August's Almighty Advance

his_missus

Ha ha! We can't mention Christmas in our office before December 1st or boss lady moans

I'm planning on buying most of my xmas goodies with vouchers collected from surveys/points etc.

Kat, I have a question. I need to go shopping tomorow or I will have 5 grumpy and hungry cats come Sunday. I have £5 credit on my Halifax CC (monthly reward) and £5 monthly reward in my Halifax currecnt account. If I use this £10 can I count tomorrow as a SFD as technically this is a reward (I never actually budget for its use)as opposed to my hard earned money?

My plan is to pay using the CC then transfer £5 over (or however much I need to up to £5) from the current account to bring CC back to £0.

Thrifty, there are similar things you could make - flavoured vodka, chocolate slabs, chutneys. You could make mini hampers around a theme such as a HM bottle of flavoured vodka with a couple of inexpensive glasses or HM chutneys with a box of crackers and cheeses.

Living_a_good_life

Packed and ready for the off - house tidy - just got to have tea and then its aurevoir Packed DH car - was quite proud when he was asking how many more big bags to come and I said no thats it Making room for some vino to bring home - which due to my stupidity of signing up to September before reading the small print I obviously wont touch until October Maybe Ill just sniff the cork or something.....

Anyway love to all - if anyone would send a few prayers that we sell our house while we are away that would be just peachy!!

See you in September :j
Love LAGL xx

PS Also hoping and praying that DH is the only dodgy traveler in our family - if not I reserve the right to leave the cabin :eek:

beckyboo1980_2

Afternoon all.
Got back from our 'free holiday' this morning - house and dog sitting for a friend who lives in Beer, Devon. We have been so blessed - gorgeous weather, gorgeous house and absolutely free - yay!!! Have already offered to house/dog sit again next time they go away.
Very excited for Sunday and Septembers challenge. Budgets are set and plans are in place. Just to update signature in a moment.
In the meantime, I have been playing around with our spreadsheets and snowball/ mortgage overpayment calculators. Have worked out that if we could make payments of £600 per month on the credit cards, we could be credit card free by December 2014. What a nice xmas pressie to ourselves!!! If we then put that £600 per month towards overpaying on our loans, we could clear those by the following September (9 months later). That's 2 years from now to be debt free. This got me really excited but also got me thinking even further ahead. I found an overpayment calculator for mortgages. To my absolute flabberghastedness I have discovered that if after that we were to put £500 of the £1000 a month we spend servicing our credit cards and loans into overpaying on the mortgage we could knock 7 years and 8 months off our 20 year mortgage and even more shockingly save ourselves £34,790 in interest - excuse my language but that's a bloody fortune!!!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
That's it, this I think is another lightbulb moment. Of course, for the time being we need to concentrate on shifting our colossal debt but after that the skys the limit - I will definitely be over-paying whatever I can on my mortgage!!!!
New Aldi has opened up in the town where I work and boy am I impressed!!!! Can't believe how much cheaper some of the stuff is in there and what we have tried has been fantastic quality. I am a very happy bunny!!!
Right, off to update my signatures. Happy saving everyone.
Beckyboo
XXX

Siouxsie32

What a night! I was driving back home a few hours ago when I came across a crash that had just happened so I stopped to help. I'm no Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, but in the absence of anyone more suitable, I thought I just might be able to assist. Nobody was physically hurt but there was a bit of shock all round. Three cars full of teenagers (I mean full - I counted thirteen people). I waited til the police and ambulances arrived and left...only to discover that I had driven over some of the debris and had a flat tyre! I got my sleeves rolled up and set about changing it when a lovely Irish family came over to help (they were in a taxi passing just after it happened as well). Anyway, they helped me (I could have done it myself, but I'm not sure I would have it changed before the sun came up so I was very grateful!). I came home, made a few litres of tea (oh the Irish love their tea!!) and took it back to the scene in big Evian bottles with some plastic cups I had in the back of my cupboard (eh, for emergencies ).

Funnily enough my AA membership runs out on Sunday. I had been thinking of not renewing it as my car's new and I doubt it will break down. Hmmm, if I had been alone on a dark road when that happened I would have been a bit scared so maybe it's time to rethink and get shopping around? Great, I was doing well having £20 left for August. Don't think that'll stretch to a new tyre and AA membership!

Moneymash

Siouxsie32 well done for stopping and helping at the crash, I hate it when people drive by slowly or just stop and gawk.

Abundant1972, judi24 and LittleMissKitty, glad I am not the only one to go over my food budget. Like Abundant and judi24 I think I will deduct from next month's budget to try and bring about some balance.

Thriftylass and littleskintdragon, thanks for the slow cooking tips, seems I can just throw it all in and it will be fine. It does make sense to brown sausages though, as otherwise they would be a little anemic looking.

NSK , the library why didn't I think of that? Although, I still haven't browsed Amazon, too scared of spending yet more money, so the library it is.

