Lovethymini's Offset MFW Diary

lovethymini

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,112.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 80.00


Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.37
Internet inc home phone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.50
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.50
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.42
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390.00

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.83
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.50
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.17

Debt Repayments

Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.00


Savings & Investments
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Family

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


Entertainment

Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.07
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.67
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.25
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.00


Big One Offs

Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37.50
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,192.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,190.11




There's no room for OP

gallygirl

lovethymini wrote: »

There's no room for OP

Rubbish - there's £1.89 for a start :rotfl:. Oh dear, it is a little tight. So, what can I suggest:

• mystery shopping - have you considered this, you could do when little one at nursery?
• piggy bank - put all your coins under £1 in here at the end of each day. When full, pay off mortgage.
• magazines - look out on the mags thread for good offers - there is the odd £3 for 3 issues with £5 cashback
• internet surveys - use vouchers for gifts
• speaking of which, do you use quidco/topcashback etc?
• money off coupons - all amoney saved goes into OP pot
• Approved Foods - check them out - great stuff on there, can save a fortune
• meal plan and bulk out meals with lentils, beans, carrots etc. Every dish should have something added to pad out

Don't be too despondent - you are budgeting well which means you have been able to cope with no pay rises, and still do stuff to the house so be proud of what you have achieved :T

lovethymini

LOL thanks Gallygirl

Mystery Shopping - haven't tried that - would the transport cost offset? approx 22 miles and parking cost.
Piggybank - doing this with 20p's in an old E45 tub, not tempted to break into that!
Magazines- DH's subscription at £9.35 a quarter, and my impulse purchase of Prima, Ideal Home, Good Housekeeping. I've tried the library but they don't put fresh ones up often enough. Total ban on buying any more for now I think, then perhaps reduce budget in a few months after last month's extravagance is covered.
Internet surveys - I do OnePoll, Valued Opinions, Pinecone, Yougov, MySurvey, Toluna, Ipsos, ClixResearch. Think that's it.
I also use Topcashback and less often, Quidco (including instore at Halfords)
Meal planning - this I do, but could do more bulking out though. Household favourites is a mulligatawny chicken curry and slow cooker chilli con carne, and minestrone soup - all bulked out. Recent purchase of smaller fridge freezer makes bulk cooking more tricky - may have to look at a small chest freezer in the future sometime if it proves to be too small with the three drawers.

realised in the shower that I haven't allowed for the Barclaycard repayment, so I need to resubmit.....

lovethymini

New SOA re-worked to accomodate paying Barclaycard at £140 permonth

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,112.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 80.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.37
Internet inc landline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.00

Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.50
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.50
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.42
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346.67


Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.83
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.33
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58.33

Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.17

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.00


Savings & Investments

Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Family


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


Entertainment


Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.67
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.07
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty


Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.25
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.00

Big One Offs

Sofa/Kitchen/TV (this is the fridge freezer we just bought £450) . . . . . . . . . . 37.50
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,192.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,165.61

beachie

Theres four that really stand out on your list.

Mobile Phones - £57
This seems quite high, even for 2 phones. Are you using all your minutes? If your need the end of your contract look at going onto a Pay Monthly option for around £10 a month per phone.

Food and Household Shopping 346.67
This seems massive to me. Might be worth looking at what you have in the cupboards and trying to use up what you have. Change the time of day you go to the Supermarket so you can pick up lots of reduced vegetables. I think you should be able to get this down to around £200 a month with the correct planning. I live alone so, it might be easier said than done but I only spend around £15 a week.

Petrol - £338
Seems very high. Is this bcause work is a long way from your home?

Good luck! Looks like your pretty organised with how much you spend on each item.

lovethymini

beachie wrote: »

Theres four that really stand out on your list.

Mobile Phones - £57
This seems quite high, even for 2 phones. Are you using all your minutes? If your need the end of your contract look at going onto a Pay Monthly option for around £10 a month per phone.
My contract is £15.50 and DH's is £36 per month, both are contract with many months to go.

Food and Household Shopping 346.67
This seems massive to me. Might be worth looking at what you have in the cupboards and trying to use up what you have. Change the time of day you go to the Supermarket so you can pick up lots of reduced vegetables. I think you should be able to get this down to around £200 a month with the correct planning. I live alone so, it might be easier said than done but I only spend around £15 a week.
Agreed - I really want to work at getting this down. It does, however, include non food things for the house which crop up occasionally such as postage and dry cleaning, which we had last month and came to about £50 thanks to also needing a new watch battery for £10!

