Mighty Titan Overdraft will crumble!

hohum

Today I am freaking out thinking about how to make the rest of April work. Plus I realised that doing a monthly budget as above is apparently not YNAB suitable, so I have just done one based on our income until I pay myself in 5 days and it's doable...but ...I get paid £794 and bills/ rent etc are £719

I am obsessing and focusing so much on this I am letting my work go to pot. I am drifting with work and need to get back on it. if I don't do it, no-one else will do it. I get such stupid anxiety though, always comparing myself to other similar outfits and worrying about whether people think I'm doing a good job...probably because I just need to actually DO a good job...I am a perfectionist and procrastinate. Not a good combo.

Went to see a house today that I think has real potential, made even more appealing by asking price being right at the low end of our budget. It seems insane to be looking at buying when we are so tight on the budget...on the other hand, our mortgage for a property like the one I saw today would be £150 lower than we currently pay in rent. It needs completely redecorating (clearly they had contracted the same worlds worst decorator used by our landlord). The bathroom suite is an alarming shade of blue. It needs a new boiler. But street is quiet with families, lots of house proud gardens, little bit further out than we are now but between two bus routes. Roof might need work and needs insulation. Been on the market a while so could make an offer..

Boyfriend would need to see it before I start that line..

OK. Enough thinking and wishing. Where am I at?

- SOA reflecting current position DONE
- get details and make appointment with broker, so I know what I'm working towards MADE CONTACT, APPT NEXT
- update company forecast to see what's viable to pay ourselves over next 11 months DONE
- upping income - GOT SECOND JOB
-Looking at spending. I have already reduced a lot of outgoing, but there is one I'm considering that's a fatal weakness of mine...takeout coffee! NOT OUT BUT DOWN..

so next

- make appt for boyfriend to see house
- do our tax returns
- make to do list for work
- blitz inbox this eve
- follow up with broker

hohum

None of those todos done, !!!!!!.

Tricky evening - did a rec on the bank accounts and realised boyfriend was still spending mindlessly. Not big but as this month is super tight, enough to make us draw in the strings further... I am walking to work and have no spending money until I get paid. Lord I could do with a glass of wine. Boyfriend will have to make do on £6 for his regular social.

I was a bit mad when we totted up his spending and he has spent £56 in the past week. This is £26 more than we agreed. But I realise he didn't really get the ynab category thing and was still just looking at his bank balance. He was very guilty about it. I'm not sure if him feeling guilty is the best emotion, so I tried to explain it's ok as we are just starting to use this method. There are consequnces that's all.

This is hard. I have no money until weds. Thinking to go to my parents house tomorrow. Think I will have to walk, it's an hour and a half. I would really like a glass of wine tonight but no dice.

We were looking at car options. He needs to insure and mot the car. We do not have the money to mot and insure the car. The car is worth £150 and will cost up to £500 to get through mot. But a replacement could cost us £800 which we don't have also. We will have to get insurance on monthly premiums. We could borrow money from his dad, and pay it back £200 a month. But that increases our monthly outgoings. I think the best thing is if car costs less than £500 to go through mot, stick with it for a bit longer.

On the plus, scored free waitrose coffee and free hotel chocolat thing through O2. And seeing as we started the month with £145 in overdrafts, have cleared those PLUS found £100 for unexpected accomm. Which explains why we're skint but am determined not to be using that halifex od.

hohum

Felt quite stressed on fri, built in lovely things yesterday which helped a lot. Some money trickled in as boyfriend got some money back re expenses, I got some cash tips. £38.20 which mostly just covered over spends on categories. Ah well!

Finished second work on fri and realised due to cheaper bus fare had just enough to get small bottle of wine. Paid for it in cash with rest on card. That's how much I wanted a glass. Went and joined boyfriend and friends. Good night for £2

Lovely family day on Saturday. Walks and good food. Enthused about budgeting system, think mum felt bad for us which not my intention. I am glad to be able to put enough in the budget not to walk there & back to work (hr each way).

Second job last night so busy I had sweat running off my brow as serving people. Makes me slightly regretful we pool tips as I made at least £70 off my tables tonight. One table tipped £7 on a £35 bill, another £20 on a £110 bill. But hey it's a team effort I suppose. Still I know they tipped highly mostly cos I'm awesome

hohum

Welcome pay week. This week I am going to:

Phone broker
Arrange second viewing
Meditate once a day for 10mins
Contact of letting agents re maintenance issue (story for another time)
Make scary work calls
Reply to tagged emails
Half hour on 2013/14 tax rtn every day
Send card to sister

hohum

Well I have been effective the past few days:

Phone broker DONE
Arrange second viewing DONE
Meditate once a day for 10mins
Contact of letting agents re maintenance issue (story for another time) DONE
Make scary work calls DONE
Reply to tagged emails DONE
Half hour on 2013/14 tax rtn every day DONE to date
Send card to sister DONE

Budget is looking OK. I can feel my resolve weaken as I look at how much of my pay will be whisked away in bill paying frenzy OTH, no worries re missed payments or having to transfer/ borrow money from one account to the other.

