Diary of a home owner wannabe (my 6 year journey)

pennyforthepot

Another glorious morning = no heating :T

Busy admin day to day plus a heavy spend day ahead of me :eek:
DD not feeling well, there's a nasty bug going round so she's still in bed (very rarely has a day off)

I'm still feeling a little ill at ease with regards to the state of my finances this month as I can't quite seem to get a grip on what is going out at the moment (there's certainly nothing coming in )

To DO List:

• [STRIKE]washing[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]ironing[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]food shop[/STRIKE]
• menu plan
• shopping list
• [STRIKE]pay road fund tax[/STRIKE]
• finish off change of addresses so nearly there apart from business stuff of course
• tidy up my desk
• [STRIKE]budget accounts[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]chase an outstanding invoice (haven't done any business accounts for ages will dedicate a day at the end of this week to get back on track[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]pay surcharge to HMRC for DH failure to file and pay his tax returns from 5 years ago - heinous tax bill[/STRIKE] :mad:
• [STRIKE]cook - yummy fish pie for tea [/STRIKE] mmm - thanks Jamie O - scrummy

Will pop back later with my daily spend - scary :eek:

Have a good one :j

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Whoop Whoop! just been told that we are getting our full deposit back from old house so that's £600 to put towards the cost of the move (£4500 deposit back - £3900 deposit out for new house) - we had the best landlady and all that cleaning certainly paid off :j:j

I have just spent some time calculating the exact cost of moving which is as follows:

• £98.43 - cleaning and repair to house
• £795.14 removal company
• £100 one day paying rent on both houses
• £50 - mail redirection
• £376 - admin fees for new house
• £140 - check out fee for old house

£1,559.57 TOTAL COST!

It's a good job I got that good news as it certainly hasn't been a low spend day today!

TODAY'S SPENDS:

£21.05 Mr T - got all the fruit for the week as well as ingredients for DDs cookery class tomorrow and bits I still needed for tea tonight
£490 Car tax :eek:
£480.63 car insurance renewal
£25.43 admin fee for change of address for car insurance
£20 school lunches for DSS2
£40 class kitty money
£8 past maths papers for DSS2
£349.59-surcharge for non payment of tax by DH (in a past life I hasten to add):eek:
50P stamp
£795.14 removal company - paid today
£8.30 stationery

£2,238.68 GRAND TOTAL :eek:

On a good note a friend of mine dropped round two packs of Mr W biscuits because I gave her my vouchers as I don't really use them - how nice is that

Off to lie down in a quiet dark room to contemplate how much money has come out of the bank account in the last few weeks - or maybe do the ironing :rotfl:

PFTP xx

edinburgher

£349.59-surcharge for non payment of tax by DH (in a past life I hasten to add)

You should take those beers back

Well done on the move, PFTP, I'm sure you'll settle into your new home rhythm soon.

iquit

I'm happy to see you're back busting through the lists again. You've made good in roads on updating your finances - bit of a cheek car insurers charging admin fee on for address change!

pennyforthepot

edinburgher wrote: »

You should take those beers back

Well done on the move, PFTP, I'm sure you'll settle into your new home rhythm soon.

:beer: if only there were any left

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

iquit wrote: »

I'm happy to see you're back busting through the lists again. You've made good in roads on updating your finances - bit of a cheek car insurers charging admin fee on for address change!

Thanks Iquit - cheek it certainly is - and it only took a 2 minute phone call!

It's scary just how much money goes out - particularly as I very rarely waste money or buy things that aren't needed :eek:

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

Looks a little grey from my kitchen window - heating came on this morning so it's definitely getting colder. I sneakily changed the heating and water settings that DH set when we arrived - it appears he thinks we need the heating and hot water on all day bar a few hours :eek:

1st of October today - where does the time go. It was October last year when I bought my last piece of clothing and I must say it feels quite liberating. I do love clothes but have typically gone for quality rather than quantity so it was quite easy not to buy anything, helped by not going shopping. There are a couple of bits that I need, a few jumpers and some winter tights but I'm going to carry on for the rest of this year and see how finances are at the beginning of next year, perhaps setting myself an annual budget (desperately need some new boots as mine are 10 years old and won't hold out for much longer - xmas pressie me thinks ). It also helps that I can fit into my DDs clothes and often get her cast offs :rotfl::rotfl:

To DO List:

• [STRIKE]finish off change of addresses[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]trip to post office for driving licence form[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]washing[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]ironing[/STRIKE]
• tidy desk - task left over from yesterday nearly there now - all the admin done just need to sort out the drawers
• [STRIKE]menu plan - only 5 days left to do so it can't be that hard[/STRIKE]
• shopping list - as above -just found a £15 off voucher for Mr T on line shop so will do tomorrow
• [STRIKE]food shop - chicken pasta with tomato and mascapone sauce for dinner - easy meal[/STRIKE] (out tonight)

I also need re-do all my financial/shopping lists/menuplans spreadsheets as excel doesn't work despite DH reinstalling it several times. This is a really big job as I have a number of them (my life is run by spreadsheets) and they have some quite complex formulas in them. If I have time I will start on them today.

