Pollyanna

ChopinonaBudget

New signature on way ... New start!

ChopinonaBudget

Done! Overdraft PAID! Smile £231 Natwest £800 M&S £2,445 Halifax £2,723 Nationwide £5,693 Mum £5,790 Library Fines £21
Total Debt £17,703
Long Hauler #325 DFW Nerd #1448
"In our house, when things break, we just pretend they still work"

Just in case I need to look back in a year and wonder what happened....

Fortune_Smiles

Nice to see you back Chopin


Fortune x

ChopinonaBudget

Fortune_Smiles wrote: »

Nice to see you back Chopin


Fortune x

Thanks Fortune :-)

ChopinonaBudget

Sorted out a new budget (again!). The nature of my work means my budget needs to be fluid enough to change constantly as students come and go. Made myself a snowball calculator on an excel spreadsheet (yes, I really do qualify as a debt nerd), got rid of the accountant, (long story) and opened two savings accounts (one for tax and a very hopeful 'house move' fund) and one for yearly spends like car tax, MOT, contents insurance, professional fees etc. £79 monthly needs to go in the yearly spends account, £85 monthly in the house move fund, and 7.09% of gross earnings go in tax fund every time I get paid.

Bad news is I think tax credits refused the next two years Daughter is learning A-levels via an online provider and although he said yes on the phone, the letter today said no. !!!!!!!s.

ChopinonaBudget

It's nearly the end of the month and my current account now reads at £245. I have one payment left to come in (£450 ish) so that should bring it up to my rough £700 that I need to see me through the month with minimal overdraft use.
HOWEVER....

I now have:
£85 in my house move fund
£53 in my tax fund
£79 in my 'yearly spends' fund

Which is brilliant! Last time I saved for tax I had to raid the fund when we moved house, so hopefully this one will actually last.

ChopinonaBudget

Cheap day today; swimming trip (£3.60 for the two of us, although I did have to buy daughter a new swimming costume, but that came out of 'Summer Budget' too)

I have a summer school starting tomorrow, so that's £450 I don't usually have coming in over summer :j Not sure of the payment date of that so it might not come in during July budget, but it'll definitely be in for August. Hopefully, if it goes well, that'll be an annual event, which will be nice! Financially and just fun to do!

ChopinonaBudget

I'm having a debate with myself as to how much to allow in my budget for 'misc' stuff... This would cover things like the odd thing for the house (cheap stuff, like if the toaster breaks or I need a new thermos or something) or a day out where I need to pay for something. I've deleted the ents budget for now, but maybe a small weekly misc budget would cover all of that. I used to budget for £30 a week 'cash' but I'd rather not go that high; maybe £15 or £20.

I really, really hate buying something 'out of budget'! I'd rather make a new budget category to account for eventuality than spend 50p that doesn't go in a budgeted box!

Argghh!

ChopinonaBudget

Yay! Just checked bank account and I've got a rather random deposit from SWALEC for £21.71. I'll have to check that out later and work out what's going with the DDs, but this looks promising gas bills in the old house were awful as it was open plan and I couldn't keep the heat in. Despite this house being literally twice the size with a boiler out of the ark, it's costing me half the price to heat because I can close the damn doors! (And I invested in some really nice blankets for the sofa which helped a LOT)

ChopinonaBudget

Summer school payment is coming in as half today and half in August (end of week) so that's OK