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

XSpender

Grrr... just lost my post so will type a shorterned version.

I have sold my watch to a specialist dealer so, with my wages and expenses due on the 22nd, I have enough to pay my outstanding college fees and cover our holiday spending money.

3 weeks to our hols:D

My DFIL passed my phone number on to the baby shop who were going to ring me yesterday to see what I had to sell but they haven't rung and DH said he doesn't think they will. It would save me the chore of flea bay if they do.

I do have a couple of more expensive items I am going to ebay this weekend. I want to raise a couple of hundred extra to stick in the savings account to cover the amount we used for the car repairs in case of future emergencies.

Haven't a clue what to cook for tea as I haven't defrosted any meat. Will have to be sausages or an omlette.

Free lunch at work today:D:T

XSpender

Not much to report today except that the lady that runs the other coffee shop at one of my places of work says I can have my hot water and milk in a paper cup free (for my tea)!!!:T

It is free listing this weekend on flea bay so that is the incentive I need to get some stuff listed. I am aiming for 10 listings. Should do more but I lose the will to live after the first couple.

Last night ended up being a trip to a3da for pizza and snackss but it has done todays lunches as well.

After a bit of a row with DH last night I put DS to bed and went to bed early and read my k1ndle. DH is creeping around me today offering me tea at my favourite pizza place (happy hour) as he knows he is in the bad books. I may let myself be persuaded;) Bit naughty really when I am trying to raise some money for the savings but we have spent a grand total of £5 on beer in the last 3 weeks so I may take it out of this pot:)

I have been reading the life after debt thread and I am thinking about setting up a new spreadsheet to contain a more detailed spending record and also a record of my savings pots.

Will go over and introduce myself I think:)

XSpender

Hello diary my old friend………

My motivation disappeared over the summer but is back with a vengeance this week. I have been considering changing my job and cutting my hours and DH is unhappy in his job and getting stressed. He always gets a bit down at this time of year so the job stress is only adding to this. We still have £19000 owing on a secured loan at £430.60/month. :eek: The only other debt we have is £209 owing to B. Horse on a HP on our car. We haven’t paid anything off this for a couple of years and no action has been taken.:o

My plan is to clear the HP in 2013 and the secured by the end of 2014. That will cut 2 years off the secured loan. Next September DS will get the free nursery hours which will save us £200/month approx. If I change my job and work less hours (not possible in my current job) it may be possible to save all the nursery fees, currently £349/month and cut down the amount I pay my MIL to look after DS 3 days a week (£100).

I am hoping that needing less money to live on will allow both of us to do the work we want rather than what we have to do to cover our bills.:)

I won’t be making overpayments to the secured loan as it costs £60 each time. I will be saving the money in our ISA. This means it will double as our emergency fund too.:T

£500/month plus the monthly instalment means the loan will be cleared in 22 months:D
£750/ month plus the monthly instalment means the loan will be cleared in 18 months:)
£1000/month plus the monthly instalment means the loan will be cleared in 12 months:eek:

On top of this I want to save for 2 UK week long breaks this year in a caravan or our tent and for Christmas 2013, get up to date on the gas/electric (£360 approx) and pay off the car. I also have £672 college fees to pay to complete my course in May.


To achieve this I am going to:

• Save anything we earn over our basic salaries such as expenses and bonuses, money from DH giving a colleague a lift to work
• Stick to our monthly budget for food and miscellaneous spends. Being able to do this will really help as we tend to spend all we get.
• Claim back DH PPI. Not sure how many he had but it was at least 2.
• EBay (e-bore yawn yawn), £6 for 10KG clothes, car boot. We have to clear the loft out by Saturday to have insulation fitted so this is an ideal time to do it.
• Sell our video camera. We never use it and still hae the box, instructions etc.
• Cut down on electric/gas consumption
• Achieve the GC budget of £100/week then reduce it by £5/week at a time to get to £80/week by the end of 2013. I have special dietary requirements and we eat a lot of fresh fruit and have an organic veg and milk delivered so this will be a challenge
• Start a sealed pot for change again. Did really well until April when we broke into it and never really started it again. I think I tried to save to much in too many pots.
• Shop for presents throughout the year making use of sales etc. and make some presents
• Start using TCB - look for free trials. Sign up DH too to get the free trials
• Look to change energy supplier later in the year using TCB
• Transfer any save-the-change straight to the ISA
• Do a sweep of the account every week into the ISA
• Consider reducing our Sky package. Will be difficult to persuade DH to do this but will give it a go.

Any other suggestions gratefully received. I may post a SOA later if I get chance.

brizzledfw

Hey good to see you back Xspender! I was completely demotivated all summer and spending like no ones business...ugh. Feel completely shi&e about it now tbh.. Anyway am back on the diaries to help keep up the motivation. Have also done a new budget n BudgetBrain..scary how much we spent but also have to acknowledge we earn much less now than in previous years..plus have a tax bill to pay off next year and will get hit by changes to CB so have to get things in shape now.

