Lovethymini's Offset MFW Diary

lovethymini

Hmm good news bad news

dh has bought a motorbike after being sat on the M1 behind Another Accident this morning (is the M1 jinxed at the moment or what?).
So the bad news is it's cost us £1,450 (bit of a bargain, actually)
On the other hand, it does 60mpg so the fuel cost will be reduced and he'll be home earlier, and we'll all be much happier!

I think it's time to lower the price of his car on Autotrader to make sure it goes!

Making a big batch of bubble and squeak burgers later to freeze. DS has decided he doesn't like dinner if everything is touching each other (eg casserole, curry), so we're eating lots of separate things. Oh the joys of feeding a 3yr old, who, incidently happily informed me this week he'd posted the letterbox key into the letterbox (cue large stick and big lump of blutack) :rotfl:

Oops time to collect above mentioned from pre-school

lovethymini

PS Actually managed to purchase a 25p pack of 3 bars of soap in Sainsbury's today - first time in 6 months I've seen any in stock!

lovethymini

DH bought his commuter bike, cost £1450.

Not one phonecall for the car, have had a headache all weekend worrying about money.

Spending the day today cooking and ebaying and trying to be optimistic.. I hope we sell dh's car soon, we'll get £3k less if we part-ex it

Still - dh's bike cost £500 under budget and is immaculate with new tyres, lots of tax and a fresh MOT, and he handed in some travelling expenses last week which should go through soon.

Ordered some copies of DS's first "school" photo which will make nice low cost xmas presents for relatives.

lovethymini

Still not sold the car, so dh has decided to keep it for now rather than trading it in for so little :huh:
DH's commute now costs approx £8 in petrol by bike instead of £16 diesel by car, hope to see the difference at the end of the month.

Spent the evening being very productive in the kitchen with dh - made huge batch of chicken curry and 6 little fish pies for ds. Ebaying is doing well - dh's winter boots are going for far more than we both thought they would, auction finishes tomorrow, so hopefully there'll be another £50 for the mortgage account , plus managed to redeem Ipsos points for a £10 John Lewis voucher yesterday - hopefully get that by xmas

baby steps, keep positive girl!...

lovethymini

Feeling rather despondant this morning so have decided to come on here to cheer myself up. The spirit of kindness is tonic to the soul on some of these threads.

So.

Good things we have done since saturday:-

Cleaned oven out without buying expensive oven cleaner, followed the method in Martins book and it worked! Without gassing myself out on chemical overdoes!
made a big vat of laundry gloop
sold dh boots on ebay for £70!
defrosted our senile fridge
dh took the washing machine apart and fixed it, there was some thread wrapped round one of the parts, plus tons of dog hair from previous owners' dog, works a lot better now!
Negotiated a free digital photo frame for our local pre-school xmas raffle from a friend who imports them, instead of buying something for the raffle.
Went to Lidls yesterday and stocked up on their best buys. Bought a bag of carrots for 29p so will be making carrot and potato soup from recipe in Martin's book.
Received some free crisps and body moisturiser through the post to test
persuaded ds to have readybrek for breakfast instead of uber expensive and sugary cinnamon grahams.
Ds doing brilliant and waking up dry in the morning, he slept 13 hours last night and woke up with dry bedtime "pants" so don't need to buy any more, and I'm such a proud mummy!

Feel a bit better now Happy Foggy Tuesday Everyone

lovethymini

This is ridiculous, what are we doing wrong? the mortgage is almost as big as it was when we moved in, in April. That's 6 months ago. C'mon girl!

Used £20 worth of Tesco vouchers today on £40 worth of toys for ds Christmas presents, and only bought things in Tesco's we'd run out of and/or needed.

It's been a Petrol Forecourt Mishap Day today. Fuel cap broke on mini in the petrol station (after I'd filled up, thank god). Then couldn't even get the fuel cap off dh's car at BP later on - some sympathetic guy came and showed me (in one nanosecond) how to remove it, felt about that big.

Have made a resolution (after gazing longingly at the decorations rack on M&S) Not To Buy Any Christmas Decorations At All This Year.



There, it's in black and white now, so got to stick to it.

I've stunk the house out with white vinegar. DH almost heaving, but the microwave and floor is clean and the kettle is descaled


Footnote: Doh - we have no money because we bought a motorbike and couldn't sell the car :doh: Maybe I need to scrap the MFW diary and join DFW instead :rotfl:

lovethymini

This is where our money goes. Where we have had bigger bills than originally budgeted back in April, , I have changed our SOA to help keep the annual spend on target - for example car maintenance went up to £2,100 for the year in total because the mini had urgent surgery on engine and bodywork, costing us £900 back in June...

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,063.29
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 125.46

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.00 Got this down to £27 now.
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.00 inc home phone, on national supply so cant get cheaper.
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.92
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640.00 this is interest only
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370.00

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00 should reduce now DH commuting 500m per week by bike
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.33 for 3 vehicles
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84.17 3 vehicles
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175.00

Debt Repayments

Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500.00 Mum & Dad loan, ends Oct '12

Savings & Investments

Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 DS's savings account

Family

Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00

Entertainment

Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.17
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.99
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00 adjusted to accomodate a few very extravagant months this year.

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.50
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.33 adjusted after DH's big bill this June
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.50
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00

Big One Offs

Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 went well over this
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 Dh now takes packed lunch but still takes cash for coffees etc for his team
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,188.75


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,101.03

SmlSave

Corr, it all adds up doesn't it!

But if you could op by £80 a month - that would be great Do you think its feasible?

lovethymini

SmlSave wrote: »

Corr, it all adds up doesn't it!

But if you could op by £80 a month - that would be great Do you think its feasible?

That's the aim, and then some. The benefit of an offset mortgage is that we allocate an amount but it sits in the account reducing the mortgage interest until it's needed, say for example the car insurance.

I should also mention that the personal loan being paid off at £500 per month was part of the house payment, so once that's done, there'll be extra to overpay with.

Next year I'm hoping the car maintenance will be a lot less, although we're expecting to lose all our benefits.

lovethymini

:T Transferred £70 into account today from the Ebay sale of DH boots
Listed another 3 items on ebay.
Cat cost £32 at the vets. My purse shudders whenever we go there, as well as the cat.
Got leftover beef casserole with jacket spuds for tea tonight - yum!
Made some chocolate scones
Received a household cleaning product to test for free.