So why am I feeling so down?

Partly is because I looked at our income for the last two years last night as part of our prep re mortgage app. We have basically lived on £20k a year between us for the past two years. That's how much profit we made from self employment. We turned over approx £24k, but allowable expenses are reasonably high especially for boyfriend as he travels a lot with work.

If we were not living together, we would be eligible for working tax credit with that level of income. As a co-habiting couple, no deals.

So on one hand I think we can hold our heads up that we have not increased our debt in that time, and most of the time don't feel deprived. we don't have fancy clothes, car, holidays, food, house....but we don't need them. I often lie in bed with my boyfriend and think about how happy I am to be there with him. It's a story for another time but I haven't always had such a happy time in my relationships.

On the other hand, we also don't have any assets, insurance, emergency fund, pensions. And it's OK being skint now but being skint when you're older is not where I want to be. I could ditch it all and go get a well paying job. And yet. And yet. I'm not ready to walk away from what I've started!

Seeing the income like that also makes me more despondent about our chances of getting a mortgage. And am I insane to even be considering such a big commitment? OTH, we could go on paying someone else's mortgage. At least this way we get closer to owning a home of our own.

Finally, went back to see house I like and boyfriend is not sure: it's too small. Apart from an initial impulse to shout something about WELCOME TO REALITY FRIEND, I could have seen this coming. He's been saying all the time 'I'm happy if you're happy'. Yeah right. I am not having that line being spun back at me in 5 years when he suddenly comes clean that he never wanted house/ commitments/ whatever else he went along with. There is no way I am going to ask him to put up that amount of money and have him be a passenger in this journey. The thing is, without having got close to a possible house he wouldn't have had this realisation. As soon as things started getting real he realised he did have an opinion.

The problem is that I've been looking at the finance, arranging all the deals etc so I have a sense about what a good deal this house is. He needs to spend time looking at the market and seeing what's possible. I keep saying to him it's about priorities. On our budget, we have to compromise on area or space. We may be able to get a do-er upper but we'll still need to find money to actually do it up. I don't think he has a sense of how quickly buildings can get expensive when you start doing more than painting them. Or, we could get a higher paid job and look later. Or we could save and add to our deposit (unlikely given our current budget). I need to let him go through that decision making process. Which is annoying, I'd happily make that house a home and I'm not living in the ones he's sent me over so far but I've been here before with him. I must have had this point in the back of my mind when I started moving forward with all the viewings so proactively, because I knew both he and I wouldn't really start to tackle the ramifications of buyign a house until we had it thrust in our faces!

hohum

I had a bit of a despond at boyfriend last night, but we cheered ourselves up by playing computer games together. I have done a LOT of cooking since we started this plan - and I wasn't exactly a slouch before in that department. So last night was persian chicken and saffron pilau rice. i walked round the market until I found a smaller chicken for £3. One butcher tried to sell me a very similar sized sorry specimen for £5. err no. If you buy whole chickens you can joint and use the carcass for stock, which is exactly what I did. The rest of the ingredients were store cupboard, leftovers for my lunch. Oh apart from big bunches of fresh dill and mint, 75p. I try to grow both in my garden, dill's an annual so need to get that planted and I must be the only person in the UK who can't grow mint in the quantities I would like. It's invasive they say. Not invasive enough for the rate I'd eat it at.

We have also discovered that happy shopper chocolate is perfectly acceptable, which is a winner when it's between 30p to 50p for a big bar. I had half a pot of creme fraiche left over from a planned meal at the weekend. If you whip the creme fraiche, add a spoon of soft brown sugar, a touch of instant coffee disolved in water then melt approx half to two thirds of the choc bar, cool slightly then beat in to the cream....you have a very close approximation of one of those gu chocolate pots. Really delicious.

So today I am a bit annoyed because I spent £2.92 out of pride on a secret gift thing (also used something that had been sat in my cupboard for years so it was to bump up the value to the £5). If I had listened to my reminder last night and not been in a despond, I would have baked some homemade cakes instead of buying fancy ones. And 79p on some cutprice pain au chocolat because I got up too late to sort breakfast. Ugh. This keeping to budget is relentless with the forward planning requirements. I hate forward planning. OK I don't hate forward planning but it feels a bit onerous at times.

hohum

!!!!!!. Set up a Santander 123 account to manage bills. Set up a text alert so that if it falls below a certain amount I know. Discover end of last month, couple of bills started up again and meant it had taken account into overdraft. I don't get a text about this until 5 DAYS after event has happened, by which time another TWO have gone out costing us £5 each. We were really tight last month in money but could have transferred over to cover these if I seen them in time. I didn't check online because I have the alert set up all sensible like. In total this will cost us £85.. half our food budget for the month, more than our council tax. I hate them, hate them, hate them.

