Diary of a spendy cow

mooomin

It's the start of the month tomorrow so it's another NSK challenge.


Here's the rules and what I'm going to be doing with them

1. This Challenge commences on the 01st May 2014 @ Midnight and closes on the 31st May 2014 @ 2359.
2. 15 SFD''s please! Should be achievable. I managed this month - barely
3. You MUST pay towards your debt FIRST. This isn't applicable to me as I'm debt-free, but I'm going to be paying money to my ISA first this month.
4. You must have budgets worked out PRIOR to the start of the month - which isn't long! And every spend must be written down and recorded. Pretty sure my budget is in good shape, but I'll check it again at lunchtime.
5. You must check in once a day Doable.
6. Unnecessary spends are unnecessary for a reason. Stamp them OUT please. Much easier now I'm working in an office with free tea/coffee
7. Plan plan plan plan what you are doing this month. I'm going to review my upcoming plans for the month and a post will follow around what I'm going to be aiming to do!

EssexHebridean

Looking forward to seeing how that goes Mooo. 15 SFD's though....I reckon the best I could do for May would be...*counts*...10. Might try and aim for that though, just to show willing, you understand!

mooomin

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Looking forward to seeing how that goes Mooo. 15 SFD's though....I reckon the best I could do for May would be...*counts*...10. Might try and aim for that though, just to show willing, you understand!

I cheat a little on the SFDs, I have to admit I don't count anything that's food shopping, because it comes from a budget anyway and it's FAR too common for me to get home and Mr Mooo mention that we need milk/bread/something else.

I've got my weekly budget sorted and have a note of all my other plans for the month so I just need to work out how much money I'll need for them and then cometh the evening I'll be able to declare my budgets for the next month. :eek:

mooomin

Current plans and estimated costs:

• Lecture tomorrow night with a friend - should be free as ticket is paid for.
• Birthday do on Saturday for a friend. £10 budget. She's having it at her house, so that's to cover any card/bottle/food I bring.
• Gig. £10. It's a local gig, so we don't have too much petrol to worry about. Parking will be free. That's £10 to cover any drinks we have.
• Wedding #1. £20 budget for drinks. I have to find out what their wedding list plans are and will take money for that from my birthdays/Christmas fund.
• Wedding #2. I have no clue how to budget for this. The accommodation is paid, but it's down somewhere near Gloucestershire (possibly!) and we don't know if we're driving (very expensive) or getting a lift (trapped with in-laws for hours on end, not my first choice!) I'm going with £20 for drinks at the wedding and anything else will have to come from savings.

Potential plans and estimated costs:

• Night out with a good friend who just moved north. £30 budget.
• Meeting up with friends one weekend. £15
• Cinema trips. Budgeting £10 for any food

I'm also planning taking my lunch to work every day this month. That's 19 working days as I have two days off for wedding #2 and have jury service on one day :mad:


That comes to a total of £115 for the month (!) Hmm...

beanielou

Hurrah for free tea & coffee :j

girlatplay

mooomin wrote: »

...Wedding #2. I have no clue how to budget for this. The accommodation is paid, but it's down somewhere near Gloucestershire (possibly!) and we don't know if we're driving (very expensive) or getting a lift (trapped with in-laws for hours on end, not my first choice!)...

Latterly, my grandparents lived in Gloucestershire before they passed away... *has nostalgic moment. Oh the memories*... sorry, I realise that is not helpful to your budgetting. I was actually trying to think if I could suggest anything but I really can't. I suppose the lift would be better budget-wise. It used to take us 6-7 hours to drive there with stops, usually at Moffat and again at motorway services around the Lake District (Tebay?) but I suppose it is different when you are trapped in a car with your own family who you love, and love spending time with. I feel a bit envious of you getting to go there though;):D

mooomin

My payslip has landed and once again no tax has been paid :mad:

I spoke to a very helpful chap at HMRC this morning who is sending my temp agency another copy of my tax code and has warned me that I won't be paying tax for at least another week so will probably end up underpaid at the end of the year. It won't be by much though so I'm not too worried as long as it's sorted quickly.

That means that this week I'm getting £329 instead of the around £280 I planned for, so I'm going to start budget-building early!

£171 bills
£37.50 food
£10 birthdays
£25 car
£25 spends
£30 petrol

Total = £298

I'll check my maths tomorrow and figure out what I'm up to!

mooomin

Those figures didn't add up - I forgot my entertainment budget

All sorted now and just over £1 added to my savings account :rotfl:

Daily check-ins 2/31
SFDs 2/15
LTWs 2/19
Exercise days 2/20
ISA savings £33.25/£50
Food: £0/£150
Birthday fund: £10/£40 saved
Car fund: £25/£100 saved
Entertainment: £0/£120
Petrol: £0/80
Misc spends: £0/£100

All looking quite healthy.

Moneywise my savings account is up to £1602.39 thanks to a whopping £7.42 in interest (!) Still, it's better than nothing I suppose. Today I'm going to do a very careful mealplan and shopping list as I have a few things to get but a very small weekly budget with very little wiggle-room.

mooomin

Mealplan is done!

Tonight - stew. All ingredients in the house.
Saturday - At a friend's for a BBQ (optimistic for Scotland!)
Sunday - roast chicken
Monday - Paprika chicken
Tuesday - Chicken and chorizo jambalaya
Wednesday - Chilli
Thursday - Chilli
Friday- Fishcakes
Saturday - Pizza

We have the ingredients in the house to make most of the meals, so the shopping list is mainly vegetables and fruit. I'm also planning to make a big batch of soup on Sunday to do lunches for next week, so I might even take the packet of ham off the list! I've divided my shopping list up to account for what I'm buying in Aldi and what I'm buying in Morrisons. I have a 5% cashback offer for Morrisons thanks to my current account, so even if I spend £15 there I'll be getting 75p back. It's better than nothing!

mooomin

I decided to test the claims from Morrisons that they're awfully cheap now. I'm pretty impressed - especially at the ham which is normally £2.50 but is now £1.69 :money:

I got loads of fresh fruit, onions, celery, potatoes, lettuce, beans and some things not on the list (ice lollies and popcorn) and it came to just over a tenner. I will be keeping an eye on their fruit and veg prices from now on