Ultimate Challenge. 457 days / £16600!!!

Unicorns

Hello everyone,

I've been feeling very impatient lately, already I can't wait for next payday which is still almost 3weeks away!! I can't stop staring at the £500 I put into my savings account ready to pay off debts.......all I'm thinking is shall I pay off half now, keep some behind.....no wait until I have the 2k needed or even 1k at a time so it feels good when I pay it off. Oh the decisions!!

The 1k idea sounds like it could keep the financial fidgeting at bay?

Hope everyone is doing ok x

Unicorns

Ok so I couldn't resist £250 paid off of the debt I am currently attacking
I started thinking about the little bit of interest it accrues every month and thought why just sit there staring at it, make it work for me instead. One step closer.

NinjaSavingKat

Oooooh it feels likes it's been AGES!!!!!

So you are in for an epic! I am at work #naughty and awaiting more work so I think I am settled in for a good old natter. My porridge is in front of me waiting intermittant gobbles with seeds sprinkled on top from the Holland and Barrett "buy one get one for a penny" deal in January and a smattering of defrosted yellow sticker strawberries with el cheapo raisons and honey - YUMMY!!!

So yesterday in town was what can only be discribed as a KATastrophy! :rotfl:I had already spent £6.92 on tat in Tescos on Friday - namely fruit that was only reduced to 50p (x 3) and already going fizzy (never usually buy the pre-packaged rubbish but was SO excited about yellow stickering in general ), crumpets (15p per pack x 3 ), coriander, spinach, mangos (2 for £1.15:eek:), a punnet of grapes for 70p and a full priced cucumber and full priced £1 yoghurt.

Now to other people this might seem ridiculous that I am in the least bit worried about this.. but it's me, and you know what I am getting at. So the fruit is technically out of Mumsy's "fruit" budget money but I am going to leave that in my account and deal with what I have - I am determined to not go over £50!!!. I have £13.08 left and have planned the week with no other expenditure...

SO yesterday.... I spent £19.21 in Lidls. The woman at work who has paid £25 for 36 cupcakes paid for some other items as well. I managed to purchase 1.5kg SR Flour, 1.5KG Plain Flour, 15 eggs, 1.5KG icing sugar, 1KG of butter, 6 pints of milk, 3 lemons, and yellow food dye (yes gonna make my lemon cupcakes a little more yellow)...i might make her 48 instead.... and for me I bought hairspray at last (I hate flat hair), a mint plant, a curly parsely plant, a packet of whole nuts and sandwich bags to freeze things and a tin of pineapple.....

The disaster though occured in TK MAxx....£76.40! :mad::mad::mad:
I bought two very expensive towels as my own ones are a little cheap and nasty, shrinking and no-longer soft... this amounted to £7.99 for the small one, and £12.99 for the larger one...will no doubt last a while but possibly not what I would class as essential. If I hadn't of ripped the tags off and washed them last night I would bring them back today!

On top of that was a new duvet set. For £30! :eek:... And white, ready for Mog to destroy! However it is already stained, out of the packet, it's been washed to no avail. It's currently drying and is going back today! Phew! fingers crossed there is no "ummmmm'ing and ahhhh'ing" from the staff....

Candles - 4 of them, amounting to £13.96.

Tupperware boxes for storing baking bits currently stashed in an aging cardboard bow on top of LLL's kitchen cupboards.. = £9.98. Usable so I am okay with these as they are Addis boxes and air-tight...and huge!

So what was supposed to turn into a relaxing afternoon at home doing my room up turned out a little stressy ....

I have realised over time and through trial and error...."If I do not plan, research and compare there will always be something wrong with what I buy - impulse buying scares me, makes me anxious and should be avoided".

Except I already know this - I know I want some chintzy floral number for my duvet but I bought white? I know I want a very heavy navy blue throw but nearly bought a white one (thank goodness I didn't)...

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Just had to get that ALL out in the open!!!

So my spreadsheet has been updated. I had to purchase a £96 ticket to head home at the end of July, and there is £136 on my CC as well... that means that I cannot pay £1200 off my loan next month on top of the £297.43.. it will only be £1000! Hmmmmmmmmmmmm must tighten things up!!

