No Debt, No Beer

InsertWittyName

Yay, thanks turbo.jet.

August balance was: -£17,930.56
September balance was: -£17,615.78
October balance is: -£17,431.53

Pretty happy with that as there was residual interest to pay on the 2 credit cards (so September's balance was slightly out).

Target for this month is NOT to go into the overdraft at all

turbo.jet

That's my goal too! It'll be the first time in 10 years if I manage it.

InsertWittyName

Results of the first month's spending diary aren't good!

Grocery/Household: Budgeted £300, spent £344.
Alcohol: Budgeted £0, spent £146!
Miscellaneous spends we're ok - few bits for Christmas, petrol etc. all fine.

Alcohol spend is absolutely horrific! Must try a lot harder on this one. Went out drinking last night and spent £30 - don't aim to spend any more on alcohol this month.

Grocery/Household wasn't too bad at all, we can scrape the extra £44 back I reckon.

Squidge123

Looking at the good side of things at least you've managed to work out where the spends are

InsertWittyName

Ugh, still managed to spend some money on beer since my last update, must stop...

Spending lots of time doing extra freelance work though - two extra jobs on the go at the moment!

InsertWittyName

Still massively busy with the freelance jobs, finished one today and managed to pick another one up too

Would be even happier if I wasn't paying 40% tax and NI on the earnings too...

Week off (day job) work next work, so should plough through a lot of the extra jobs.

Can't wait to get paid to throw the extra cash at the debts!

Squidge123

Where are you getting the freelance jobs from? I'm doing shed loads of hours but my money doesn't seem to be stretching far enough because I'm supporting my other half still as well.

InsertWittyName

I get the jobs mainly through freelancing websites, my skill is quite well paid and highly sought after so I do ok.

Client paid the £900 invoice today, so that is winging it's way to me as we speak

Only 51% of it is mine after tax & NI though, meh!

InsertWittyName

First day of the week off from the day job, had a nice lie in

Fired off an email to the Santander CEO regarding the interest rate hike on my flexible loan when they took it over from Cahoot, will see how that pans out...

Working hard still on the freelance jobs, registered as self-employed today and waiting on the paperwork to come through now.

I've dipped into my overdraft however, there goes this month's goal , at least it's going in the right direction... 3 month's ago I was in it for 30 days, 2 month's ago is was 20 days and last month was 17 days. Hoping this month will be less than 7 days and next month with be 0 days!

Only 2 weeks until payday, hopefully should get my quarterly bonus too (works out around £300 after deductions, but this extra will probably be swallowed up by Christmas).

InsertWittyName

£900 payment came though and instantly made a £129.51 payment to Santander off the loan

That will keep me out of the overdraft for the rest of the month.

I think that's my first real overpayment, ever!

Celebrating