Petrol - £338
Seems very high. Is this bcause work is a long way from your home?
DH commutes 90 miles per day there's not a lot we can do to improve on this, I am using my car less to help this, and he works from home a few Fridays per month too.

Good luck! Looks like your pretty organised with how much you spend on each item.

Thank you for the comments, I'm feeling like I need to look for a weekend job at the moment which would be a real shame as my son is only 4 and DH works long hours. Going through some ideas today with DH.

lovethymini

That time of the month again!

Balance as of 5th was £200,690.26

I shall be so pleased when it gets below £200k

I have handed my cv in to ds's school and have told them I can help them with any admin work they need, temporary or permanent. My cv shows that I'm more than qualified to do that, but I'm sure I'm not the only mum approaching them for a job. I've also asked my brother about working for his company. It feels like a huge jump, having not had a job for 5 years and suffering with anxiety and depression as I do, but I think it will be great to get a bit more cash in.

On the home front, the hot water tank has now been relocated and plumber has been paid (£590, saved up from my paltry earnings!). We are now waiting for the claim to go through for replacing the ruined brand new cream carpet in both front bedrooms and landing.

May wasn't a cheap month - ended up replacing the power shower, two tyres for my mini and buying some much needed summer clothes for the family including new school uniform, so I'm pleased with mortgage balance. I have also bought a christmas present (in June!!!) for mum - a brilliant little mini glass greenhouse from Ikea for £11.99! We want June to be a no-spend month and I can't see any biggies looming. Unfortunately there's also a balance on the Amex and Capital One cards, so we need to work hard this month to bring them back down to zero. It is tempting to pay them off from the offset account, but this would leave us with no money for emergencies, so I am just keeping a watchful eye on bringing the balances down, prioritising Amex as it has the higher APR.

Challenges for June: as many nsd as possible, weekly shops to be delivered (each thursday) to ensure tighter spending control and lower the fuel costs (last month was only £290, best month yet!), more homecooking and breadbaking. We have been going through 2 loaves per week, so if making our own bread costs under £2.70 per week it's saving us money plus we're eating less preservatives. The electrician is booked to do the airing cupboard £80, and I'm seeing a homeopathic practitioner this week to see if he can help with the depression £65. That should be it....

Hope everyone else is keeping focus and have a great month.

Sepa74

Hi love they mini, I wonder if you would be better off paying the balance from the offset and then using the credit cards as your emergency fund until the offset savings build up again?

I suspect that you would pay less interest in the long run, and I'm sure Martin suggests this as an option for people with debt problems

lovethymini

Sepa74 wrote: »

Hi love they mini, I wonder if you would be better off paying the balance from the offset and then using the credit cards as your emergency fund until the offset savings build up again?

I suspect that you would pay less interest in the long run, and I'm sure Martin suggests this as an option for people with debt problems

We've been toying with clearing the cards with the facility we've built up with the offset, but it would leave us without anything in case of an emergency.

As of the 5th of June the figures were as follows, and I would appreciate any thoughts here;-

Cash
One Account balance £200,690.26. Facility is £205,000 so we have £4,309.74 available.
(My account: £185.15 - reserved to pay electrician)

Owing
Barclaycard: 5,167.22 - 0%,
Amex: 915.73 17.52%
Capital One 1,310.11 14.88%

I suppose looking at it, we could bring Capital One and Amex down to zero and still have a bit left. The Barclaycard is being paid off with the minimum amount whilst I have been concentrating on brinng the other two down, prioritising Amex as its the higher apr. The balances seem to have just crept up recently

lovethymini

Okay I've paid the Amex.
(Actually that felt good, should've done that ages ago)

If we can get to the end of the month without any big spends I'll clear Capital One. It sets us back but is the best thing to do.
As punishment for the credit card balances I ate the Butternut Squash microwave rice for lunch that has been in the cupboard for months. It was actually quite tasty!
Feeling more chipper today, Dad's had some good results back on his prostate cancer. PSA levels three months ago was 2700 and he was given months to live, its now 36! and they are talking years rather than months. We just laughed on the phone to each other for a few minutes. He wants to get his PSA down to 0 for Christmas. Go, Dad!