My Money Managing Ways.....

moneymanager

So my credit card debt has spiraled out of control again.

But this is why I am here, back at my diary and wanting to keep posting until this credit card debt is gone. I am planning on following the The 1% Challenge - 100 ways to make your 1%. This means I will be working towards paying 1% of my debt at a time which does not include the 1% minimum payment.

The way I plan on doing it is pay £100 per month to my cc. This is more than the 1% payment but try and pay an extra 1% on top of that which is £70. I will try and do this at least once a month and if I get more then that's a bonus. So far I have planned on paying an extra £80.73 this month from the following:

Mileage paid through work: £18.20
Interest Rec'd from Santander: £3.83
Balance remaining from Ulster Bank account: £35.00
Balance remaining from Santander account: £6.99
Qmee: £0.77
Topcashback: £2.43
Halifax Interest: £0.01
Prolific Surveys: £13.50
Total £80.73 (£39.51 has already been banked)

So I look to be on target this month and then some.

moneymanager

Deleted_User wrote: »

Hi MM,

Welcome back x

Thanks Purplemumof2, I hope to be sticking around a bit more this time.

moneymanager

I always try to meal plan not only to save money but it also helps me to not snack and stay on a healthy (ish) eating plan. I am a member of SW and today is weigh in day. I didn't get to go last week as I had my mum staying with me so I have to pay more this week. I am not sure if that is double the weekly cost at £9.90 so today will definitely not be a NSD.

I hate having to pay to get weighed each week. I don't stay for Image Therapy and the only reason I joined again was to get access to the phone app so paying approx £21.45 per month just to have the app. That could go towards paying my cc or something more practical. I might just see this out until the end of the month and use my own scales as a way to gage what my weight would have been at SW. I want to lose 1.5 stone.

DH gets paid weekly and mainly on a Friday. I did do a meal plan last week so having today and tomorrow's dinner sorted. I run my meal plans from Saturday to Thursday and we always have a takeaway on Fridays. Today I am doing chicken curry/southern fried gravy (depending on what we fancy later) with peas, onions and actifry chips. The chicken is leftovers from Sunday's dinner so should be ok. I made a chilli on Monday night which we will have for tomorrow's dinner and I will freeze the rest.

I made an omelette/frittata type thing using leftover veg and potatoes this week for lunch today. I also have tins of tuna and frozen baked potatoes for the rest of this week's lunches. I think I can make a saving on buying anymore frozen baked potatoes but they are really handy. My DH is not a big spender and would happily go for supermarket own branded food which is great. He had been the one to say to me to bake my own potatoes and then freeze them. I would have just microwaved a potato which doesn't taste the same to me. Oh my goodness I have waffled on here about baked potatoes. :rotfl:

I definitely need to do an inventory of what is in the cupboards and in my chest freezer. I can not get anything more into the freezer. I know my DH is good is someways when saving money but he does tend to buy things that we don't need as we already have it. For example, baked beans, I keep telling we have them in the house. Might be only two tins but he always says "add them to the war rations" which drives me batty as I am thinking of not only the unneccessary spend but the lack of storage of it. So this is the same with my freezer. I suppose the only way around this is to shop on my own. I would prefer online but I have a Mr T close by so no need to be out of pocket for delivery charges.

DH also smokes. I gave them up nearly 6 years ago. He does smoke roll ups so it costs about £20 a week which isn't as bad as smoking cigarettes in terms of cost. He has tried to give up a few times but no success. At the moment he is working his way through tabacco that his uncle brought back from holidays so we haven't had to spend on the tabacco just the papers and filters. I think he will have to buy it this week though.

I am not much of a drinker. I buy two bottles of wine a week and share it with DH. I may also have a glass of gin but at the moment I am training for a half marathon so I don't drink too much if any the night before I run. I would only drink on a Friday and Saturday (different if I am on holiday though ). I can't stand hangovers and I am always thinking of the syn value too. DH on the other hand is a totally different kettle of fish. He likes his drink a lot and would spend a good bit of money on beer and cider in a week. I am embrassed to say what that is a week really...could be £30....which I know is really a problem. It's his problem and if that's what he wants to spend his money on then so be it. He doesn't spend it on anything else.

Anyway, sorry I have rambled yet again. :rotfl:

moneymanager

So decided to have a look into a better deal with my TV, broadband and phone.

I looked at the package we currently have with Sky for our TV and it is the variety bundle. I noticed that difference between the original bundle and the variety is the Kids, Documentaries, Music and few Sports channels. We could live without kids (no kids), music and sports (thankfully DH is not into sports) but the documentaries would be really missed by DH. He watches them all the time so reducing our package isn't an option. The only thing I could do is ring Sky to see if they are give me a discount for a certain period for being a good customer but I don't wanted anything added at a discount rate as it's pointless.

As feared, Sky, Now TV and Virgin Media all don't have broadband in my area. I don't understand with Sky as when I go into my wifi I notice that there is a few Sky customers in my area. I am with Plusnet. If I could get Sky Unlimited I could be saving £14.99 a month for a period of time.

I am with BT for my phone, unlimited evenings and weekend calls at £21.99 per month. I don't use it to make calls as I have unlimited calls from my mobile. DH is the only one to use it when his money runs out on his phone and he seems to use it at the wrong times. I can reduce this by £3 per month if I go to weekends only.

I think it's probably worth a call to Sky to see if they can do anything for me.

[Deleted User]

Nothing lost in asking

moneymanager

I suppose it is a bit late for a good morning.

It has been quite hectic in work this morning, not in terms of actual work but the 'how was the holidays' as most of us were off last week.

