Time to stop talking about it and just do it!!

yummymummy2012

Been a bit quiet as I have been poorly last week so not much spending going on apart from a few bottles of wine and Christmas shopping which was in the budget. Some nice news though I have checked my payslip for Friday to see if my childcare voucher changes have gone through (which they haven’t, my work are cr*p) but noticed my takehome pay was higher. Looks like I will be £180 per month better off, assuming the tax people haven’t made a mistake, I vaguely remember they sent me a letter last week.

I know I will need to pay some back for child benefit at the end of the yr but my P11D was correct and my accountant does my tax return each year so they cant be massively wrong can they?. I am assuming it is so much because 8 mths of the year have gone so they have to change it for the remaining 4 mths?? I am not going to allocate it to anything as it will build up a little buffer which we haven’t had for a while.

OH is poorly now bless we are a sharing family! Plan for this week is to fully recover, get my expenses claim in for travel this month and get ready for my weekend away. My T***o vouchers have come for the Zoo on Saturday so it should only cost me £5 but may just split the difference with my aunt and uncle we shall see.

Catch you later

StressedSteph

yummymummy2012 wrote: »

Feeling good just got out existing sky package reduced from £69 to £45 per month for 6 mths which is a step in the right direction. I'm crap at things like that on the phone so quite proud of myself. Next one to look at is the phone and broadband but living in the sticks we are quite limited!

Hi YummyMummy,


Be careful changing your broadband package. Earlier this year we switched brom BT to Tesco Broadband to try to save money. Unfortunately because we are also very rural, the broadband speed was horrendous. Worse than dial up. and after a complete nightmare we ended up having to go back to BT. This took MONTHS of telephone calls and time spent disconnected from any broadband.

What might be worth a try, is calling your current broadband supplier, telling them you are thinking of switching and see if they can offer you a better deal. I ended up getting a brilliant deal with BT and could have saved myself a lot of hassle.

Just an idea xxxx

yummymummy2012

Steph thanks we are with BT so will probably follow your advice and ring them first before I do anything.

We'll weigh in night tonight and 2lb on:mad: we'll still 2lb deficit from starting but want to better next week, being ill hasn't helped

yummymummy2012

All in all a good weekend away was had, not much spending and I had my voucher for the zoo so only ocst £5.50 to get in and had a full day out. it has been payday as well so i will update my sig later to see how we are doing.

Weigh in was last night and 3lb off so moving back in the right direction

yummymummy2012

Happy new year diary. Not starting a new one I am sticking with this and carrying on! Updated sig and simplified it, mortgage and loan are going in the right direction, mainly cos I cant add to them!! However the credit card is continuing to float around at the same level which isnt good

So 2014 what do you have in store for me. There are a few trips / expences planned below but alot are paid for or already in the budget. The main ones are

Feb - Hen do London, hotel, train and theatre tickets paid for:) spends in the budget
March - friends birthday London, again hotel train and theatre tickets paid for:), spends in the budget
April (expensive month) - OH birthday, £120 in budget for tickets and train. DD Birthday, no idea but doing a tea party at home and at 2 we dont have to go mad. My birthday - tickets for local show paid for, monry for dinner in the budget
May - Holiday - saving sun vouchers as we speak:money:
July - replace the old car, nothing fancy and money in the budget
October - Butlins saved money with voucher on booking, deposit paid and remaining cost in the budget

Somewhere in there there will be a stagg do for OH to go to which is also budgeted. so feeling on top of things but not going to get complacent and the unexpected seems to crop up each month.

Still aiming to get healthier in 2014 so I am doing Dryathlon for Cancer Research, day 9 of no alcohol and all is well, the big test will be next weekend when we are visiting friends but I have already volunteered to drive everywhere. and the healthy eating started too so Saturday will tell me if it is working on the scales:eek:

Well think that will do for now, I will get my thinking hat on re the cc, maybe a small payment a day, and take it out of my purse so I dont use it may help, I will come back to you on that one:o

yummymummy2012

Right, the weigh in went well, 4lb off this week, and money saving was going well until my OH had a letter about a debt from long ago he had forgotten about. So £760 later :eek: this is paid off from the overdraft as I just wanted it gone and he has finally agreed to get his credit report so we can check there is nothing left that he has forgotten.:A

I am 14 days into the dryathlon :beer: but we are away this weekend at friends so that will be a test. We have spent nothing from our monthly 'spends' pot so we have that if we go anywhere, and i have managed to arrange a meeting in the office local to our friends on Monday morning so thats the fuel covered by work:money:

Sun holiday was booked last night and cost £60 with £40 left to pay so thats the summer holiday sorted, and I think I am going to look at a payment a day to the cc from 1st Feb:cool:.

Not much else to report really, DD is growing like mad but I am an ebay queen when it comes to her clothes, i have no idea how people buy full brandnew wardrobes full of clothes for their kids from Ne*t.

Oh nearly forgot (maybe I am trying not to think about it subconsiously lol) but I am joining the Gym tonight, its free to join and only £10 a month. You may say it is a waste of money but it gets me a night a week to myself which is worth its weight in gold:p and i am going to try and go one morning a week as well. You may notice there was no actual committment in that last sentence. TTFN