Well done on finding your MSE mojo again and 'see'you soon!

XSpender

Hi Brizzledfw - I'm glad to see it's not just me who had their summer head on:)

I read a post recently, can't remember which thread on OS, and the OP was saying how they had realised that being OS took time and effort. The penny dropped for me then and I realised that if I want to cut my food spending and sell stuff on e-bore to boost the savings it is going to take some hard work! With a full time job, a 2 year old and 2 college courses on the go it is finding the time to do everything that is the issue. I need a plan!:D

DMIL/DFIL came down to help us with the loft clearing tonight and I cannot believe how much stuff is in there. Talk about cash in the attic:eek: I am going to give myself 6 months to sell everything.

brizzledfw

Sounds a fab idea. A real bona fide cash in the attic...love it

XSpender

DH paid yesterday so most of our DDs came out this morning. Our month starts on the 22nd when I get paid but we seem to have more money at this point in the month than we normally do. I did get a couple of hundred pound extra in expenses this month but we also had to pay out for a replacement cooker hob that got smashed when a bottle of wine fell on it. No wine was spilt though;) I must sit down at some point and double check that I have accounted for everything. It feels too good to be true even taking into account what I still have to pay out of the haircut, food, diesel and childcare budgets:rotfl:

The monthly payment for the secured loan has gone out this morning. There is not a chance I can save £500 this month as I need to cover Christmas. We do like a bit of a blow out at Christmas, well DH does, and we do spend quite a bit on each other and DS but do not have a lot of other people to buy for.

I had planned to make a lot of gifts for this year but it never happened. The sewing machine I got last year has never been used:eek:

I was looking for the paper part of my driving licence for work yesterday and came across my share certificate which I had forgotten about. I checked the share price and it is work about £438. Sad when you think it was £4000 before the banking crisis. DH thinks I should cash it in but I am concerned that the money would just get spent and then the share price would go up and I would be out of pocket. The shares are in LTSB so it may take a while for them to go back up. Decisions, decisions.....

brizzledfw

Hi, am no expert on this but LTSB shares have gone up to around 40p when they were trading a few months back at around 24p. So hardly what it was pre 2007 but still one heck of an increase. At moment I would hang onto them.

Have a great day.

XSpender

I think I will probably hang on to the shares. I put the certificate back in the file so DH will forget about it and he would want me to make the decision about what I did with them anyway.

I have come home and checked the banking and everything seems to be correct so it does appear that I am actually doing quite well with money this month. Shhh, famous last words:lipsrseal

I have £434 to spend in my budgets for food, misc, haircuts and diesel but there is £587 left in the account. If I could save the extra or use it towards some christmas presents I would be chuffed to bits. I will try not to spend any of it until later in the month to make sure I haven't forgotten something.

My food spends in particular seem to be more under control than usual. 2 weeks into my month I have usually spent 3.5 weeks worth of money and cut down after that but can't pull all the overspend back. This month I am still £43 overspent but the first week was a big top up delivery from Mr T and this week I don't actually need much at all. The only problem is to stop DH spending on stuff we don't need/treats. DH is trying to cut out alcohol and I can take it or leave it so am not having any either which is really helping the spends.

I haven't done anything towards the ebay sales/car boot as yet. I may try and get a few things on when DH is watching the football on Sunday and fill in a couple of his PPI claims.

XSpender

Not much progress today::o. DS has come home from nursery puking like a whale but at least DH did the ironing while he was looking after him;)

I have decided to buy my Stepdad a kindle for Christmas/birthday as he is an avid reader. I have some mr t vouchers and a £12 off a £90 spend voucher so I am just trying to work out the best way to use them to get the best value. I may double some to get the frozen food but take the whole amount out of my food budget.

We were also discussing tonight having 3 holidays:eek: a week in a caravan in April, a weekend at c3ntre parts for DS 3rd birthday and a week somewhere hotish in the sun in September.

Bought DS some jarmas in the sale at mr s tonight. Pity they didn't have many girl ones left as I want some for my friends girls for Christmas to give with a hot chocolate mug I am making them.

The loft inflation is getting fitted tomorrow and there is still bit in the loft to shift. Haircut and colour tomorrow afternoon then bonfire night with the outlaws in the town where DH works. It is a drive into the country but it is lovely to drive back into the city and see all the other firework shows going off.

Sunday we are gong into the city to see the Christmas window and have a festive coffee in c0sta ( a family tradition) and to start looking for ideas for Christmas presents. The trick will be not to spend anything. Always a toughie with DH in tow as I find it difficult to say no when it's his money just as much as it is mine.