So, I didn't get to do that freezer inventory last night as planned, it will have to wait until the weekend. DH was rained off yesterday so he had spend the day putting up cupboards in my utility room where my freezer is kept. I near dropped dead when I got home and seen what he had done as I purchased those cupboard a year ago!!! :eek: But so pleased they are up now and I have storage space for things like my washing powders and dog items so that are not sitting on the machines.

The dinner didn't go as planned last night as the chicken smelt a bit off so just ended up with southern fried gravy chips. :rotfl: Wasn't too bad as DH wasn't too hungry and I snacked quite a bit beforehand. :embarasse

I also didn't go to SW after all as the thought of handing out nearly a tenner for someone to tell me I have put on weigh just wasn't doing it for me. I've decided to weigh myself at home from now on for free to save £4.95 per week. So as it turned out, yesterday was a NSD in the end. :T

So today in terms of food, I have some leftover soup for lunch and a chilli in the fridge for dinner. I will be taking the dogs to a doggie party after work so a prep dinner is a must. It will cost me £15 for both dogs. I know it's a bit much but I don't have kids so they are treated like my kids. :rotfl: I don't do this as often but it's a party for their breed.

We found a nasty looking lump on my wee man's ear tip last week and we fear it may be cancer. The vet has a sample of the lump sent off to be test to be sure which is costing us £60. I do have insurance for him but I will have to pay the access fee which is around £80. I paid for a consultation fee of £20 at the beginning of the week. He will need surgery either way but that will be covered under his insurance. I am going to ask them to do his teeth when he is under which will probably not be included in the insurance so I'd say it would be another £50. So need to have £110 ready as vets don't allow credit.

I need to do my meal plan up for next week. I don't think we need that much as we have chicken, fish and the rest of that chilli in the freezer.

Hiddenidenity

I have been reading just haven't posted, As for SW I did it myself at home and lost a lot of weight and its pretty much stayed off since (although my diet now is awful!) Anyway I used FB/Instagram etc for meal plans and paid the 20p at the local pharmacy for the weigh in/bp check etc and it use to be printed off. I could weigh at home for free but I have issues with weight and don't have scales at home or I become obsessed. The 20p a week was definitely better than going to group just to be weighed though.

Did you manage to speak to sky?

Hope the dog is okay and its nothing too serious x

moneymanager

Mileage paid through work: £18.20
Interest Rec'd from Santander: £3.83
Balance remaining from Ulster Bank account: £39.35
Balance remaining from Santander account: £6.99
Qmee: £0.77
Topcashback: £2.43
Halifax Interest: £0.01
Prolific Surveys: £14.30 (not paid out yet + £4.80 pending)
Total £86.10 (£43.86 has already been banked)

I managed to let £15 of electric do me for two weeks. :think: Maybe I need to keep an eye on this and see what I really do need for a week. That meant that I had £15 extra in DH's UB account spare but was short £10.65 in my Santander account, the account that I pay my monthly bills from. So transfered that and added the balance to £4.35 to the above.

I haven't requested the £14.30 from PA yet but going to wait until I get over the £20 and hope to have it in my account by the end of the month.

So it looks as if I managed to raised more than the £70 (which is 1% of my debit, cc, cat and mum) along with the £100 which covers the 1% minimum payment and an extra £27.04. This would be actually 1.62% on top of the 1% MP. Hope that makes sense in what I am trying to do. :rotfl:

I am in two minds as what to do. Should I just cap it at £70, I think £170 per month works out at approx 1.39% paid on top of the 1% MP. The extra % will go up each month if I can stick with this as my payments come down. It means that whatever I make extra over the £70 I can put it towards something else like vet bills, getting my hair done (needs it) or towards an emergency fund.

I have also logged into Valued Opinions and noticed I have £3.25 in there but it says that I am £4.75 away from an reward redemption. I haven't been on this site in a long time but will work on my profile and try and get some money out of this. I will take a look at other survey sites but I am not a great fan of them.

I am also owed £20 for a crochet cushion that I did a while ago so going to have to chase that up and I am due another £45 for the one I am working on, although will be putting £15 back into my pot for materials. So there is £50 but was hoping to put that towards getting my hair done.

moneymanager

Hiddenidenity wrote: »

I have been reading just haven't posted, As for SW I did it myself at home and lost a lot of weight and its pretty much stayed off since (although my diet now is awful!) Anyway I used FB/Instagram etc for meal plans and paid the 20p at the local pharmacy for the weigh in/bp check etc and it use to be printed off. I could weigh at home for free but I have issues with weight and don't have scales at home or I become obsessed. The 20p a week was definitely better than going to group just to be weighed though.

Did you manage to speak to sky?

Hope the dog is okay and its nothing too serious x

Hi HI, thanks for stopping by. You will probably find that I tend to waffle a lot and my posts can be quite long. :rotfl:

I have tried to do SW on my own before too but it never worked and that's becuase I didn't have the WI of shame each week at SW. :rotfl: But I am going to do it this time, the thought of saving that money will spare me on.

Haven't rang Sky yet. I was meant to speak to DH about it but because he was busy last night I didn't bother. In all honesty if it wasn't for him I don't think I would have Sky TV. He is the one that watches TV, I prefer to crochet or read and if I do watch anything I prefer to go on Netflix.

Hiddenidenity

Is the card on 0%? will you have it paid before it runs out if you stop at the extra £70 and divert funds elsewhere?

Getting an emergency fund is crucial so you don't need to put anything back on the cards. The same for 'pots' for vets etc and your budget.

So if your extra £70 clears the card quick enough then yes I'd divert any extra to the places that need it/EF.