London Socialite Sees The Light

LondonGirl252

Happy Monday everyone!


Hope you all had a good weekend, mine was good and managed not to over spend My friend ran the London marathon yesterday which was fab to go and support her!


On Friday I had a quiet afternoon and I download You Need a Budget, I had looked at it before a while ago and dismissed it but I couldn't ignore all the good reviews and while my spreadsheet works from a reconciliation perspective I am not sure it does a good job at actually helping me stick to budget. So I downloaded the trial and populated everything so I am up and running, so far really impressed. I have it on my phone too, so I can keep track when out and about.


Payday Thursday ... thank GOD! Really cut it fine this month, I want to end next month with savings and money to spare.


Receiving a refund from Amazon soon for an order I placed last year which never arrived, took me 3 attempts to get a response so I escalated it to Amazon and lo and behold immediate response. Only £4.50 but every little helps!


LG x

LondonGirl252

LOVING YNAB!


Payday tomorrow, Whoop, for the first time in 3 months I have finished the month not in my over draft. My aim for next month is to have £100 in my account at the end of the month.


I am paying £600 off my credit card tomorrow, next month another £600 and the month after a final £150 to say BYE BYE!


LG x

LondonGirl252

Payday! LOVE payday! I have a really good feeling about this month, I'm comfortable with the budget I have set myself and feel happy that YNAB will help keep me on track.


I have paid £500 instead of £600 to the credit card, when I reviewed the budget yesterday I realised how many birthdays I had this month and decided to give my birthday budget category a bit more attention to make sure I don't break the budget immediately. Hopefully I'll come under budget and have some left over to make it up. Otherwise its fine as I'll just increase June's payment so it will still be paid off at the same time.


Oh, and can someone PLEASE come and sort this hangover out for me, I am struggling big time.


LG x

LondonGirl252

Hi guys,


Hope you all had a good bank holiday weekend. Mine was great, wedding was fun and then went to the royal salute yesterday in Hyde Park.


A couple of over spends but overall still within budget. I have planned out meals for the next couple of weeks too to try and control the grocery budget. Doing well with YNAB, I put in all my spends as they occurred over the weekend and I am doing better at keeping receipts in my purse until I rec the account after the weekend to make sure I haven't missed anything.


I was in a MASSIVE grump yesterday morning, partially just being a hormonal woman but when I got up to make breakfast I found all of the previous nights dishes from my flatmates piled up like the leaning tower of pisa. Took me ages to deconstruct (with a lot of banging... oops) just to be able to make breakfast. I was fuming, one of them walked in as this was happening and I had a wee rant. Wrong way to go about it and I had to apologise later but it needed to be said.


I find each week I struggle more and more to remain happy in this flat sharing scenario, I just want my own space and privacy. Even though I have a big room it is so full of all my stuff that it is permanently messy and cluttered. BF and I said we would look at renting a 1 bed until we manage to buy together and he will help on costs. Ran it into a budget and would be affordable once the CC is paid off.


Busy week this week, it's always tricky when we lose a day despite loving having a long weekend!!


LG

LondonGirl252

Morning all,


Feeling a lot happier today, I went riding last night and had a really good lesson despite the winds!


Laid out my running kit last night to go for a pootle this morning but woke up to that storm so decided to get in work early instead, got so much to catch up on.


I have packed lunch and brekkie in work already but tonight I am meeting a friend after work, we go for a burrito which usually cost £7 so a reasonably cheap evening out to gossip. Usually we go for a walk after through the London parks but we'll see how the weather goes!


On my way back from riding last night I stopped by Waitrose and picked up ingredients so tonight after burritos I can make lunches for the rest of the week. I already have breakfast. Tomorrow we have a work event where food will be provided and Friday the bf will arrive so I'll cook sups.


I have been addicted to the slimming world website for recipes, some really great things on there and loads of them are freezer friendly and none of them I have read so far would cost a lot as they're mostly veggies! I have printed loads out and planned meals for the next couple of weeks to a) save money and b) lose weight.


Budget updated today and reconciled accounts, it's looking good. It's next weekend I am nervous about with going out both Saturday and Sunday it could turn spendy.


LG

Erme

How is your YNAB thing going LG? You have so much more to budget than the likes of little me.

Any tips you'd like to share with the world?

I'm still mostly to be found padding (payment a day) but still. I am a little more paranoid than normal and I don't know why. I also put a new hard drive in my laptop yesterday (was cheaper than a new laptop ) so that was yesterday - combined with my optical drive deciding to give up the ghost yesterday am (after 3 hours of battling I had a painful seperation betwixt me and £20 to the pc store) life was 'interesting'

Well I'll keep popping a beady eye on you. If that reproof about the dishes needed to be said why apologise? Was it the wrong tone or something? Hope you don't think I'm nitpicking but I try and only apologise when I'm contrite

Looks like more rain here today :P pants

and have you tried https://www.sparkpeople.com (don't sign up for all the emails) or spark recipes for weight loss recipes?

E

LondonGirl252

It's good thanks, my advise is to watch the tutorial but the concept is good. As long as you give every pound a job you can't go far wrong and the idea is that over time you build up enough of a budget to live from last months income. We'll see how long that takes to arise!


Yeah I kind of had a rant in anger and its also the other flat mate that is the worst culprit, he just walked in at the wrong moment!


Thanks for the website!

satchmo1

Hi, LG, I can second Erme's recommendation for SparkPeople, I find it a good motivational tool for weightloss/exercise. It has millions of recipes, which can be interesting if you don't mind translating the ingredients from American to English.


Well done on being so organised for breakfasts/lunches.


I've got a Slimming World curry recipe book, which is my go-to recipe book for our Saturday night curries. Loads of good starters, as well as mains.

Erme

Thanks for not taking my comment about your rant the wrong way LG

Hope you are ok......that YNAB thingy sounds good but I don't think I could be that obsessive LOL - though if needs demanded it I would be

I lost 5 stone on sparkpeople and depression the other year. I just know that healthy eating site works

Brain not in gear LOL....I need my am espresso LOL

E

LondonGirl252

Thanks for the recommendation I was having a look earlier and found some great recipes!


wow 5 stone is fab, well done. I need to loase about a stone and a half, recent photos of me are not looking good.


We had a work event last night to kick off the new financial year it was great fun. I I drafted in a mate of mine who is pretty senior in the army and has some amazing experiences to share to do a motivational speech and everyone loved him. Then we had Bollywood dancing workshop. Absolutely hilarious! They were great, I have a trophy on my desk for the best female dancer! Chuffed!


Feeling pretty ropey today though!


We're not doing anything tonight other than cooking and relaxing thank goodness!


LG x