Food budget spreadsheety bit is bang on though! Especially as I found 5p the other day! :rotfl:

I made 4 portions of lentils last night, a tester batch of cupcakes for the week's nibbles and Jack Monroe's sunshine buns with pineapple and raisions..(basically simple bread rolls) to fill me up for the day... I have 6 so this should take me through to the weekend...

The £13.08 cannot be touched until then! I will prevail and deal with the weird hunger pangs although to be honest when I am lazy and don't cook thats what I get hungry - its a good test when there are no "nibble" foods in the house...

So an inventory shall be taken tonight.. I know I have almost half a kilo of baby potatoes, 4 quorn fillets, a kilo of frozen peas, 10 pitta breads, 4 home made burgers, 2 more packets of falafel mix, STILL got apples, enough flour for pancakes (with peanut butter and apple sauce), more eggs than I need for baking, a tin of peaches, a half tin of pineapple, 6 toms, a bunch of coriander, half an onions, LOTS of red lentils still and porridge... So I dont think I will starve...

Siouxsie how are you finding the budget side of things...I know I cheated a little with yesterday's purchases.. did you have lots of stock before you embarked on the month or are you doing this from scratch...

I am going to toughen up now until the end. I hate spending!!!


Onwards and UPWARDS!!!

P.S - I have opened my birthday money stashing tin. I have £140. It's going in the nationwide today!

NinjaSavingKat

Oooh I forgot.... I have an unclaimed amount of petrol that has missed the deadline so another £47 will be coming my way in July and the student loan people haven't paid me back yet so that's another £42. I will balance this out so there is a minimal amount back on the CC...#naughtyNSK... Ebay items also loaded up yesterday although only three..

Siouxsie32

Afternoon everyone, how are you all?

Unicorns, your post made me laugh. I hate sitting staring at money and am always desperate to make transfers as soon as I have any money ready to pay off existing debt. Pay it off I say! If it's a debt that allows multiple payments (like a credit card for example), pay as much as you can as soon as you can. When I followed the PAD thread, I literally used to round down my bank account daily and pay off pennies each day (it made my statement a bit long winded but it was fun waking up each day and transferring something. These days I find it easier not to PAD and to pay off lump sums, but the message is the same - pay it off!!!

Oh Kat, I sympathise with your splurge. I know whenever I take my eye off the ball, the MSE in me seems to disappear and I'm not in complete control. That's why I find allowing myself a budget, kept in cash in a separate purse, works for me. If I splurge in TK Maxx, there's no money to meet my friend for dinner, or if I meet my friend for dinner there's no money for that concert ticket etc. You're right to spend your money on something that will benefit you, and new towels sound very cosy! My towels were all [STRIKE]stolen[/STRIKE] borrowed from hotels at least 5 years ago and are rather grey with hair dye splodges all over them and their softness disappeared a long time ago. Maybe when I'm debt free in my own home I'll splurge on matching towels! Til then, the greying cardboard ones will do just fine Good you managed to get your money back on the duvet cover. And next months reimbursements look like the might just cover your TK Maxx outburst.

Budgetwise, I'm so happy with how the month is progressing. I still have around half of my food budget and almost three quarters of my misc budget to play with. Once we get to the weekend, there's just one week left so I'm hopeful that I'll have some cash left over as I have no days/nights out planned (maybe I should be the one investing in a new duvet cover since I spend so much time there!!). Any notes left over will go towards next months budget and any coins will go into a change jar - not sure where the change will go yet, but I like nice neat budgets so this keeps my spreadsheet OCD at bay

The food budget has been interesting. You still have lots left Kat. If you don't touch your £13.08 til the weekend, that's enough for the last week of the challenge isn't it? I probably had quite a lot of things in my cupboard already (like garlic, tinned tomatoes, lentils, porridge etc) so I've not found it too tough. It's the impulse buys that I've had to stop (although I bought £2.50 worth of chopped watermelon the other day when I was hot - I was seduced by it's colour! It's been my only impulse buy this month though and I thought about it for a while as I picked it off the shelf then put it back then picked it off the shelf again). I think if I could cut those out permanently, I could probably live off £50 each month...maybe I'll do one month £50, one month £80 and see how I get on? I'm looking at potentially doing a voucher only month in August - I have £20 Waitrose vouchers and nearly enough Daily Mail points for a £25 Asda or Tesco voucher. This, combined with Price Comparison vouchers and maybe my coin jar contents might just be enough for me to have a cost neutral food month. Hmmm, I'll get back to you on that one but I like the idea of it!

