The Plan

MotiMoo

Hi GreenNinja. I had planned on finishing off my mortgage in around 8 years too, but then my priorities changed and I have now turned my savings focus onto other things. That's life though, all you can count on is change .

I'll update the diary too while I'm here.

Saturday I went to my local Asain market to get some Black Onion Seeds, Ful and chilli sauce. From there I went to Morrisons to fill up the car as I looked online and it was the cheapest closest to me. I did as Martin suggested in his article about petrol too and only filled up 3/4 full :money:. I then went into Morrisons to get some dairy free spread for OH, I'm switching to dairy free too. Altogether that came in at under £40. I went and spent time with my brother and dad before heading home to make Prawn and Parsnip curry with Bengali greens.

Sunday I went to Lidl for my weekly shop, another budget friendly £14 for the week :T. I picked up a friend on the way home and we went round to my other friend's to make up a character for the big campaign game that is going to kick off soon. I had made lunch before I left the house (cous cous with quorn chicken, cucumber, spring onion and balsamic) and I ate that while they built the new character. The whole process took a few hours so afterwards I took my friend home on my way. OH bought some smoked salmon on his way home from work and we had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon on toast whilst watching The Wire season three. This one has dog fighting in it . Animal cruelty is something I just can't bear.

ahqaf

Awesome.Really helpful for me.

MotiMoo

Monday - An NSD today :T but another blah day at work, trying very hard to get more fired up though. I started on dinner as soon as I got home, HM Chilli. OH had attempted this recipe before and we had thought it a little bland but I decided to give it another chance. It turned out amazing, I think it could have been that I ground my own spices for it. I also used quorn mince instead of beef. After dinner we went to Asda as OH was returning a lampshade he had bought. It was a shame as it was a lovely shade of yellow .

Tuesday - I had a much better day at work, got a lot more done and I think its started this old stone rolling again :rotfl:. I was going to go to the gym tonight but this may be the last evening I spend with OH so I went straight home. We had stirfry for dinner, with nearly every vegetable I had in the fridge . We are almost finished season 3 of The Wire too, its such a great show. Almost an NSD but I bought those half price fish cakes from the Co-op again for dinner tomorrow as I will be in a bit of a rush.

MotiMoo

Ok so I think I have figured out how to post pictures on here and I am going to share my before and after of the drive

Before
http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b600/MotiMoo/20140107_090117_resized_zps96d385c3.jpg

and After
http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b600/MotiMoo/20140114_153042_resized_zps925c047b.jpg

I'm so glad it was done when it was because we have had so much rain the past week and without that new drain the car park might not even have been useable.

MotiMoo

Wednesday - I'm really struggling to keep NSDs these past couple of weeks, the van and it's pancakes keep tempting me! I have been a bit better with remembering my lunch though. I had dinner with OH before heading over to my friend's house for gaming. I'm doing a lot more walking now that I'm trying to save on fuel so that is good. The game was a lot of fun, but we didn't finish till 11pm! :eek:

Thursday - Today was my birthday and I woke up to a funny card from OH with such a lovely message inside it made me cry . I hadn't told anyone at work that is was my birthday but my best friend couldn't keep it to herself so everyone knew, I didn't get teased too much though, in fact they bought me a cake with candles and everything which was sweet. I managed an NSD :T, only because I forgot my purse though! I stayed a little later at work as I was doing well with ploughing through things but then I had to rush as OH had booked a table at a local chinese restaurant. We walked to the meal which I thought was very :money:, but then we ate a whole bunch! The walk home was really nice to not make me feel so much of mealer! I got birthday cards from my family,my brother gave me a scratch card and I won a fiver :T. My mum gave me a euromillions ticket so fingers crossed!

I also got a call from my plumber, he will be starting work on Monday morning!!! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!! I CANNOT wait. I will take some pictures, I know I always love a good before and after :rotfl:.

MotiMoo

Friday - PAYDAY :T. Probably the best day in the month . My last paydate was the 20th of December, so since then I have spent:
Food / petrol / cleaning products / toiletries - £185.35
Direct debits (electric/council tax/mortgage/car/life insurance/cinema) - £1158.08
Driveway - £200
Gifts - £14.99
Charity donation - £3.13
Chiropodist - £27 (grrrr my health insurance doesn't cover this)
Christmas meal out - £16
Credit Card direct debit - £198.99

That means I have managed to save a massive amount of......dun dun duhhhhhhhhhhhh.......£261.46. Not what I was hoping for but the credit card amount was the sting, that amount was for random spending I did back in November before I realised how much I was spending and that it needed to stop. Next month will be better though, I'm pleased with how much I have cut back on the food spending.

