No more being "FinanciallyUnsavvy" in 2014!

FinanciallyUnsavvy

sassychick2014 wrote: »

Morning hon

Ok, so I know you're having a few bad days but the main thing I just read is that you're still in budget. That's good! If you'd done all those other bits and bobs and you weren't in budget then yes, I can see why you'd beat yourself up but you are in budget so try not to feel too bad.

We're all starting at this budget/saving/paying off debt malarky and so I think we're all entitled to have a few off days or lack of judgement. It will help us to learn to have a better future.

You're doing really well and you need to remember that. Budgeting for spare cash would probably be a good idea and maybe even have some of it hidden in a different part of your purse or bag so you know it's there but you can't see it's there.

Hope today is better for you x

Thank you for your support as always hun xx

I'm not feeling quite so bad today - as you said, I'm still in budget so there's no need to beat myself up. It's not like I've bought anythig extravagant - main thing is those two £10 that I withdrew.. since I only gave myself a £30 "entertainment" budget this month, I've blown most of that on nothing. I've also spent a bit out of my "xmas/birthday" pot for Valentine's gifts... but again it's nothing that I didn't exactly budget for.


Anyway - all's good on the ebay front, sold another item this morning, so along with the game I sold yesterday that's £30 I've been able to add to my £2014 :T. I will withdraw that cash from Paypal and bung it towards the overdraft!

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Update:

Just paid £40 off the OD - had slightly more in Paypal than I thought, with still leaving enough to cover eBay fees :j

Off to update my sig

sassychick2014

Hiya

Great news on the payment, makes you feel good doesn't it! Oh, you've reminded me I need to update my signature too

StressedSteph

Hi Kim,

Sorry to hear you have been struggling abit the last few days. My hideous memory won't let me remember if you use YNAB? I think you do, but either way, in the YNAB tutorials they warn you not to beat yourself up if you have to re-jiggle the budget countless times as it takes around 6 months to start correctly guessing how much needs to go into each category. So don't give yourself a hard time.

I am a devil with cash in my purse. I have struggled with the odd budgeted cash payment that is something like £25. so I have to withdraw £30 out of the account and then that spare £5 just dissappears:o.
So I created an account in YNAB for my purse/cash. so now I have to account for every purchase that is spent using cash. This has been good because it makes me feel like I can't just lose!! my purse cash and I have to explain myself. Do you think that might help you put the brakes on the cash spending?.

We are not perfect, I accidentally slipped at the till this morning and bought a bunch of daffodills for £1.50 . I do have a weakness for flowers but that was a really silly impulse purchase that was'nt needed. We are all on a long road to changing our ways. It can't be as easy as flicking a switch. So be kind on yourself and learn from it and move on.

Hope you are doing ok today. Keep smiling xxx

FinanciallyUnsavvy

sassychick2014 wrote: »

Hiya

Great news on the payment, makes you feel good doesn't it! Oh, you've reminded me I need to update my signature too

It does indeed! Yes, gotta keep on top of the signature, seeing those numbers go down (and the paid percentage go up) certainly helps brighten the day

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi Kim,

Sorry to hear you have been struggling abit the last few days. My hideous memory won't let me remember if you use YNAB? I think you do, but either way, in the YNAB tutorials they warn you not to beat yourself up if you have to re-jiggle the budget countless times as it takes around 6 months to start correctly guessing how much needs to go into each category. So don't give yourself a hard time.

I am a devil with cash in my purse. I have struggled with the odd budgeted cash payment that is something like £25. so I have to withdraw £30 out of the account and then that spare £5 just dissappears:o.
So I created an account in YNAB for my purse/cash. so now I have to account for every purchase that is spent using cash. This has been good because it makes me feel like I can't just lose!! my purse cash and I have to explain myself. Do you think that might help you put the brakes on the cash spending?.

We are not perfect, I accidentally slipped at the till this morning and bought a bunch of daffodills for £1.50 . I do have a weakness for flowers but that was a really silly impulse purchase that was'nt needed. We are all on a long road to changing our ways. It can't be as easy as flicking a switch. So be kind on yourself and learn from it and move on.

Hope you are doing ok today. Keep smiling xxx

Hi Steph, thank you for stopping by, lovely to hear from you!

