Rising to the top of the ocean - and staying afloat!

Want-To-Fit-In

stitching_witch wrote: »

Personally I'd never substitute drinking chocolate for cocoa as drinking chocolate has other added ingredients including sugar (just taste a little of each and see the difference). You also need such a small amount of cocoa as it's very strong.

I suppose it all boils down to personal taste.

I agree I tried and it was weird and didn't "dissolve" the same when cooked.

Sorry popped out of lurking to stick my nose in :rotfl:

StressedSteph

Hi Rising

I frequently make chocolate cakes for my family. I ALWAYS use the purple tub of Cadburys Drinking Chocolate that you mix with milk. (not the instant just add water type).

It tastes fab, I have never bought the proper cocoa I guess it does have extra sugar in it, but as its all I have ever had in the cupboard then thats all I have ever used.

If there is a BIG price difference I would give the purple tub a try.

My chocolate cakes are yummy. I also make butter icing with it.

lurvlyloz

hi rising. great stuff with your budgeting. you need to turn off you mind in the bath though! you'll go insane

proper windy down here today! blowing an absolute gale!

Have a good day x

rising_from_the_ashes

Want-To-Fit-In wrote: »

Sorry popped out of lurking to stick my nose in :rotfl:

Please pop out more often!:D

StressedSteph wrote: »

I frequently make chocolate cakes for my family. I ALWAYS use the purple tub of Cadburys Drinking Chocolate that you mix with milk. (not the instant just add water type).

mmmmm if I get really stuck (eg really, really need choc cake before I get back to the SM ... I might give it a try!) - I think my big issue with the coco is that it's in pretty big tubs - it's actually not that much more than the purple stuff you mean ... but it's just that I'd probably rarely use it so .... just seems very expensive IYKWIM

lurvlyloz wrote: »

you need to turn off you mind in the bath though! you'll go insane

proper windy down here today! blowing an absolute gale!

I know I really must remember to take a book with me and that will make me stop thinking about things!

Just had Maisie out and it's blowing a gale here too :eek:

My ears were absolutely freezing and my hat did little to stop the wind blowing through Not quite sure how to solve that one!


So .... finally payday :j have done all the budget transfers and ...... well there's not a lot left in my account (as usual) :rotfl:

slowlyfading

Yay for payday :j :j

unoriginal_uk

slowlyfading wrote: »

Yay for payday :j :j

3 more days for me....:cool:

It's ok though because I'm keeping myself busy over the next few days by sorting out new budget plans for when I become debt free so the next few days will fly by hopefully!!

Hoping to do a similar thing to you, Risingfromtheashes - work out what I spend every month on everything, then have 'pots' for each expenditure and organise it that way.

Argh....scary!! Does it sound ridiculous that I am sort of dreading not being in debt anymore because I lose the one thing I've been obsessedly focussed on for a good few years now.....I don't know what I am going to do with myself now I won't have the debt to focus on anymore!! :beer:

unoriginal_uk

Rising from the ashes I wanted to ask you something - Have you opened different savings accounts for all of your 'pots' i.e. one for pet expenses, one for your car stuff etc?

I am wondering whether it's better to open a separate A/C for each 'category' of my life (at the moment I've got Car expenses, Luxury fund, long term savings, and mortgage savngs) or whether it's best to have 1 savings A/C which I move a lump sum into every month, then allocate for each area of expenditure within that?

Currently, nothing is in savings A/C's - I've got envelopes at home for each wadge of cash!! And no I'm not telling anyone where I live

rising_from_the_ashes

unoriginal_uk wrote: »

Argh....scary!! Does it sound ridiculous that I am sort of dreading not being in debt anymore because I lose the one thing I've been obsessedly focussed on for a good few years now.....I don't know what I am going to do with myself now I won't have the debt to focus on anymore!! :beer:

Ohhhh I'd def advise having "a plan" for when you're DF ... I didn't and ended up back in debt

I know it sounds boring but try to build up some of the "pots" - it really does make things sooooo much easier & it's fantastic not having to worry (as much! I'm still at the building up stage when unexpected things can crop up & ruin things!) where the money's going to come from for the car tax, service etc :T

unoriginal_uk wrote: »

Rising from the ashes I wanted to ask you something - Have you opened different savings accounts for all of your 'pots' i.e. one for pet expenses, one for your car stuff etc?

