WTBSEs 'Starting From Scratch' Savings Diary.

WantToBeSE

Hi Everyone


Ahhh...I had a LOVELY lie in until 10.10am, it was BLISS! Really enjoying my lazy Sunday.
Tomorrow I am painting my kitchen. I have everything I need, so no more money spent there. Only painting it white, nothing exciting! Going to add colour with accessories, plus some leftover green paint that I have from painting my bedroom.


I could really do with popping into Plymouth, as I want a good nosey around poundland. They always have good storage and stuff in there. But maybe I'll leave that until Monday.


We are doing some baking today. Again, I have everything I need for that, so no m oney spent. We are making a Victoria sponge with a layer of chocolate buttercream instead of the traditional jam, then a batch of hobnobs and some muffins. Should keep us all busy!

WantToBeSE

Hello All


Well, I STILL haven't painted my kitchen Think I was being a bit ambitious with my plans for the week. It wont get done until the weekend now.


Baking again today, some lovely blueberry muffins. I picked up 400g of blueberries reduced from £4 for £1.20 yesterday. So am using this recipe:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/blueberrymuffins_67846


I am using leftover chicken from yesterdays roast to have chicken fajitas for dinner tonight. I am really impressed with the meat from the butcher. Definitely not going back to buying meat from a supermarket!


Talking about food, I have been very disappointed with the Aldi super6 fruit and veg for the last 3 or 4 weeks. It has all gone bad VERY quickly (within 1-2 days at most) or, even worse than that, I have found that almost all of it has been bad when I get home and unpack it! I've never had this problem before with Aldi. The other day I bough some peaches and 3 out of the 4 were bad and I had to throw them away, and I had the same with pears this week.
Normally I would just take them back and complain and get a refund or a new pack, but its a 25min journey in the car, so it just means using more petrol.


So, I have decided to see if I can use the greengrocer in the nearest town instead. I would like to get away from using the supermarkets for everything.


On a Saturday morning there are people at the side of the road a few miles away that sell eggs and potatoes, so I'll try that. £2 for a dozen, which isn't too bad I suppose.
There are also people selling fruit and veg from their gardens. I saw tomatoes, courgettes and carrots I think.
Oh, and a lovely man down the road has an allotment and knocked on my door with a bag of carrots and runner beans for us yesterday! So I am trying to decide what to do with that!


Water- Hmmm, this is a biggie! My water company phoned my on Thursday to say that in the past 12 months, my water useage has DOUBLED!! And they want to increase my direct debit from £33 to £66 a month! I just don't see how this is possible! We have most of our showers at the gym, and I only boil what I need in the kettle, my new washing machine uses less water than the old one, and I wash the dishes probably twice a day at most! I have no idea whats going on there! So I am going to do a leak test over the next 2 days and see what the results of that are. STRESS!!


How is everyone else getting on?

JoJoC

Good grief, that's a lot for your water to double. I'm pretty sure the world is just out to steal all my money right now! Bills are going up left, right and centre!

That's fab avout the fruit and veg, I wish we had local resources like that. Maybe we do and I just don't know about them? Sounds like a great way of living though- away from the supermarkets.

Your Fajitas sound lovely! We had low fat beef burgers, poached eggs on top and a salad. It was delish.

I've got a busy week this week,.could see it for enough!

Pay day on Friday...can't wait!

I also bought my son's Xmas present yesterday! I decided I'd get him an ikea wooden kitchen which is £65 new. However, I came across one on ebay that was on excellent condition and is packed to the rafters full of play food, tea set, pots, pans, utensils, a till, a kettle, toaster, apron- you name it, it has it! and it was £69 (£4 dearer than just the kitchen) and I can collect it because it's just an hour away. Going to store it at my mum's.

WantToBeSE

Wow Jo, I am impressed with your Christmas shopping already! Well done on such a bargain, good old ebay!
How is the motivation going?


Well, I officially have my 1st employee! She went off for a trial clean today and I had great feedback from the client, so I need to meet up with her and get a contract sorted out...once I have written up a contract! A friend of mine might send me a copy of the one he uses for his employees, and I could alter it a bit. We'll see! (EDIT- I have just downloaded one from ACAS for free).


Blueberry muffins were fab! Still haven't painted the kitchen and work is still manic!

JoJoC

Thanks, I do like to get organised as early as I can. Love christmas and like to do bits and bobs throughout the year.

Its pay day!!! Just transferred money to the savings and updated my signature. I'm a bit disappointed because as you know July/Aug was a super tight month because we overspent while on holiday so we had to transfer some money back to tide us over so a bit of this month's savings is just covering the shortfall from last month.

So I'm a bit disappointed about that. But still at 3.5k so it's better than nothing. Will try to put more away mid month when husband gets paid.

