XSpender - MFW in Training

XSpender

Very thick snow here today and it is freezing cold.:snow_grin DS and I will be staying in and doing housework and washing and working through the huge list of little tasks I need to get done. Only 2 loads of washing but they will have to go into the tumble dryer which is in the garage so I will have to venture out in to the white stuff:)

I am about £17 away from overpaying £200 this month so will be trying to rake this up from somewhere. My claim for JSA has been accepted but the letter says it is paid from the 24th but nothing in the bank so far and there is £1.28 in the account after finishing the Christmas shopping on Monday:o Good job we don't need anything.

I really need to reign in our food/alcohol/entertainment spends as we have spent over £500 this month:o and I would like to be £250 with maybe an extra £30 or so for entertainment. This entertainment usually consists of stuffing our faces somewhere as difficult to do other things with little one. I don't really know if this is a realistic figure for 2 adults, 1 7 month old and 2 terriers. We don't eat a lot of meat and DS will eat what we eat. I have made up a more detailed spending spreadsheet this month with a page to break down the grocery spends to see where I can cut down.

I have not been meal planning and cooking proper meals as much as I used to, DH has not been going out so has had more booze at home but honestly, I have not been in control of our spending as I used to be. I hate saying no we can't have something to DH as it makes me feel like a nagging wife or his mother (which is worse as she is so bad we don't have anything to do with her:eek:).

I have applied for 1 job and have another applicaton to complete on line today. I will have to go and buy a printer cartridge at the weekend so I can print off my CV and covering letter for my friend take into the big company she works for and post one to my DH head office which is about a mile from our house:D

I think I will post my SOA later this morning and see if anyone can give me any pointers. It is still a bit up in the air as we don't know what DH bonuses are likely to be yet and I will be going back to work at some point next year. It looks like it will be full time and means there will be extra travel costs and childcare costs. I will also need some new clothes for work as I chucked all my worn and a bit scruffy suits out when I was made redundant and I don't think I can get in to the 2 I kept. One is a size 8 (wishful thinking keeping this one but it was hardly worn) and a newish one in a size 10. I weigh a bit less than I did before I got preggers but have a belly at the front so things don't fit well around the waist.

I need a boot up the bum as I still haven't signed up to any mystery shopping or survey sites. I think it has taken a bit of a back burner since I have decided I am ready to go back to work. Depending on how long i takes me to find a job I may need to start doing it now, the extra money can go towards the overpayment and savings targets for 2011.:D

adwat

Hi Xspender

Good luck with the overpayments :T
Just keep plugging away at them and you'll have cleared that £25k in no time! And the more you save the more you want to save - that's been my experience anyway.:money:

XSpender

DH Salary £1550 Includes £200/mnth deduction for private mileage in co car
MY Salary £1500 Less than I was getting before redundancy but a good estimate
CTC £20
CB £81.20
TOTAL INCOME £3151.20

Mortgage #1 £300.00 Includes £41.90 overpayment
Mortgage #2 £430.60
Life Ins £18.32
House Ins £21.00
Council Tax £104
Gas/Elec £102 EDF can do for £70 with £100 bonus and £80 cashback
Car loan £128 ends July
Water rates £24.64
Gas cover £22.12
TV Licence £12.37
Gym x 2 £50.00
BT £16.00 land line only
Sky £73.50 HD, all channels, broadband and free calls
Mobiles x2 £40 £35 contract for DH, £5 PAYG for me
RAC £9.74
DS Saves £25.00
Food etc £350 includes nappies, dog food, cleaning & toiletries
Diesel £50
Misc £40
Christmas £20 Aiming for money neutral
Birthdays £20 Aiming for money neutral
Holidays £150 Higher than normal as girls and boys weekends away, family UK hol & trip to see Dad abroad
Personal spend £200
Emergency saves £200 Includes tax, mot and car maintenance and car insurance
Mtg o/payment £100
Childcare £500 5 days a week - guesstimate
TOTAL OUTGOINGS £3007.29

BALANCE LEFT OVER £143.91

• DH also receives bonuses which are about £3000 take home a year but have excluded this from the calculations
• I am not sure if I am entitled to any help with childcare through CTC so have just guessed at this figure
• Have estimate diesel costs as only spend £15/mnth at the moment
• When I have passed any probationary period in my new job (when I get it:cool:) and cleared the car loan I want to change mortgage #1 from interest only to interest and capital and shorten the term if possible

Any comments welcome

adwat

XSpender wrote: »

DH Salary £1550 Includes £200/mnth deduction for private mileage in co car
MY Salary £1500 Less than I was getting before redundancy but a good estimate
CTC £20
CB £81.20
TOTAL INCOME £3151.20

