Squeaky spreadsheet diary

brummiebabe

Am really impressed with your organisation & plans! Keep posting as that will help to keep you motivated:)

Tiglath

Result - just shopped around for new home insurance and saved £30/month for identical cover. I phoned our current insurer to see if they would price match and they couldn't, so took up the new one through confused.com, earning Nectar points.

EDIT: Having adjusted the spreadsheet, am now changing my DFD to December 2014 - woohoo! Only 2 years away.

Tiglath

I won't update this every day because that would be boring unless I have something very specific to say, but just marking my first No Spend day. Took in breakfast and lunch from home, and some kind colleagues had brought in Italian white chocolate & nut truffles and a Russian iced sticky toffee cake they'd made so I was hardly deprived. Season ticket loan form approved by the boss and sent to payroll.

Tiglath

Have re-arranged a couple of DDs so they come out as soon as possible after payday. Tweaked my spreadsheet again (I'm obssessed with that thing), and my overdraft should now be paid off on 25th July next year as opposed to 3 months later. Have set reminders to look at insurance in a year so I can shop around.

Looking forward to Friday when my penultimate Simply Be payment will be 10x what it usually is! Couldn't quite wing it to pay the whole thing off in one payment, but I'll finish with it end December instead of end January. My new Next statement is £40 less on the outstanding total than I'd expected, and that will finish end December as well, so both high APRs will be gone by the New Year instead of dribbling on until February. I'll start 2014 on a high

I'm treating December and January as a semi-joint month because of the change in payday, and figuring how much I need to survive till 25th January. I've figured out it's cheaper to get a couple of weekly train tickets instead of a monthly one until I get my work season ticket loan in December, thus saving me a further £40.

Tiglath

And ... life throws its first spanner into the works. Some git broke into the car overnight so we're waiting for the police to arrive; they've just called to say they'll be here at 9am. DH estimates £50 or so for a replacement driver's window from Autoglass. They haven't nicked anything. The previous car got burnt out in January when the person in front torched their car for insurance purposes, according to the police; fortunately we got a good payout from our insurer then and ended up with a better car than the old one. Parking is a nightmare round here and sometimes we have to park in the end road which overlooks the park with no houses nearby. Oh well - sometimes life sucks.

On the plus side, DH is now on board with debt-busting, he's overpaying a bit on his already, and when mine are all paid off at the tail-end of 2014, we're going to bust his. His will be paid off by August 2015 except a loan which runs for another year after that. Then we'll be in a position to build up savings and overpay the mortgage.

EDIT: DH just checked his YouGov account and is entitled to a £50 bank transfer within a month which should pay for Autoglass. Synchronicity at work.

rising_from_the_ashes

Pants :mad: (and that's not the word I'd like to use!) ....... will your insurers not cover the cost of the replacement window - or is it better to just pay it, if you've had to make a claim already this year?

Someone shot :eek:.... yes, you read that right! ..... the back window out of my old car - when it was sitting in my drive - which is only visible from one particular spot on the main street (I'm in a wee horseshoe set back from the St) - in the middle of the day!

Police were useless - it was school coming out time & there were loads of kids around and it took them ages to come out - never mind the fact there was obviously some idiot wandering around with an air rifle shooting at things :mad: - insurance paid out for that under the replacement window clause thing so no cost at all.:)

Tiglath

Our excess is £225 in general, and £75 for windscreen replacement, and the replacement side window won't cost as much as that apparently. DH's no claims was fortunately protected over the event in January; I've never heard that they got the person responsible. I think the council need to put up CCTV and big signs on that road, but I doubt it will happen. It's annoying that we can't park in our own road when next door have 3 cars, a van and a motorbike taking up space - oh well.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning, sorry to hear the car news but good news about YouGov.

Also great to hear OH is on board as this will make a difference for you.

Best wishes Tilly

Tiglath

Ready to start my new month tomorrow - impatient to get payments sent off. Didn't run out of money this month even though the real budgeting has only happened over the past 10 days or so - hoorah. Am sending an extra payment to the Natwest card on 3rd December so it'll get paid on the day of the statement instead of waiting till payday. Have got £20 in coins to pay in on Saturday. Budget sorted through to 25th January and including a couple of birthdays plus Christmas.

Am scrutinizing the food & household budget very carefully - the cat stuff is static, so I'm going to see if we can manage on £40/week for 2 plus £20 extra if required. I think I can feed us very well on that; it'll go up a bit when Mum stays every other weekend but that's okay. Time to do an inventory of the freezers and pantry.

Am trying an experimental meal tonight - baked prawn risotto. I used to do it with a tin of lobster bisque, fresh cream and Parmesan. This time it's an 86p pack of reduced prawns, mushrooms, onions, a couple of cheap chicken/leek cupasoups for creaminess, splodge of anchovy paste, possibly a dash of sherry, grated Cheddar, and we're away. Will do enough for lunch tomorrow - haven't spent a penny on food at work this week (yay, go me!). They're all planning take-away for the team meeting tomorrow and I shall munch my leftover risotto (and try not to be envious if they have Assenheims chicken, rice + salad @ £7 a pop). Going to incorporate a few veggie dinners a week.

So - here we go. Ready to really start this mission. Very excited

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi Tiglath, great news on the lunch front, that's amazing and so many changes in such a short space of time :T

Tilly