I've been looking at next year's plan of attack to kill the debt once and for all (feeling all confident that this years challenge will go according to plan :A) and my major debt for next year is my Halifax Mastercard. Now, this had a balance of around £10500 5 years ago and what do you think the balance is today? Yip, all that happens is the minimum payment (around £220 each month) pays off the interest and then new interest is added on and so it goes round and round in circles (to save you doing the calculations, that's over £13k in interest over the last 5 years). Anyway, today I got thinking that my Credit Union (I currently have a loan with them that allows unlimited overpayments and the interest is calculated on the actual balance so you don't pay interest upfront like most conventional loans) may be able to top up my current loan and if I borrow an extra £10500 over say 5 or 6 years to keep the monthly payments the same, my credit card balance will be a little lower and the £220 that I currently pay to the credit card company can be used as an overpayment to reduce the balance of the loan. Also, double bonus, I can either close the credit card or wait a few months and ask them if they have any balance transfer offers and maybe do a shuffle to save even more interest. The Credit Union loan doesn't show on my credit file at all so I'll be much more attractive to other lenders who offer 0% balance transfers. I'll try and get an appointment with the Credit Union later this week when I have some free time and see what my options are. They lent me £10k when my back was against the wall financially so they are more lenient than mainstream lenders and also I have a good history with them.

Gosh, I like to talk don't I? My keys on my laptop keyboard are a little iffy (and my Y key has fallen off completely and lying on a shelf at home!) so please ignore any spelling mistakes - it's the computer, not me Maybe top of my "To Buy" list when I'm debt free should be a new laptop!!

Edit: Just to clarify, my Debt Free Date is still December 2014. If I take a Credit Union loan, I'll do it over 5ish years to keep the monthly repayments the same then I'll over pay like mad...which is my plan from now til December 2014 regardless of whether I take the loan or not

his_missus

Hello all,

It's been a rather splurgy few days for me buyiing new clothes for the holiday in September. I had planned to wait til the sales start originally but I've found recently the sales just aren't what they used to be. I used £80 of my birthday money and £50 Debs vouchers (from Consumer Pulse) so probably only actually spent £100 cash as such but Hubby also bought quite a bit and he's not usually a shopper. Will pay off the CC on Friday (payday) in full but this is going to eat into what I'd hoped to save into the ISA this month.

Grocery wise, I think I'm doing ok. Trying to use up what we have and only replenish used up items. Saturday's shopping trip will be the hard one as usually I do a BIG shop the day after payday despite it being totally unnecessary. The urge to stock up because I've just been paid..well not this week. I'm going to treat it like any other week and just buy what I need and stick to a tight budget and shopping list!

his_missus

Morning all,

Sorted my finances today in prep for payday tomorrow and feeling a bit bleugh about them.:o

I intend to pay off all the purchases on the CC from this month but it means I'm left with just £374"spare" once everything is budgetted for and I really want to save £350 for holiday expenses. This leaves me £24 to put towards my ISA this month when I really hoped to save £400.

I know I should be happy I can keep out of debt as I can afford the CC payment but I really wanted to get into saving for the house sooner rather than later (i.e. after the holiday) I think I'm going to have to accept that the big house saving plan will need to be put on hold for a few months:o

NinjaSavingKat

Well a very good morning/afternoon to you all!

I have read through all the posts now and am settled for a good old natter!

I have been exceptionally tired in the last week or so. I can't blame it on extra work so I am not sure where it comes from - theres the idea of watching movies untill 2300 and getting up at 0500 contributing to my fatigue but it can't be THAT bad surely!:rotfl:

So over the last few weeks I have been talking to a girlfriend about her trips around the world, her husbands current aid work ( MyanMar and Mongolia ) springs to mind and my ever burning desire to travel. Paying off these debts frees up £430 a month minimum, would enable me to take a job I love that might pay less as I have no financial commitments BUT most importantly gives me the oppurtunity to save to travel with no UK based financial commitments.

I feel I need to get this out of my system before I buckle down and save for a house which would be another case of long-term savings and penny-pinching. Something that long-term is not sustainable mentally and I can't commit to a life long investment like a house and then think of travelling. Travel must come first. I keep thinking of how much I am missing out on around this planet that I really must see...

