Time to 'grow up' - the slippery slope to 30.

immoral_angeluk

Evening all!
I went to all the trouble to tot up my monthly spending diary tonight. Only to remember than there's 31 days in March and not 30. Damn it! Oh well.. I'm going to post it now. If I add anything else to March I think I'll cry :eek:
It's been a very, VERY expensive month. _pale_

Mar spent on food 336.85
Mar spent on car stuff 282.96 (Including new tyres *cries*
Mar spent on 'other' 580.30 (Including a new cooker, fridge... *cries*
Mar spent on dance 59.50 (including Ash's exam fee)
Mar spent on holiday stuff 196.95 (Including clothes, insurance, suitcases...)


I think I need a lie down...£1456.56 in one month on everything else bar bills!!:eek::eek:

Definitely made me more determined to be good in April, even though I have some unavoidable costs...

immoral_angeluk

Evening all and happy monday!
Had a really busy weekend having a spring clean so have some updates that I didn't get chance to put on earlier!

Yesterday I bought a travel guide book about Majorca for £3.56 off amazon, and today I went mooching round some sales/charity shops for some more bits for the girls. Not far off being done with their shopping in all honesty. Am going to have a look at what I've got so far and update my list. Managed to get 4 items each for them for £25 all in though so that's not too bad. Got to love charity shops!

Over the weekend my hoover has packed in which I'm not very impressed about. It's just not sucking up anything at all. Aldi have a cheap one in for about £50, might have to end up getting that. Or I might see if I can get one on 0% out of the catalogue... Either way I'm very disgruntled!

Speaking of things that are broken one of my headlights has gone too. :mad: Had a look on halfords and a bulb plus fitting is about £15 so will go through them. I'm booked my MOT for a week on saturday so that's just typical timing. Don't want to pay garage prices if I can help it though. Hopefully it's something that Halfords can fit. I've had a look in the haynes manual and it looks really fiddly because of it being on the drivers side. Apparently you have to take the bumper and all sorts off! Nightmare. What is it with cars? It better pass the MOT or else there'll be hell to pay.

Am expecting my tax credits to go down this week. I think to around £165 so have based my budget on that. Anything extra is a bonus. I just hope it's not lower! _pale_

Food £60.00
Petrol £25.00
Social £0.00 (Taken it off due to the headlight and spending on clothes)
Bills £310.60
Headlight £15.00
My exam £39.00

Total out £449.60
Total £471.06
Surplus to CC £21.46

I can see this month being an expensive one again, despite my best efforts. I'm half considering only doing the team street exam because of the cost. The extra money is probably something I could do with right now. And I can always do the solo exams again next time but would save me £17.50 in the meantime. That would increase my surplus this week to £38.96 which would be a bigger chunk off the card. I really want to do the extra exams but it's a lot of money. Ash's is paid for which is the main thing but there's just better things that money for my exams could be spent on.

This debt busting year started so well but everything keeps bloody breaking and being expensive! :mad:

beanielou

Thats life unfortunatly.
Im struggling at the mo to even payn for a second hand washing machine.
For what its worth I think you should do the exam.

immoral_angeluk

Gah damn it! I might have just accidentally ordered a hoover. I'm not joking either, I was havig a look at my very account and trying to see what options were available (BNPL or 3 months 0% etc) and because it didn't show up with those options I clicked through to what I thought was the next page which WOULD give me those options and instead it just placed the order and added it to the normal account! Balls!
I've emailed them to see if they CAN change it to at the very least the 3 months option, otherwise I'll just have to send it back or just lump the cost (£99 :mad:).
I'm such a twonk.

immoral_angeluk

Good news! Had an email back from Very, the 3 months interest free is automatically applied anyway, so I can pay £33.33 for the next 3 months fine. Thank god for that! :rotfl:

beanielou

Good news on Very

immoral_angeluk

Evening all. Will do a proper update in a sec but wanted everyone to know about the new benefit checkup in Martin's email. Although I'm not sure how accurate it is. I did it to see what if any effect the new TC changes would have on me, and it said that Id should get half of my rent/council tax paid! Pretty sure that wasn't right so went onto my own council's website and surprising although it's not half, it suggested I'd possibly be eligible for a tiny bit (Literally £3 odd a week).
I'm going to wait and see what happens with my tax credits come tomorrow and properly look at my wages to see what new tax would be with the changes too and then maybe claim if I think it's worthwhile. I might not be worth the hassle for £1 or two a week, but then every little penny helps so....

immoral_angeluk

Back!

Have updated my spending diary. Did have some unexpected expenditure yesterday as DP became an uncle The girls are so excited!
Of course we went and got the little one a present so spent £12.50 on that.

Though I did have an expenses cheque come through for £8.50 today which has made up the bulk of that.

Tomorrow is tax credit day (due to good friday) so will be interesting to see what I get. I'm pretty sure it's from tomorrow that the payments change so we shall see. My old award notice said £165pw but as I updated childcare costs later in the year I'm not 100% sure. Anything extra will be a bonus!

I'm on track to have £34.96 spare this week which I'll pay off the card. You never know, I might get my usual TC payment and might be able to pay extra! :rotfl: Here's hoping...

immoral_angeluk

ooh forgot to add as well, that when I had my big sort out on the weekend I've gotten together a bag of stuff to take to Cash4clothes. Only one bag so will be lucky to even get £2.50 but it all helps!

immoral_angeluk

Evening all!
Sadly my tax credits WAS cut this morning when I got it as I thought it would be. Down from £196.34 to £164.34 :eek: That's a hell of a drop but that's the way it goes I get. It could be a lot worse!

Anyway, have done my shopping seeing as it's Thursday.

£25 on petrol
£33.75 in Aldi
£15.70 in Asda (I was naughty this week and treated myself to a bottle of wine, Ash to a book and K to a magazine seeing as I'd spent a lot less than normal. I know I knooow I should've paid it off the card but shush, it's wine so I'm allowed )
£5.78 on suncream on offer in Aldi for our holiday

Also went and got my headlight sorted. The bulb was £9.99 and fitting was £6.99. Glad I got it fitted though as it looked as fiddly as it sounded in the Haynes Manual. £16.99 all in and only took 10 minutes so can't complain. Now let's just hope the other doesn't go as apparently they commonly go one after another... bloody cars. MOT next sat so as long as it doesn't go before then... lol

So after all that I had £36.59 spare so have paid it off the CC. Have updated my sigs as some of the min payments have gone out too. It's coming down slowly! Definitely not as quickly as I'd have liked, but slowly.... It's not been helped by a drop in income of £267 a month plus loads of increased bills!

Oh well. Que sera sera.