Saucers - Flying and otherwise!

Saucer_2

I've been reading the other diaries and decided that its all very well rolling up onto other people's threads but maybe I should have one of my own. So here goes!

A bit of background to me then, married with a 19yo son at uni who comes home every Friday to Sunday to work locally and then goes back again, oh yes and a small spoiled dog - who can resist those little brown eyes

We've done well in some ways but not in others, our only 2 CC debts are on 0% cards and moved regularly to keep it that way and so we only ever pay the minimum off. We have a loan with a 6.6% interest rate with just over £10k to go and payments of £316.96 a month. Our mortgage is one where its a mortgage bank account all rolled into one with an interest rate of 4.1% and around £117k to repay by November 2019.

Our issues are with our "extra" expenditure rather than the regular outgoings which have already been pruned once.

My salary goes into the FD account which pays for all the non DD or SO outgoings, so groceries, petrol, clothes etc, there is a savings account attached to this current account which is for my share of dividend payments - more to that in a minute.

His salary goes into the mortgage account for the regular DD and SO outgoings, we don't make any adhoc purchases from this account.

Now this is the tricky bit, he is self-employed and gets just a small salary each month and the rest comes in the way of dividends. If he's no working then we have a shortfall on the mortgage account of just under £1.3k a month, however if he's working then his small salary plus his share of the dividends means we have approximately an extra £7k a quarter in that account.

I've split the dividend payments to put some into the FD savings account rather than into the mortgage account, we're trying to keep a bit of "buffer money" in case things go pear shaped. Currently £8k in the FD savings account, not quite enough to pay off the loan, but I'm intending to do that mid way through next year when we will have around £6k to pay off and the buffer will have increased as well.

He's been between contracts for 4 months but has just picked up another for 3 months starting today - very well paid contracts but we seem to be getting more downtime between.

So there we have it, that's us!

Oh, and the name Saucer is directly applicable to me - I'm banded (gastric band that is), and my meal should be the size of a tea plate rather than a dinner plate, somehow Saucer looks so much better than TeaPlate :rotfl:

Saucer_2

Background done, so down to business.

I've signed up to the Sealed Pot Challenge as I do a sweep on a Sunday evening/Monday morning before work, I keep back £5 in change for my purse and any notes, and the rest goes into a small pot on my office windowsill, no idea how much is in there but its getting mighty heavy and I know there is at least one £2 coin in there.

From some other diaries I found the resourceful cook site and I'm menu planning with the best of them. Three reasons for this (like wow, three!), first is because my food spending got way out of hand, I really don't need to spend £120 a week on food for 2 and a bit adults and a dog! Second is because I want to get us back onto healthy eating as microwave meals aren't always that nutritionally good and the portions seem to be small for the money, plus filling up on choc, biscuits, crisps seems a bit silly not to mention expensive. And third is because I decided that we needed to lose weight, so I hired a xtrainer and treadmill (yes, I did the research and got a really good price), but I don't want to end up out of pocket so our food bill has to reduce by £27 a week to cover that.

My first week of cost cutting came to £92 for the week although I did need to get cash, I restricted myself to £20 as I'm not a big spender of hard cash, more its for use in the canteen etc where I would only spend a small amount. So that was £112 for the week.

My second week I did way better at £75.75 and I still managed to buy the obligatory crisps, sweets, biscuits.

My food shop is done on a Thursday, so that's when I count my week from.

My OH is happy because he's eating good homecooked meals which are a lot more filling that microwave stuff, which in turn means he eats less of the rubbish, which means that its unlikely to all be eaten this week and saves me more on my shopping next week.

I generally eat half my portion in the evening and save the other half for the next day's lunch - a band isn't a solution but more a tool to aid, I wish it was a solution, but nvm.

I was ill with food poisoning last week so didn't exercise much at all, but I was back to it on Saturday and yesterday, managing just over 20mins on the treadmill at a fast walk.

My OH has realised that a few months at home has meant his waistline has expanded rapidly and had to make a quick run to M&S last night for trousers as the ones he was wearing back in May no longer meet round his middle. Get 2 I said, he came back with 3 and a pair of slippers, doh!

Although we could probably get a gym membership for less than the hire price, we decided to hire in for various reasons including factoring in the cost of driving to the gym, plus said DS likes to pound away at the weekends. I have to exercise 5 days out of 7 due to a low metabolic rate. Unfortunately in order to make the equation work I have no choice.

Diet + no exercise = approx 600cals a day
No diet + exercise = approx 3 hours a day
Diet + exercise = 900 cals a day + 20-30mins exercise 5 times a week (plus walking the small hairy one every other day - he doesn't want to walk that much, and when he does its more of a very slow stroll while he checks every blade of grass, every twig, leaf, stone etc etc)

beanielou

Welcome saucer.
Happy shiney new diary.
Keep posting!

Saucer_2

Thank you Beanie for the welcome.

I was intending to start this last night, but then I remembered work and didn't. Instead I took advantage of a quiet day in the office and started it then :rotfl:

So the end of my first day, I was intending it to be a NSD but I had to nip to the chemist for ibuprofen - having teeth probs and sometimes need the painkillers, and as what I take has to be soluble then better to get from where I know they sell what I need.