Mortgage #1 £300.00 Includes £41.90 overpayment
Mortgage #2 £430.60
Life Ins £18.32
House Ins £21.00
Council Tax £104
Gas/Elec £102 EDF can do for £70 with £100 bonus and £80 cashback
Car loan £128 ends July

---

> +£128 (in July)
Water rates £24.64
Gas cover £22.12
TV Licence £12.37
Gym x 2 £50.00

---

> +£100
BT £16.00 land line only

---

> +£5 (SkyTalk Line Rental @£11)
Sky £73.50 HD, all channels, broadband and free calls --> +£63.50 (SkyBroadband Unlimited @£10)
Mobiles x2 £40 £35 contract for DH, £5 PAYG for me --> +£20 (2 x Tesco Mobile £10pm PAYG)
RAC £9.74
DS Saves £25.00
Food etc £350 includes nappies, dog food, cleaning & toiletries
Diesel £50
Misc £40
Christmas £20 Aiming for money neutral
Birthdays £20 Aiming for money neutral
Holidays £150 Higher than normal as girls and boys weekends away, family UK hol & trip to see Dad abroad
Personal spend £200
Emergency saves £200 Includes tax, mot and car maintenance and car insurance
Mtg o/payment £100
Childcare £500 5 days a week - guesstimate
TOTAL OUTGOINGS £3007.29

BALANCE LEFT OVER £143.91

• DH also receives bonuses which are about £3000 take home a year but have excluded this from the calculations
• I am not sure if I am entitled to any help with childcare through CTC so have just guessed at this figure
• Have estimate diesel costs as only spend £15/mnth at the moment
• When I have passed any probationary period in my new job (when I get it:cool:) and cleared the car loan I want to change mortgage #1 from interest only to interest and capital and shorten the term if possible

Any comments welcome

That's a grand total of £316 savings per month. Obviously if you can cut down on spends you could save a bit more but you've definately got some wiggle room in your budget. Hope this gives you some ideas.

XSpender

Thanks adwat for your input:)

The gym is the local council run one and is £25/mnth each for everything. I use mine every week as I go during the day as DS can use the creche which is dirt cheap. I think I will cancel it when I go back to work as I will want to see DS on an evening and if I do go I can pay for each session at a time. DH hasn't used his much since he started his new job as he is so tired and stressed out when he gets in but I think he will start using his more when he has been at this job a bit longer. I hadn't thought that I would probably not use mine so thanks adwat for making me think about if I would use it/should keep it.

Mobiles - I could never get DH away from his Blackberry:oand mine is a Tesc0 PAYG

I will ring Sky and see what the can do to cut my bill for everything. When I recently changed my calls to them they said their land line was no cheaper than BT so I will ask about that too. I can't stand BT, their customer service is awful.

DH has agreed to change electicity supplier so will action that before the 30th to get the £100 credit, using cashback of course:D

Not much more snow overnight,:snow_laug thank goodness but still too much for me to drive to the library so will start accruing a fine on one of my books as I have renewed it the maximum number of times.

I still haven't received my JSA money for the 24th as per their letter so I think I need to give them a call and see what is going on. :mad:

The last couple of nights DS has woken up in the early hours with wet vest and baby gro from an overflowing nappy. He is still too little for the next size of nappy (of which I have 624:eek:) so it looks like I am going to be changing nappies in the early hours of the morning:eek:

Transfered £16.88 from the current account, as mat pay paid in, to the mortgage account which makes £200 overpayments since I started this diary:j:D:beer:

One more cuppa then must make a start on the list of jobs I have - it fills a full side of A4:eek:

SmlSave

Hi XSpender

I note you wondered if £250 could keep you going with grocery spends. Have you seen this site: http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ ? It was created by Weezle and the gang on 'How much have you saved' and I think its great I pick and choose meals instead of following the plan and it still saves me ££. Thought you might like to have a look.

Do you watch all the channels on Sky? We've gone to Freesat. Thankfully my DH doesn't watch sport.

Good luck with your list of jobs!

XSpender

Hi SmlSave

Thanks for the reminder about Weezle's website. I had a look ages ago but will have another look this weekend.

My DH is a football nut, would watch dogs play football if they televised it, so I can't cut the sports and Sky are sneaky in that they put some stuff on one channel and some on another so if you want to watch all the games and have Sky sports news you have to have the whole package. With a 7 month old we don't go to the cinema/have evenings out much so use the movie channel instead and TBH the stuff I like to watch like ANTM and True Blood or on Sky. I don't watch the soaps and if Dead Enders comes on I have to turn over:rotfl:

Not got far with the list, only managed to order the veg for Christmas but need to confirm Turkey ordered and check where my free R1verford cool bag is as it didn't come with today's order:(

Right, mad 15 mins a la Courgette while DS is having a nap.:D

CathT

XSpender, have you looked into childcare vouchers. You can either get them directly from your emplyer or check if they are signed up to any of the agencies such as Busy Bees etc. You can claim up to £240 each. I just have them through my wages and roughly 170 is taken out of wage but i get a voucher for 240. In general you save a third. I haven't gone down the tax credit route of vouchers athough there is a calculator on this site which tells you if you would be better off with childcare vouchers or tax credits. HTH

XSpender

Hi Cath T - My old employer did the vouchers and when I get a new job I will look into this as I didn't realise you could only have them or extra CTC. More research needed me thinks.

