Thinking Of The Future - TOTF

fizzypops

good luck with your diary :j

TOTF

Well I have signed back in.

Have been more of a semi-lurker these past few months, but circumstances have changed and I feel I need to get focused again.

I was made redundant and am now trying to embrace being a full-time mum to two children under 4. This works out more cost effective for us as my wage really only paid for childcare and fuel costs to get to work.

We fall into the bracket where we are now minus tax credits.....and although we did not receive an awful lot in tax credits it is another cut we will need to make in our budget. I aim to do this by further cutting our grocery spend per month. Currently we spend around £125 a month so I am looking to get this down to £90 if I can. Its a challenge.

So here is my plan of action.....cut back everywhere possible. Put the mortgage out of my head and not include that as debt at the moment. Concentrate on the loans and cc's.......at the beginning of 2011 this debt stood at £48380.51, it now sits at £45962.97. So we have reduced the debt by £2417.54 so far. It may not seem a huge amount but its heading in the right direction.

Times are going to be tight, but I am sure this is echoed in many situations across this board. So here is to my newly found focus.
:beer:

Herewego

Good to see you back, well done on managing to stay as a SAHM children grow up so quickly its lovely to watch and if things dont work out you can always reconsider.
Good luck with the grocery budget thats amazing if you can reduce it to that much I will be watching with interest.

chevalier

Sorry to hear you were made redundant.

have you thought about doing an SOA

Link here

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Might help you think outside of the box on how to reduce your expenditure...
chev

TOTF

Morning Diary Land.

Thanks for the replies HereWego & Chevalier.

Herewego - I have done my list of food for the week and priced it online and so far I have this weeks shop at £21.00. We are not in need of any cleaning products this week, so it is purely food. I am going to attempt this friday to walk into the supermarket and walk out with ONLY what is on my list. If I fail its back to online shopping where I cannot be tempted. I shall let you know how it goes.

Chevalier - thanks for the link. I have in the past looked at the site and completed the SOA. I have completely cut out everything that is not necessary from our life. I will try and be brave and post it later. But it looks a mess, and although it is, it is a mess that we survive through.

The SOA is showing a -£26.44 per month. I personally am not a huge fan of it simply because one month to the next is always different. As a guide though it is a fab eye opener.

So my approach to our debt and spending is a week by week income and outcome spreadsheet. This is in place until the 31 December 2011 and everything that goes in and out (apart from any overtime) is on the sheet down to every penny.

We also have a spreadsheet which shows total income and outcome along with all debts, interest rates and disposable income at the end of the month.

So far this has worked well. We are far more aware of our finances than we have been in the past.

Right just off to demolish my ironing pile and bleach the floors then I shall be back.
:A

TOTF

Ok, so it has been a busy morning.

Usual housework, and the last couple of hours looking at spends and snowballs.

I have done 2 snowballs, one for the situation at current where no more than minimum payments are made, and one for a few months time when we should be able to pay up to £300 pound extra at debts.

So I have two DF dates:- 49 months May 2015
- 36 months April 2014

I am going to be positive and shoot for 36 months and be DF by this time in 3 years!!! Who knows we may make it sooner than that, but lets do 36 months!! Off to add it to my signature in a moment.

I now need to focus on little ways to raise extra pennies. Ebay is the obvious one, but I need some more ideas.....this afternoon will be spent trudging the boards for inspiration.

First things first though - cuppa time! :j

TOTF

Well yesterday i listed 5 items on ebay all of which are now being watched. Will pop a few more things that i am pretty sure will sell over the next day or so.

Not much debt busting going on otherwise although I am being very watchful over what goes out of the bank.

Shopping day tomorrow so my £90 on food over 4 weeks challenge will start tomorrow. Fingers crossed the 1st week sees me off to a good start.

Lots of de-cluttering going on in the house, which is giving me a boost. Amazing what a good clear out can do for you.

Anyway off to cook some homemade soup for todays lunch and freeze the rest for another time.

:T

TOTF

So week one of my new food challenge of £90 over a 4 week period.

Week one - £21.62 - If any money is spent between now and next Friday I will add this onto the weekly total. :j

Yesterday whilst having a clear out of things I stumbled across an empty writing book. Whilst I keep a good spreadsheet on the computer the book seemed to scream out at me, "fill me in, fill me in". So I have a page per week to dedicate to spends. Plus by writing it down I hope DH will pay more attention to it, he is not into the computer really and so rarely sees the spreadsheet.

I have checked Tesco and Boots points today and we have £25.50 and £31.59 respectively. These are going to be kept and used for christmas and hopefully will have more added throughout the year, more so with Tesco than Boots though.

Right cup of tea time before a quick clean up and then a look at the finances. My new Full Time job is Housewife and Debtbuster and I intend to be the best I can be. :A

TOTF

A lovely weekend!!! wow how nice has the weather been! And apparently we are in for a nice week too. Nothing like a bit of sun to put a bit of happiness in your stride.

We have had a pretty good weekend in that we have not had any big spends.....although we have spent an extra £7.21 in tesco today as we wanted a roastie! woops.

So my total on food this week pops up to £28.83 :cool:

But to counter balance that I have made an overpayment of £10.00 to my storecard. This is my first target to get rid of as its the smallest and I feel it will give me motivation if I get rid of one asap. So that total is now down to £72.17.

Now off to enjoy the rest of the weather and sort out that chicken dinner!! yum

TOTF

Morning diary.

Wow what a lovely sunny week we have had so far and set to continue into the weekend!! Super!!

So a quick little update, since January 2011 LBM (one of many) we have now paid off 5.6% of our debt. :T Its heading in the right direction.

This weeks food shop came in at £24.79 bringing my total over two weeks to £53.62. Not too bad!! But I would like it to be better.

My new little book has proved useful. Everything spent was written down and was designated to one of four categories:- Essential, Non-essential, Food and Over-payments. This is how the week looked:

Essentials £208.15
Non-essentials £124.04
Food £21.62
Overpayments £10.00

Obviously the non essentials is a big one, but it did include some house repairs / decor that needed doing. This week this category will most definitely has a smaller amount attached to it.

So plans for the rest of today:-
- enjoy some of the sunshine
- clean the bathroom
- list some things on ebay.
- make something healthy for tea.

Back soon. :A
[/LIST]