Mortgage Newbie keeping on straight and narrow!

Mortgagenewbie

Oh no, the triumph of a greasy palm payoff on the credit card is cancelled out by realising that since my SOA all of 3days ago, the credit card has gone up despite this payment! Been putting Xmas presents on the card. Im silly, i track my money on an account app on my phone so i always keep track of it being spent, i think i just ignore it, like i said, im very good at kidding myself! :oSecond bashfull face of the day, things hopefully will get better!!!!

A twisty Martin always makes me smiles
*adds one to cheer myself up*:money:
*adds another just for fun*:money:

Yep, feeling better!

Mortgagenewbie

Not feeling great, three days into december and nearly half of my grocery challenge spent!!! Oh dear oh dear. I knew we spent more than £200 but thats what i always put down when i do budgets and stuff. When i say i do budgets, this is when i write it out on a spreadsheet and then ignore it and spend whatever anyway.

I have spent about £20.00 on stocking up on household stuff but even so, our spending is worse than i thought, unless i can seriously pull it back in the rest of the month. Think im gonna just try plugging away at writing it all down for this month and then in January try and get a bit more of a grip on it.

In positive money saving activities, i am making some salt dough xmas decorations and some button and ribbon ones too. Christmas songs on the cd player, feeling festive although a bit rubbish that i spend so much! Not sure a twisty martin will work today.

Gonna try and make tomorrow a no spend day but not sure it will be as will have to resist buying xmas decorations. Wanted to get the christmas tree up this weekend and cos this is our first place we havent got many decorations. Had a tree donated from my sis but its a 6ft and im not sure the one string of lights that we brought the other week will be enough, plus got no tinsel, trying to rack my brain for no spend alternatives to tinsel and extra lights. Pretty sure tea lights are a fire hazard and we have a gold/red theme so far so tinfoil passed off as tinsel will clash! Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

*heads off to old style thread to nick peoples ideas*

Cherryjack

oh bless ya, its so hard this time of year to stick to budgets.. ive gone over..but its good to get the Money saving head on ready for the new year.. and i recon you would be spending even more if you wasnt on here.. so keep up the good work :-)
I would reccomend pound land for your decorations or wilkinsons.. even your local freecycle if you still cant afford xx

Mortgagenewbie

Ah, thanks, im rubbish, a bit lazy of me, but i didnt really fancy braving town on a sat for poundland stuff so i ended up getting 342 at sainsburys on the decorations! They are prob more expensive but i think ill bulk it out with the homemade stuff and leave it at that. Will see what offcasts the rest of the family have once they have put their trees up. Plan is to get as little as poss now and get stuff in the sales. Its just sods law the donated tree is a 6fter, cant grumble as its free but if it was smaller we prob could get away with the one string! Ah well!

Mortgagenewbie

Ok, December wasnt the best month to try and sort finances out. But have used some of the christmas period to work out a budget that i hope covers everything and means that we start to save up to pay for things rather than putting things onto cards and then paying them off later.

Had a big chat with OH and i think were both quite determined to stick to what we have budgeted. The only thing we may have underestimated is the weddings and bloody hen dos that accompany them!! It so frustrating that people have to have weekends away for hundreds of pounds!! ARGH! Theres one i have had to say no to (in Amsterdam!) but 2 others i am commited to, will just try and keep the drinking and eating to minimum as i suppose thats the only bit i can control! Poss a third on the way as well as some other friends got engaged before xmas but they are techniclly OHs friends so not sure if ill get an invite.

Had a offer from my RBS card for % balence transfers for 12 months which had come in the nick of time because the % on the nationwide has expired! So going to transfer the balance tomorrow once i have made the monthly payment. Was gutted to realise that with christmas the credit card had gone up from £1518 to £1580 - despite having made PADs that totalled £477! Still hopefully with the new plan ahead budget, next christmas wont just go on the credit card!!

OK- so below is new budget/SOA and my aims are

- to keep a spreadsheet upto date so i stay on budget.
- transfer Nationwide credit card to RBS and set up direct debit so it gets paid off over the year
- to NOT RUN UP ANYMORE CREDIT CARDS (although with a house to do up this may be quite a challenge
- Find a way to raise cash for Hen dos
- Keep to grocery challenge budget
- do some NSDs and kick my spending addiction!

