Im serious this time; the debt has to go!

Eyebright

PAYDAY IS FINALLY HERE!!!!!!!

So excited, and not because I want to spend to money! :rotfl:Just checked my online banking and I have been paid £1400.86.

I had £9.00 left over from last months wage packet, so put that straight towards the debts. It's only £9.00, but it's still better coming off the debts, than me spending it on something I don't really need. The 86p I got paid in my wage packet rolled into the Emergency Fund!

The hard part now is to allocate my wages into all the various pots/budgets. I've got a mega busy day today, so it will probably be a challenge for in the morning while OH has a lie in. This months budget will be a challenge, as I have a lot happening this month, so I need to find the right balance of paying extra to the debts, getting things sorted for Christmas and making sure I can afford everything that's happening without overspending. Easy peasy right?! :eek:
Going to join up to the Grocery Challenge this month too. Reckon I can save a lot of money in this area alone!

Right have to dash, stupid work!

Eyebright

Right....I've been very busy all morning, trying to perfect my budget for this month. Well, basically it's gonna be hella tight :eek::eek:
I'm trying to be optimistic though. if I'm really careful and really think before I buy something, I'll probably be ok. I could surprise myself!

I've transferred all the money to pay for my half of the bills into the joint account, and moved my usual payments towards my debts , as well as my usual saving amounts into the various pots. My saving accounts are mostly for things I have to pay off yearly, incase you want to shout at me to throw the money at my debts! I will make a seperate post detailing all my regular bills, debt contributions and saving pots after this one.

I've worked out (correctly I hope!), that I will have £362.14 left to last me the month. Not alot I don't think, considering how much I've got happening :eek:
So these are my breakdowns of where the money is going:

• £30 owed to SIL
• £40 for takeaways
• £20 ebay postage
• £30 clothes
• £50 Clarkes village trip
• £15 for birthday club @ work
• £150 Entertainment/Misc spends

This comes to £335 leaving me with a small buffer of £27.14 for any overspends/things I've forgotten about and are unforseen. I've been quite generous in takeaways this month, but only because I'm visiting family and they like to get alot of take-aways. I'm hoping to convince them otherwise this time lol...

Other budgets I'm going to keep an eye on this month are groceries and petrol. I've set these at:

• Groceries: £250
• Petrol: £120

Petrol is higher than usual to account for the 250 mile journey to Cheshire, and then back again. I still think I'll go over, so hopefully I can keep other budgets under to compensate. I also have £288 in my Christmas account, and will keep an eye out on what I'm spending here too, as I don't have much spare if I do spend too much! Ebay money will go towards suplementing Christmas budget this month.
Also got my little spending notebook ready to jot down anything I buy. I think I will get away with 4 big food shops this month, which will hopefully help keep me under on Groceries, and I've joined the Grocery Challenge too. I'm going to try and write a meal plan for the week as well, to see if that keeps the spends down. I do have quite a few bits in the freezer, and could do with using some of it up to make room for Christmas bits.

Sorry to anyone who reads this, I realise I've waffled a lot, but I need to get the hurricaine in my brain written down! :o

Budgets
Groceries: 0/250
Petrol: 0/120
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 0/120
Christmas presents: 0/288
Ebay Postage: 0/20
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

Pay SIL £30 owed
Pay £15 into Birthday Club @ work

Eyebright

!!!!!!, I've just written a post and lost it! Damn MSE gremlins

Anyway what I was saying was that I need to adjust the Christmas budget and log a spend from yesterday, that I did in the morning before I worked out my budgets. Look Fantastic had a special offer of 15% off + a free gift if you bought 2 or more Tigi products, so got 2 gift sets, one for mum and one for middle brother. There was also a 1 hour special offer for buying anything on the site, so got another 10% off! The free gift can be used as a stockingfiller, so quite pleased with myself. Spent £33.56 in total.

Aiming to make today a NSD, as will probably potter around the house and make pork and pinto bean soup, though it's more like a stew. Have a lovely day all.

Oh!! Just realised my items end on ebay today, so need to have a sort out and put some more things on there. Not selling for a lot as it stands at the moment, around £6 in total but it's better than it cluttering up my house gathering dust!