I equally hate natwest but if I go over my agreed limit on that account, I get a text on the day so I can something to avoid the charge.

I am going to phone and ask if there's any leeway for reducing some of the charges due to not actually knowing about it and having expected a text. As soon as we got the alerts, we sorted to cover the unauthorised overdraft.

Of course this does any mortgage application a world of good. Time to shelve this idea for now?

!!!!!!

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em

NHS_worker_bee

hohum wrote: »

So on one hand I think we can hold our heads up that we have not increased our debt in that time, and most of the time don't feel deprived. we don't have fancy clothes, car, holidays, food, house....but we don't need them. I often lie in bed with my boyfriend and think about how happy I am to be there with him. It's a story for another time but I haven't always had such a happy time in my relationships.

I've just read your diary and I like this ^ it's exactly how I feel at the moment, skint but happy. It seems you've got a good relationship there (despite his mindless spending!) and whilst I wish you all the best on your journey to become homeowners, don't overstretch yourselves for a mortgage and lose the happiness, it's not worth it. Hopefully you will be able to get an affordable mortgage and a happy balance when the time is right. Best wishes

Ps - I agree with the thing you said about when you enthused about your budget and your mum felt bad for you. When I enthuse about my budget, other people have felt sorry for me too and even offered to lend me money - they just don't understand that the budget is a very good thing and that with the budget, I won't get in a financial pickle again so I won't need to borrow money (hopefully) Although I do find the forward planning budget tricky too, I'm still getting used to it.

Pps - I just read your bit about actually looking at houses and your boyfriend getting a reality check, uh oh. But I guess it's good to be able to talk about your expectations...?

hohum

NHS_worker_bee wrote: »

I've just read your diary and I like this ^ it's exactly how I feel at the moment, skint but happy. It seems you've got a good relationship there (despite his mindless spending!) and whilst I wish you all the best on your journey to become homeowners, don't overstretch yourselves for a mortgage and lose the happiness, it's not worth it. Hopefully you will be able to get an affordable mortgage and a happy balance when the time is right. Best wishes

Ps - I agree with the thing you said about when you enthused about your budget and your mum felt bad for you. When I enthuse about my budget, other people have felt sorry for me too and even offered to lend me money - they just don't understand that the budget is a very good thing and that with the budget, I won't get in a financial pickle again so I won't need to borrow money (hopefully) Although I do find the forward planning budget tricky too, I'm still getting used to it.

Pps - I just read your bit about actually looking at houses and your boyfriend getting a reality check, uh oh. But I guess it's good to be able to talk about your expectations...?

Thanks! Skint but happy isn't too bad really is it, in many ways. I feel grateful to have so many nice things and people in my life. You are more principled than me...I totally took the tenner she offered me! (It was going to be an hour's walk home otherwuse)

After his reality check, boyfriend started researching housing. First message he sent me was 'you were right' and second was two very cheap houses (actually so cheap I think I'd ruled them out because of area or size). So I think he will adjust in time. Whether anyone will lend to us now is a different matter. But it has been a good motivator to start things moving!

hohum

Today I fought the hedge and the hedge kind of won... Slightly feral (if actually quite nice) neighbours never cut their side of the hedge between our properties. Which is fine but means it has got rather tall. I decided enough was enough and I wanted more daylight. They're happy for us to cut it (of course). Boyfriend cut hedge last time and because I'm more particular than he is, I think I will be hedge cutting for the forseeable.

Because it is so overgrown on the top I had to take a hacksaw to most of the branches. And because I don't have a stepladder this meant mostly launching myself into the hedge to catch the overgrown branches on the other side. I did this for 20min before realising long sleeves would be good. Arms covered in scratches!

I swear I have removed a small tree from the hedge. Not there yet - it jams the electric hedge trimmer I have borrowed so will need to borrow some shears to even off the top. But more light for my garden!

Boyfriend is away and I have no work today so also enjoyed all the things I don't do enough of. Hedge diving not really on that list but found some cut price salmon in supermarket (2.49) and enjoyed with fresh dill. Boyfriend not an oily fish fan. Ate salad sprinkled with liberal amounts of fresh mint (again, not something would subject boyfriend to!). Made leek & cheese quiche which was not exactly money saving as cheese cost £2, but pastry was reduced to 34p & leeks to 45p, so not as expensive as could be. Drank fresh mint tea and stared at pile of privet. Allocated additional £70 of income from boyfriend doing odd jobs for rels. Paid rent, class 2 ni and £10 towards arrears. Tried not to get outraged by how much we have spent this month in !!!!!!! bank fees.

Drank 2 glasses of nice French Chardonnay on offer at £5. Felt a bit drunk. Now only £10 of spending money for me left this month! Had bath and painted toenails. Totally failed to do ironing, sewing or hoovering on my list.

Would you believe that the above is like my idea of an ideal day off? Love getting a whole day to just pootle about.