Taking Care of My Pennies

MrsNotAPenny

Good morning!


This week I briefly saw a 9 at the front of my debt total, then a bit of interest got added and I'm back into the 10's Not to worry, the total interest for the month was £43 ish. Considering I have 10k worth of debt, it could have been a whole lot more.


I still have to make £155 worth of payments this month, I'll be into May with 'only' £9885 in the red.


Car all MOT'd for the year, road tax to pay at the end of the month. Car is pretty expensive when it comes to road tax and petrol tbh. I reckon in a few years, when I'm debt free, I'll replace it with a newer, more economical one.


Savings down a little because of the car expenses, £670 now but I'll get that back up again in the next few months. I'll just need to resist spending it. I'm going to set myself some savings targets. When I reach them, I'll send all the spare money to the debts.


Well, that's it from me, another thrilling instalment of my diary!

MrsNotAPenny

Urgh!


Flaming sunshine! I *couldn't* turn down the few invites we had over the weekend and I blew the last of my grocery budget AND petrol budget for the month. Sigh. I had no petrol yesterday and I've got to make a 40 mile round trip at the end of the week for work.


In fairness, I only had £20 left from my petrol budget and £10/15 left in my grocery budget for the rest of the month. So not a huge loss, but it's still had a knock on effect. I've had to 'borrow' from the car repair savings to put petrol in, that's down £20 now. There's no room in next month's budget to replace it either.


Groceries, well I have enough food to make 'interesting' meals for the rest of the month. I have about £10 in change in my purse. I'll just have to stretch it out over the next 10 days, bread, milk, potatoes, cheese and eggs. It's going to be tough.


Anyway, I've sold 2 things on gtree this month, totalling £25 and £15 from the old cds. Counted up my coin bags and have £43 in those. I'm taking it all to the bank on Tuesday and using it to pay off the little catalogue debts (nxt: £38, v3ry: £36) That'll cheer me up, hopefully!


Had a think over the weekend about savings targets. I've decided I'd like to have £500 in my C/union account (currently £358) and £150 in my car repair account (currently £69) So £650 all together, I think that'll be enough for me to cover any minor emergency. I'd like it saved for end of August, I need £223.


Nothing else exciting has happened, no huge windfall, no blank cheque with my name on it. Oh well, maybe next week

MrsNotAPenny

Dull grocery related update coming....


Today I visited @ldi for a few bits. I'm still always totally blown away how cheap the food is in there!


I managed a top up shop of, 12 kids yogurts, packet of ham, 6 free range eggs (honestly the only food I'm fussy over!), mini bags of oat cakes, cheese and beetroot salad (If you haven't tried it, do so! It is amazing and only 75p! Makes sad salads happy) for £5.45


I had a milk voucher (£3.10) I could use in @sd@, so I got milk, oranges and apples for 48p.


I had a quick shift over the freezer, there's loads in there!!


2 batch cooked dinners for me
Chicken nuggets
Chicken Kiev for littles
3 portions of chicken
1 pork stir fry
Ice lollies
Frozen veggies
1 part baked baguette


Quite impressed with my cupboards too


1 fajita meal box
4 tins of tomatoes
2 tins of tuna
2 tins of kids hot dogs
3 tins of spaghetti/sausage and beans


Basically, as long as I remember to defrost something the night before, we should eat pretty well until next month. There is potatoes in a potato bag in the cupboard but I'm too scared to look in it in case they're yukky! Must be brave. I might do it now, try and put myself off snacking


Still got a couple of pound left for bread and more milk next week.


Can't wait to get to the bank tomorrow and pay that extra money in. I hate when there's no payments to be made or waiting on DD's coming off or not having money to spend on groceries.


____________________________________________________________

I didn't want to start a new post just to say this:

I'M BACK IN THE 9'S!

£9,980.09

Happy days!

Skint_but_Optimistic

Well done its all going really well. Nice you have a cushion to fall back on.

MrsNotAPenny

Really nice to have a cushion. It's definitely harder to save than spend though!


Today's total is: £9856.13. Yeah!


Thanks to the cd sales and an little extra tax creds, I've paid off the last of the catalogues and added a bit to my car repair fund. Which is now at £153, which is over my 'target'


Hopefully get my expenses back in the next 2 weeks, so that'll boost my C/union savings up to £440. Then I'm almost there. I think I'll withdraw the money I have in an account for house savings. It's just under £50 and realistically I'm not going to be on the property ladder for a long long time. I think that will get shifted to the C/union account and that'll take me to where I want to be. Then everything extra can go towards these pesky debts.


My loan total is now into the £2k's, just! It still has 2.5 years to run though ( second time consolidation, in 2009! what was I thinking?) I've had it for so long, I actually count it as a utility when I'm working out my outgoings for the month!


Saying all that, I am a little cautious. Whenever the debt busting is going well and I seem to have myself on track, something usually happens to set me back. I hope I've learnt enough over the past few years to I know the 'spending danger zones' Usually when the sun comes out, the alcohol flows or if I feel too deprived/under pressure. That's when I spend!


Still haven't used my C/C's since 12th March. Feels good!


