Staying Positive & Focused !!!

m40

Good to see you back mamato3, I enjoy reading your diary.
Hope you feel better soon.

mamato3

Thanks for stopping by m40 - feeling much better today I hope everythings good with you.

Just had a tally up of April's costs - food bill comes in at a huge £456!!!! This does include all the food and party bits & pieces for hubbys birthday so I guess it's not a true figure of the food budget but my goodness thats so much more than I hoped! Petrol was a little better at £190 - lots of room for improvement

On a good note just made cc payment of £55 which brings cc down to £1340 and it hasn't been used in ages which is great Hoping to get it under £1000 by Christmas. We also have a finance payment finish this month it's only £15 but its a few extra pennies every month.

I also have £800 saved for holiday which is great so I should hit my target of £1000 before we go in June so I'm pleased with that.

Need to get back into ebaying not sure of what the postage is like though with the price increase will have to check this before listing.

Happy Thursday everyone

mamato3

Another mid-month check in so here goes:-

Food - £244.49
Petrol - £130
Clothes - £54:p
Cinema & Lunch - £30.00:)
Misc - £25.00 (haircuts, bought lunch for work & magazines for the kids)

Well petrol isn't looking to bad although I know it'll take probably another £100 to get us to the end of the month! Really need to decide if I'm going to try and find work closer to home.

BIL broke the news that he's getting married at the start of December in Scotland :eek: as pleased as we are for him it's going to be an expensive end to the year as we already have a wedding in November! I was hoping to put the extra money I've been saving for holiday towards cc when holidays over but it looks like it'll just have to be saved now to pay for the weddings and that little thing called Christmas - ah well such is life - as long as the debt keeps going down and not up I shouldn't complain.

Still haven't got round to ebaying anything was hoping to get it done today but DS is off school with a tummy bug so I don't think there's much chance today.

I realised I don't actually know the exact amount we owe I'm sort of thinking it's probably about £8500 really need to look at all the paper work and find out what exactly we owe. Also need to do an updated SOA now we have one finance payment finished and we're still entitled to tax credits so thats a little extra I hadn't added in.

I'm off to tackle the housework .. happy Tuesday everyone.:)

mamato3

Just had a quick check at the bank and tax credits and child benefit have gone in - checked electric bill and it says we are £30 in credit!!!! so no bill this month which gives us an extra £100 to put into holiday fund brining us up to £900 whoopee!!! It also gives me £50 to put to our June/July birthdays which we have loads of! I'm pretty pleased right now

mamato3

Just read Martin's Money Newsletter thingy and it says the euros at a 3 year high against the £ so just wondering should I change my £s into euros while its high? Might change half now and then leave the rest a few more weeks to see if it gets any stronger will have to speak to OH when he gets home to see what he thinks.

Hope everyones good.

mamato3

We changed £600 into euros and got 720 euros which is pretty fab! We'll change another £400 when hubby gets paid and we put the last £100 into holiday money yippee! At least something stayed on target:)

I gathered up all the paperwork for our various debts and it comes to a huge £9463.96 so that's almost £1000 more than I thought. I looked over my first post back in February and I said I didn't think we had to much debt .... was I mad!!! I think I must've been - how can that amount not be alot! Anyways its good to know the exact figure the last payment of all our debts will be our loan in October 2015! I would hope to be DF well before that but as we all know life has a habit of getting in the way so we shall see what happens.

DD and I are going to hairdressers tomorrow and then hubby and I are going to the pics and for dinner .. yummers! All courtesy of hubby's overtime (which also sorted out the car tax this month as well). It'll be nice to see a film over PG for a change and to have a few child free hours.

Hope everyone has a good weekend

brummiebabe

Thought I'd pop in and say hi as you kindly posted on my diary!! Looks like you're doing well. Bet you're very proud of your DD going to Grammar school...well done to her!! Will subscribe;)

mamato3

Your welcome over anytime BB!

Yes, we're very proud she put a lot of work into it we're just not looking forward the cost It will all be worth it though!

brummiebabe

My son's started Year 7 this year....so far we've had letters about a residential (£370), Ski trip (£900:eek:) and indoor skiing intensive lesson (£60) - and that's not a grammar school....so I don't envy you!!!

mamato3

Yikes!! that's scared me a little BB I know its going to be horrendous we're budgeting for about £500 for uniform but I'm sure, like you, we will have a tonne of other stuff that will come home when she starts .... I will just keep repeating to myself, it will all be worth it, it will all be worthit and perhaps just eat beans on toast for a few months