We managed to get to Morries last night and have enough in for 2 weeks. We have had another 3-4 inches of snow overnight and DH has had to drive 16 miles to work this morning with the ice on the A1 crunching as he drove.:eek: My DH is a very good and confident driver and even he was scared driving this morning.

I am going to the theatre this afternoon to see White Christmas. I need to get to the train station at lunchtime as we are taking the train to the next town and back and having a meal out. There is a big group of girlies going, we do this a couple of times a year. I am debating about getting a taxi to the station or a bus and a metro. The bus goes from just outside our estate but it is a walk in thick snow and it is snowing heavily again as I type:eek: Only thing is I forgot to get cash out last night so would have to get the taxi to stop at the cashpoint (just outside the estate too):o If only I could hire a sleigh......:)

I have to go sign on Tuesday and that will be an adventure getting into town with DS in the buggy in a foot of snow!:eek:

If we need anything this next week it will be milk and there is a garage just outside the estate and a N1sa about 20 mins walk uphill away.

I took my old curtains to be cleaned yesterday as I am going to hang one of them at the french windows in the kitchen(the curtains are huge, a width and a half each) and use the half width of the other one to make a false roman blind and a tie back. Well, Mum will be assisting a lot in making the blind and tie back. The curtains are off white with big flowers on them so they will be a complete contrast to the gloss white cupboards, black tops and chrome of my new kitchen. Just need to paint the walls a nice rich blue to match. There was 25% off curtain cleaning which was an added bonus :money:

Have overpaid a total of £201.78 since I started this diary, although £160 odd of that is in the overpayment savings account and will be paid off with December's savings at the end of the year.:j I don't want to leave us short as I am uncertain about when I get my last mat pay and when DH gets his first bonus.

What a load of old drivel, off to do something useful like get dressed:rotfl:

XSpender

Still snowed in.:( DH has had to take my car to work the last 2 days as his gets stuck trying to get off the drive so no transport to go anywhere. I need to sign on today but they will allow me to do it over the phone as I would have to take DS in on the bus and I don't fancy getting stuck at a bus stop with an almost 7 month old in this weather. If it was just me I would walk there and back as they cancelled loads of buses yesterday.

The thunder storn whilst snowing yesterday was really wierd. The lightening was blue.

At least it means I haven't spent any money since Sunday when I had to buy a printer cartridge and can opener. Finally found a 79p old fashioned can opener in poundstretcher, they seem to be like rocking horse p**, everywhere else does the big chunky plastc things and I am not paying £4 for a can opener:eek:

First overpayment of December gone into the vitual pot today. A grand total of 70p. I started my sealed pot off again last week after cashing it in in Septemberfor Christmas presents (as planned). I saved £275 and £4 of clubcard points last year so I want to really go for it his year and save £500 by 1st December. I have a total of £29.50 in club card points and these will be used towards the ferry to France to visit Dad next year.

DH got paid today and it was what we expected so I am getting to see a pattern now in his pay. Bonus months end of Dec and Jan so lets hope he gets some;)

Transfered to EDF last night so that should earn £80.80 cashback and a £100 credit to the bill and they have set my DD up at just over £80 so thats a saviing of £22/month.

I will have £190 sitting in TCB now. £5 of it I am not expecting to get as it was from Vistaprint who refunded me the total cost of the invites I ordered as they made a mistake. Would be a bit greedy to expect them to pay me £5 for supplying me with 40 Christening invites.

DS slept through last night so I am raring to go today so here is my to do list:

• [STRIKE]Sign on over the phone[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Make docs appointment for DS[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Ring hotel to pay for christening reception[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Washing/drying[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Change sheets[/STRIKE]
• Dust and vaccum downstairs
• Make cheese and veg pasties for tea
• Swipe kitchen and mop floor after defrosting mop bucket:)
• [STRIKE]Try to get through to Credit Ex**rt again or email to cancel free trial took out for cash back[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]Feed Christmas cakes x 2 with a good glug or 2 of brandy[/STRIKE]:p

If I have any time left I will draft a speculative letter to send out with my CV after having a look for one to adapt on the tinternet.

Best jump in the shower and wash my mop while DS is having his morning snooze.

Have a good day all and keep warm and safe x