Chapter 2 - Pulverising the Post Office - one debt at a time

Housework*Fairy

EEK finally added up my grocery spends, and thanks to an extra tank of petrol - unbudgeted for - we only have £117 left of it. Looks like I will be over spending this month :-(

Cash-in-hand situation:
Money in purse £6.11
Money in change box (A) £35.00
Money in change box (B) £3.64
Money in spends account: £241.81
Money in savings account: £110.00
Grand total: £396.56
Days left til payday: 16

Reduction since last time...£20.27

£13.51 – groceries**
£6.00 – Athletics for the kids & DH (well, it;s running club for DH)
£0.79 – birthday card

** could have killed DH last night. I had walked into work and he had taken the Tesco card as he needed to get petrol. I asked him to pick me up from work and we could go shopping. However he went home first and turned up at Morrisons minus the Tesco card. So, I had to put our groceries on the debit card. I'll get round that by buying 4 packets of cigarettes with the Tesco card which will roughly equal what we spent on groceries.

Also was a bit GRRRR at DH needing petrol so soon. He put £73 in on 1st February, and by 11th Feb a full tank had gone. Admittedly he did have a trip to Manchester and the kids training and football has been back on so he's had loads of trips out but I would have hoped it would have lasted longer than ten days. So another £69 went in yesterday – hope it lasts a bit longer! I will also need to get some, but not a full tank.

Anyway I'd like to say our cash situation looks good, but both of us have the dentist next week so that'll be £87 to pay out (DH already paid a deposit, I have to pay a full payment), my first pre-payment certificate of £10.40 will be taken, along with £5 for the lotto, £45 for cigarettes, and my final exam to pay for of £18.55. Leaves us with very little spends - £75 to be precise – Ooosh.[/I]

Housework*Fairy

Well I'm hopelessly at a loss as to my financial position for the month. I haven't been keeping a track on spending from the current account or the grocery account. However there's only ten days left of February so I'll try harder next month. I haven't been going off spending stupid money left right and centre or anything, just not keeping track.

I bought a new purse today which was £6 and not the prettiest one on the stall because I couldn't bear to spend an extra £3 on the pretty one at £9. - see! I am still in the MSE mindset.

DH's car insurance is up for renewal on 1st March so I have spent all afternoon getting quotes and playing about with quotes.

Option 1.
Stay with present insurer - £492.75 for fully comp and protected no claims. Unfortunately do not offer installments due to postcode area. This means I have to put it on a HSBC credit card which I really don't want to have to do. If I pay it off in 12 equal installments (£44.50) that will be £39 interest paid.
Pros: Don't have to pay a 2-month payment as a deposit // don't have to faff about emailing proof of NCD to new insurers // can PAD towards it to pay it off faster
Cons: Too easy to only pay the minimum of £5 of the balance.

Option 2
Go to new, 2nd cheapest insurer which is £60 more expensive but £10 less interest over the year.
Pay in installments: 1 x deposit of 87.66, 9 payments of £46.88 and a final payment of 46.71 with one insurance free month.
Pros: direct debit, not on a CC
Cons: takes a big(ger) chunk out of my March budget thanks to deposit, doesn't actually work out much cheaper, can't throw little bits of money at it.

So looking at it like that, putting it on a CC does seem the most sensible option. I make my last payment to my season ticket in March meaning £41 in April, May & June that I could then pay to the CC.

yeah I think I'll have to do that...

Housework*Fairy

No figures for this post but last month was extremely spendy so I will draw a line under that and start afresh.

I did get DH's car insurance on the HSBC credit card and have set up a spending order for £44.50 to pay it off over 12 months. I'll do the same when I have to start paying for my footy season ticket so I can pay it off over 12 months instead of 8 so the monthly payments are a bit cheaper.

My kindle has died - it is an orginal one and is about three years old although I would have expected it to have lasted longer! So I'm going to save up for a Kindle fire. I could have paid for it from our spends but just couldn't justify spending £130 outright just in case something went wrong later on in the month and we needed some money so I'm going to PAD for it.

I'm also going to 'sponsor' myself for certain things to encourage myself to do them

• 10p per glass of water drank (I drink too much fizzy pop and not enough fluids)
• 50p for a load of washing placed on the airer and not in the dryer
• £1.00 for walking to work and back (I used my car every day last week - it's only a chuffing mile!!!)
• £1.00 for each pound I lose in weight
• 10p for each day I come in under calories (1400 per day)

Hopefully the above shouldn't break the bank financially as I am paying myself out of my spends.

Kindle Fund:
Tesco Vouchers: £10.50
Money earned: £4.00 (did paper round today)
Money found: £0.30 (in tumble dryer)
Change under 5p: £0.41p
Sponsor money: £0.00 (as yet)
PAD
Grand Total: £15.21 / £129.00

Housework*Fairy

Kindle Fund:
Tesco Vouchers: £10.50
Money earned: £0.00
Money found: £0..00
Change under 5p: £0.00
Sponsor money: £0.40 - 3 glasses of water and sticking to my cals
PAD: £2.50 (From DS2 not having after school footy on a Monday)
Grand Total: £18.11 / £129.00 / need to find £110.89

Have done some banking this morning already. Although both Natwest credit cards got paid off last month interest was added to them so I've had to pay that off which totalled £32.00. I hope this is the end of it!

welshdreamer71

Morning lovely fell out of love with mse for a while, your a genius ! Loving the sponsoring idea especially for fluids and pounds lost a fab idea and allows you to get a guiltless treat,.... Defo fab idea to set up D /D for whole insurance payment them minimum payments are fine til you slip a little.... Sorry about Wembley !

