misstara's debt diary 2014

monz

Love how you are so precise where everything goes x

misstara

monz wrote: »

Love how you are so precise where everything goes x

Yeah I find having a very precise budget works for me, although it is very boring reading I'm sure. Just wish I had more money to budget with :rotfl:

So payday today and I got £102.50
- £12 TV licence
- £13 weekly savings
- £22.50 cc1
- £7.11 emergency fund (£5 from this budget and £2.11 spare that was in my account)
- £20 food

The rest plus any money OH gives me, I'm going to put into the direct debits account for later on in the month as I'm finding it hard at the moment to get shifts with 2nd job. Next week (unless I manage to pick something up over the weekend at last minute) I will only be getting paid around £40.

I now only have £39.95 to pay off cc1 :j:j so will pay that on Monday when I get paid from monthly job. I can then focus on paying more to the loan.

I still haven't booked my flights for my friends wedding as I can't decide what to do. All my friends are heading down on the Friday which I would like to do because it would be good to travel down together and make a weekend of it but accommodation is expensive and I don't really know if I can afford 2 nights accommodation. I think I'll try and look into some cheaper accommodation and then decide.

I've been to the gym this morning, now just away to clean the flat and do some baking. It's a lovely day here so it will be a nice walk up to work later on. Hope everyone has a good Friday

StressedSteph

Hi MissT


Sorry I haven't been around for a while, Sorry to hear that you had a low week, but it sounds like the time with family made you feel brighter :T.


Hope you continue to be ok, you are so amazingly disciplined with your finances, you put me to shame.


Hope you have a lovely weekend xx

monz

You are on the ball for the gym do you feel you are getting your moneys worth from going? only reason i ask is i am thinking starting back and unsure x

misstara

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi MissT


Sorry I haven't been around for a while, Sorry to hear that you had a low week, but it sounds like the time with family made you feel brighter :T.


Hope you continue to be ok, you are so amazingly disciplined with your finances, you put me to shame.


Hope you have a lovely weekend xx

Hi Steph, I'm still not 100% but definitely better than I felt this time last week. The time spent with my family was just what I needed. If there's one thing that working in mental health has taught me is how important it is to take care of my own mental health and there's a few small changes I want to make to continue to make me feel more positive.

monz wrote: »

You are on the ball for the gym do you feel you are getting your moneys worth from going? only reason i ask is i am thinking starting back and unsure x

Well I haven't been great at going to the gym this month but I still think its worthwhile having as my gym is only £16.99 a month. Depends how expensive it is/how many times you will go.

Flat is mostly cleaned and I've left a note for OH to do the rest once he's finished work. I also made lemon drizzle cake, I'm taking half to work so I don't eat it all myself. Today will be a NSD

misstara

cc1 is now £0 :j:j I decided there was no point waiting until Monday when I had enough money in my account just to pay it off I will now start overpaying the loan, however, may split it between the loan and emergency fund, need to have a wee think.

OH has given me £20 again this week so have put it into the direct debits account. I didn't manage to pick up a shift with 2nd job this weekend so won't be getting paid much on Friday. So far for next week I have one 3 hour shift so fingers crossed I will get something else.

I still haven't received my monthly payslip or this years council tax letter which is annoying. I have a feeling that they may have arrived while I was away and OH has put them somewhere but now can't remember. Oh well I'll find out on Monday how much I get paid and I'll phone the council to see how much we need to pay.

Spends for today are £6.55 on food, mostly getting things so that we can have a lovely brunch tomorrow as a wee treat.

AleMrsT

Well done on getting CC1 paid!! :T Splitting the money between emergency fund and loan overpayments are a good idea, although have you looked into whether there is a penalty for overpaying on the loan? I know some loans don't let you and others are ok with it. Otherwise you could put the money towards CC2 to try and get it paid off quicker before the 0% interest ends, as I'm sure the interest rate that will kick in on the credit card will be more than the interest you will save making over payments on the loan?
Then once that ones gone too you can really throw everything at the loan.
Happy Sunday.

misstara

AleMrsT wrote: »

Well done on getting CC1 paid!! :T Splitting the money between emergency fund and loan overpayments are a good idea, although have you looked into whether there is a penalty for overpaying on the loan? I know some loans don't let you and others are ok with it. Otherwise you could put the money towards CC2 to try and get it paid off quicker before the 0% interest ends, as I'm sure the interest rate that will kick in on the credit card will be more than the interest you will save making over payments on the loan?
Then once that ones gone too you can really throw everything at the loan.
Happy Sunday.

Thanks AleMrsT, I'm so happy to have finally paid it off There are no penalties for overpaying the loan (because I took out a new loan in December, the old loan was a different story) and in fact there is an extra payment option in my online banking so its incredibly easy to do. I'm reasonably confident that I will be able to get another 0% deal when the current one ends as I don't have a credit card with my main bank and at least once a month they send me a credit card offer, the last one was for 27 months 0% balance transfer so am definitely going to push ahead with overpayments to the loan. I made my first overpayment today £7.07

Today I booked my flights for my friends wedding, £62.98 (I used money from the 52 week savings to pay for it). I also have had a look at accommodation and have reserved a room for £169 for the 2 nights. I can cancel it for free until the week before so my plan is to keep looking and see if anything cheaper comes up. I have added wedding savings to my signature, I think around £300 would do to pay for the room and some spending money.

Right better get off to bed, will catch up with everyone's diaries tomorrow.

monz

Well done on paying off your Credit card x

misstara

monz wrote: »

Well done on paying off your Credit card x

Thanks monz, I've checked the balance online 3 times today :rotfl: can't quite believe I've finally paid it off.

Payday today and I got £998.10, it's a wee bit less than usual as I didn't do any overtime at all last month.
- £840 rent and loan
- £25 cc2
- £25 christmas savings
Leaving £108.25 for the council tax bill, unfortunately I need to pay £129.56 in April so will have to use some of the money I put aside for direct debits later in the month.

I have manged to pick up 20 more hours with 2nd job this week which I'm very thankful for, not sure what we would have done if I only had the 3 hour shift.

I'm just about to update my signature with April targets. I did well with the grocery target in March, not quite so well with the gym and NSDs but April is a new month

March to do list
- emergency fund Managed to add £12.11 to the emergency fund this month, not going to reach my target any time soon at this rate :rotfl:
- hen do/wedding savings £0 so far
- 5k training outside Have done 3 runs outside this month

April to do list
- emergency fund
- wedding savings
- electricity bill (due in May)
- more 5k training outside
- new kettle (current one is leaking)