I refuse to be skint forever!!

menina

Evening all! Hope the moneysaving is going well....

Bought a round of drinks in the pub and had some lunch for about £4 so I think that I will be around £11 down come pay day. Although I did just do a Amex/trip advisor review thingie which I think should pay me £5. Oh and I put £10 travel top up on today as well, so I'll be £20ish down. Not the end of the world I suppose! Tomorrow, I need to take our duvet to be laundered and get my boots mended so it won't be a NSD, but hey ho, these are necessary tasks.

I was going to have something expensive done to my hair on pay day, but have decided not to now (as I don't think it will work anyway) so in my head I've 'saved' a bit of money there! So even if I'm around £40 down come pay day, I don't really mind.

Basically, roll on pay day! It will be nice to just be a bit skint rather than completely broke and feeling guilty about spending any money at all!

menina

OH is at work today, so I'm slowly slowly getting my life organised! Just spent £8 getting our duvet laundered and dried, will spend a bit more getting my boots re heeled too. I reckon I'll be £40 down by the time I get paid tomorrow. That's OK though, seeing as it is usually about £400 pounds down! No wonder I'm always in such a pickle!!

Since I'm truly broke now I'll just go to the gym today, have a free coffee in Waitrose and then aim to get all my admin organised today and sort out the kitchen cupboards. Life will get much busier come Friday when I start my new job so I want everything to be taken care of for a while....

menina

Just did the maths and I am £65 down prior to getting paid tomorrow. I'm a bit annoyed with myself, but on the other hand it is better than the £400 or so that I'm perpetually down each month.

I need to have a think about the american express spending, the online banking takes a good few days to update, so it's a bit difficult to keep track. Some kind of spending log is going to be necessary I think...

Just cancelled a tesco order that I'd made to be delivered tomorrow. That would've made me another £50 down which is just too much to be dealing with at the start of the month. It was for about 3 months supply of dog food. I will just have to be organised and make a weekly trip to Mr T instead.

I've got a Portuguese lesson tomorrow and I think I'll talk to the teacher about having a lesson about every 10 days, instead of once a week. It's something that I want to carry on doing, but at £23 a week it's quite a lot to pay when I'm always skint! I'll be working over that way so will see if I could do the odd evening lesson instead of every Saturday.

Think I'd better look in to some cheap meal options as well, since I still have a couple of days off. Need to get it through to my head that I don't have any money to waste at all!

Hope everyone elses money saving is coming along well xx

menina

Pay day And the £100 switching money came through

So I've paid my dues... When all is said and done, I now have £355 to last me the rest of the month. It should have been £414, so I've over spent by £58.

Re: the amex account, I can't resist the temptation of a possible free voucher!! So I'm going to carry on doing my spending on it... The plan for now is to transfer money from my current account to my savings account every time I spend something on it. This will only work so conveniently until my account switch goes through on the 15th, then I'll have to think again!

As for OH's money, I can't allow myself to truly rely on it coming in every week because there's always the possibility that it wouldn't happen, which would stress me out. So, if and when he gets paid, I will pay it into the bank, transfer it to a separate account and leave it there. My plan all along had been to pay for all our outgoings with my money, try and live off what I have left over and then save his contributions anyway...

I do need to spend a bit of money today as I'm getting my hair done, but what can I do?! I'm sure I'll feel concerned enough about starting my new job on Friday without thinking that I look a state too!!

menina

Spends for the day:
Hair cut/colour/tip £41
Lunch £4
Portuguese lesson £23
Odd bits in Morrisons £7.61
Got my boots repaired- £14.95!!! (Won't be going there again!!)

Got my free coffee in waitrose (along with a big queue of office workers all doing the same thing so didn't feel like a cheapskate!)
Spent my space NK voucher (work leaving present) on some toner which I needed and apparently will last me ages. (Hope it does at the price!!)