I do of course use YNAB. I've been toying with the idea of setting up an account in there for the money in my purse - in fact I did do it but then changed my mind about it afterwards. I think I will try it again though, becausae at the moment when money's in my purse I'm treating it as "unaccountable" which is leading to the frittering away! If every penny matters the same as the rest of my account, then it should - theoretically anyway! - stop me wasting it on unnecessary spends. I think I'll try setting that up tonight, thanks

FinanciallyUnsavvy

The fact that my OD balance is £1,308 is driving me nuts... I'm going to have to try and find a spare £8 in the budget just so I can round it up! :rotfl:

Although I do need to balance YNAB against my bank account. Haven't done it yet this month and it may be a few £s out of sync .

I still also need to adjust the CC1 balance to include the balance transfer fee. I've been putting it off because I don't want the numbers to go back up. Best now though rather than further down the line, I suppose.

misstara

Just been catching up with your diary and you're doing so well, almost 7% already! Sorry to hear that you had a few bad days, its really hard sometimes to keep the motivation going for debt-busting.

Twice this week I've bought lunch instead of taking something with me to work but I'm trying to think 'ok it's a little blip I must try harder next week' instead of 'well I've screwed it up now, no point in trying'.

The part I'm struggling with at the moment is all my friends seem to be booking holidays for the summer to lovely sunny places. I have had to say no to a couple of offers as I can't afford it. Hopefully it will be a beautiful summer here eh.

Hope you manage to find a spare 8.00 to throw at that overdraft!

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Urgh, so yesterday I did it AGAIN - was going to my parents for tea and realised I didn't have the £1.60 change I needed for bus fare so I had to draw out £10!!

BUT I'm taking Steph's advice and I'm setting up an account in YNAB for the money in my purse, so instead of £10 just going from my budget and being unaccountable, it'll simply be transferred to my purse "account", and I'll track it the same way I always do. That does make me feel a bit better like I'm just not "wasting" money- so thanks for that, Steph

Yesterday night I received the £5 PayPal credit I cashed out last week from MySurvey, AND I was able to cash out another £5, so should get that next week! :j I'm very impressed with how quickly I've been able to make money from them - it really has been about £5 a week.

So will add £5 to my £2014 fund in my sig shortly

Had a nice morning at work hosting a charity cake sale. The kitchen staff also donated us some old crockery etc. they were just throwing out - so I got myself a lovely teapot and smaller pouring jug for a £2 donation (as well as a slice of cake) - been wanting a teapot for a while and the money goes to a good charity so I'm not going to feel too guilty! I'd have probably paid over £10 if I'd have bought a teapot from a shop anyway.

Happy Valentines to everyone - hope everyone has a nice day, whether you're with your OH or just treating yourself! Tonight OH is cooking us steaks for tea - his treat - so that will be nice. I did make him the scrapbook in the end, not sure what he'll think, he's not really sentimental, but its made now! I'm quite impressed with how it turned out actually!

Have a lovely day everyone x

StressedSteph

Hi Kim,

Glad I managed to help in a small way with the purse account on YNAB. I have lots of little things to pay out for, like this afternoon the children have an afterschool cafe where I will need to buy them a cake and a drink which will only cost about £1.50, but its nice to account for it in YNAB so it gets me into the habit of having to explain EVERY penny I spend.

I am quite wasteful with my cash and making me account for everything, gets me thinking through my purchases more than I used to.

You made me laugh about the overdraft and the £8 you wanted to even up. I must admit to paying my Virgin Cc account £74.98 this week as the 98p was annoying :o.

I have been thinking about tidying up my bank balance figured by rounding down and using that amount to pay against a debt. I am sure there is a thread somewhere about that. Must look it up.

Well done on the MYSurvey money. I never managed to make any money so you are doing well. :T

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Well, another Monday has come around too quickly again!

Not much to report - had a non-spendy weekend which is nice. Had a nice Valentine's day - OH cooked us steak which was lovely. Saturday we were naughty and had a takeaway - again his treat (I offered him the money in my purse (£5) but he refused!). Saturday was grocery shopping - managed to only spend £12 as I had plenty of meat for the week in the freezer. Result!

That means I've got £27 left in my grocery budget for next weekend. I think I'll aim to spend about £15 so I have a bit left over to debt-bust with.

It's payday next Tuesday, I can't wait for it to come round just so I get to pay some more off my totals. I'm going to pay CC2 off completely I think, then concentrate on the overdraft.

I've been thinking about moving bank accounts, so I'm not banking in the account with the OD. A lot of you seem to have done that, and it seems like a good idea. I almost jumped into it last night but decided I'll think about it a bit more. I was going to go for a Halifax account with the £5 interest a month though, but got refused for that :S

Anyway- got a survey for Pinecone to do, so that's going to be £3 Paypal for me

Have a good day all x