Diary of a spendy cow

mooomin

Afternoon all

Well, my wee muscles are aching, but I raised £357 for Cancer Research, so I'm feeling pretty proud of myself.

Not a lot to report today otherwise.

Munchin

Well done you ....should I mention that is usually 2 days later before the aches really start.

beanielou

Great :j :j :j

tomtombeanie

Well done! What a lot of money!

girlatplay

Well done :T

mooomin

Morning

My fireplace is gone! I have a nice wee hole in my floor and the wall has been plastered so we can paper over it in a couple of weeks time. I can't wait.

I've added 40 Nectar points to my balance this morning with a survey and a few points with Adpoints too. My balance is just over £32 at the moment.

The Steam summer sale is rumoured to start tomorrow (it's a computer game sale, for those of you who don't indulge) and I'm hoping that they will have YNAB for a lot less than the £30 they currently charge. I will report back if I see it nice and cheap. I'm loving the software and it's really making me think about what I'm doing in terms of budgeting.

Previously I've liked bringing the accounts to zero at the end of the month and saving any excess, but it means that any unexpected/should have saved for things end up coming out of my savings. This lets me see at a glance what I should save for expenses. For example, I have Amazon Prime at the moment, which is £79 a year and is due to be renewed in May 2015. I wasn't going to renew it, but I can just budget £7.90 a month from next month and that'll cover it. Once the balance has built up I'll have the money to pay for it.

This isn't rocket science, but having it in black and white (and the other pretty colours!) is really helping. I'm going to do a full and proper budget this week and get it plugged in to the software ready for the next month and see how I go from there.

Pippilongstocking

I find the budgeting thing and the overlapping thing very annoying and hard to get my head round so once you've got it sussed please do explain it to thicko here.

Well done on the money what a lot you raised woo hoo! I'm not surprised you're aching. Must get back into walking was doing 5 miles a day (ish) but these days I've just got out of the habit, and i've put on a stone, funny that eh?

Budget for grub looking totally doable.

I splurged on fresh stuff in Aldi yesterday (other supermarkets are available) and I've not much left for the month but plenty in. And, nae scurvy on my watch in this hoose you'll be glad to hear.

Have a great day. Whoop whoop for fireplaces going.

DS uses Steam a lot I'll give him the heads up about the sale thanks.

mooomin

This post is budget-workings. Please feel free to ignore. Normal waffling will resume shortly

Bills

Mortgage £253
Overpayment £20
Council Tax £123
Internet/phone/TV £45
Home insurance £20
TV Licence £13
Electricity/gas £70
Vodafone £12 (Mr Mooo)
Orange £39 (Me)
Cinema card £16
Zoo membership £5
Bus pass £48
Gym £20

Total: £684

Other regular monthly things


Birthdays/Christmas £50
Car expenses £100
Food £150

Things I probably should budget for....

Entertainment £50
Fuel £40
Prime £8 (next ten months)
Other gifting £20
Travel £10
Clothing £20
Haircuts £13
Crafting £20

These + my normal monthly spends = £481

Total expenditure: £1165

I'm planning on putting all the money in to my bills account (apart from the car/birthday; that goes into their own accounts) and using my debit card if I have to pay for one of these items. I'll log it all in YNAB so I can make sure I'm not spending my actual bills money. Anything left is spending money, which will, ideally, decrease each month as I fritter less on nonsense.

Thoughts? (If you're still awake!)

mooomin

Morning

I had a rock and roll evening of watching the football and plugging numbers in to YNAB last night.

I did get a quick trip to the shops in (Mr Mooo donated a tenner to cover his junk food addiction) and was delighted to get three boxes of free range eggs for 25p each instead of £1.68 :j I eat a lot of eggs and the price of them always annoys me.

Not a lot in plan for later - I'm meant to be heading to a pub quiz later, so hopefully that'll be a lot of fun. Friday tomorrow, hurrah!

Ali-OK

Going great guns and well done on R4L and money raised.

Keeping a close eye for YNAB and Steam, I should really download the trial and see if I get on with it first! :rotfl: