A baby, A business and A lightbulb Moment

mizzbiz

Bit of a disaster catchup this weekend, however, on the plus side, we know where we are financially now and can start chipping away from an informed standpoint rather than chipping away at an unknown quantity.

We are starting our budget from OH's payday, which was Thursday so we got everything together and worked out where we are. The overdraft has increased by £500 this month I was really annoyed to see that over £300 was in Asda, despite us doing our main shop at Aldi. At least we know so we can moniter when and why we go there and ensure no overspends.

I'm going to do a special signature later with all of our debts and all of our current assets, so I can track us chipping away. I'm hoping for it to take only a year to becaome debt free so we'll put our DFD as June 2013. Seems like such a long way but if we don't take the bull by the horns now it will just increase year on year.

So yes, I'm angry about the overdraft but now we have created a new joint account I can control to some extent what is going where and tell OH to put the brakes on if cash is running low. Currently he just keeps spending, of course on essentials mostly, but without thinking, "I've no money left this month, I'll wait til next month'. That is going to change!

So plans for this weekend (what's left of it)
- [STRIKE]Six copywriting pieces[/STRIKE]
- Two agency peices
-[STRIKE]Get all the washing done (DW broke so we've got a backlog)[/STRIKE]
- Set up dd's for gas and electric to save some money
-[STRIKE]Do aldi shop[/STRIKE]
- [STRIKE]Make mini fish pies in ramekins for tea saturday[/STRIKE]
-[STRIKE]Take out huge chicken for sunday dinner then rubber chicken mon and tue[/STRIKE]
-Try and list some things on ebay as it is free this weekend using android

mizzbiz

So it's been over a week since my last update because we've been so busy.

So the big moneysaving thingy is that we are now a no smoking residence. OH smoked a lot, I smoked a little and we will save over £300 pounds a month! It always felt a little wrong to cut back on grocery spending and days out when over £300 per month went up in flames but that's dirty smokers for you. It's only early days but neither of us will go back to it again. It's too hard to quit lol.

I also this week opened up a regular saver for my son, so at 6% he should have a decent amount by the end of the year. We can only pop £100 per month in there although we were only going to save about £20 per month so we may be naughty and top it up with a little of our money as it beats any isa or savings account for adults hands down!

I've been for two coffees this week out of the house so that's £4 unneccessarily spent, however, I did turn down lunch both times so that's probably about £15 saved.

Yesterday we used the Daily mail £5 of £35 spend in Aldi. As we didn;t need much, we struggled but stocked up on basics lol. I also, random.ly, bought a couple of xmas presents in the Debenhams sale so I paid £14 for £50 worth of gear.

We won't know how much we've saved really until the end of the month BUT I do see us saving a lot every day and I can't wait to see how much we can chip away each month, especially now the secret smoking has gone!

Belle208

As an exsmoker, i applaud you. It's flipping hard to give up, but some 6 years on I can't stand the sight or smell or cigs.. Nothing worse than a reformed smoker hey?

gallygirl

mizzbiz wrote: »

Yesterday we used the Daily mail £5 of £35 spend in Aldi. As we didn;t need much, we struggled but stocked up on basics lol.

Me too - stocked up on their award winning wine (considered a staple food in our house ).

Well done on what you've done so far, and good luck on stopping smoking.

Have you done an SOA to see how much money you should have left each month?

mizzbiz

This week is a new week. Last week we've done really well. No superfluous spends and lots of saving activity. The only downside is I didn't get much work done at all so could do with getting my head down this week (said over the noise of baby-boo whingeing and whining on). I really need to get a project finished (eight of 34 peices to go) then I'll be £700 better off next month. ALso have quiter a few writing jobs on my agency board but can't really accept any until business project is completed. On top of that, I need to do my company filing for Comapanies House ASAP and coud do with doing my tax return as I shoud have a decent refund wingeing it's way.

I will do my usual pottering, cleaning and walking with baby boo once our pram is fixed (inner tube collapse). I also need to file our paper work and see where we are with our frugalness. LIke I said before, we never know exactly until the 13th of the month (day before OH pay day) so it's all guess work til then.

mizzbiz

So to do today:
- [STRIKE]project pages 25 - 29[/STRIKE]Done
- [STRIKE]Companies House Annual Return[/STRIKE]Done (YAYAYAY)
- Email HMRC about maternity pay taxed last year for tax return
- [STRIKE]Sort out big pile of clothes in DR for ebay[/STRIKE]Done
-[STRIKE] Buy butter from Spar if still £1 per pack for country life[/STRIKE]Done (bought 2)

Belle208

Busy busy busy in here.. All sounding good thou!!

mizzbiz

I am not making much at all at the moment. Pennies really. The problem is that baby bear is getting more active, more housework, more renovations and then more work on top. Feel like I'm splitting in all directions but my baby's development and making money are, I suppose my priorities. I need to organisae my life so that the basics do get done, but those other two take priority.

mizzbiz

I.Have.Done.My.Annual.Return.!!!!!

Been putting it off for ages. Took five minutes. And was really easy.

A huge job that was hanging over me is a small job that's been sorted.

mizzbiz

Had a seriously busy day today, ticking my to do's off my list.
Of course, the annual return was the biggie (which turned out to be a smallie - it's the first time i've ever done one) but glad I took the bull by the horns.

Also did about £80 worth of work today so that's fantastic, although won;t see that until I've finished the project, invoiced and waited 30 days. WIll be a nice surprise and I only have a days worth of work on it left if I pull myself together :-)

I also sorted a bin bag full of stuff to go on ebay. Some beautiful dresses in there too but ones I will never wear again as they were bought when I was younger and I'm not as bling now :rotfl:

Just checked our bank account. We put £1200 in there and left 600 in other account to pay off overdraft. Sadly, we're down to just £280 and I know there's still £120 worth of petrol to purchase. Not sure we will make it the next two weeks without having to transfer over more. We'll see, even if we do, it should only be a bit of the £600 and not the whole amount :-)