Congrats on the employee! Hopefully it'll all work out

Ooh, I really want a blueberry muffin!! Send some my way? X

WantToBeSE

Morning!


Jo, I now have Christmas on my mind! I am going to get the kids to write their lists. They already know that this year will be a quiet and cheap one. I don't know what my finances are going to be like in December, it all depends on the business goes I suppose!


I didn't get my rota via email from the agency yesterday as I normally would have. Its a strange feeling knowing that its all in my hands! I am nervous but also excited. I really think I can do this.


I formally offered my new employee a job yesterday and made her day It feels really nice to do that


Have been to the gym this morning, and collected some eggs on the way back from the farmer that sells them on the side of the road.
I need to get some fruit and veg, but am saving petrol by waiting until I am driving near to where I get it from. I think I'll be driving past the stall either tomorrow or Monday.


I went onto photobox yesterday and ordered lots of photos from my Facebook account. I am a dinosaur when it come to technology. I didn't realise that you can upload photos directly from FB to photobox and then order them! You get 60 free prints when you make your first order, and I had 63 selected. So I only paid £3.60ish for 63 photos (delivery is £2.99).
http://www.photobox.co.uk/


I was going to take the kids out to Falmouth Tall Ships Regatta today, but I am just so tired! I think I will take them tomorrow though, they need to get out of the house just as much as I do! http://www.falmouthtallships.co.uk/


Went shopping in Tesco yesterday, armed with my shopping list and spent £22 Obviously I'll spend more than this for the whole week, as I need to get the fruit and veg, but I shouldn't imagine it'll be more than £40 in total. My new fridge freezer is great, its smaller and narrower, so I don't spend so much money filling it!


I am VERY impressed with the quality of meat that I got from the butcher. I wont be going back to the supermarkets for meat again that's for sure!


Didn't want to spend any money yesterday, so I finally made a Tarka Daal as I had been planning for weeks! I made this one: http://wedonteatanythingwithaface.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/tarka-dal.html and it was PERFECT!! I doubled it to make a meal instead of side dish, but the portions were still on the small side. We had crunchy bread with it though, so it filled us up nicely!


It's a bit of worry about money for the next few months. I will invoice the clients monthly instead of weekly, and they have 28 days to pay their invoice.
So, for the month of September, I'll invoice them on the last day of September (30th?) and they'll have until 28th October to pay. So, potentially that means I wont get paid until the end of October! YIKES! The good news is that the current owner (well, until Monday!) says that nearly all the clients pay within 2 weeks of receiving their invoice.


I will definitely need to dip into savings, as I need to buy my older sons Uniform for school next week. I planned ahead slightly and have bought EVERYTHING (stationary, bags, trousers, socks etc) apart from the Logo'd (is that even a word??) Uniform and also shoes for both of the boys. Its VERY expensive for my older son, I think I mentioned that a while back. However, next September my younger son joins the same school so I have decided to keep the older sons Uniform that is too small, so that they younger one can wear it next year.


Have I mentioned how tired I am? LOL!

WantToBeSE

Oh, and by shopping around and buying bunk bed and matresses separately, I am able to save £140! Buying it next week.

atush

Nice to see the new business beginning- congrats on your new employee.

Are you paying SE NICS to keep up your state pension?

I too have started my christmas shopping- I had to fly home to the USA for a wedding (not very MSE but did use my cashback CC lol) and I bought items there and in the sales here.

Was thinking of getting the OH a tablet there, but his work just gave him a posh Ipad air so he's sorted. So I gbought him a pair of trousers int he m&s sale

WantToBeSE

Thanks atush Yes I am still paying NI Conts to keep up the state pension. I am going to be setting up as a Ltd Co I think, in the not too distant future and have learnt from this forum that I pay myself PAYE and pay my NI Conts that way.


I am going to have a LONG and hopefully informative discussion with HMRC on Wednesday.


Well done on using your CC for cashback, LOL, at least that's something! Where about in the US are you from? I have friends in the US. One in NYC, one in Pennsylvania and 1 in Connecticut. I would love to go and visit some day

WantToBeSE

Not all debt is bad, right? I have heard this being talked about elsewhere on the forum, but cant remember in what circumstances debt is supposed to be 'good'?


So, where I am going with this is...I applied for a new CC today. (please don't tell me off!). Its the Aqua Classic. The APR is high @ 34.4%!
However, I will be paying it off in full when I get payment. I hope not to spend more than £200 max on it.


The reason being, ALL of my savings, child benefit and what I have in my current account amounts to how much I will need for the next 6 weeks (before I get paid by the majority of my clients). However, this does not include food and petrol to get to work myself.
I have been through all of my bills and necessary expenditure with a find tooth comb and I cannot cut back anywhere at all.