My Money Managing Ways.....

moneymanager

Afternoon :wave:

So not much today. I have just been looking at setting up a budget from the start of June until the end of December which was really hard to do and huge! I'll see how that goes as I am probably estimating too high for some things.

I managed to pay £5 to Barclaycard today. I got paid from Hog Receipt. My June statement is not due until 8th so not too sure of final interest for the month either.

• Home Insurance – had a look at this yesterday and there is definitely savings to be had. I just need to make sure my quotes are like for like with my existing policy and then may decide on extras if it is worth it. I have to say it is all confusing.
• Renew Dog License – I had a look at this yesterday but realised I needed my microchip number for my new dog.
• Book MOT – still trying to get a cancellation for an earlier date.
• Contact NIE for meter replacement – done, they will be out with me tomorrow.

moneymanager

So paid another £11.37 off the Barclarycard and spent £15 for electric this week.

I managed to get a cancellation from 29th to 26th July for MOT. There was one for this Friday but I haven't even had the chance to get the car looked at and DH and I are off to an outdoor concert this weekend. We have enough money going out but will keep trying for something next week or the week after.

We ran out of oil yesterday. *wishes she can find an eye emoji* I would put £100 into my oil pot every month but sometimes I do have to dip into it. I didn't have enough to cover the last oil we could and had to wait a week or so until pay day to pay them for it. I have only £200 in the pot now and I think 500 litres ranges around £250 mark. DH and I have agreed we can wait until the end of the month. Its warm enough with no heating and we can use the water heater for warm water.

So far this month I have had no NSDs. I think it is difficult when your DDs come out in different times. I have to make a note that when setting up DDs ask for them all to come out a certain date at the beginning of the month.

Forgot to look for the pooches microchip number to get the licenses sorted. This is only for the new one. I have to make a note to get that tonight.

moneymanager

So managed to get another cancellation for the MOT to 8th July. I'll keep checking to see if I can get one at least at the end of June.

I have renewal, registered and cancelled dog licenses. My new pup was registered, other one renewed and my other one that passed away was cancelled. That was hard to do. So paid £25 for that today and also a few direct debit came out of the bank. So another spend day.

Just need to knuckle down and get quotes for home insurance now.

katsu

We have a low amount of contents insurance as we have not got a lot of decent stuff and the buildings and contents insurance for our 2 bed semi was about £115 and I should hopefully get cashback on that too. So unless you have a big house or other factors, your insurance does seem high.

Also, instead of paying monthly, look at the cost of putting it on your credit card and paying the monthly installment off that - basically is the interest cheaper that way and so would you be able to get your credit card debt a bit lower by paying off what you would have paid in monthly insurance installments to your insurer?

If you have breakdown cover do look at AutoAid (main site articles). It costs £60ish a year and gives you as much as the top AA & RAC that are well over £100 - maybe £200? Just check the van would be OK as not all vans are.

moneymanager

Thanks Katsu, at first I was like :eek: when you said put it the insurance on the credit card since I want to be paying that off an not be putting anything else on it. But doing it like you said does make sense. I will have a look into that as well. It is definitely high but wasn't always like that and they same to get away with it as they just automatically renew it. I have had a look at some quotes and they do seem to be a lot lower in price.

I don't have breakdown cover as my husband only drives his van around the local area and if he breaks down either myself or his brother (who works in a mechanics ) would be close by to help. I also work locally and the only distance I would do would be to a visit to my mums on a weekly basis. I would need to check if my car is covered.

moneymanager

Busy day today in work so only getting on now.

So finally renewed my home insurance and paid it on the credit card (:eek:) to save on the interest from paying monthly. I went with Tesco at £191.98 with hopefully £35.35 cashback. If cashback comes through it will go straight to the card making my insurance £156.63 plus the interest from the card which is about 1.5225%. My normally monthly payments were about £30 I paid £30 off this month to the card today and updated my fixed DD to my card to £130. That's to cover a 3 bed and bathroom semi-detached. So quite chuffed with myself so that you Katsu for you suggestion. Just hate see the amount on the card go up again but makes sense.

Got another cancellation for the MOT to 27th June. It is still 12 days after it expires but falls on pay day which might help.

Today I will be off doing my groceries so will be spending a bit tonight and then we are off to a outdoor concert in the south tomorrow so had to go get some Euros this afternoon.

moneymanager

Hi :wave:

So we have a very heavy spend weekend last weekend. We were at a concert in the south and had to purchase some Euros which were £155 but we have 70 euros left which we will keep for our holidays in August.

I think Sunday was finally a NSD!! Nothing came out of the bank and I did not set foot over the front door. But ended up settling our vet bill which was £32 which was not too bad. I did do a little bit of spending today as had to purchase a whelping box and some whelping ID collars as my wee dog is due to give birth next week. So they were much needed. But all that came to £15.

I am going after work to get my BIL to look at my car in prep for the MOT so hoping there is not much that needs done.

Oh and our tumble dryer had smoke coming out of it this morning according to DH. He said that there was a leaf in there that may have done it. But I told him to get the machine outside when we are not there. It was one of those ones that all had to get looked at due to some fault but the engineer was out years ago but I still am a bit wary of it. Just hope that its ok so I don't have to look into getting a new one.

katsu

HI Moneymana... (I like how your name appears as I kept reading it as MoneyMama )

Well done on taking on the insurers and overcoming the worry about changing. Ours is a 2 bed semi with one bath and very low contents (seriously, I reckon a burglar would leave me £20 ) so your £150-ish sounds a lot better than £350ish for your house and far more reasonable.

Just think, you were managing to pay £30 a month so £360 last year for your insurance, so this year after paying your £150 (plus a bit of interest - less than £5 I *think* if you are only paying 1.5% a month and you clear it in just over 5 months) you have an extra £200ish of debt clearing that will take place by magic, without you being any worse off.

This method only works if you can be as disciplined as you are, to straight away pay off the extra money to the credit card and keep it up all year, but you seem like you have got that sorted so well done you :money:

Eventually you will be in a position where you can save up the money over the year before the bill comes in, but for now, this method seems the best way to get your debts down.

moneymanager

katsu wrote: »

HI Moneymana... (I like how your name appears as I kept reading it as MoneyMama )

I love this! :rotfl:

katsu wrote: »

This method only works if you can be as disciplined as you are, to straight away pay off the extra money to the credit card and keep it up all year

I am really hoping that I am disciplined to keep it going and don't go off the rails spending on the card again.

Again thanks for the advice. I would never have done that as I would think its more going on the card even though I would be paying less interest if I was paying monthly.

moneymanager

Sorry I have been missing in action this week. I have had one crazy week. My female had her puppies in the early hours of Monday morning, six in total!!! :eek: I wasn't expecting that many but sure. :cool: So had very little sleep on Monday and took to working from home this week to keep an eye on mummy and babies. I am hoping I can work from home for the next two weeks until the pups are a little bigger as mummy seems to be trying to bury them and I am afraid that she will suffocate them. I had thought she would have only three as that is what the vet seen when she scanned her and only had three potential homes for them. We are keeping one and we were hoping that the other two would be off to close family members. We didn't breed our dog for money as this was an accident. But it looks as if we will have to sell the rest. I would love to keep them all but no money and space for them. Anyway I am looking for homes in the area with people I know so that I can still see them.

Haven't look at my budget or bank account this week. I will do a bit of work this morning and then get caught up later as DH gets paid today. :T

I have my MOT next week and I know I need my brake discs done and whatever else. It will cost over £100 and I also have a £245 oil bill to pay and also a £45 dental bill. Everything happens at once.