Daffy's 'patchwork dreams' diary

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear starnac, entirely missed your question, sorry One had a bright pink ribbon under the bust, so I've taken that off and sewed it up without (I am, er, how do I put it, rather enthusiastically endowed :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: and gathering things under the bust without defining a waist always makes me look heavily pregnant). Still not got a defined waist, but it does look a whole lot better now! :T:T

The other one was a horrid top, but had FABULOUS long lacy sleeves No idea what I'll do with them! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Anyway popped in with a March update (oh dear, not keeping up with this diary very well at the minute! Things are ticking along nicely so it doesn't seem quite as necessary right now )

Anyway

Patchwork fund now has £4013 in it! :j :j :j :j Excellent stuff

I've also had a slight rejig of the budgets, and done myself a new spreadsheet which actually matches the bank accounts :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Have stopped trying to catch up with myself, and started again with what I actually *have* (which wasn't that different, but different enough to make every month's internet banking a headache!)

So we have:

£1000 in the emergency fund :T :T
£163 in car maintenance fund (for tax, insurance, MOT, breakdown etc)

£251 in the palace fund (not adding to this for now - just spending it )
£108 in the holiday fund

All of which is nicely healthy

My 4 weeks of february is still running til the end of today, so I'll be back later with a breakdown of what I've actually spent - always revealing! :rotfl: :rotfl:

(apologies for dodgy typing - have just painted my nails and don't want to have to do it again! :rotfl: :rotfl: will be more chatty later )

vl2588

I wish I could make my budget that simple! Mine is like a classroom of unruly children or something

Cheery_Daff

:rotfl: :rotfl: VL

But rest assured - that's not actually my whole budget - that's just the totals of my savings pots! Whole budget is FAR more unruly :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Right, popping in *very* late with a roundup of the February budget! (slightly confusing as it's below the March budget, but I did the actual budgeting for March so I could do the internet stuff etc, whereas the daily spending diary runs Mon-Sun and so Feb didn't run out til 4th March, if you see what I mean...) :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Anyway, so in February I...

* underspent food budget by £9 :T
* underspent fun (bank) budget by £15
* underspent work travel by £69 :eek: (but that's because I was doing fieldwork, which work pays for travel for, and cos I was stll a bit poorly, I hardly went into the office all month )

* overspent fun (cash) budget by £32
* overspent toiletries budget by £1 :P
* overspent diesel by £11

All in all, food and fun (what I keep daily spending diary for) I overspent by £9, so not too bad at all really :j :j :j

Altogether that included...

* 4 no spend days (8 last month!)
* £23 on tea and cake in cafes (slight improvement on January's £46 :rotfl: )
* £6 on clothes (woolly tights and PJs )
* £15 on bits and pieces in charity shops (books, fairy lights, maps, an oil burner, a paper cutter thing, couple of yoga dvds, and couple of books at a 2nd hand book sale)
* £10 on newspapers and magazines (unusual for me! Possibly cos I felt rotten for first half of Feb and needed to just sit and read!)

Patchwork fund now at £4013 :j :j :j :j :j £5987 to go!

Starting flute lessons again tomorrow, so that'll eat into budget. And back at work as normal, so will be spending all of my work travel budget too (although I'll start cycling again soon, which will save a little bit on bus fares! :T)

Altogether, not bad going for Feb I don't think! :j :j :j

Karmacat

Knowledge is power! And this is all very cheery indeed - you were definitely poorly at the start, and sound much better now. I love that you even noted what you bought in charity shops, and maybe with regular Approved Food purchases, you might underspend on the food budget regularly?

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear, this poor little diary is rather neglected of late! Ah well, here now with a cheery update :j

Soooooo in March I:

* overspent the food budget by £8
* overspent fun budget by £9
* overspent toiletries by £2
* overspent work travel budget by £33
* overspent diesel budget by £52...

Altogether rather a month of overspending :rotfl::rotfl: Although food/fun/toiletries (what I keep daily spending diary for) was only overspent by £19, so not toooo bad.

We've also got into the habit of using the car rather too much - so now have a chart on the cupboard door where we have to write who uses the car and what for, and how many miles, and who puts the diesel in I am cheerful fuel dictator now - and I think Mr Daffs is too scared to go out in the car now :rotfl: :rotfl:

Altogether, that spendiness included:

* £27 on lunch and tea and cakes in cafes (still an improvement on January's £46 )
* £30 on clothes :eek: Bizarrely, this seemed to include 2 lots of 'emergency socks', as well as 3 lots of tights, a rather fabulous tartan skirt 2 shirts and a pair of earrings.
* £14 on books and magazines :eek: Although in my defence I was on holiday for a week, so some of that was holiday reading, and most of the magazines came from charity shops, also a couple of big issues and a local paper on holiday...
* £22 on presents and postage and charity donations

So not too bad really...

Cheery_Daff

As for the savings pots...

* patchwork life fund still stands at £4013 - I've donated this month's contribution to a good cause. Back on track next month.

* holiday fund stands at -£102 But that's cos I just paid for a week in Whitby, which was very nice indeed Need to get back up to speed mind you - I'm away every weekend in May :eek: :eek: Although 2 of those are already paid for, and work is paying the travel for the other one, but still...

* Palace fund is at £235 - not paying into that at the minute - will see how it goes later in the year

* Emergency fund is at £850 - not too bad as have just paid to have the roof fixed (nowt drastic, just general maintenance). CAn't tell you how good it was just to be able to pay for it without worrying

* Car maintenance is at £33. Extremely bored of having to buy new tyres - we're on our 3rd set of brand new front tyres in a year :mad:

Wondering what else to say since I've not been here so long! Life is good Work is fun (still full time, although I have officially declared my intention to NOT be full time after Christmas - of course, it's kind of irrelevant as I don't have a job after Christmas anyway, but still :rotfl: :rotfl: ) Flute lessons are cheery,

Oh! And my daft little sister has talked me into a marathon :eek: :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: 6 months to go... so a fair bit of (very slow) running going on here

All good

Karmacat

Wow, Cheery, thats a big donation to make - thats very lovely of you. And there are rather a lot of sock emergencies there, you know :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I've realised I'm having a few sock and knicker emergencies myself, actually

I've got Paul McCartney running about in my head at the mo, and I've just realised why: you went to Whitby, Whitby is the home of jet .... so "jet ... oooh ooh ooh oooh oooh oh ooooooooo". If you never heard of his Wings albums, you'll be very puzzled by that

Cheery_Daff

Yep - I'm puzzled

Sock emergencies - no idea why so many! :rotfl: :rotfl: One was when I'd gone to work in tights, and they were just All Wrong, and Too Hot, and I had to replace them with socks

The donation I've actually been thinking about for a long time. It was a course I went on about 12 years ago I wasn't working, and they let me pay £100 instead of £500 - it was a 2 week residential permaculture course. I learned a lot, and always remembered the kindness in letting me go at what must have been a great loss to them, I have no idea why they did it. But now I'm in a position to pay it back, and perhaps they can use it to help someone else who can't afford it go on a course

(so, in fact, it's less a donation and more just payment being made 12 years late :rotfl: :rotfl:)

Pippilongstocking

Lovely to hear everything on here - sock emergencies are not good!

How kind of the folk to have you on the course for so litlte and how lovely you paid a donation to them now!

All sounding fun - I'm on extra tyres too this month - is it the type of car I wonder??

Keep up the good work -if the countries budgets were only over by your amounts we'd all be doing splendidly. x