Ive been both fab and crap emptied my creation card completely so got just 1 left now but its a huge £1000 but tis for nice spends our Tele was taking 45 mins to come on so new one from sainsburys and also booked a week in turkey in October so that's my target this month got to clear as much as poss before the 20th and bit of interest kicks in, slimming world is going ok but have recently started this 5:2 plan alongside have a mooch if you haven't already have a fab day lovely x

Housework*Fairy

Kindle Fund:
Tesco Vouchers: £0.00
Money earned: £0.00
Money found: £0.10p (randomly found on the floor)
Change under 5p: £0.00
Sponsor money: £0.70 - 2 glasses of water and walking to work (although I did get a lift home)
PAD: £0.00
Grand Total: £18.91 / £129.00 / need to find £110.09

Calories was not good. I'm trying to do Slimfast and found it easy for two days but yesterday was awful, I was so hungry and I caved in in the evening. No idea how many calories I consumed. Will try again today. Also walked to work, but DH finished early so he picked me up but I'm still awarding myself 50% of 'sponsor money'. I'm only going to weigh myself monthly though so next weigh in at the end of the month. I've put weight on at the rate of 1lb per week since I started my new job as I just eat my way through it.

Housework*Fairy

welshdreamer71 wrote: »

Morning lovely fell out of love with mse for a while, your a genius ! Loving the sponsoring idea especially for fluids and pounds lost a fab idea and allows you to get a guiltless treat,.... Defo fab idea to set up D /D for whole insurance payment them minimum payments are fine til you slip a little.... Sorry about Wembley !

Ive been both fab and crap emptied my creation card completely so got just 1 left now but its a huge £1000 but tis for nice spends our Tele was taking 45 mins to come on so new one from sainsburys and also booked a week in turkey in October so that's my target this month got to clear as much as poss before the 20th and bit of interest kicks in, slimming world is going ok but have recently started this 5:2 plan alongside have a mooch if you haven't already have a fab day lovely x

Hi Welsh Dreamer, I fell off the MSE wagon for a bit too. Not too much though, just took my eye off the ball a bit. Wembley was amazing and I wouldn't have missed it for the world (shame my team didn't turn up though hah hah. Might be back there in May for the play-offs....)

I have heard about the 5:2 plan and think it's a really good idea. I think I could probably cope with that. Unfortunately eating is a hobby for me now so when I cut down drastically I get depressed.

Keep up the good work, and keep thinking of your lovely holiday xx

Housework*Fairy

Kindle Fund:
Tesco Vouchers: £0.00
Money earned: £0.00
Money found: £0.00p
Change under 5p: £0.00
Sponsor money: £1.80 1L of water and 2 cups of tea, also walked to work and back and used the airer instead of the dryer
PAD: £6.00 (none of them went to athletics tonight)
Grand Total: £26.21/ £129.00 / need to find £102.79

Also remembered I used to do surveys for a company and couldn't remember what they were called. I trawled this site for ages looking and finally found them (My Survey) and I was delighted to see that I had 466 points which meant I could redeem them for £3 in pay-pal and still have 100 points left. I'm going to see if I can get any more surveys from them. I wont add it to my total just yet as it has to get to paypal, then from pay-pal to the bank.

Also have two gold rings (but with stones so I can't work out the weight). They were only cheap but I'm sure they don't fit me anymore. They're too small and I'll never get them on my big sausage fingers again so I'm going to look into the best place to send them.

EDIT: also read about account tidying up where the odd pence is rounded up to the next pound down and shifted to savings or debt repayment so I'm going to do that too

Housework*Fairy

Kindle Fund:
Tesco Vouchers: £0.00
Money earned: £0.00
Money found: £0.00p
Change under 5p: £0.04
Sponsor money: £1.20*
PAD: £0.00
Rounding up:
Grand Total: £27.45/ £129.00 / need to find £101.55

*I took my car to work but I am still sponsoring myself the £1 as I only took it because DH was leaving his car at work, so he could go for a few drinks following a funeral and needed me to pick him up when I finished work, so I had to take my car. Managed to drink a 500ml bottle of water and two cups of tea (along with my bucketload of pepsi max). Blimey if I am relying on my eating and drinking to fund my kindle, I shall be waiting forever.

Although DH is now out of contract on his mobile phone and I've put his current model into Mazuma Mobile and they will pay £54, so I am going to look into that. I also have his Blackberry before that, but it's water damaged, so only worth £6.00 [/FONT]

fallen121

Housework*Fairy wrote: »

Also have two gold rings (but with stones so I can't work out the weight). They were only cheap but I'm sure they don't fit me anymore. They're too small and I'll never get them on my big sausage fingers again so I'm going to look into the best place to send them.

I can absolutely recommend these guys and I can assure you that I don't get a kickback or any kind of bonus for recommending them. I have used them four times now:

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