Lois_E begins a long MFW journey

Lois_E

Aaargh!

I have just been to find something in the airing cupboard, and noticed that the immersion heater was on. Well, I haven't turned it on for weeks, so unless one of the kids has been fiddling with it (which seems unlikely) then it's been on for weeks or maybe months - possibly since we moved in.

Now to see what effect turning it off has on the electricity usage. Unfortunately I have lost the triangle key and can't open the meter cupboard to read it tonight.

Spending diary still up to date. I let DD persuade me to give in to the temptation created by the smell coming from the chip shop, but otherwise it's been a reasonably low spend week. At least I remembered how huge their portions are, and just got a "small" amount of a couple of things, which easily fed all three of us when shared. £5.70 for takeaway for the whole family isn't too big a disaster.

Lois_E

Not a bad day today. £2.15 on subsidised lunch as usual, and £9.50 for a top and some tights - but only replacing clothes that I have worn out, so a necessary spend rather than an indulgence.

Spending diary up to date. 13 days done and still going strong.

The council have written a really snotty letter saying they are going to be getting third party investigators to check up on the residential status of everyone who's claiming the 25% council tax discount for being a single adult in a property, so if there's anyone else living here I'd better tell them now, or else. It doesn't quite accuse me of fraud, but it's clear that's what they're on about.

OK, so I am a single parent and I have moved house. That doesn't mean I've moved in with somebody. I am still single. If I had acquired a partner I would have told them when I reported my change of address. I'm just off out to the postbox to send their form back so they can't get cross with me for returning it late. (DD wants to come too, on roller skates. She is still at the "falling over and clutching at Mummy frequently" stage. :eek:)

[/rant] I should be grateful, I suppose. If they are chasing the people who aren't paying their share, it helps to keep bills down for the rest of us. I just wish they could be a bit more polite until they have evidence of wrong-doing.

pammyj74

Lois_E wrote: »

Well, I make my own on Excel, so I can always have whatever I want, if I can put in the effort to work out how to make it do it.

I have a couple of pivot tables with categories down the side and months across the top - one does income and the other does expenditure. They are linked to a couple of stacked bar charts (is that the right name?) that are next to each other and have the same scales, so I can directly compare how much is coming in from various sources and how much of it is going out to what.

Finally, I have the inevitable line graph of mortgage amount outstanding plotted against date. Once I've got my starting point clear, I'll be adding something to that to show what the balance would have been without any OPs, so I can see how much improvement I've made.

Then there are the macros I've written to manage the spreadsheet data rather than analyse it. For example, I have one called newmonth that I find saves a lot of time. One of my columns on my main sheet (which has in/out and balance for each of my accounts) is one that tells me what sort of transaction it is - DD for direct debit, MC for Mastercard, OL for online and so on. Some of those have : or ; in front of them if they are regular monthly things, using : for things that are the same amount every month and ; for things that vary. So the mortgage is :SO but the DD that pays off my credit card is ;DD. They show up in different colours to make them more noticeable, too.

So, when I'm ready to add the next month to the sheet, all I have to do is select the line where the current month begins, and run newmonth. It goes through all lines from the selected line to the bottom of the contents, copies everything with : or ; and adds them onto the end. Then it goes through the new stuff advancing all the dates by a month. Well, actually it advances them all by a month except for a few things that it knows have to be advanced by four weeks instead, or to the last day of the month whether that's 31st or 30th or 28th/29th. It puts the values in for the : ones and leaves the values blank for the ; ones but highlights them in yellow so I can see they need filling in.

I've also written a little function that will take an annual interest rate and calculate the interest due on a balance between two dates. It adjusts for the fact that interest is compounded monthly, which makes the calculation a bit more complicated.

I've already admitted being an Excel geek but I've really confirmed it now, haven't I?

translated means
I love my spreadsheets and have now got my sister into doing it too

gallygirl wrote: »

Don't know . Progress against target in some kind of form, highest amount paid, lowest amount paid, average amount paid, as one off and monthly figures. Also, if I do xxx what is the impact on pay off date? At present I can see that on my spreadsheet, but only if I scroll down a lllloooooonnnnggggggg way till the balance turns negative. I'd like it in a little box, always on the screen. And how much interest I would save by OPing, at the mo I have to total before and after inputting the details. Also for it to work for the above on one-off and regular multiple payments.

