Enjoying the journey - budgeting, saving and remaining credit card free

fedupandskint

Hi Bad Weather, I love being organised! Good look sticking to your clothes budget.

I'm looking forward to building the loan settlement lump sum up. A year ago I would not have believed it would be possible. Of course it's possible, I just needed to think it is possible and believe myself.

fedupandskint

Forgot to mention, I totted up my total for beauty products used up £1 each time goes into the pot now stands at £21. Very pleased indeed as change saving pots are now at £76 in total. Not bad for 3mths!

Onwards and upwards with the saving pots as there's still a long way to go but all looking good for next summer. Will pop it into a savings account when I find one spare.

Just checked back to the front page and saw my plans for savings on there. Well I can report they are all set up and very slowing building up. This will continue over the next year until my new job comes to an end then I'll have to have a rethink but it's working out well so far.

My priorities for the next 6months are to build up the loan settlement account, get at least one room decorated and stay on budget and a couple more things.

Bad_Weather

fedupandskint wrote: »

Forgot to mention, I totted up my total for beauty products used up £1 each time goes into the pot now stands at £21. Very pleased indeed as change saving pots are now at £76 in total. Not bad for 3mths!

That is SUCH a good idea! I might steal this. I recently this year realised I had soooooo many toiletries and makeup. I still buy the facial moisturiser and eye creams, shampoo etc but I have so many body moisturisers etc and random samples of things that I MUST get through.

I got given EVEN more this year for Christmas but instead of opening them and using a tiny bit or half of them I am putting them aside as emergency gifts or silly we extras for people. Terrible but I cannot get through the ones I have already! :cool:

fedupandskint

Bad_Weather wrote: »

That is SUCH a good idea! I might steal this. I recently this year realised I had soooooo many toiletries and makeup. I still buy the facial moisturiser and eye creams, shampoo etc but I have so many body moisturisers etc and random samples of things that I MUST get through.

I got given EVEN more this year for Christmas but instead of opening them and using a tiny bit or half of them I am putting them aside as emergency gifts or silly we extras for people. Terrible but I cannot get through the ones I have already! :cool:

You sound like me about 4 years should and then the penny dropped a year later to stop spending every penny on skincare and make up.

I started the putting £1 in a jar every time I used a product up borrowed from another toiletries challenge thread and if worked a treat for me. Bizzarely it taught me how to save again after spending for all those years. It also taught me to save up painstakingly slowly for things I really wanted as I stopped using credit cards.

Give it a try! I use an old Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish tin to keep it in and a list of what I've used up and if I've put the £1 in.

I saved up for a new outdoor jacket, car tax part payment and best of all a new pair of running trainers which took a long time to save £80 up for but I did if when I had no spare pennies as they had all gone to repaying debt. Situation the same as I focus on paying another debt off.

Go on, give it a go, sometimes it takes a while to use products up, then all of a sudden you reach £30+ which is a nice bonus way of saving!

fedupandskint

Decided to do a job I've put off for a while this afternoon.

Bank charges reclaim letter emailed off to the bank after a phone call to them earlier today. The Financial Ombudsman advised me to give this a go after not being able to help with a previous claim with another bank who used the longer ago than 6 years ruling to not refund the charges.

It's worth a try after all and if they do refund this will go into my loan settlement account and if not then nothing is lost. There is no harm in trying.

Next job to do is chase up the CPP compensation as I've not received a letter and I now have a phone number to call later this week once the New Year is over with.

Not much else going on here apart from watching singing in the rain, cleaning the living room and another dog walk.

fedupandskint

Crazy Clothes Challenge 2014 up and running with plenty of new members joining in got this year. The aim is to set a budget for clothing spends and stick to it all year.

My budget is £100 as this is the amount spent this year going over by £1.98 although my budget for this year was £200 meaning that was a good result. My aim for January is to have a no spend month as it's more important I stay in credit than buy new clothes or shoes or a bag.

Have taken the cards and decs down this afternoon as I'm sick of looking at them. Living room all tidy again.

As I'm not going out tonight I'll have a think about some jobs to tick off my list tomorrow. Have had a nice relaxing bath and face pack, may as well celebrate the new year as any other time off I have!

fedupandskint

My end of year 2013 totals are;

£9410.39 on 4 credit cards paid off, closed down and cleared.
£3287.76 of one loan paid off, leaving £2465.82 to pay and will be paid off next year and settled.

2014 aims;
£19653.31 loan I'm in the process of saving up for to settle 20 years early, currently at 1% and this is my focus for the year ahead.

I'm really pleased with how far I've progressed and repaid debt over the last 12 months and hoping for the same over the next 12 months.

fedupandskint

Good mooring everyone and a Happy New Year!

I've spent the morning sorting out paperwork into the correct files and putting them away. Got out of the habit for the last few weeks. Received confirmation that the bank have received my complaint letter and that process is on its way. I'm not banking on a refund as the other bank refused to uphold my complaint. As i said before, its worth a try and not even a stamp needed - just needed 40mins of going through online statements to find the charges.

Next job is to find proof of CPP charges ready to ring the company this week.

A very grey and miserable day here today so not much going on. Might check out the wallpaper samples to see what I think of them, watch lots of TV, generally chill and cheer myself up looking for a new outdoor coat to spend Christmas money on! Nearly bought a tent last night for summer holidays - reigned myself in but it was a bargain and the brand I wanted. I'm very tempted, might go for it later if its still there!

fedupandskint

2 more things done. Letter found for CPP but no policy number anywhere. Will ring on Friday and see what happens. Then checked amaz*n a/c to take off all payment cards on there to discover 3 had expired and removed the one still in date - no temptations there now. Then discovered I had been paying for prime membership of £49 per year. Didn't realise this stupidly. Anyway cancelled membership and no more payments will be made for this. Good job I checked otherwise this would have been a shock to the finances! Thought I saw this payment for last year yesterday when checking back through the bank statements, turns out I did!

Why are there always things I pay for that I am not aware of? This should be the last surprise though as I'm on top of the finances now and what goes in and out of the account. I didn't realise I had PPI attached to so many things or this prime delivery thing, hmmm. That should be it now and no more surprises like this are due. £49 saved there, phew!

fedupandskint

I got quite a lot done this afternoon after sorting all that paperwork into the right places this morning.

Cleaned the bathroom this afternoon to get a weekend job done early, then made porridge for work for the next 2 days to reheat in the mornings. Then found more items out for eBay starting with kitchen items this time and while doing that cleared out 2 big kitchen cupboards and cleaned them from top to bottom while removing the items for eBay. Took photos to list a couple this evening then the rest at the weekend while its still free listing.

One small sale on eBay today but pleased its off to a new home.

Also worked out a holiday spend plan and ordered the tent I'd seen and a new groundsheet to fit it perfectly as it was by far the cheapest I could find anywhere and it was made by the manufacturer I wanted tent from for the last 2 years but had been unable to afford. It is made by a very reliable manufacturer who made the old tent me and my ex used for so many years and happy holidays.

Money came out of holiday account so I could still count today as a NSD but it feels a bit weird to do that, mind you they haven't taken the payment out yet so I could.

If all goes well and its delivered safely I'll be really pleased as I have the rest of the camping stuff ready to go.

I'm planning a late spring trip to try it out.

That means a holiday is planned after the dearth of holidays last year I could really do with a few breaks over the next 12 months