Lovethymini's Offset MFW Diary

adwat

OK getmore4less, rather than nitpicking my suggestions, do you have any useful input yourself? lovethymini's choices will be whatever she chooses herself, as I said, my suggestions are just guesses. You're making suppositions based on your own guesses. Go figure.

lovethymini

getmore4less wrote: »

Do you still have 2 cars?

As long as hubby is happy on the bike in the winter you could probably get away with one.

Thanks for the post, yes we still own two cars;- the Renault Scenic and a mini cooper. I have toyed with the idea of selling the mini but as my dad has done some work to the engine, I would feel guilty after he's put such time and effort into it. On the plus side, it is the only car I have ever owned that is actually appreciating in value.
There are times in bad weather - ice and high winds - that DH would not commute by bike so would have to use the Renault.

lovethymini

Okay I've updated our SOA -

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,100.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 125.46
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.37
Internet. . . . . . . . . . (just switched to talktalk) . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . .. (just gone up! on a fixed tariff with SP) 58.50
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(same as lecky) . . . . . . . . . . 58.50
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (on a meter) . . . . . . . 36.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139.00
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.17
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . (offset so int only part) . . . . 640.00
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and Household Shopping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370.00
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . (DH commutes 90m/day) . . . . . . 400.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.83
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58.33
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.33
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.17

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Savings & Investments

Pension Payments.(goes out every month from wages so already counted) 0.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . (DS's trust fund) . . . . . . . . 25.00

Family

Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.83
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.07
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.83
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.50
New Children's Clothes. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.00

Education & Courses

University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One Offs

Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00

Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,225.46


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,568.44

Additional notes - Petrol - we hoped this would go down after hubby started to use bike to commute. The rise in petrol prices has instead prevented us spending more, had he continued using the car. from September I hope to do less miles in the Renault as I can walk ds to school rather than drive him to pre-school (currently approx 16m per day)
Clothing - I'm still slowly losing baby weight so needing to buy smaller size clothes, however I use ebay and sainsburys and Next as well as sell some clothes back on Ebay where possible.
meals at work - set at £50 to try and account for the cash withdrawals by dh, he needs cash on him at work for coffees, breakfasts with clients, sometimes he can claim back.

x

lovethymini

What I was thinking (opinions welcomed here) was that whilst we want to OP as much as possible, there are other large ticket items also to be taken into consideration (replacing rear windows, bathroom etc)

We have been thinking of aiming to get the mortgage down to £200k, then once we've acheived that, to then save for replacing the rotten fascias, get that done, then take the mortgage down to 195k, then do the windows etc etc.

Whilst we really want to get the mortgage down, the house does need some attention (having not had much maintenance for the last 20 years) so we need to try and get the right balance.

x

adwat

Hi lovethymini

My advice is to minimize your outgoings and then decide how much you want to put towards overpayments and the rest towards a general fund - whether that be home improvements or holidays etc. Try and keep to this and find the balance you need with respect to overpayments and "having a life"! It's difficult knowing where to draw the line, but it just takes determination & a lot of self discipline. Best wishes for the long haul - it's a marathon not a race as many here have commented.

lovethymini

I feel so inspired by Earthgirl. My diary is a bit sporadic but I usually feel I have nothing interesting to say.

Also, it's been tricky thinking of OP when there's been a CC balance at the end of every month recently, so we need to clear that first. I have being doing online banking to regularly check balances of the offset account and the credit cards, and we are slowly seeing improvements; there's currently about £4,500 to clear on the cards.:eek:
I've also been taking meter readings regularly and updating our account online and we're seeing an improvement. We really could do without the DD going up, it's already £117.

But now the good news - got a job! It's working from home and I can fit it round looking after ds - not sure about pay yet, we need to see how many hours I can manage each week. I walked with purpose and my head high last week, it feels great to be having a job again. My first paypacket will go straight to the credit card, even though DH said I should treat myself (bless him).

Friday was an expensive day - first the dentist did some brilliant tooth fixing on me for £160 and then the cat was diagnosed with cystitis by the vet for £93. Kerrrching. She's gotten herself stressed, I think it's because another cat's been popping in and finishing off her food for her. So - back door will be closed unless I'm around downstairs, and the Feliway is plugged in.

Father's Day tomorrow, ds made a lovely card at pre-school and I picked up some half price Cadburys Heroes for him to give to dh, and we've got some half price posh wine for my dad.

So, I should summarise a few things I'm getting right.
Growing some vegetables in the garden. First time - crossed fingers.
I have stopped buying new clothes, and using our (rather good) selection of charity shops here in town.
Have not renewed any of my magazine subscriptions (this will be good so long as I don't end up buying a magazine every month from the shop)
I have addressed a few eating "issues" with ds and he is eating much better now, which makes things easier and cheaper. It's all about psychology with 3 year olds. And not letting the food touch each other.
Switched to Coke Zero which is not as appealing as the full fat version so I'm drinking far less of it!
Planning any trips to the shops so that we use less fuel - nearest supermarket is 10 miles away.
Found the bath plug after it went awol three weeks ago, in DS's bedroom. Yes, I did buy a replacement plug.
Redeemed survey earnings for another £10 voucher - that's £30 John Lewis vouchers I have stashed in my little coupons and vouchers wallet!
Diet's going okay since restarting, 2lb lost and No Chocolate Cravings At All.


However, the first challenge is to get the CC balances to Zero...

Edit: It's not £4,500, it's £5128.23. See, that's why I need to persevere with this diary/stop spending.

Sepa74

Congratulations on the job! That will really help with clearing the CCs.

lovethymini

Thanks Sepa

Yesterday was a NSD. Made a batch of lentil soup for the freezer, listed 2 long skirts and a top on ebay, and chopped down a huge hedge outside the kitchen window (- wow what a difference, so much light!)
Got all inspired by Gok's Fashion Fix during my 2 hour ironing stint yesterday morning and concluded that long full skirts don't suit me, besides the fact that it's just not practical running around after a 3yo wearing a maxi skirt (maybe there's an art to it but all I do is trip over). Going to keep an eye out for some linen mix trousers in the charity shops instead.
Hopefully I've received the ebay payment and can post ds's trousers today.

I wonder if I can save up enough in the Paypal account to make a decent contribution towards a washing machine....

Hope the sun is shining on everyone.

lovethymini

Picked up a nice pair of summer pj's at Tesco yesterday for my sister's birthday, only £8. Checked the receipt after and they'd been reduce to £5. Don't you just love it when that happens .
Mobile phone bill for DH and myself £32.62 for the whole month - wow!
Also did three cheers for DS who decided yesterday he did like peas after all. The less fussy he becomes, the easier it is to make meals.
Off to do a sponsored walk with DS for pre-school. Wish I had some wellies, I've got the feeling I'd need them today!

lovethymini

DS is at Big School having his trial session. Bless him - he is 3 years and 10 months old! He insisted on wearing his new school polo shirt and looked so lovely, it's no wonder my eyes leaked on my way home.

We've had to buy a new washing machine. The stinky one we inherited from previous owners is taking so long to do washes, one of DS's t-shirts got ruined last week and I'm worried it will overheat too. DH's already taken it apart once, and being 7 years old there are some parts not available any more. So hey ho - at 37 I am getting my first brand new washing machine! DH gave me a budget of £350 and I found a Zanussi in John Lewis for £289. Oh it was such a happy housewife moment. Hopefully I will see lower energy consumption too.

Crikey - must go and pick DS up from school! eek!