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,250.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Monthly Expense Details
In Your Home
Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.25
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.90
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37.72
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171.00
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.48
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676.02
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250.00
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Motoring & Public Transport
Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.25
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.67
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.67
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Debt Repayments
Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Savings & Investments
Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family
Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Entertainment
Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
Clothes, Health & Beauty
Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.67
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.67
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.33
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
Education & Courses
University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big One Offs
Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.67
Odds & Sods
Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.67
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Spends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00

Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,250.00

Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,254.95

Mortgagenewbie

Just realised i had my first NSD of the month on new years day - i'd forgotten! Was hoping today would be one as well but the fuel light came on. Made a payment to the credit card and transfered money for all the piggy bank stuff into savings account. Seeing as buying fuel had made today a spends day i stocked up on Liz earle as she has a free P&P January deal. I know its a pricy beauty regieme but still have spots at 28 and its the best my skin has ever been using her stuff. It really affects my confidence and so i consider it money well spent! Also, i cancelled my good food subscription last year but id had a flyer offering 5 issues for £5 so have applied for that, not sure if i will get it though because i have previously subscribed, will cancel it after the first 5 though if i do!

Was first day back at work and the wind kept me up a lot during the night so off to bed soon for me. Hope no-ones had any bad damage, it has been wild out!

Mortgagenewbie

Just a quick check in to say, yay, had a no spends day today and yesterday spent only 1.60 on sainsburys mag, i love ripping out all the recipes! Also made a couple of small payments to credit card, only a quid or so but will try and keep it up this month and see how it impacts on it!

Starting to feel so stupid for thinking £150.00/month was enough to be saving for the house! Had a rough tally on kitchen and it was nearly 2 grand, we make kitchens so was thinking great, will be dead cheap, and it is on the cabinet/door etc side but its all the appliances! Were not a big outfit so dont have any massive trade discounts on that sort of thing, best prices are generally internet nowadays. So going to look out on ebay or even better freecycle!! You never know!

Plus, with all this rain our flat rough is leaking into the outhouses and the rendering is coming off in places! We can do a bit of a botch job, lucky to have a handy OH and BIL but the materials will still add up.

BAH! All starting to hit home about being a grown up and looking after a house, going to join the flylady thread next week, need some guidence in getting into a bit of a cleaning routine, at the mo i just wait till it looks a mess and then sort it!! Oh to be 8 years old again with no cares, can see there will be lots of growing up to do this year. About time though i guess, im 29 soon!

*sulks off and replaces toys into pram*

Hope everyone else is well!

Mortgagenewbie

Not had a bad weekend. Spent just under £30 for the weekly shop which is pretty good if we keep that up, we will be well under budget!

Went to a cupcake decorating class on sat. Stopped over at a friends and her mum was there and we went to another friends for tea and so had a spend on wine/flowers as thank you gifts, £12, but thats all i spent this weekend (apart from food and petrol). Also after the class (which was brought ages ago from groupon) one of the girls suggested we do another class - £45, i said no!! Probably this time last year i would have said yes! But now im all about saving the money for the house!!

The class was really good though, and we learnt loads of different techniques so i can impress people with my icing!! Will have to buy a bit of kit though so will wait until my birthday and then ask for piping bags etc!!

Hope everyone had a good weekend, work tomorrow, another day another dollar!

Mortgagenewbie

Just checking in to say on my 4th NSD of the month! Yay!! Updated sig to show some little PADs i have made, just rounding the internet bank balance down to the nearest pound so they are always less than a quid but they add up!! Have applied to have the credit card transfered to the 0% offer so that will help for the rest of the year as we can pay less off a month and not get any interest. There was a 3% transfer fee but the interest was starting to be added and so i think were better off this way... moral is to not let credit card balence creap up again!!

Only monday so early days but not doing well on the flylady list, by the time id got home yesterday it was after 8 as had been to sisters for tea, meant i couldnt be bothered to do any housework, lazyness i know. And tonight out for a parish council meeting, they can last AGES so prob wont get anything done tonight! Out pretty much most nights this week, grrr, not sure if ill get any cleaning done!!