Here I go again :-)

millionaire_in_training

Well I have had a fruitful day. I'm meant to be on holiday and have now worked on 2nd job for 2 days.£40 earned today. I have decided to save half of my money from cleaning to pay for the refurbishment of my sons bedroom. His room is shockingly bad but in his defence he has usually had second hand furniture in it as I have never trusted him with new stuff :rotfl:. I reckon at the age of 14 I may have to give in and get hs room done as it is embarrassing now when he has friends round. Not that he cares mind you, It's me. I'll get some laminate first off and renew his floor and see from there what needs doing.

Anyway today has been rather an eye opener. It was 1 year ago today that I started this diary and I also started keeping a paper spending diary. I am pretty sure I have captured everything except in June so I have used an average figure for June and my spending over the year is as follows.

Food - £4,005.85 :eek:. No wonder I'm so bloody fat. This averages at £77.03 per week. Not too bad but t could defntely be much better so I have to work on that one.Even if I can reduce it to £60 pn average a week i will save £1,000 in a year so I need to get dwon to serious meal planning etc.
Miscellaneous spends- £1,373.13 :eek: and i really am not sure what I bought with that. I know I got a freezer but by the looks of it the rest was just sh*t :rotfl: so again I need to keep my eye on the ball there.
Lunches- £1,073.32 :eek: this is really an addition to my food bill in all honesty as this is just lunches for work or school as any social lunches are under socialising costs. Kids will not take packed lunches as they get teased aabout it and DS has enough problems with bullying without feuling he fire so I give in on this one but the culprit here is me. I am definitely not going to buy lunches next year and DD will not be getting lunch money after May as she will be leaving school and can attend to her own lunch once she is in uni so that should plummet .
Petrol- £1,428.35 :eek:. This is an average of £27.50 per week. I am shocked at this. If I manage to get a transfer then again this will reduce massively.
Clothes - £730.46. I will continue in this vein with clothing. None of us have masses of clothes but we have enough to do us.
Gifts - £720.76. Again I will carry on in the same vein as this as I am not overly extravagant but I do like to give nice presents.
Socialising - £1,265.40 :eek::eek:. This completely stunned me . I know I have a reasonable social life but had no idea that it was costing me this much. I also save £20 per month towards nights out with my group of close friends and that means another £240 on top of that figure. I need to think about this and maybe take the car more often when we go out and about .
Holiday - £ 500. This was just spending money as mum paid for the holiday.
Christmas - £1,200 :eek:. I am sure others spend 10 times this but that is a huge amount for me. I have already addressed this by setting up a standing order to save for it for next year.


So lots of food for thought but I am so glad I spent the tme and effort every day completing the diary as I know just what I need to do to help my spending next year.

Today as a start I cancelled my British gas and an insuranc epolicy I had for an old computer we dont even use any more so that's £40 saved per month. I have paid off Sony and Barclaycard. Balance transferred most of it but paid the odds off myself to close the accounts. I pondered with moving my vrgin account to barclaycard for a lob of 6.9% but by the time I added the transfer fees I was going to pay out £17 more so I didn't bother and I will just make sure I follow what the snowball tells me to do. All in all I am happy with my decisions and I will march on from here . Sorry if I bored you but I am a real numbers geek

millionaire_in_training

oh dear I am into long posts these days

Keeping_Positive

Not bored at all quite interesting. Wish I could keep a spending diary for more than a week .

Well even with the few downs I think 2011has been an amazing year for you MIT here's to 2012 :beer:

millionaire_in_training

Cheers KP. As you say despite some carp in my life 2011 has been good to me. I hope to do better in 2012. I swear by my diary x

millionaire_in_training

hello there. I dd a wee quidco seach this morning for home insurance but cant really improve on what I have already got .

Going to spend today packing away the decorations as they are annoying me now and getting all the Christmas detritus away to clear my space. My lounge is tiny and even tinier with a 6' tree stuck in it. I'm not being bah humbug, far from it but I cant move !!

I've changed my mind re DS's bedroom and have decided to go in today and get the flooring for his room and try and get that done ASAP. I will pay for it from my next maintenance payment as am now overdue 2 payments, CSA fault not ex's. I'll gauge after that how bad it actually is because I reckon it looks so bad because his carpet is so foul. I 'm hoping so anyway. I'll fit the flooring myself as I have done it before and it was quite easy.

Busy afternoon ahead of me. Need to tidy up and put stuff up loft, need to go to Homebase, need to go to bank and need to go and sort out my mum. Holiday !! Pah fat chance :rotfl:

millionaire_in_training

*chuffed * just got a call from RAC re my quote earlier. They have offered me a better deal than my renewal and I get £55 cashback. I'll also get £65 of M&S vouchers and free RAC breakdown cover . How good is that? I'm well pleased

millionaire_in_training

just had my asda delivery. I've challenged myself to a budget of £250 per month for shopping and befiore Jan even starts I have spent £135.32 from my budget :eek:. Some work required on this methinks :rotfl:. In saying that I probalby have enough juice, frozen foods, snacks and meat for the month. I should hopefully only need a small shope each week and have already told the kids I will be shopping at Aldi other than my monthly delivery. I reckon that paying for the delivery pays for itself because it stops me from procrastinating and buying things I just dont need.

I got a new notebook with my delivery ( smart price of course) so I have been setting my goals for 2012.

• Get my total debts under £55k
• Pay off BOS cc
• Pay off my mum
• get to target weight

I will do this by sticking to the 100 day challenges and the pay off as much as you can in 2012 challenge. The weight I will just get under control again and sort it out once and for all. I want to lose 100lbs in total so need to lose 8.5lbs per month. I should manage to do this and my determination os very high. So resolutions have been set and I just need to get started. I'm really very excited about all this as this will be my penultimate year of being in debt other than my mortgage :j.

So what is everyone else resolving to do?

Skint_but_Optimistic

good plans mit. I need to get my goals and my head clear for 2012. You reminded me, need to sort my cashback claim via quidco, so best get on that now!

have alovely new year and your social life keeps you sane. so dont sweat it. x

millionaire_in_training

My social life certainly does keep me sane . Some of the money was spent on the kids too. In fact probs most of it was spent on them. This year it'll be on me as DD is getting quite sellf sufficient as far as that goes and DS has a wee job now too so that'll help out as well.

I wrote a to do list today and got 2 things done from it :rotfl:. Oh well it'll stil need doing tomorrow that's for sure

millionaire_in_training

Happy Hogmanay folks :beer:.

This is always a day for reflection isn't it? I always think about times past and look ahead to the future. I'm not sure what this year will bing and I coud wish for only good things but that's highly unlikely. I am pretty sure that this is the year I will lose my mum which is a terrible thought so I wil keep that out of my head as much as I can and deal with the here and now as far as that is concerned. I will lose a whole chunk of debt, that is a definite and I will lose a whole chunk of weight which is also a definite. I have no doubts at all that those two things will happen as I am done with doubting myself and I am also done with procrastinating and dragging things out. As for everything else who knows? I may get a transfer. If I do then I'll be delighted, if I dont I'll make the most of the job I'm being moved to. I joined a dating site last night and had a very nice chat with a man, so I may meet the man of my dreams in 2012, who knows. I will take it all in my stride and embrace whatever happens.

So I will no doubt be busy for the rest of today but I wish everyone a happy new year and good health. I love coming on here and chatting away to everyone that pops in here to read my drivel. You have no idea how much it helps me and I will continue next year. I will raise a glass to you all tonight. God bless xx