Budgets
Groceries: 0/250
Petrol: 0/120
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 0/120
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: 0/20
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

Pay SIL £30 owed
Pay £15 into Birthday Club @ work

Eyebright

Uh oh! Just realised I have a spend this month that I had forgot about and thus not accounted for! Usually when we are away visiting family SIL looks after the cat for us, but this time in November she is also away. So kitty cat is going to have to go to a cattery (she is NOT going to like that at all :rotfl:). £8 a night, we are away 3 nights, so £24. Ah well, it will just have to come out of the Misc spends budget. Rats.

On a more optimistic note I made a lovely frugal meal for dinner. Gammon hock and pinto bean soup/stew. £3.00 for a huge hock of Gammon at the butchers. We've had 2 portions for dinner and there are another 4 portions left! So the meat content worked out at 50p a portion. Happy with that! Had to go out for bread this morning from the corner shop, so a whopping £1.55 spent on a loaf of bread :eek: kickstarting my GC for November and denying me my NSD! Still Friday and Saturday were. Gonna start recording them I think. Extra motivation! Going to aim for 15 this month. Probably being way too optimistic, but it's good to aim high!

Budgets
Groceries: £1.55/250 = £248.45 left
Petrol: 0/120
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 0/120
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: 0/20
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

Pay SIL £30 owed
Pay £15 into Birthday Club @ work

NSD: 2/15

Eyebright

Grrr :mad:
Wish OH would remember to give me receipts/tell me when he buys petrol. Got a £20.05 spend on the 24/10 showing on online CC balance. As it was before the 25th it should have gone into last month's budget. But I've worked all that out now :mad::mad::mad:
So it's going to have to go in this month's when the petrol budget is already tight as it is!!!

Oh well, c'est la vie I guess. I'm off to bash his head now!!!! And go do some work I suppose...

Eyebright

Morning diary,

Not much to update here as yesterday was a NSD! Yay I took my lunch to work with me, and I plan to every day this month. If I'm organised, then there is no reason for me to have to buy anything, and if I don't go to the shop to buy a sandwich it will stop me from also buying a magazine whilst I'm at it!
Need to order an online shop tonight after gym, hopefully to be delivered tomorrow evening. I have a voucher for £10 off £50 shop with Sainsbury's,(and free delivery) and as I need quite a lot of cleaning products this week that should be likely!

When I was in work yesterday I also found out off line manager that there are 5 birthdays this month, so the £15 I'd budgeted for the birthday club is actually £25 :eek::eek::eek: the extra will have to come out of the Misc budget. At this rate there won't be anything left in that one soon!

Also need to add that petrol spend to my budgets as I forgot to do it yesterday when I got all ranty and :mad: So:

Budgets
Groceries: £1.55/250 = £248.45 left
Petrol: 20.05/120 = £90.95 left
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 0/120
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: 0/20
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

Pay SIL £30 owed
Pay £25 into Birthday Club @ work

NSD: 3/15 (25.10.14 - 24.11.14)

Eyebright

Busy, busy, busy day again here! Went the gym after work, so I'm knackered now!
When I got in I also did the online food shop with Sainsbury's to use my voucher. £45 exactly spent, so will update my GC and budget accordingly. That's coming tomorrow night.
OH was lovely and posted my ebay parcels for me, so £8.40 spent from that budget now as well. Also paid £30 we owed SIL for dinner the other week. Have got £20 out of £25 for birthday club @ work too, which will put in the pot tomorrow in work.

Youngest brother txt me earlier and if I would send him £20 via online banking to pay for a drugs test as part of a job application he has tomorrow, and he would have that as his Xmas present :eek::eek: I've sent him the money (I'm taking it out of my ebay money). Have strongly encouraged he pay me back so I can get him a decent present instead for Crimbo.

Today was a spendy day, but hoping tomorrow will be a NSD. Oh, and my Christmas Pressies arrived today from Feel Unique. Still need to order and sort out quite a few more in the next 2 weeks, so really should get cracking with that!

For some reason I have mistyped my Entertainment/Misc Spends Budget as £120 not £150, so I've adjusted it in this post!

Budgets
Groceries: £46.55/250 = £203.45 left
Petrol: 20.05/120 = £90.95 left
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 0/150
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: £8.40/20 = £11.60 left
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

[STRIKE]Pay SIL £30 owed[/STRIKE]
Pay £25 into Birthday Club @ work

NSD: 3/15 (25.10.14 - 24.11.14)

Eyebright

Logging to report and update!