It wasn't so long ago when I had to get antibiotics from the doctors, he prescribed capsules and when I asked him if I would be ok to swallow due to the band, he said that's ok, open them up and just swallow the powder. Now, it may not have occured to other people just like it hadn't occurred to me, but that powder is inside those capsules for a reason, and that reason could have a lot to do with just how absolutely disgusting it tastes, oh yeah I lasted 3 days of neat powder followed by a spoon of honey, a mint, anything to take that taste out of my mouth, before I realised that if I had a hot drink straight after the capsule then it melted just fine...

Anyway, back to the subject matter, so I bought 2 packs of ibuprofen and I've no idea how it happened honest, but when I got back to my desk I seem to have bought some choccy buttons as well, obviously I felt compelled to eat them, even though choccy and I don't see eye to eye.

At least lunch was half of yesterday's lunch - lemon roast chicken with root veg and gravy, a fruit jelly, and my nibble pot - a max of 50g of fruit and nuts, made by me every few days, I do up to 9 pots at a time.

So first day done, going for a NSD tomorrow though...

Saucer_2

A really good NSD although in the morning I thought I might need to go down to the canteen and spend 65p on soup, but as it turned out I was spared. A colleague brought in home made samosas, made just his morning, and they were still warm!

I have the same breakfast every single day, weekends and all - peppermint green tea, and a handful of apricot wheats (Tesco own are my favourite) with ss milk.

Followed up the mid morning samosa with a mug of some weird noodle thingy made in the mug - lets just say I won't be bothering to get another and I only bought it in the first place because it was cheap! Small pot of jelly & fruit, and my mini pot of fruit and nuts; struggled through to coming home without any hiccups of visits to the vending machine and had a couple of cream crackers and a mug of coffee to keep me going until eating later.

Made a chicken & bean stew and added lots of potatoes to bulk it out a bit - enough for me and OH tonight, me tomorrow for lunch with the last bit of chicken, and me for Thursday lunch without chicken, but as I'm at home I can manage that. Pretty good amount of food there for a fiver I think.

And now for the even better news, we had our mortgage/bank account review for the year today, we owe just over £117k (the paperwork has vanished off my desk, so I can't say the exact figure), and in the last 12 months we reduced it all by £13k, which is pretty good considering my OH has spent 4 months at home not earning any money at all.

I put £5876.04 into that account this morning, so that knocks it down a bit more and £2k into the buffer account.

I've got a meeting with our accountants on Friday and once I know the final figure for the 10/11 corporation tax I can decide how much more to pay out as a dividend for this financial year. We overstretched ourselves a few years back, saw the money in the company account and paid nearly all of it out in dividends and then had to put loads back because we'd forgotten about the corporation tax. Don't want to do that again, and at least we have the flexibility with the mortgage account that we spend more if we want.

I'm so tired I think I'll celebrate by going to bed early and giving the dog a cuddle, work days are hard as I get up at 5:30; and what I want to know is why I could sleep forever on work days but struggle to stay asleep much longer than 7 on a non work day or weekend?

Saucer_2

Second NSD, happily ate my fruit snack pot this morning and then the chicken and bean stew for lunch, we do have 2 microwaves in the canteen but they're so slow that I reckon they were a job lot from the market!

Its interesting reading other people's diaries. I know we aren't in the debt situation that a lot of people are in but 18 months ago things were most extremely tight. I did an SOA and it was picked apart thoroughly, we did reduce our debts considerably, and right now we're in a reasonably comfortable position BUT if we don't focus on the next few years then we won't be able to pay the mortgage off when it ends in 2019, and I'd rather tackle the problem now than bury my head in the sand and hope that it all works out.

So while we have the loan with a fixed payment every month, and the 2 credit cards on 0%, its in our best interests to curb the spending now and get that mortgage down as low as we can.

Saucer_2

Supermarket shop day today, did my menu last night with the aid of resourcefulcook.

Spent £131 which seems like a lot for 2.5 adults and a dog, but I added extras for Christmas, was store cupboard stocking and also buying things that I can have on my own if my OH has to go away for business, 50/50 on that at the moment. They told him he would have to go 2/3 days a week for a month or so, but it hasn't materialised yet.

I was backed up with washing due to the food poisoining last week, as I do my DS's washing ready for him to take back to uni the next week - its more cost effective this way than him mucking about with launderettes up there, plus my machines so its done when convenient to me rather than washer and dryer being on when it suits him - dead of night or when I want to use them myself. Getting all the washing under control, about 3 more loads to do before he comes back tomorrow with the next lot!

Saucer_2

I've decided to end this diary, really thought well what's the point?

I can type my feelings up anywhere and its not like anyone is particularly interested.

I guess I don't fit the right scenario for being here, after all, I don't have any hard luck horror stories, I don't have a massive amount of debt to clear off - well of course I do, but who would be interested in hearing about a large mortgage, 2 CC on 0% interest that we move regularly and an unsecured loan all of which we easily manage to meet each month? We have a healthy income and our outgoings aren't that bad.

No, I'll just keep myself and my family out of the world's eye and just get on with it on my own as I've been doing all along.

Good luck to all those who are struggling for one reason or another.