I am wondering whether it's better to open a separate A/C for each 'category' of my life (at the moment I've got Car expenses, Luxury fund, long term savings, and mortgage savngs) or whether it's best to have 1 savings A/C which I move a lump sum into every month, then allocate for each area of expenditure within that?

Ahhhhh it depends on how good you are with not errrr RAIDING!

I tried several times to get the pots up and running with only one account and, as it built up to a big sum fairly quickly and as I had no idea what belonged to each thing .... I raided .... badly!:o

So ... when I tried this time, I had a separate savings account for each thing - they're basically e-savers off my main bank account and I can have 12:) BUT it got to the point where I needed MORE than 12 :eek: so I had to do some combining (which absolutely terrified me!)

I came up with the current split of Pets, House & Car and Others - I keep track of the little pots within the big pot (IYSWIM?:o) on the totals page (see the snapshots I did a couple of days ago)

I did think I may have to split House & Car as it's a big one BUT as I can easily see that actually there's only £12 in the car insurance pot or £55 in the landline pot (due May) then even although there's nearly £600 in the big pot, it's all allocated to certain things and there's not room to raid!

unoriginal_uk wrote: »

Currently, nothing is in savings A/C's - I've got envelopes at home for each wadge of cash!! And no I'm not telling anyone where I live

Ohhhhhh lordy :eek:

So ... for my "everyday" accounts I have:

• Main account - salary paid in here, make transfers to various other accounts & pay c/card bill
• Household bills account - transfer set amount on payday & all d/debits come out of here: never used for anything else! (no worries that a bill won't be paid, it's fab:T)
• House & Car e-saver - transfer set amount to it on payday & (if applicable that month) transfer relevant amount back to main account to cover spends on c/card
• Pets e-saver - as H&C above
• Others e-saver - as H&C above
• Basic account (separate bank)& a recent addition! Transfer set amount on payday & this is my spending money - no withdrawals from main account now as trying to cut down OD:o

Hope that helps - it seems a lot but it works for me ... it's finding a balance and finding what works for you.

The 3 e-savers could be combined :eek: but that still fills me with terror just now maybe in a couple of years time I'll be ready for that step!:D

unoriginal_uk

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Ohhhh I'd def advise having "a plan" for when you're DF ... I didn't and ended up back in debt

So ... for my "everyday" accounts I have:

• Main account - salary paid in here, make transfers to various other accounts & pay c/card bill
• Household bills account - transfer set amount on payday & all d/debits come out of here: never used for anything else! (no worries that a bill won't be paid, it's fab:T)
• House & Car e-saver - transfer set amount to it on payday & (if applicable that month) transfer relevant amount back to main account to cover spends on c/card
• Pets e-saver - as H&C above
• Others e-saver - as H&C above
• Basic account (separate bank)& a recent addition! Transfer set amount on payday & this is my spending money - no withdrawals from main account now as trying to cut down OD:o

Hope that helps - it seems a lot but it works for me ... it's finding a balance and finding what works for you.

The 3 e-savers could be combined :eek: but that still fills me with terror just now maybe in a couple of years time I'll be ready for that step!:D

Hehe....you can tell I am a complete newbie to appropriately managing money from the way I can terrify you with just a few short sentences!!!

I am 27 but I have literally NEVER managed my money properly (hence the fact that I got into 20k + of debt. TWICE.)

So the whole savings thing terrifies me. My boyfriend and I are saving up for a mortgage from this month onwards and our aim is to get at least 20k by Christmas (yes....:eek:....I know) but the way I figure it, I managed before to pay off 20k AND still spend like it was going out of fashion, the first time round, so between my boyfriend and I this SHOULD be doable.

You are an absolute angel risingfromtheashes...the way you've set it out above makes everything so clear now. I think I have over-spreadsheeted (yes....you can never have too many s/sheets :rotfl:) and that's whats confused me.

On Thursday once I make my last debt payment I will come back on here and set out what I plan to do and you experts can tear my plan apart to help me

unoriginal_uk

Ooh question number two as well (you'll be getting a restraining order out on me soon) these e-saver shenanigans you speak of....does your bank then give you a separate debit card for each account?

I am just wondering the e-saver for each purpose sounds really clear cut....however it would be remembering which account I was spending out of etc etc which would prove difficult for my easily confused self if I didn't have 1 card for each A/C (which I could appropriately label with coloured dots or something).