gingernutbizkit's dfb blog

Skint_Catt

If you save enough (join the £2 savers club ) you could buy an eglu to put on the allotment! Easy keep chickens!

Good luck - seems liek you've made a good start.

Also try Freecycle for bits you need inc seeds for veggies etc!

Catt xx

pk2007_2

good luck!!!

gingernutbizkit

thanks PK and skint!

gingernutbizkit

feeling very smug at the moment......

i have been nagging the wife to ring up virgin after losing the sky channels but she hasn't, so i gave them a call pretending to be her (my name is not on the account yet)

They have agreed to increase my package and give us £15 off the cost!!! that's a great saving for us :j

the other bonus is that i have asked them to promise to keep this rate even if sky comes back and they're getting Lost in august so we won't be using them anyway:rotfl:

gingernutbizkit

As promised, here's my new budget for each month. let me know what you think.....

Income.

£2433.72
Plus extra earnings from my three businesses, petrol expenses and overtime, approx £200

Expenditure.

Electric £59
Gas £50
Water £34
Mobiles £40 - thinking of going PAYG?
Phone/Internet/TV £40
TV Licence £12
Bank account fee £25 - will be £10 soon which covers my travel ins and AA
Food £150
Mortgage £785
Building/Content Ins. £23
Council Tax £110
Life Ins £65
Pet Insurance £16
Pet food £10
Petrol £220
Car Maintenance £40
Car Ins £55
Car Tax £30

Loan Repayments

cahoot - £100
NR - £410
Kitchen loan - £86 (interst free but fixed price each month)
Homebase and OD are interest free so i will tackle them when the others are gone.

this leaves us with £60pcm to save for b'days, hols, spending etc

ifstar

Gas and Electric are a bit high, you might be able to get cheaper than these.
Life Insurance looks pretty high, you can maybe get a better deal than that.
Petrol cost is pretty high, can you drop this any? There was a link somewhere about driving a bit more economically so it might be worth a look at this.
You might also be able to get a better deal for car insurance, when is it due to run out? If possible try and pay it annually and you will save a bit more too.

gingernutbizkit

hi if star,

i think you're right about the gas and electricity but every time we change it seems around the same price. i think maybe it's down to our consumption more than anything else. We have been better in the last few days though. Thinking of getting cavity wall's done but don't know if this is really gonna be worth it as we want to move in the next year or so.
the life insurance is for the two of us and i have looked elsewhere but can't find much difference.
petrol - again for two cars. My wife does a lot of driving for her work so this really puts the costs up.... however she does reclaim the expenses which i haven't accounted for in the income.
Car Ins - again for 2 cars. I recently changed mine and got the cheapest i could find but as i only passed my test 3 months ago it wasn't that cheap! should be better next year. OH's is up soon so will be looking for a better deal. We always pay annually.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

gingernutbizkit

i was right.... did get charged an overdrawn fee

Gonna ring up today to see if i can get it refunded. Don't want to push it too far though as the bank should have received my bank charge refund letter by now.

on a positive note, the pigs are getting fatter!

gingernutbizkit

had my job interview yesterday which seemed to go well but you never can tell. If i get it it'll give us about an extra £250 pcm which will all go to our debts.

Either way we need to start making some more money fast!

gingernutbizkit

I got the job!!!!!!! :j

This will really help with the whole money-saving-debt-paying-thing! I think it will be about £200-£300 pcm extra which can go straight to debts and should make a huge difference to our deft-free date.

It will cost a bit more in petrol as it's further away but then it's shift work and i'll be paid extra for nights and weekends :T

Gonna go and work out my new budget now......