EH - Keeping on track. (AKA focus Woman! FOCUS!)

Cheery_Daff

I was just going to ask the very same thing :rotfl:

I have a combination of pots and spreadsheets :rotfl:

Current account for my spends
Joint current account for joint spends and bills etc
Joint savings account for long term big savings - try not to take out of this (although it actually gets swapped about by the end of each month )
One more savings account with everything else in it
(oh, and another savings account for the VSP)

The one savings account has 'pots' for car maintenance, house repairs, holidays, weekends away, and Christmas. I have a spreadsheet that tells me how much *should* be in there according to the budget, and how much is actually *in* each pot It does mean that some of them can be in minus figures for a while when the whole pot itself has a positive balance, but it can get confusing sometimes and at the end of each month I often find myself with a line in my spreadsheet entitled 'budget fiddling' as I try to get them all back to where they should be :rotfl:

So basically - don't do what I do, do what EH does

starnac

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

So basically - don't do what I do, do what EH does

:rotfl::rotfl: good honest advice there Cheery thank you :rotfl:

I also bank with a building society and have a joint account and personal current accounts each. Each of those have an e-savings account attached but maybe I need more.

Research and a think needed.

Thanks guys :kisses3:

cazmanian_minx

starnac wrote: »

Sorry caz what's YNAB?

Sorry, as someone has now said, it's budgeting software called You Need A Budget. I found it worth buying, but if you're handy with Excel, you can set up a spreadsheet to follow their budgeting method - have a look at their four rules here: http://www.youneedabudget.com/method

EssexHebridean

Mooo - your reference to your Festival savings account made me smile - one of ours is savings for our spends at the Good Food Show each year - we each pop a small sum in there every month and by December it covers the cost of the weekend.

Greying - send me back! Send me back!

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

So basically - don't do what I do, do what EH does

:rotfl: This really made me laugh!

starnac wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: good honest advice there Cheery thank you :rotfl:

I also bank with a building society and have a joint account and personal current accounts each. Each of those have an e-savings account attached but maybe I need more.

Research and a think needed.

Thanks guys :kisses3:

You bank with the same Building Society I do, I suspect! You can have only one e-savings Plus account per account holder, but you can have as many e-savings accounts from each Current account as you like. Or at least, I've not hit the limit yet!

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Sorry, as someone has now said, it's budgeting software called You Need A Budget. I found it worth buying, but if you're handy with Excel, you can set up a spreadsheet to follow their budgeting method - have a look at their four rules here: http://www.youneedabudget.com/method

Handy link - thanks!

Lovely weekend here - very impressed though, I've spent practically nothing. In fact, personal spends have been zero - I did the food shopping on saturday which came to a whisker under £23, I'd taken £10 cash from the food account assuming I'd spend on odds and ends, but didn't in the end, so that's still snug in my purse, I've not visited the cashpoint at all other than that and still have the same £10 note I had of personal money at the start of the weekend. :T

Spent Saturday morning pottering at home, picked up on Twitter just after lunch that the Gnat Display Team were about to launch from the local airfield....it was basicaly like some kind of WW2 "Scramble! Scramble!" in the flat for a few moments as I grabbed car keys and camera gear. Glad I did too - ended up spending the rest of the afternoon over there photographing them as they came and went, and while the ground-crew were prepping the planes too - brilliant opportunity and very glad I had the chance to take it!

Yesterday was also a pottering sort of day - bit of garden stuff, bit of photo sorting from Thursday and Saturday, and tea at Mum's in the evening. My pedometer clearly show how little I moved all day!

Must get my invoice sorted to come into the office on Thursday, and also must do my Tax return now it's available to do online. I can't be bothered with all this leaving it to the last minute and then making a big fuss about having to do it - the sooner after April 5th I can get it done, the better, to be honest, and there's really no excuse for leaving it anyway!

Annoyingly I'm not at all convinced the points from the train sites are going to land on my Nectar card - still no sign of them today according to the App.

Spendiness this week - nothing planned until Thursday when I'm hoping to make it to Ipswich for speedway. Might make one extra visit to Mr T's as I have a couple of vouchers I want to use before they expire - it's where I have two I can use together to give me a really good saving, but one of the two is due to expire at the end of the week.