Quite a lot of spending today oopsy Had to pay £45 for 2 new tyres on the car, this however came out of the savings account I have especially for car maintenance. There was £185 in there, so that's now at £140. Still that's what the account is there for!

Then OH needed £5 to cut his hair and conveniently had no money on him, so I've given him £5 from the birthday money, as I have only put in for one birthday so far. Will have to chuck that on my Misc spends.
Same for the £40ish I've just spent (OMG please don't be mad at me diarylanders...) for a month's supply of Juice Plus capsules, to see if they help make me feel less run down all the time, and better able to cope with the winter blues. I'm taking the money for it from my ebay money, and I've set myself the goal of making £40 on ebay for the next 4 months to cover the cost of them.

On a more cheerful note yesterday was a NSD, taking my total up to 4/15 yay . I also bravely resisted the lure of the sales on the Bodyshop website amongst many others. I get daily temptation in my inbox every day I hit 4 or 5 websites browsing them before I saw sense and turned off the computer.

Few things I'm going to wishlist, and will look at again over the next weeks/month and if I still have a burning desire I will choose 1 item off the list. Maybe that will help dampen the desire to spend a bit. Got to be worth a try!

Dinner tonight is LO portion of shepherds pie. Just gonna jazz up the mash topping as OH made it a bit bland with some cheese. Then will serve with some shredded steamed cabbage and roasted parsnips. Nom. I've also taken lunch to work everyday this week and kept out of the shop. Just another 26 days to resist temptation until the next payday :rotfl::rotfl:
:rotfl:

One day at a time is my motto. If I limit my spends on a day by day basis then hopefully progress will be made.

Keep plodding everyone!

Eyebright

Forgot to post my budget update! Here it is...

Budgets
Groceries: £46.55/250 = £203.45 left
Petrol: 20.05/120 = £90.95 left
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 25/150 = £125 left
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: £8.40/20 = £11.60 left
Take-aways: 0/40
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

[STRIKE]Pay SIL £30 owed[/STRIKE]
Pay £25 into Birthday Club @ work - £5/25 paid so far

NSD: 4/15 (25.10.14 - 24.11.14)

Eyebright

Thought I had better come on and confess my spendy sins

Friday: £10 for a takeaway. Work was super stressful and I allowed myself to be convinced I deserved a takeaway. I should have put a pizza from the freezer in the oven :mad:

Saturday: £6.95 for my YBD beauty box. My little treat to myself I had decided not to give up. I won't make the distance if I can't hold on to something to look forward to!
£3.65 on a bottle of water and a pasta lunch box, for lunch whilst out shopping. 70p to weigh myself in Boots on the machine so I can find out my fat%. £2 in Factory Outlet on a lovely rimmel lipstick. I put so many things back on the shelf yesterday after deciding I don't actually need any of them. So progress in reprogramming myself is slowly happening.

However I then felt a bit low last night, me and OH argued over who was going to cook, so we got fish & chips instead. I won't get out of debt OR lose weight carrying on like this. I can't remember the exact amount until it shows up on my card but will declare £14 for that

Also got petrol on Friday; £20.05 worth. Will definitely go over this budget, as we need £80 petrol for the weekend to Cheshire alone :eek: and there is less than that in the budget to last the entire month!!!

Today however should be a NSD, SIL is going Trago Mills and asked me if I wanted to come with her and her OH, but I have politely declined. I'm going to stay at home, work out some healthy and cheap meal plans to keep my budgets and my waistline happy and sort through the millions of magazines I have stacked up in the spare room, because I am a hoarder! Also going to list a couple of bits on ebay to keep that pot filling up. Then dinner is being provided by my lovely MIL, so I don't need to fight with OH over who is cooking. I'm blaming the winter blues on being so down and unmotivated at the moment. I'm hoping the feeling will pass. Especially if I can improve my diet and start eating some more nutritious meals.

Have a lovely weekend diaryland

Budgets
Groceries: £46.55/250 = £203.45 left
Petrol: 40.10/120 = £79.90 left
Entertainment/Misc Spends: 31.35/150 = £118.65 left
Christmas presents: 33.56/322.09 = £288.53 left
Ebay Postage: £8.40/20 = £11.60 left
Take-aways: 24/40 = £16 left
Clothes: 0/30
Clarkes Village: 0/50

Pay SIL £30 owed
Pay £25 into Birthday Club @ work - £5/25 paid so far

NSD: 4/15 (25.10.14 - 24.11.14)