All of this really tells me that I need to sort out my food shopping. All these £4 and supermarket small spends are going to add up. Time to trawl through the kitchen cupboards and start getting organised/creative I guess... I definitely need to factor in a trip to Mr T's tomorrow.

menina

Also spoke to my portuguese teacher and have reduced my lessons to 2-3 times per month. Have £255 (approx) to last me the month now. Definitely need to sort the food thing out, its my biggest downfall. I think that a trip to mr T 3 times a week, armed with a list is going to be the way forward for now. I want to use up whats in the cupboards before going shopping for whole meals again.

menina

Didn't make it to Mr T, but did go to Waitrose and only spent £5. That was dinner for tonight and lunch/dinner for tomorrow too. Must go to Mr T tomorrow though as the poor dog has now run out of his food! I'll go after work.

Finances seem to be on track, I nervously check all my accounts every morning when I get up and then again in the evening! As long as I get the food thing sorted, then hopefully things will be under control.

OH got paid yesterday and I paid off the last on my credit card today I will cancel it once the balance has cleared on it.

So my goal this month is to get to payday without overspending (ie being in more debt). I also want to save OH's bill money each week and not dip into it. That part might be overly ambitious as it is a 5 week pay month again and only have £255 to my name currently! Well, I'm quite sure that people survive on a lot less and I will try to do the same.

I start my new job tomorrow- feeling apprehensive. Better go and (try) to get some sleep, early start in the morning. x

menina

Spends today- £3 in newsagents (including Glamour magazine complete with Nails Inc varnish and £3 Body shop voucher) £4 in Pret a Manger- reward for getting through my first day at work (was absolutely shattered, no hope of going to Mr T, went home and went to bed for 2 hours!!) On the plus side, I think that the new job will be OK, just need to do a little studying over the w/end, make sure I'm coming out with all the right stuff so as not to embarrass myself!

Cancelled the dreaded credit card when I got home Thats 3 I've cancelled this week, plus I'm soon to lose the current account with the big overdraft. I may be in loads of debt still but hey, at least I'm being organised about it!

menina

The Pin finally came through for an old bank account that I was planning on getting OH to use as his current account. He currently uses the one that we pay the fee on to get mobile phone insurance/various other insurances on and then inevitably doesn't leave enough money in there to pay the fee at the end of the month and goes overdrawn. Every single month! Which does my head in! So I'll swap cards with him tonight/tomorrow.

Money plan for the weekend:
Mr T (armed with list)
Take food with me to the gym- hopefully then won't spend on food.
See if my £3 voucher gets me anything in the Body Shop. Maybe they do minis?
Maybe get another copy of Glamour for a different colour nail polish and another voucher.
Somehow have a fun time with OH when he's off without spending a fortune.
Change up £10 of Mr T vouchers for £40 restaurant vouchers (could help with the above if they come through in time!)

Not money saving but must clear up the garden if it's not pouring with rain- it needs it and is starting to bug me!

Hope everyone is enjoying the Friday night... x

menina

Spends for the day:
£4.95 on a hot curry in wasabi when I finished in the gym. Felt absolutely rubbish all day, a bit sicky and thought that maybe it was the lack of a decent hot meal for a while. Think it helped a bit!
£7 in Mr T (not the right one though, need to go there tomorrow.) Was on essential items on my list.
£1 in body shop (to top up my £3 gift card, got two nice soaps. A further penny pinching plan is to use soap rather than shower gel as it's cheaper and lasts longer)

Since I've been feeling ill today, I didn't go out tonight, so saved some money there I suppose! Not quite what I'd had in mind though...

My Pizza Express voucher came through today, so I'll print it off tomorrow and we can have a free post gym pizza each tomorrow. Maybe enough for some dough balls too nom nom nom!

Money saving stuff to do tomorrow:
Go to Mr T- I know I keep going on about it!
Print out voucher
Make breakfast bars
Make lunches for next week

Hope you're all having a good w/end... x