Budget or bust........again

XSpender

Popping in to do a quick mid week up date as I am off to college tonight.

Goals for Jan 2013

1. Save £2500 in to an ISA. PPI money and to make/save another £200 - I am having some curtains altered and some bits and pieces done in the house that have been oustanding for 2 years:eek: at a cost of £130 and with DH still not ebaying to cover the cost of his phone I do not think I will hit this figure this month
2. 12 NSDS - still havent managed one but I have had quite a few low spend days and I am thinking about my spending much more
3. Exercise 14 times this month. I am going to start a 5k running programme which starts with run/walk as I damaged my back running a marathon and need to take it easy. I get free gym membership through work so will be doing some cross training and treadmill sessions there - not been the gym but managed about 2 hours walking last week over 2 days and will clock some more up at the weekend. I have also agreed to go power walking with a friend on an evening, even once a week would do me good:)
4. Take lunch to work 20 out of 22 working days - . I completely forgot to make it this morning and that is now 2 days I have bought lunch so can't for the rest of the month 4/6 packed lunches brought from home
5. Achieve £400 food budget. My food budget month for Jan works on child benefit payments so this months will end on 13th Jan. I need to do a bit of work to make sure I stay within budget but there is lots of food and drink left over from Christmas. - i will be just over I think
6. All outstanding assignments to be completed by agreed submission dates. I have 5 pieces of work to hand in:eek: with the earliest due 9th Jan and the latest 22nd Jan. - Doing better on this one than I expected with 3 out of 5 done and being handed in tonight and the last 2 about 80% completed and I have almost 2 weeks to do them in
7. Family times. Plan 5 occassions when we spend quality time together this month to include painting and modelling, playing in the park, bike riding and walking, a birthday party at an activity centre and swimming. I may set a budget for play activities for DS as I think sometimes the cost puts me off. - 2 so far and I have accepted a party invite for him for next week
8. Persuade DH to cancel Skye movies and sport - bit of an issue with Skye see below
9. Look into cancelling NHS annual scrip card as it is not working for me - i need to think about this a bit more and do some number crunching before I cancel it as I may be been a bit too hasy.

The skye DD came out today. It is usualy about £78, we added the phone to it recently but it cut the price of our broadband so worked out about the same.

This month it is £100.99:eek::eek: We know my MIL has been using the phone when she watches DS at our house 3 days a week as the bill has been higher since we moved the phone to skye as we are on a different tariff. I only took the evening and weekend tariff so when she uses the phone during the day it costs a fortune. I don't even know who she calls she doesnt have any friends or family except us and sees her DH by lunchtime every day. I am not happy about it and neither is DH but my MIL is very touchy and we will not say anything to her as it will cause a massive row. I obviously don't mind her using the phone but this is excessive use.

I am going to pay the extra £5 to include all my calls and hide the phone handset. That may seem petty but I dislike the lack of respect Dh parents have for our house at the best of times.

I am still working on DH about movies and sports but he says we don't go out much so should keep it but more often than not he is on the PS3 and I am on the interweb or reading my kindle.

XSpender

DH received a cheque from Barclays for £1057 yesterday for a PPI claim. :j I take back my wingeing about them the other day they have actually done a thorough job and looked at all current and previous loans DH had with them.:o

Because the old barclayl0an was part of our IVA we have only got the compensation part of the payout as they put the payment bit, £1600, against the unpaid debt. I checked on forums to confirm that they could do this as my IVA has been completed and they can do this as it is an assett under the IVA which is fair enough.

DH is going straight to the bank this morning, I'm at work, to pay it in and it is going into the savings and not getting touched. I am going to look for a limited online access ISA tomorrow for DH so we can lock the money away.:)

I had a shock last night when I rang Skye to cancel movies and sport and change to all inclusive calls. So far this month my DMIL has run up £34 of calls on our phone:eek: Luckily the all inclusive calls will take effect in 24 hours!

The Skye bill is dropping from £78 to £62 including the extra £5 for the all inclusive calls from March:D Febs bill will be even higher than last months:eek:

DH and I are going to the pub tonight, a rare night out. Our last one was September for our wedding anniversary.

We found our dream house in our favourite village last night on R1ght M0ve. At £300k it might just be a leeetle bit more than we can afford as we would need about £100k deposit with our rubbish credit rating and would have inflated payments due to having to use a broker for people with pants credit. I don't think we would be in there in 2 years as we would like:rotfl:

DH is waiting for his revised salary and bonus scheme letter to drop through the door. I am expecting it to be £2k on his basic and DH thinks his bonus structure will be loads more but we will have to wait and see.