Keeping up appearances.......

HappyNow

Today's financial update:


Good stuff:

• I have an old-ish but good quality saddle which I was going to Ebay. At the weekend a friend of a friend took it to try on their horse and has offered me £150 for it! Hand snapped off and I get the money tomorrow.
• Neighbour has told me to help myself to as much of his home-grown rhubarb as I can use because he hates the stuff. Spent yesterday evening making a serious amount of rhubarb crumble - I already had all the other ingredients. Freezer now full.
• Little Miss Happy has had a grant approved by Access To Learning to go towards her living costs while she can't claim any other help. It's only £200, but it will go towards this month's rent (the final payment) on her student house, which I have already paid.

Not-so-good stuff:

• Mr Happy's car MOT is due in early June. It is very, very unlikely to pass . It's pretty ancient now and needs replacing but we could really do with squeezing one more year out of it. Can't make a decision until we see what it fails on - and of course there's always a chance it could surprise us and fly through (see my irrationally optimistic nature shining through ).
• Spent nearly £100 at the garden centre this weekend . We have massive gardens and although there are lots of perennials we also have loads of troughs, containers and baskets that had to be filled. They look beautiful though and we won't need to spend anything else on the garden this year - provided I remember to water them all .

Hey look - three good things and only two bad. Things are on the up .

grannyx2

What a happy post. I've got my fingers crossed that Mr Hs car will turn out to be as surprising as my OHs was and cost very little

Granny x

HappyNow

Just re-done my snowball. To clear all unsecured debt by Feb 2019 my monthly repayments need to be £1100!! Now there's a challenge.........:D

Actually they probably need to be higher, because the snowball assumes I pay them by highest-interest first, which of course is the best way. But I have SUCH high balances on my two MBNA accounts (£15885 and £8688) that I need to kill at least part of those first. They are on a seemingly endless rolling '0% for 12 months for a fee of 5%', but of course MBNA could pull that rug at any time and then I would be screwed. I class those balances, for snowball purposes, as being 5% interest, whereas my Halifax is at 7.9%. Hmm. I think I will try and split my overpayments between the three. Middle ground and all that.

The snowball also tells me that I am paying £259 per month interest right now . I can think of LOTS of better uses for that money.......

HappyNow

Top tip - I've just mentioned this on Seasidegal's diary and thought it worth a mention here for anyone who loves Marks and Spencers food but can't generally afford it!


If you sign up at www.greenredeem.co.uk you can very easily earn vouchers for £5 off a £25 M & S food spend by just filling in quizzes and questionnaires about reclycling, green issues etc. I earned three the day I signed up and they arrived through the post a few days later. You can only use one voucher per transaction though. Then go into M & S when they have their £10 meal deals on, and buy two deals, selecting the dishes that serve four rather than two, plus another £5 worth of stuff (they usually have other offers on). Yesterday I paid £20.82 after the voucher, and got:

• Two large chickens, each serving 4/6 (for the men - I'm a veggie!)
• A tray of rosemary potatoes (serves three easily)
• A ratatouille (supposedly a side dish but makes a great main for me)
• A raspberry trifle (serves four)
• An apple pie (says it serves four, but would serve six)
• A bottle of red wine (good)
• A bottle of white wine (decent)
• My favourite cheese and onion pie of all time (serves four)
• My favourite chocolate cake (SERVES JUST ME WHATEVER IT SAYS ON THE BOX!!!!)

I thought that was really good value for a special occasion and most of it is freezable.

Seasidegal58

Hi there - I have replied to you on my thread, but thanks again for the M&S voucher tip.:A


I'm so pleased to hear that there have been so many positives for you and you really sound like you are back on track.


The 0% balance card transfer looks like the sensible thing seeing that they've pulled the rug on the overdraft front. And I think you have to sometimes work out the best way of snowballing for your particular circumstances. Debt guru Dave Ramsey insists that you pay down your smallest balances first rather than those with the highest interest rates so that you get the psychological benefits of seeing the various debts disappear more quickly. I've started off doing this, but will tailor it going forward. So go ahead and snowball how you think fit - you can always change it!


You freezer full of MSE rhubarb crumbles sounds delicious (love rhubarb crumble!) - and remember to water those plants!:D

HappyNow

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

Debt guru Dave Ramsey insists that you pay down your smallest balances first rather than those with the highest interest rates so that you get the psychological benefits of seeing the various debts disappear more quickly. I've started off doing this, but will tailor it going forward. So go ahead and snowball how you think fit - you can always change it!

You freezer full of MSE rhubarb crumbles sounds delicious (love rhubarb crumble!) - and remember to water those plants!:D

The name Dave Ramsey has cropped up a few times on these boards recently, but otherwise I've never heard of him. I shall google him in a minute! At one point I had TEN (maybe even eleven - I forget) credit cards all with balances on!! It's down to a mere five (:o) now, and the lowest balance is £7331 so sadly none of them will be cleared any time soon. The snowball calculator on 'whatsthecost.com' actually shows the interest charged each month and that is a huge motivator for me. What a waste of money!

The crumble is indeed delicious, so we seem to be having it after every meal which can't be good for our weight or health! All plants being watered pretty much continuously by nature over the last week. Grrrr, on a bank holiday too!

HappyNow

Good news here. Little Miss Happy is feeling much, much better and it's been pretty constant for a week now. Previously she would have an odd good day and we'd get all excited, but then she would be back to square one the next day. We're trying not to read too much into it because it could all change again, but it's fantastic to see some real progress at long last. She's still in her uni town (although not studying) but we're fetching her home next weekend for ten days, after which we go back there with her to attend the next consultant appointment. Everything crossed!

Financially I'm feeling very positive and up for it! After reading so much about the YNAB budgeting software (youneedabudget.com) I finally got round to downloading the free trial yesterday and it looks really excellent. It's basically the 'little pot' system that lots of us here use, but translated into a sophisticated, yet easy to use, spreadsheet. If I still love it as much after the 34 day trial I might even buy it - which I realise sounds rather counter-productive, but I think it will be an excellent mind-focusing tool which I sometimes need!

Dolphin1

Lovely news about Little Miss Happy, may the good days continue! :j

I have heard mention of YNAB several times on different MSE diaries and everyone seems to rave about it. I think that I might take a look and see if it has anything to offer me.

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear

Your gardening budget seems very reasonable to me. Those tubs, containers and pots are going to give you a real boost every time you see them during the summer. My way forward is to grow all of the herbs we use, but I have made a mistake this year - anyone know what to do with salad burnett? It tastes like grass to me. Having said that, I worked out that I spent a couple of quid every month on herbs which a few seed packets have knocked on the head completely. Little and often on saving money works for me every time.

Thank you so much for the M&S tip. *dashes over to green redeem*

PinotGrigio41

Lovely to see you posting again Mrs Happy and I am so pleased to hear that Little Miss Happy is having some good days. Heres to many many many more of those xx

Think I will take a look at the YNAB that you have mentioned, my expenditure has been all over the place of late and that's not going to help with clearing the PG Debt Moutnain ! xx