So my mind is on the money-saving game more than ever - Siouxsie I see you are doing your own crunching and I like what I see. I think I need to have another read over what you have added to ensure I understand it properly but perhaps this is where Lilt and Peaty's trained eye might come into the equation and be more helpful!

I have another overtime shift on the 29th of this month confirmed. Taking my total hours to 32 on double time so I might be able to make another hefty pay-off in August as well as July... I have my fingers crossed! I have applied for every weekend going in July as well so I can only wait...

I have fingers crossed but next month I might be able to pay off a grand total of £1350. This would bring my total left to pay to about £2393 - with the normal minimum payments and my mothers contributions taking care of the rest. This might mean that December 1st will be the last payment required and not eat into what is January's pay. So I need to find an extra £398 a month.... not to hard I think if I continually scrimp!

Siouxsie my food budget has been scuppered by desperate energy requirements (pepsi), a post office run @ £2.60, grapes today @ £2.50 (serious fruit requirement) so ultimately I only have £5 in my pocket following yesterday need for more ingrediants after a batch of cupcakes went wrong....

I am inline for an easy day today though with plenty of food with me.... I have food for tomorrow easily prepared, will be fed at my friends house on Saturday - can eat scraps and leftover veg from LLL's fridge as she is away on Saturday for a week and I am in charge of the pooch - but she has said I can eat whatever fresh veg is left.. I still have LOTS of rice, quorn fillets..I can do this! The £5 will be for vital essentials...

So I mentioned in the challenge thread that I am going to try a stint at veganism in JULY. This is for health reasons - I think dairy is playing havoc with my skin. Apart from my 198g miniscule lump of cheese bought the other day I have not had cheese in any other form for nearly 5 weeks. SO I think I can manage another 4-5 weeks. It's tea I will need to cut out as I refuse to drink tea with soya...(bleurghhhh)... no yoghurt on my spicy lentils unless I can work expensive soya yoghurt in there somewhere, no eggs - this will be worse I think...

But I am curious. I have managed to located a book called The Beauty Detox Solution - this girl speaks sense. I will be working simple smoothies into my diet maybe once or twice a week to see how I get on...Check it out in case you are interested! Ooooh get me and my snazzy links...; - )...They are not weird and anything different to ingrediants I would have in my house anyway.. and I can use Everyday Value apples, get spinach on yellow stick, celery is cheap, bananas are always in my house along with lemons... romaine is a simple and easy addition to my diet. I am looking forward to this challenge!!!

So my foody budget will be up to £80 again due to the need for fresh veg. I might purchase enough cans of toms to last me the month this time and avail of the £4 off £30 spend or something that I have on my Tesco account... we shall see. I will think about this next week...

Okay that is enough from me..... relaly hope everyone forgives me for lack of contact over the last few days...

Onwards...!!!

NinjaSavingKat

Also - my £140 birthday money is still in tact and burning a hole in my psyche. I need to lodge it in the Nationwide and save it for a good purpose - Siousxie the temptation for a Clarisonic is strong but I can't justify just yet!...(Still really want a Vitamix)....

Also lost out on the £5 I think as the DD didn't go out in time, but didn't go out from my old account either - worth challenging?

liltdiddylilt

Bonjour! Flying visit to say when I was pregnant Kat, I had horrendous issues with morning sickness & heartburn from week 5 to my labour! I couldn't eat anything and LIVED off those exact smoothies. Romaine lettuce, spinach were the main ingredients. I added blueberries or raspberries (much cheaper when bought frozen) and I added protein powder to it. Any other fruit that was on offer, kiwis etc just went in too. It looks like pond scum but it tastes lovely actually. I always added orange juice to thin it down a bit & took it to work

I can't stand soya milk in tea so I drink it black. I slowly reduced my milk over a few months until it was basically black anyway & then I couldn't tell the difference!

As for the DD, if it didn't go out of either, has the payment been missed? I just had that problem. MBNA took the payment from my old cancelled DD and didn't try the new bank. Luckily I use an app called ontrees and it shows all my balances so I saw the credit card payment go & nothing come out of either bank. Managed to phone them & get the £24 charges removed & pay with a debit card in time to not have it affect my credit history. I phoned the new bank to complain & they offered to pay the charges back even though it wasn't technically their fault definitely try it with the H account