Ok, so I have signed up for September's challenge and then realised that I still haven't finished this one properly. I haven't exercised, so tomorrow (today now) I will break out the Tracey Anderson DVD, it will near kill me and I won't be able to walk on Sunday, but it has to be done. Also, realised I hadn't donated to charity, so thanks lilian1977, for posting the text info for donating to the Trussell Trust, £3 is winging its way to them now.

Liliyanna, I concur it is much easier to reconcile your banking when you know exactly what every entry is because you've thought about purchases and spent on specific days. No head scratching, racking my brains, and googling early onset memory loss for me, as I already know what to expect when I log on to my online banking.

Wannabe_in_credit so glad you have decided to keep the ipad mini, you were meant to have it, so enjoy the luck.

littleskintdragon, I too love Christmas :rudolf: this month I will put a £100 on my clubcard towards my Christmas food shop, in return from Tesco I will get £6, plus I hope to have £15 in vouchers by October ( I think) when they dish them out, £21 is not a bad return for a bit of loyalty shopping. I love the phrase Chrimbo bimbo, I can't remember who wrote it though. You have made amazing savings on Christmas this year compared to what you spent last year, so I have decided you are a Chrimbo bimbo (someone that makes Christmas memorable but cheap). Soon people will be saying 'Get her, she's a right Chrimbo bimbo that one, reduce the cost of Christmas for the third year in a row and everybody said it was the best Christmas ever!'

Na, night.

Happybeingme

Siouxsie32 That was an amazing thing to do!

Spent yesterday getting DD1 tracksuit bottoms for PE, and needed some toothpaste and stuff ~ I've added it all to the 'spends' rather than beauty.

DD1 getting her hair cut today ~ not been done for nearly a year and desperately needs it so will be a spend day today too.

Really looking forward to next months challenge ~ I really need to keep a very close eye on money, I want the debt to go down not up and I'm a little nervous about finding DS1 college travel money.

Have a brilliant Saturday everyone ~ I'll update later with the final spend.

Happybeingme

Oh I forgot ~ with my treat money I bought 2 cookbooks from a book club, they were in the sale and had extra 25% off

brizzledfw

Hi folks, a SFD yesterday! :T only my second but better late than never and many have been LSD (Low Spend Days)..hard when there are 4 of you as by my rules NO ONE in the house can spend a bean for it if its to count as a SFD:eek:

Everyone seems really chirpy. Its great to see!

Well done on helping with the aftermath of the car crash..Siouxsie you are truly a Good Samaritan:D

Jonesy88

Wow, i dont use my laptop for 2 days and miss so much!

Wannabee - i'm glad you've decided to keep the ipad. Wierdly my car came with an ipad mini (which i had planned to buy once DF). I love it and it makes me smaile when i see it as its almost saying to me "see, you start on your DFW journey and good things happen"

NSK - I love round numbers. So much so i write a cheque to myself when i get interest in my building society account to keep it round. DH thinks i'm mad.

LSD - I love christmas. :xmassmile I'm starting to get my plans in place. I have a lot of family who celebrate their birthdays in nov/dec so i've been concentrating on making sure i have them covered first. DHs present was bought in February for his December birthday!

Siouxsie - i think i would've stopped too, not that i'm particularly useful. In relation to changing a tyre, my dad's tried to teach me several times but i'm not interested. I have no intention of changing 1 on my own - I don't think i'm strong enough for one and it would make me feel vulnerable. Instead i intend to use the wonderful piece of technology known as the phone, should the situation ever occur.

Right as it's the last day of the month, i might as well declare my figures:

Food: £42/£30 Spends: £20/£20 Petrol: £0/£20 SFDs: 18/20

I managed to go a whole month without filling my car!

Right, off the plan for September - its going to be a tight month, i know that much!

littleskintdragon

So i'm a chrimbo bimbo, thanks moneymash :beer:
I dont think xmas will be anyworse this year with my new frugal ways....

Has anyone watched extreme cheapskates? It was on earlier so i watched 3 episodes, omg!! If u can watch it then do, it makes u realise that we're not really that tight or going without at all!

So last day of the month, all sept budgets are planned, and money bagged in weekly money bags.

Out for food tonight, its my baby shower so i wont be paying anything but i did have to send dh out for milk earlier, so we're ending month 1 on 11 sfd's. which i'm not overly pleased about, but most others have been lsd's and ive been home for 2 weeks with dd and its been on summer hols.

Have created a new personal challenge, to be cc free by xmas!
Currently have £1600 ish on it, need to get proper total later, but being cc free would be amazing!! Its a tesco cc that i want to keep for points, so i'll keep it and reduce the credit limit to the minimum allowed. Then i need to decide which debt i want to slash next... Not sure how u make overpayments on a loan but even if it means a phonecall once a month then that's fine. I'm off to google overpayments on samtander loans now so ill pop back later