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

Squidge123

I find sticking to a budget very difficult!

Housework*Fairy

Hi X-Spender

Another subscriber for your diary - you are honoured; I am only subscribed to two others!

Your post struck a chord with me, I'm rubbish at budgeting too! This whole concept of putting money to one side for emergencies and regular annual bills- PAH, what's all that about??

Anyway - keep posting and don't disappear x

patman99

Welcome to the boards. You can get there if you try. If you can, put up a SoA. That way, some of the more experienced posters can help with guidance.

XSpender

Housework*Fairy wrote: »

Hi X-Spender

Another subscriber for your diary - you are honoured; I am only subscribed to two others!

Your post struck a chord with me, I'm rubbish at budgeting too! This whole concept of putting money to one side for emergencies and regular annual bills- PAH, what's all that about??

Anyway - keep posting and don't disappear x

Hello and thanks for reading and subscribing. I have read your diary too and subscribed last week

patman99 wrote: »

Welcome to the boards. You can get there if you try. If you can, put up a SoA. That way, some of the more experienced posters can help with guidance.

Hi patman - Thanks for your post. I am going to hold of posting a soa for a little while as there are some overpayments that will reduce in the next few months so will skew the current figures. We do have a healthy surplus, it's frittering it away on nowt that is our issue.

Pay day on Thursday and we will not have spent every penny we earned this month which is a start. :j

DH is away with work tonight so I will post an update later and some goals that I have set myself for April.

Housework*Fairy

XSpender wrote: »

Hello and thanks for reading and subscribing. I have read your diary too and subscribed last week
.

hah hah you caught me redhanded then and you will see that I don't practice what I preach (i.e. the don't disappear bit).

This month has seemed very long and still a week to go until payday *sigh*

abba1772

Just had a wee read of your diary and have subscribed

you're doing really well keep up the good work xxxxx

XSpender

Hi abba1772 :hello:

I didn’t get the update done last night as DH, who was away overnight, decided to eat at home and drive down later with a colleague. Saved us some pennies too as the bar was closed when they got there!

So where am I at 2 days before pay day………

Expenditure Budgets

Food Budget £360 - £401.35
See, I can never hit this budget. It does include £48 on takeaways and about the same on lunches and teas at work which are higher than previous months and need to be reigned in

Diesel Budget £100 -£90
My car is just about on the red so I will need to fill up tonight/in the morning. Technically £4 would do it but as soon as my car hits the red the needle drops to the bottom and you can’t tell how much is actually left so I always like to have a little bit more in.

Miscellaneous Budget £120 - £131.97
We were doing well on this until we went out for a pizza for Mother’s Day. It was minging as well!

Savings

Emergency Fund £5.96
Car Fund £0.00
Christmas Fund £10.00
Holidays £0.00 (but paid £50 for caravan deposit)
Bed (to be paid for 22.3.12) £117.00

Total = £132.96

Overall, I am pleased with our results this month, giving myself a C+ as I could still do a lot better We didn’t feel restricted by our budgets, booked a holiday, had a meal out, had some cupboards built, replaced a kitchen drawer and mended the overflow pipe.

Budgets for April (month starts 22nd)

Food £380
My plan is to eat all the gluten containing foods in the freezer and cupboards this month as I go for a biopsy on 25th of April to find out if I have coeliacs disease so I am hoping this will enable me to stick to the budget. I will need nappies as my stocks from January are about to run out and a new mop!

Diesel £60
This may be a bit tight but we are off for a week and I won’t be driving to work over the Easter break. On a weekend/evening we use DH company car, the diesel goes on a company fuel card and comes directly off his wages each month.

Miscellaneous £140
This is to include any treats or days out on our week off, my niece’s 18th gift and 4 birthday cards (loving card factory). As we are planning to decorate and do some jobs around the house we shouldn’t spend too much on treats during our week off.

Bedroom Makeover £250
We are getting a new bigger bed next week and will need a new duvet, sheets and covers. We are also going to repaint the bedroom, hang new curtains as the blind in our room has mould on it and paint the walls. We have a vax so will clean the carpet too. I would also like to change the bedside lamps and lamp shade but this may need to wait until next month.

Savings
I am planning to open an ISA for our emergency savings with £100, put £100 away for holidays, £20 for car expenses and £10 for Christmas. I also owe the £1/day pot £30 this month so will transfer this into the Christmas savings as that is what I am saving it for.

XSpender

April Goals

• Eat out of freezers and cupboards, using up all gluten containing foods
• Open an ISA with £100
• Save £100 to holiday fund
• Save £10 to Christmas fund
• Save £20 to car fund
• Keeping topping up all pots and Shirley the shrapnel pig
• Turn off heating (if DH doesn’t notice):shhh:
• Monitor how much food we are wasting and cut down on it
• Complete EPF133D and EPF230A assignments for college
• Complete bedroom makeover
• Day trip to Whitby with fish and chips included:drool:

Best get some work done, 'speak' to you later:)

brizzledfw

Loving the lists X! Good stuff..

The fish and chips will be lush. Whitby will be a good place to be too! Funny how that would have been not even noticed pre LBM and MSE but now it seems like a real treat. Oh how times have changed for all of us!

Keep up the good work!

Brizzle

Housework*Fairy

Oooh I like how you have set your budgets out, I might steal that idea when my month starts in six days x