That'll do for now

sounds like what i could do with. I have sort of worked out the interest if OP but have to keep changing it and jiggle it about. I love seeing the months left going down.

Lois_E wrote: »

Not a bad day today. £2.15 on subsidised lunch as usual, and £9.50 for a top and some tights - but only replacing clothes that I have worn out, so a necessary spend rather than an indulgence.

Spending diary up to date. 13 days done and still going strong.

The council have written a really snotty letter saying they are going to be getting third party investigators to check up on the residential status of everyone who's claiming the 25% council tax discount for being a single adult in a property, so if there's anyone else living here I'd better tell them now, or else. It doesn't quite accuse me of fraud, but it's clear that's what they're on about.

OK, so I am a single parent and I have moved house. That doesn't mean I've moved in with somebody. I am still single. If I had acquired a partner I would have told them when I reported my change of address. I'm just off out to the postbox to send their form back so they can't get cross with me for returning it late. (DD wants to come too, on roller skates. She is still at the "falling over and clutching at Mummy frequently" stage. :eek:)

[/rant] I should be grateful, I suppose. If they are chasing the people who aren't paying their share, it helps to keep bills down for the rest of us. I just wish they could be a bit more polite until they have evidence of wrong-doing.

Its good that they check but there are ways to do it.

How old are your kids Lois?

puddle96

Also in the south west and have come home to a similar snotty letter from my local council. Fortunately the cat's only 15 so I don't think I have to include her yet-lol. While the letter was very snotty it wasn't quite as intimidating as the one's from the tv people (no telly here)
puddle

Sepa74

The TV ones are horrible. I think it's appalling the way they bully people. If I didn't speak perfect English and wasn't well educated I would be tempted to think I had to pay them, telly or not, which isn't fair!! Makes me furious!

Lois_E

My parents used to get the TV ones for years and years. In the end my dad turned 75 or whatever age it is when you can get a free licence, and they got a licence then. Still no TV, but it was better to get the free licence than keep getting the threatening letters.

My kids are both still at primary school, Pammy.

gallygirl, you should be able to use lookup or vlookup or something to get a box with your payoff date in it. If you post a screenshot of your spreasheet (or PM it to me if you're shy, or blank bits out, or whatever) I can work out what you should type into the box to make it give you the information you need.

gallygirl

Funnily enough I've had one of those letters as well. Exascerbated by the fact that Mr GG & I, who do NOT live together, have just bought a house together as an investment & the estate agents have obviously passed the details on using my current address for both of us. Have written to them to say Mr GG only here 2 nights a week & given them info of Mr GG's address, where he pays CTax, and invited them round here to check the cupboards during the week .

Thanks for info Lois, once I work out how to post a screenshot I'll do it . Although scrolling down the spreadsheet is part of my overpaying ritual, the excitement mounts as I get near to 0, wondering if the latest payment has knocked a month off* .







* Note to self:
GET OUT MORE

gallygirl

gallygirl wrote: »

once I work out how to post a screenshot I'll do it .

Date Starting Balance Daily Interest Payment Closing Balance
16/01/2011 27080.05 3.34 27083.39
17/01/2011 27083.39 3.34 145.14 26941.59

Ooohhh, get me, Mrs Techie :rotfl:. Worked it out all by myself, but too many characters to post on here so just copying edited version of text instead. What I am after is, when I make an entry in the 4th column (column I on my spreadsheet), what is the date in 1st column (D) when Closing Balance (J) turns negative.

Thanks.

gerbiljo

Good luck

Lois_E

gallygirl wrote: »

Date Starting Balance Daily Interest Payment Closing Balance
16/01/2011 27080.05 3.34 27083.39
17/01/2011 27083.39 3.34 145.14 26941.59

Ooohhh, get me, Mrs Techie :rotfl:. Worked it out all by myself, but too many characters to post on here so just copying edited version of text instead. What I am after is, when I make an entry in the 4th column (column I on my spreadsheet), what is the date in 1st column (D) when Closing Balance (J) turns negative.

Thanks.

In your box, type =INDEX(D:D,MATCH(0,J:J,-1)+1,1)

If you (or anyone else) end up with a spreadsheet with different columns, just change those letters D and J in the formula to whatever your date and closing balance columns are. Let me know if it works!

My version of this has another cell next to the MF date where it calculates how old I will be, so I will be able to celebrate if I get that number down!

If anyone wants to know how to calculate their daily interest so that it corrects for compounding monthly, let me know!