Hope everyone has a nice weekend.x

MrsNotAPenny

Sabotage!!


Sigh! I used my credit card to pay for the car insurance, then transferred the money over (less £50 which I'll pay tomorrow) It was justified, in the interest of online safety and all that (and avoiding the huge premium they were going to charge me for monthly payments) But you can tell what happened.....I nipped to A$d@, oh nice jeans (£14) oh a nice top (£6) and ANOTHER nice top (£6)


£26 on my CC Both tops are being returned tomorrow, but the jeans I wore last night so I'll be keeping those. £14 I know isn't an enormous amount, it's more the fact that I used the card when I had been 'good'. I'll need to find a way to balance that out in May.


Better news was that I earned £60 thought qu1dco, pay out estimated in August It'll be nice to get that.


Car fund is wiped out now. Road tax in a few days (budgeted for) brings the total up to £544 this month! Paid in cash for the first time.


I'll need to build that up again quickly, even having £50 in the fund will make me feel better.


That's me for today.x

MrsNotAPenny

May is almost here and I've decided it's to be a frugal month. I want to save (or earn) £100 this month from my budget, because I want to do my garden up a bit - some garden furniture, bark/chips, strong weed killer (!), maybe a new brush for the path. I just want to tidy it up and make it nice for summer.


£100 is the absolute maximum I want to spend. I've seen some furniture for around £50. Anything over £100 (wishful thinking?!) will go towards my birthday celebrations in a couple of months time.


Here are the 'rules' I'm setting myself...

• No buying alcohol for the house - I don't drink a lot, but always have something in should someone stop by. The spirits I had have finished and the wine is no good for my waist line anyway
• No drive Mondays and Fridays. The only days I don't need to use the car for work/kids classes. I'm already £15 into May's petrol budget!
• No takeaways! (This is going to force me into being organised!)
• No nights out. None planned for next month so I'll politely refuse any offers. If I start feeling sorry for myself I will remember it's only for May and force myself to look out the window at the garden and picture how nice it will be
• No coffees, teas or bottled water to be bought. I have a sports bottle, I will fill it!
• MEAL PLAN, batch cook, cut down on treats

That's all I have so far, I know it won't make an enormous difference (because I don't spend that much on the above anyway) but I'm hoping I'll be pleasantly surprised.


I've called my mobile provider and reduced my mobile bill by £5. That won't take effect until June though. Any savings I make in my shopping, BOGOFs, reduced prices, I'm going to put the difference into my 'garden fund'


Going to relist my gtree items that didn't sell, switch off lights behind me (guilty of leaving them on because it feels safer! Cause bad things only happen in the dark eh? *rolling my eyes at myself*)


I will also venture out into other parts of MSE, see if I can get some other pointers.

Fortune_Smiles

Garden plans sound wonderful MrsNAP. EBay's quite good for garden furniture. I'm keeping my eye open for a garden bench on there at the moment.


Fortune x

MrsNotAPenny

MAY!


Off to a good start this morning with £2 in my 'garden fund', it was just what was left in my purse from April. Also decided to add any full coin bags I get into it, almost there with another bag of 50s


I have written a very specific shopping list. All items on it have a maximum spend limit. If I stick to it, May's food spend should be £164.30. My usual budget is £200, which is generous really considering there's only 1 adult in the household. I always overspend on groceries. I'm going to keep receipts for the month.


Usually, I'd rush out on the 1st of the month, eager to get stuck into the new grocery budget. Not today. I'm making a point of not going near the supermarket. Just to prove a point to myself. Tomorrow I'll need to pick up some bits and pieces, bread, jam, cold meat, cheese, fruit and such.


Meal planned all the way up until next Tuesday, then I will need to get a big shop done. Kids eating away at grandma's and with their Dad a couple of times in the next week. I will have to be imaginative with my meals while they are away and keep the good stuff for when they are here.


As well as household alcohol, I'm quitting DISHWASHER TABLETS They are not on the list this month. Probably save myself £5. I also don't need any loo roll or kitchen towel either, thanks to the stock pile I seem to have! That's another £5.95 saved.


I'm also going to take my utility readings today, I have a pretty good idea of what I use each month so I plan to trim a little off. I have a small debit on the gas, which usually sorts itself out over summer but I'll like to help speed that up.


Debt into May stands at £9,948. Which is £59 more that I had hoped, however I think there's a payment still to come off (£30), I haven't received the money from my CD sales (£15) and £14 is for those jeans. At least I know where my shortfall has come from. Progress!


I'd like to go into June with £9,650. That's about £20 less than it would be if I just made my regular/minimum payments.


Feeling frugal and determined this morning, let's hope it lasts!x

MrsNotAPenny

Fortune_Smiles wrote: »

Garden plans sound wonderful MrsNAP. EBay's quite good for garden furniture. I'm keeping my eye open for a garden bench on there at the moment.


Fortune x

Thank you Fortune I didn't think of eBay, the @ldi store near me has a set for £49.99, looks really good and comes with a 3 year warranty. I doubt they will have any in store by time I save £50 to pay for it though. I will definitely check eBay out.x