The BIG Plan...

MummyEm

Decided I will change how I run the budget this month for Groceries spend. I normally just leave it in the current account but then any savings made often get swallowed up in other purchases.
So this month I am going to budget £120 per week and any not spent I will transfer straight to savings each week.
Planning a very frugal start to the month as have quite a bit in freezer so mostly fruit and veg needed tomorrow. DD has dance in morning so will pop to L*DL while she is there and stay away from the non food aisles

Off to write a shopping list now.

MummyEm

Shopping went well. Bought two items not on list but two that I wanted weren't available. Total £42.71 which I'm pretty pleased with as this includes over £20 of loo roll, toiletries and DW tablets which aren't needed every week. I didn't have to buy any meat though which does normally being up to total.
I'm going to put the rest straight into savings.

Plan for today

EBay listings - free listing weekend!
Make cottage pie - double so one for freezer
Washing
Clean out the guinea pig
Kids have parties to go to too so a bit of ferrying about to do

Beautifully sunny here so staring to feel like spring now :T

MummyEm

Had lovely day yesterday. Didn't get around to any ebay listing as made most of the sunshine and did some gardening instead but everything else I did do! We have a large area that was used by last house owners to grow veg. I did dabble a bit in this for the first couple of years that we were here, but with extending the house, grew nothing at all last year. DH has threatened to grass seed it next year if I do nothing with it as it's so unsightly So started on a little clearing yesterday. Loads to do out there though.

Ended up on impromptu girls evening out. Was good and kept spends to under £20 (put change in the pennies jar this morning). Starting to feel a little tired now though...

MS today so far

• Done month end/start finances tidy up
• Paid some bills
• Sent meter readings

Plan for rest of the day

• ebay listings
• cook roast and make flapjacks while oven is on
• Ironing
• Also need to plan what needs doing this week

We have some family staying with us in April. There are loads of jobs that still need finishing in the house so need to start getting things completed.

MummyEm

Managed to get everything done from my list yesterday, except making flapjacks so I will see whether I can be bothered to do this today...

• 11 items list on ebay
• 11 items relisted in ebay
• Few more surveys - 1Poll up to £19.65

Need to:

• Catch up on emails
• Send a follow up email to a job app
• Put screen wash in car
• Sort some washing
• Decide what to keep from Boden order (ordered lots as in between sizes!)
• Ironing

Just general stuff to keep me from spending any money
There may also be a few extra hours available at work next week so need to follow that up.

Muser1

Hi MummyEm just popping in to say I always read your diary. You are doing great. Mad that you can drop the term but pay less isn't it? Just shows the impact interest rates have.

Muser. x

MummyEm

Hi Muser

It's great to hear someone is actually reading my ramblings!

I can honestly say that I do absolutely prefer the lower rates

Nothing much more to report this evening.

• Found 10p in the car - to saving pot
• No quite NSD but only £1.70 spent on a couple of snacks at kids swimming lessons this evening so not bad

Also found another job that might be ok. Not 100% sure about the location, but think I will send in my CV. The worst thing that could happen would be for me to have to turn it down, so really nothing to lose. I will try to get this done tomorrow evening if I'm not too frazzled after work.

Off to do some ironing now (at least it keeps me away from online spending)

MummyEm

Not much MS today, but not much spent either so a pretty money-neutral day.

Plus points

• still eating off mealplan
• applied for yet another job this evening
  • worked today so pennies will be coming in

Am meeting a recruitment person tomorrow about a job. Not sure that I actually want it but can't hurt to find out a little more. Tomorrow will be a low spend day as have lots to get done. Will need to pop to shops though as running low on milk and fruit. I will be in town for meeting anyway, so will go to shops then to save fuel and time (really will have to do some cleaning on Thursday :eek:)

Right, off to empty DW then that's me off to bed as am tired this evening and need my zzzzzz's

MummyEm

Long time no post!

Quick catch up on current situation. Still being quite MSE in our every day spending but things have begun to creep in recently which haven't been budgeted for so am keeping a super careful eye on things over the next few weeks to stamp that out.

Since the last time I posted, I have picked up a second little part time job. My earnings are currently all going into a savings pot to pay back family loan from our extension borrowing.

DH starts a new job on Monday which will increase income but some other bits will cost more so need to work out exactly how that will affect our budget. We will b££s will be diverted to savings to build up emergency fund once more.

Our new mortgage was all approved and we are in our second month paying that so currently overpaying by £23.58 as a minimum as that is the difference between the old and new monthly mortgage payments. I'm also rounding down the mortgage figure to the nearest £5 each month so paying a few extra £s there.

The aim is still to pay back £10k of the family loan this year and savings for this are going well. I am diverting all my earnings into this and have also started eBaying again recently which goes into this pot too.

I will do a second post below which will show exactly where we stand with everything right now.

MummyEm

Mortgage

June OP £26.04
July OP [STRIKE]£29.64 + £65 =[/STRIKE] £94.67

Total stands at [STRIKE]£271065.00 [/STRIKE] £271000.00(This was just too tempting so have just made payment of £65 from ebay sale!)

Repayment Fund

Stands at £6491.05

ISA

Had filled our allowance for this year but as that has now increased, planning on using the rest of this up.

Emergency Fund

Starting from scratch with easy access savings as have used what we had left for ISA. Still have approx £2k but have one last bill to pay relating to the extension which DH will probably do this weekend. Not too concerned about this as have several ISA's from previous years and also repayment fund which could be used in real emergency situation.


Only other thing to mention I guess is that DH has just bought new car (required for new job) and we are in discussions about mine as it is old and on it's way out. I am in two minds about this though so will keep you updated when we decide what to do.

MummyEm

As as I said previously, I have got back into eBaying recently as have been on a bit of a mad decluttering rampage! Now I am working more I just do not have time to be tidying everyone's clutter so parting with bits we don't need/use is definitely the way forward.

Since the end of June I have sold £15 items totaling just over £210. Which after fees and postage leaves me with approx £130. Not bad for stuff we don't need or want! A couple of these were larger items but most are just bits and pieces and a couple are things I would have been prepared to throw out! I have a whole cupboard to stuff to sell so am steadily listing a few items at a time. I only want to use the free listing allocation so don't want to do too many each month as it gets too expensive. I know I still have four large boxes of stuff marked 'eBay' in the loft and a few larger items up there too. I also need to clear out the kids playroom as that hasn't been done since before their birthday's so looking a little full currently.

Thinking about it, I may look to do a carboot sale in the next few weeks as have quite a bit that won't really sell on Ebay as too bulky so postage is too high. It's still worth a bit though so seems a shame to not get something back for it. DD has recently caught the savings bug and is eager to save up for something expensive. She has given me a pile of bits for me to sell for her. She wants the money for these so I won't make anything but it's great that she is learning to save for what she wants as she is only just 7!