Saturday - I went round to my dad's and we had a Burn's Supper for dinner, that was the full extent of what I did! So that was an easy NSD

Emperor2014

MotiMoo great thread! I've found it really motivating to read your posts and i've bookmarked your thread. :T

I have a question. You seem to have a very pricise idead of how much you spend each month.. how do you record/track your spending?

MotiMoo

Hi Emperor,

I am able to keep track of my spending very easily because I have so few outlets. For example, my Direct Debit amounts never vary from month to month as they are all set amounts, I am having work done on my house but it is all paid by cheque so I am able to keep track of those by the numbers and lastly I withdraw £60 each week for my grocery and petrol money.

The last point has been my eureka moment, when I have that money in my hand I see what I have got each week and what I can or cannot afford. My grocery/petrol umbrella is pretty broad though. Anything I buy from a supermarket comes under that so it includes toiletries, household products, food and treats.

I go shopping on a Sunday at Lidl and get 90% of what I need for the week from there, if I require anything else I do a little research online to find the cheapest place and I go there and get it (all the major supermarkets are within walking distance of my home, apart from Asda so I combine it with another trip). On Sunday night I take all money left in my purse out and put it into a jar, ready for Monday's payout. After 3 weeks I take what is in the jar on that Sunday and I fill my car up 3/4 full at the cheapest petrol station near me.

Other than those payments out of my account there isn't really much other activity so its easy to pick up on other things (like the new year meal out and my charity donation). So no having to keep a spreadsheet, no keeping reciepts and no looking at my statement thinking "what on earth was that for?".

It could also be because I'm quite boring and don't do much!

MotiMoo

An NSD!!! WOOOOHOOO!!! Nothing to do with the fact I forgot my purse, again :shhh:. I made lunch for the week yesterday, brocolli soup, and I went round to my brother's again as there was a pork chop going spare . I'm still mightly chuffed with myself over the soup though, that brocolli was only 89p in lidl and its going to last three meals :money:.

Work has started on the bathroom in earnest, I left the plumber at 8am this morning after moving myself and my cat around to OHs flat (sometimes his working away comes in handy ). When I went back at 6.30pm all of the old bathroom was ripped out, new insulation in, a false wall on one side and all new plasterboard installed. Looking good already! When I spoke to my plumber he said that the room had actually gone through a couple of re-dos allready which I was shocked at given the state of the room. In fact it seems they just kept plasterboarding over the existing plasterboard and tiles each time, for a total of FOUR TIMES :eek:. And ever one of those layers was wet from the leaking bath, lovely.

I have had glass wool insulation put in all four walls and the ceiling, a false wall on the wall which is shared with the communal hallway for soundproofing and all of the wiring for the new fan and four downlights is ready and waiting. Tomorrow the plumber is scraping the tile cement and grout from the wooden florring base (it was lino when I had it and I always wondered what those lumpy bits were) so he can lay the new marine plywood flat and ready for my new lino. I will update what I find tomorrow evening :j.

On further money saving news I found an old current account I opened back in 2010 and never used. So after reading some threads on here about having multiple current accounts I decided to shift two of my direct debits over to this old current account. I had to reactivate it and put the money in for the two DD from my current current account but that didn't take that long today really. What I now plan on doing is applying for the First Direct 1st Account, this comes with a regular savings account with 6% interest, you also get £100 cashback if you use their switching service (you need at least 2 DD to qualify). So I will sacrifice this old account to get the £100, the DD I am putting in are very small amounts so I will set up a standing order for that total and also to fund the regular saver. I plan on opening a third savings account with First Direct and depositing £1 to waive the £10 account fee as I don't want to truck £1000 from account to account.

I currently have a Santander 123 account and so far this has earnt me a good amount as I had over £3000 in credit and also a hefty Sandtander mortgage payment every month. The account has made me nearly £150 in the 6-7 months I have had it. However I have switched my mortgage to the woolwhich and this new bathroom is effectively wiping out all of that credit, so I'm not even sure if I will be able to cover the £2 account fee each month with what I will have in there going forward. This is why I am looking at alternative saving, and I think I will manage the max £300 a month for the First Direct regular saver.

What I am unsure about though is if I need to wait for at least one direct debit payment to be made from the account or if I can just go ahead and apply for the switch now?

bugslet

Hello Motimoo, great diary. I will pop by a bit more often now I've found it.

Well done on being so disciplined - clothes are my only downfall.....:(