Off for a stroll down to the PO and Mr T

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

• Tues: [STRIKE]chicken, pasta, baby corn with tomato & mascapone sauce garlic bread[/STRIKE]
• Wed: bangers with puy lentils, mustard mash and peas
• Thurs: cottage pie broccoli and leaks
• Fri: Chicken with spinach and chick pea curry (have spinach and chick peas to use up
• Sat: smoked haddock and leak risotto
• Sun: pizza only DSS2 here

I have £160 left for the next 2.5 weeks so I will have to be careful and make sure I empty out the freezer

PFTP x

pennyforthepot

SPENDS TODAY:

£22.50school theatre trip for DSS2
£12.18 Mr T shop. £6.38 allocated to next months food spend as bought some bargainicious stuff that won't be used till then
£15 DD school trip for tomorrow
£4.50 had to pop to Mr M& Mr S on the way to taking DS to his programming course as he wasn't hungry enough to eat anything b4 he went and I wasn't organised enough to get him a sarnie from home - tut tut, slapped wrist.:(

MONEY IN:

£8.04 interest earned from Flexi account transferred today
79p pennies found from DH leaving his change around the house

Off to read some diaries whilst I'm sat waiting for DS to finish his course

PFTP X

pennyforthepot

A grey yet warm morning - no heating required. Managed to change the heating and hot water settings without anyone noticing :rotfl:

Up with the birds this morning as DD off on a school trip to Lulworth Cove. Now that we have moved the commute was about 10 seconds as the coach was parked over the road from us:D Mind you I have been awake since 4.45 am as I can never sleep when I have to set an alarm. So today I am pootling and on a go slow

DS forgot his kit bag so I've just walked down to his school to drop it off - timed at an 8 minute walk. Our petrol savings are going to be significant now that we have moved - so more for the house fund pot :j

I have received 3 sets of money off vouchers for various supermarkets over the last few weeks - totalling £51 so today I'm going to draw up a shopping list and do a supermarket price comparison to see how best to spend the vouchers. Being MS is very time consuming - I remember the day when I used to throw the vouchers away and shop without any thought - gone are those days now.

I have a couple of MS projects that I need to look into over the next month. One is selling and replacing the cars that we have. I have a lease/hire contract on my mini which is due up next month. I can either give the mini back in return for another one (not an option for us), get them to buy the mini off me (depends on the price they offer), pay £4,000 - final payment on the finance deal (bought before my MS days when the shocking 21% APR meant nothing to me :eek:) and sell it privately, or keep it. We also have a jeep which is just over 6 years old and is very high maintenance and expensive to run. I own it outright but think we should part ex it for a cheaper family car. Lots of research required before I make a decision.

The other project is to look at the way I am saving my money. I want to make sure I am getting the best return for the money and I need to research buy to lets. I think you have to be so careful when investing in a property. Market prices are rising at the moment and the area that you buy is very important. There are also so many hidden costs that I think a lot of people don't take account of. As we want to buy in London in 6 years I have to take account of the rapid price rises there which may far outstrip the interest I am currently earning on my investments. As I can't get a mortgage as I have a zero monthly salary I couldn't afford a buy to let in London currently. It is a quandary that I must deal with and much research is required. I am thinking of going to see a IFA but even that needs some research.

My final project is to look into a private pension. At the ripe old age of [STRIKE]46[/STRIKE] (45 - cant believe I got my age wrong :eek:)my pension currently stands at £3,500 when I opted out of SERPS. As I haven't worked for so many years I need to think carefully about how to provide for those latter years of my life and DH's too as he has no idea as to how much he has as he has moved jobs so many times. (just remembered need to sort out a will too).

So I have lots to think about over the next few months - but then I do like a good research project - spreadsheets galore :rotfl:

My To Do List will be short today as I'm feeling so tired :(

TO DO LIST:

• [STRIKE]washing (permanent fixture on here)[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]finish tidying desk:j[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]menu plan for next week so I can use up my vouchers[/STRIKE] going to buy store cupboard staples and see if its cheaper for me to do a daily yellow sticker shop
• [STRIKE]supermarket price comparison[/STRIKE] need to do my store cupboard shop at A$da - so much cheaper - shame there's not one near by but I can do my 6 monthly store cupboard shop from there and either do an on-line shop or purchase my fuel there too as it's cheaper than most places
• [STRIKE]Trip to the PO[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]small food shop[/STRIKE] lots of bargainicious yellow stickers so not such a small shop but filling up the freezer nicely
• [STRIKE]update budget accounts[/STRIKE]
• [STRIKE]make sausage and puy lentil casserole[/STRIKE]mmm smells good - simmering away in the slow cooker. Thanks Delia