Oh - I did a meal plan - so no kicking please. I also bought tatties, as that meant I could add jackets to the meal plan. Jacket with beans and cheese - perfect meal as far as I'm concerned - I've got simple tastes (sometimes) Got cannelloni tonight (with garlic bread - clearing another thing out of the freezer and finishing a box of cannelloni tubes. Salad tomorrow with bread - bread is also from the freezer. I'm in one of those holes at the moment with a freezer full of stuff and nothing to make a meal so I'm trying to be inventive. (Pippi will empathise!) OK - lamb & spinach cannelloni isn't the most traditional of dishes, but I'm sure it will taste good!

mooomin

The site is now saying it's 200 points for first registration only so I think we're too late

EssexHebridean

I *think* that kicked in after we'd both done ours though Mooo - it certainly read that way when I saw it somewhere. Oh well, fingers crossed!

Cheery_Daff

I just registered with one when I saw the update - then bought a ticket which shoud net me 280 points in total so thank you! :j Not sure if it's tracked yet... (and not sure I can be arsed looking :rotfl: )

Enjoying_life_more

Hi Essex - I registered for the points for all sites before the update too - not had mine yet either glad you had a good weekend

EssexHebridean

Cheery you said arsed on the forum! And it didn't !!!! it out! How come it always does when I say that then?! :rotfl:

Just checked my Nectar app and it says I have 4 more points than I had yesterday...but so far as I know I've done NOTHING to earn any more, and particularly not just 4 of them for goodness sake! Oh well, they'll arrive, or not, but I am slightly mollified to know it's not just me waiting on them!

OK - bit of spendiness to confess over the past few days:
- Have agreed to go and see the Kaiser Chiefs with 2 pals early next year - is at the O2 and will cost me £38.50 which I thought was quite impressive. Having so thoroughly enjoyed the Manic Street Preachers the other week I'm heartily reminded why I love live music so much as said there and then I wanted to see more of it.
- MrEH has booked tickets for Bryan Adams at Wembley in November. :T He's one of my favourite artists and it's years since I've seen him so that's extremely exciting - I'm not declaring how much as it's my birthday present - birthday's not until July so it's kind of early (thsat I know now) and kind of late (that it'll be 4 months after my birthday).
- Biggin Hill Festival of Flight booked for me - mid June - £16.50 inc booking fee. Travel will cost practically nothing for that one though so very reasonably priced - the majority of my airshows are usually free ones, although I've booked the Royal International Air Tattoo for July too, that's been booked a while.

Also planning:
- Victorious Festival in Southsea (August) - just 1 day but a great lineup, will be £21.50 each.
-Wings & wheels (Dunsfold, Surrey) - will be the Sunday, the day after Victorious - so the two things will tie together well for us. Will be £20 each for tickets plus £20 if we decide to camp there, which we probably will.

Whizzed into Tesco last night with vouchers and bought the cereal I had the 2 x 95p vouchers for - Lizi's Granola (which is gawjus - but pricey) - usually £3.69 (see what I mean) - I paid £1.78 - had a 1p off next shop from Price Promise too. Still not cheap, but the only way I can justify buying it. :T Only realised after getting home that I really should have bought a couple of their £1.35 kilo buckets of yogurt too - I'm nearly at the bottom of the current one and our local store don't sell them. *sigh* I'll pop back over at lunchtime or on the way back to the car tonight.

EssexHebridean

Small Money saving Thing - popped along the road at lunchtime to withdraw my money for speedway on Thursday - and while I was at that end of the High Road remembered I needed Toothpaste and conditioner. Rather than going straight to 99p shop as I do often, I went into Superdrug first to check their offers - 95p for McLeans toothpaste, and a coconut conditioner of their own brand at 99p - plus I was able to use £1 of points from my card - so paid 94p for the both. :T All went a bit pear-shaped when I got 2 x £2 coins in my change mind you! :rotfl: Oh well, another 2 for the pot - even if the budget HAS taken a bit of a knock for the week!