but...
Friday lunchtimes very boring shopping list:
· Charity shop – pop back for the belt
· Hunt for nude tights - sainsburys, boots, primark etc
· Take a £5 note back to work to pay up a colleague, I sponsored him to run the London Marathon – 26 miles in just under 3 hours – amazing!


And credit where its due:
Thursday was a NSD!


Happy payday everyone!

CaroleM_3

Left of Weekly Budget:
£10 Social Life - £2 left
£10 work food - £0.90 left
£15 Sensible stuff - £4.69 left


Credit where it’s due –
· Sunday and Monday were both NSD’s
· I’m managing to stick to my weekly budget so far, so am doing better than I normally do



So all in all, not a bad weekend, Friday I had a massive night out with work which was all paid for by them, I took a fiver just in case and came home with £6 – not quite sure how I managed that! And Saturday I had a quieter night in the local pub - £8 spent. Leaving £2 for a mid week trip to the local, which might or might not be enough – some of the left over sensible money might have to be added to that.


My online banking is still playing up, I managed to get some money into my savings which is great, but couldn’t get money moved into another account to cover a cheque I will be writing tonight – very annoying! Will try again tomorrow and hope for the best.


More shopping based ramblings:


I think this diary is going to end up changing from a budget and savings diary into one incredibly long ramble/rant about shopping. I hadn’t realised how fixated I have got until I started writing it all down here. But omg, I’m terrible! I see something I like and instantly start trying to work out how I can afford it ‘well I could just save £x less than planned this month’ or ‘well I could use next week’s sensible budget for it’. And it’s not a thoughtful purchase of something I really need, like some summer sandals suitable for work – it’s another blo*dy dress!


I realised at lunchtime that one of my shoes was broken, have only had them a couple of weeks so I popped into New Look to see if I could exchange them without the receipt. The queue was huge so I decided I would go back tomorrow with the receipt instead and left....but I checked out the dresses on my way out. So, long story short, I’m suddenly planning to try and wrangle £14 for a dress out of my sensible money this month.


And on Fridays shopping trip, I didn’t get the belt – I just couldn’t make up my mind about it, I tried on a dress, which didn’t fit and then I left. But why did I try the damn dress on in the first place? It wasn’t that nice, it would have messed up my weekly budget and it wasn’t what I had planned to get when I went in.


If I’m going to stick to my weekly budget and meet my savings target I need to cut this cr*p out, with the amount I need to save and the time I have to do it in, there just isn’t room for this kind of messing about. I need to find a way to become a sensible person who shops for what they need, leaves the impulsiveness at home and buys things that will really make a difference to their wardrobe, not just more of the same.


Oh, and I’m not buying the £14 dress, because thinking about it, it’s not that nice and a bit too short.

CaroleM_3

Ok, so end of the first week, budget round up:


Social life - £10 budget, Actual - £14.35
This covers 2 nights out, in the local pub with my boyfriend and best mate
Sensible Stuff - £15 budget, Actual - £14.56
This went on deodorant, toothbrush, 5 pairs of nude tights, £5 sponsorship for a work colleague, and going swimming this morning at the local leisure centre
Work Food - £10 budget, Actual - £9.10



I’m not upset by going over budget this week, the original plan was to have the left over sensible money as extra social money to cover last night in the pub. But I decided to go over budget and have a swim this morning. I’ve been learning to swim for a while and I’m trying for my 25 meters badge on Tuesday, so I wanted to get an extra practice in. In an ideal world I wouldn’t ever go over budget on anything ever, but in reality even though it’s a shame I went over, I’m glad it was a conscious decision and for something important to me, and not something frivolous like new clothes. So, all in all, a good week, and hopefully a good omen for the rest of the month.



A new week starts tomorrow, with the same budget. I have decided to get the H&M skirt out of the sensible money so I can trial it on a 10 mile walk I’m doing on Saturday with some of the people from work. And following Martins email, I have got a 20% off voucher for H&M, which is fantastic! And I want to get the work food money right down from this week, so I can have the extra money for the social life fund.