The next chapter!

chocoholic_chick

I decided to attempt to analyse where our "spare cash" has gone this month and I'm a bit shocked at just how much I can't account for. After I've put money into "pots" we have spent a massive £1,617.53. I've tried to understand where it has gone and have kind of managed to categorise things :-

£493.29 on car insurance (both policies were due)
£30.00 on charity donations
£131.32 on food, toiletries etc (supermarket)
£25.00 on petrol for my car
£100 on mortgage overpayment (the other payment came from a different pot of money)
£36.18 on takeaways
£62.23 on DH personal spends
£153.29 on my personal spends (hair cut, toiletries and needed some new clothes)
£250.24 on things for the house (paint, tumble dryer, other decorating things)
£15.98 on a pub meal out for both of us
£10 on bin cleaning (previous owners of the house didn't tell us about this and had left without settling the bill)

And the worse part... £310 on cash withdrawals without much of a clue where it's gone. Out of that I think we've had 3 "joint" nights out, I've been out twice without DH, he's been out 3 times without me, but with all of them they aren't "big nights" out, maybe spending £20-£30 on each occasion. He's used the cash to top up petrol (I'm guessing at least £60) and he tends to buy lunches every day (I take lunch in most of the time).

It just seems an awful lot of money to not be able to account for properly. I'm going to try and track it a bit better next month, see if we can cut back a bit. I thought I'd been quite good this month as well

chocoholic_chick

DH is having the boys around so had to go food shopping last night to get bits and pieces in. Haven't checked my shopping apps in a while so had a look and there were quite a few freebies on there at the moment. Ended up getting two bottles of beer, a bottle of cider and some 7up which will come in useful for that. Also got some roasties and chicken portions too, about £11 worth of free stuff when the payout comes through which I'll put towards the mortgage when it clears. The Topcashback payment has also cleared so going to check finances tonight and make sure we can still afford to use it as an OP as we've spent more money since my last update!!


£5 on mothers day cards
£5 on chocolates for mothers day
£3 on lunch for me
£15.48 on a takeaway


Pay day for both of us is 31st March and I don't think we have much left in the coffers now! In other news DH found out he's getting a pay increase which will be applied next month, happy days!

chocoholic_chick

Checked our finances and worked out we have enough to last until pay day so have made another mortgage OP of £45 Now to start the weekend off with a nice glass of wine!

chocoholic_chick

What glorious weather we've had this weekend! Have spent a lot of time in the garden over the last two days which has been lovely. Have managed to tidy up the garden a little, have loads of ideas what to do so really looking forward to getting stuck in. Sunday is my usual food shopping today, but I decided to sit and enjoy the sun while we have it so it didn't get done. Thankfully after a root round the freezer, and a pack of mince later, I have a large lasagna in the oven for tea (leftovers for lunch for us both tomorrow) and two cottage pies - one for dinner tomorrow night and the other for the freezer. I've decided to set myself a challenge to only spend £10 on food shopping this week and get by on what we have in. Although I meal plan, I don't think buying everything I need for the week on Sunday is working as fresh herbs etc I'm buying aren't lasting until when I need to cook the meal so I'm throwing things out and I hate being wasteful! I'm going to make do with what we have in and work our meals around that which should mean minimal spends!

Kittenkirst

Sounds like a lovely weekend in the sunshine!

Have you tried freezing your herbs? I often buy YS herbs (as long as they look fresh) and chop up and put into the freezers- makes them last aggges!

chocoholic_chick

Kittenkirst wrote: »

Sounds like a lovely weekend in the sunshine!

Have you tried freezing your herbs? I often buy YS herbs (as long as they look fresh) and chop up and put into the freezers- makes them last aggges!

No I've never thought to do that! Thanks for the tip :T

chocoholic_chick

Today will be a NSD and so far I've done well with sticking to my £10 budget for food this week - spent £5.01 up to now, have prepped dinner and put it in the slow cooker for when we get in from work tonight and have a cottage pie in the freezer which I'll take out for dinner tomorrow night. Should have enough leftovers from tonight's dinners to do for lunch for us both tomorrow as well


Logged on to topcashback this morning to see another £4.36 has cleared so have requested that payment which will go to the mortgage when it clears - every little helps as they say!

chocoholic_chick

Well the slow cooker dinner really wasn't that nice which was disappointing . Tried a new recipe and won't be doing it again! I refuse to throw out the leftovers though so we're both having it for lunch tomorrow. It's edible, if nothing else.

Been looking at figures tonight and have set myself a challenge of having a closing balance of £134,000 or less by the end of December 2017. This will mean reducing the mortgage balance by £10,000 in 10 months which is a stretch but I think do-able (I hope!)

I've already budgeted to make a monthly over payment of £500, and looking at a spreadsheet I have that would mean a balance of about £134,600 by the end of the year, so I need to find an additional £600 on top of the usual OP's over the course of the next 9 months.

Overall I think that means we'll have to OP by £5,345 so £245 down... £5,100 to go!!

chocoholic_chick

Pay day yesterday so have sent a £500 op to the mortgage this morning as planned :T

Also managed to get a few things sorted for the house, ordered some new furniture and carpets, though thankfully this has been budgeted for and is coming out of a separate pot of money. Hopefully once the carpets are down and the furniture is put together (ikea stuff... so it's going to be a bit of a project!) it'll feel like we're putting our own stamp on the place and the house is coming together.

DH's parents are coming round tomorrow so need to decide what to do for lunch - whether to do a full roast dinner or do some baking today and have a lighter buffet style lunch. Will call them shortly to see what they prefer I think.

Best get on with housework!

Current OP's total £745... £4,600 to go!

chocoholic_chick

Morning all!


Not a lot to report on the mortgage front, but thought I'd keep posting on here to keep my mind focused if nothing else. Had a lovely weekend, the weather was glorious! So spent nearly the entire weekend in the garden, its a bit of a mammoth task trying to get on top of it, but I felt like we made inroads this weekend at least. I was hoping to get more done next weekend but it doesn't look as though the weather is going to be great which is a shame.


It's been an expensive few weeks, I've had to get a couple of new tyres on the car and we've had people round for food and drinks a few times so that's bumped up the food spends cost. I've also not really been keeping up to date with my finances spreadsheet, so really need to get that up to date to see where we are. I signed up with YNAB and started filling it in, but to be honest found it a little confusing. I need to have another look at it though as I do think it'll be a useful tool, if I can just get my head round it!