The march to financial freedom

Ali-OK

I'm back and thanks for the lovely messages.

Great night last night, got away with station car parking at £3.50 and additional spends of programme at £10 and a MaccD's at £4.36 - DS was still 'starving' after our home-made hotdogs on the train. T-shirts available on a website rather than at the venue, so will get DS one of those as we turn into the new month next week.

The secret I've been keeping I can now share. My niece got engaged last night. :j Live on stage at the event infront of thousands of people, her BF proposed - glad she said yes! :T

My nephew also passed his driving test yesterday. So a fantastic, if very long day yesterday,got home about 1am this morning.

Shattered today, but DS survived school and I survived work, though managed to pay the business banking into my personal account by accident, so had to then transfer it across and transfer some back as part of pay myself day! Over target for the month but only just over average nett income with the changes for the car.

Will start again on the financials tomorrow as too tired tonight and not alot different anyway.

Busy weekend with Mothers Day flowers to collect and deliver, accounts of business for sale to pick up and start scrutinising and my month end accounts to tie up and almost year end for my business.

Would love to be able to spend time outdoors with the lovely weather forecast, but house is a tip and I've a ton of work I need to do before Monday. As much as I'd like to aim for a very productive day tomorrow, I'm starting with a lay in, so bang goes that plan :rotfl:

Hope everyone has had a good Friday and the weekend has started off well.

millionaire_in_training

That's great you had a fab time and how amazing re your niece. Great that you guys were there to see that x

Ali-OK

Whoosh...where did Saturday go?!

Slept in until 7am, washing on the line by 8.30am and flowers picked up at 9am. Had to put the sports car battery on charge as that had flattened with the cold weather last week, so a delay in getting to Mums. Cuppa and catch up.

Back home by 1ish with Mum's apple crumble recipe in hand, had a lunch of leftover bits and pieces, took washing in, 5 bits ironed, the rest folded and everything put away. Sat down for a cuppa and then it was time to pick up the accounts from the business for sale. An hour or so meeting there, home at tea time and batch chilli cooked and tea eaten.

Business plan drawn up for the bank, numbers crunched and conclusions made. Just need the bank to say Yes next Thursday.

Found a little time for the financials:
- bank account checked and monthly use CC payment set up as it's rolled over
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints checked - stuck on 42, poor week
- Nectar Canvass - on the To Do list
- Nectar card - value £46.17
- Inbox Pounds - up to £7.48
- Qmee - 35p cashed out to paypal
- Qu!dco - After emailing them about 5 purchases that had all tracked but the dates of payment had been replaced with a dash, had a great reply and there's £20.32 on it's way to me :T

- Spoke to old gas supplier about final bill and queried the price change. They couldn't explain it, so am expecting them to phone once they've investigated.

- Elec and gas meter readings taken and submitted. Our elec use is creeping up a bit, so need to jump on that one.

Ooh, it's clocks change tonight as well - completely forgot about that until now, just when I could do with the extra hour :rotfl:

We've had wonderful weather here today and same is due tomorrow. Still got lots of work for Monday to do and the housework though so likely to be indoors. :eek: Going to be another busy day whatever I end up doing!

Hope everyone has had a great Saturday.

Ali-OK

I'm having a 'consolidation' moment with figures, so what better place to write them down than on here.

March was a bit of a wet blanket as far as debt payments go. Only £94 paid off the CC, but the new car moved to the business shifting that out of personal debt.

Am ending the month with the emergency fund sat at £2,835.38 so still below the £3k line. Would have been closer had the £114.58 car tax refund arrived (quoted up to 6 weeks, almost at 3).

I paid myself on Friday and my budget sheet tells me I'll have £3,051.31 left at the end of April. That's better and includes £265 car tax for the sports car that is due and £100 engagement pressie cheque to niece and new fiancee. Debt payment will be £250 and mortgage capital payment £730. As April is a shorter working month for me, I need to carry over that £51.31 as May looks like I'll be left with £2995 after predicted income.

Not included in income is the little bits like Qu!dco, Inbox Pounds, Qmee and coins - I've got to £10 in 50p's now to be banked. And a car boot sale should surely be done to boost the coffers.

The boiler service is due next month, but I've pushed that into May, it's not on a contract or anything and usually costs about £60. Sports car service isn't accounted for either - might push that into June as a fairly free month (except the weekend away that's already paid for and just need spending money), though it's a high month for expensive birthdays again.

Bottom line - I've put in a minimum CC payment of £250 across the rest of this year, anything over that will be a bonus.

Yet to figure out summer school hols work and childcare balance, as well as if I buy the business I'm looking at, alot might change anyway.

So that's all clear then isn't it (not) :rotfl:

Housework beckons..bit chilly out, no sunshine and dogs now chilling after their run. DS not even awake yet. Will soon change that with the hoover

Happy Mother's Day

Ali-OK

So DS woke before I switched the hoover on and I was greeted with a lovely box of choccies and a card. Heavy hints for him to make a cup of tea came to fruition about 2 hrs later :rotfl:

Housework done, mostly caught up with work and we're ready for the new week.

Financials:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar adpoints - no more there, so just a lowly 42 this week
- Nectar Canvass - 40 pointer completed today
- Nectar Card - value up to £46.57
- Inbox Pounds - up to £8.47
- Qmee - nothing else from that at the moment

Plans outside the norm for this week include the business bank appt on Thursday and DS is going to an event Friday evening, so Mum's taxi will be called upon.

Glad I had my hair trimmed and eyebrows done last week, as I'd forgotten until now that I'll be in some marketing photos being taken on Tuesday. Phew!

Hope everyone has had a good day.

Ali-OK

Not the best start to the week, as DS was up half the night with a poorly tummy and stayed off school today. Very rare for him to be unwell to be fair and he's well enough to return tomorrow.

So had to move work around and spent the rest of today getting right up to date. Pleased with progress.

Financials:
- bank account checked
- freepostcodelottery checked
- Nectar Adpoints - new week and 33 points available and done
- Nectar Canvass - did another 40 pointer late yesterday
- Nectar Search - starts a new month tomorrow
- Nectar card value - up to £46.98
- Inbox Pounds - up to £9.04
- Qmee - 6p added to the pot

Nothing else to report today, so hope everyone has had a good start to the week.

Ali-OK

Ahh, new month tomorrow and new grocery challenge. Did quite well during March and came in at £96.55 from £100 budgeted.

I'm upping that to £120 for April as there are 5 weekly shops to do and we've got Easter hols in there, though DS is home for just the one week, at my Mum's daily for the other. Plus household things like toilet rolls will be needed (£4 for 24 in FF).

Petrol costs for personal use might be higher with the extra 300 miles of running DS to/from Mums, though mpg is good enough that I think I can get away with an old normal month of £35.

Sting in the tail that I'd forgotten about - nephew's 18th. I gave niece £50 for hers, but also paid for her meal out with friends/immediate family (@ £300), so I ought to give my nephew the same amount. That'll dent the emergency fund quite a bit.

Off to look at the weather forecast - need to get some boot sales planned to get the coffers back up.

millionaire_in_training

£96.55!!! I can spend that in ASDA by accident. I am in awe.

Sorry to hear about poorly DS. Hope he feels better

By the way I wish you were my aunty

Skinnylatte

wow, I'm also very impressed with your grocery spend, I spent £200 last month How do you do that?

Ali-OK

Perfect timing to talk food shopping as I've just written next week's meal plan and shopping list!

I shop at Aldi mostly, but some things are cheaper in Sburys Basics (teabags and tomato sauce) or Farm Foods (toilet rolls and sugar), so I will pick those up when I need them.

I've got into buying some YS stuff - mainly to re-stock on meat, cheese, bread rolls and bread.

I generally only need to buy 2, maybe 3 main parts of the meal in each food shop due to batch cooking. We've got curry, chilli, bolognaise, shepherds pies, cheese/onion potato cakes in the freezer as staples and sausages. So I'll only buy mince when I know I've got to make a new batch and I bulk out with onion and peppers (I buy the latter frozen chopped now and works out cheaper).

Sundays I always do a roast, gammon and chicken will last us 3 days meals.

I have a list of the same things to get each week that come to about £7 which is a combination of a biscuit pack, packed lunch bits, milk and things DS has (1 bar choc, 1 choc dessert, 1 bottle coke, DS bagels for breakfast). I've moved from buying 'just in case' extras to 'when it's gone, tough'.

There is only 2 of us and I know our portion sizes aren't that big compared to some of our friends - but then I'm a size 8 and DS is slim (now) - he didn't used to be! So we do tend to feel full up on perhaps less food.

Snack wise, I tend to drink tea or eat crisps, DS eats cornflakes. But I'll only buy 1 6 pack of crisps per week max and 1 box cornflakes.

The dog food comes from Aldi at £7 for a large bag and I'm now baking their dog biscuits, though still buy teeth chews and marrowbone rolls - the amount of treats has been cut back too

I'll utilise the Super-6 fruit/veg offers if they work for the meal plan as replacements, but not extras. Similiary with the Super-6 meat offers - if what I need is on offer or I don't have stock of it, I will get one.

So some weeks the bill will be more than others - I utilised a £5 off £40 voucher last month but that was quite hard to do! Bought 2 weeks worth of foods that we use and would keep then had a low spend week the following one.

Household items like Bold washing liquid and Flash liquid, I buy in bulk when they're on offer (quite often use Wilkos). Mostly I'll use Aldi's own stuff for everything else, except tissues, which were cheapest in Tesco last time (before Xmas) :rotfl: I use the comparison supermarket website when I'm not sure for things like that.

Wilkinsons is my fave place for good binbags - I find Aldi's expensive in comparison. Similarly for clingfilm.

Overall, I've broken down where I get the best/cheapest from and have a fragmented buying structure of weekly shop at Aldi, and as and when for the other parts, but they're not often.

Don't know if any of that helps or not :rotfl: