Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

roxy7699 wrote: »

Very busy but productive day, hope you enjoyed it and rounded it off nicely with your tipple.

Hi Roxy, hope you are well? Lovely to "see" you. Yes the tipple was very nice!

So I've not been quite so strict with updating my spend diary etc, thought it was time for a tidy up and a reconciliation. Big scare in there. My 0% card is now up at £5647 :eek:. In reality this shouldn't be a suprise as I've been aware things have got a bit spendy, but it's scary how much it crept up. So I'm going to do a purge/confession/amnesty.

The bad bits:
-Factors on my flat (oh how I hate this company, they are so inefficient, in fact downright crooks as far as I can tell) have decided I owe them another £90 over and above the £120 I pay a quarter. This will wait.
-I owe my dad about £300 for something, but he might not take it off me. Wishful thinking
-Current account very tight until pay day
-Listed a thing for sale on book of face but no takers, going to have to fleabay
0% card scary indeed. As soon as the boiler is paid off I need to pay a lot of attention to this.
Top up shops creeping in. Most of which OH are paying for but sometimes I am obliged to contribute.
Although I think we make most meals from scratch, we could still do more. Bread for example.
We had to have a gas delivery today, nearly £600 worth. Sigh. THis will not get paid for a couple of months.
House account has money to cover this, but I'm not really saving towards the big January bills at this rate.

The good bits
-I resisted a coffee yesterday even though I really wanted one. Therefore was a NSD until I bought horse feed on the way home (below budget, needed, etc).
-Next pay day, I should be able to pay off the rest of the boiler and maybe even have some spare.
-Got a few salad leaves and other things in the garden, not eating any of it yet but it's still alive at least :rotfl:
At home today so should be a NSD.
The sun is shining and it's boiling hot :j

mfmaybe

I knew I'd forgotten a bit of bad news. My thread title reminded me. I've been focussing on the massive car tax that is due at the end of August. It slipped my notice that my other one is due at the end of July <wails>

mfmaybe

Wow, 10 days since I last posted. Things are ok.

Positives. Weather with us has been glorious. Hardly had any rain in weeks, sun has been out, it's been warm and still. Hay making is happening around me furiously. Fields are dry, horses are warm and fat and happy, cats too. Haven't spent any ludicrous amounts of money.

Managed to change our gas supplier (bulk LPG) which should reduce our outgoings in the longer term.

1poll now over £33 so getting towards payout. Sloooowly.

Bad. Work has been busy. I've been tired, not going great with meal plans, and had to buy lunch loads this week. Meh. Also bought quite a few coffees. BUT I haven't spent lots else, no "purchases" since my spendy weekend a couple of weeks ago. Food shopping been a bit more than normal but hoping it was just a blip

Another week till pay day and certainly going to run out of money. I have some small savings so won't let my account go technically overdrawn but I will need to replace them next week.

Have loads of expenses looming that I've not saved for. Car tax. Field treatments. Err, holiday

I better try to post more regularly as there is obviously a correlation between my diary posts, and letting my NSDs disappear.

mfmaybe

Right I've had a look at bank account (keep wanting to call it an overdraft which it isn't anymore :j).

It was always going to be a real squeeze because we had a fair bit of holiday expenses on the credit card that we'd not really saved up for. So today I have £190 left. There is just over £90 in DDs to pay. In addition I owe my farrier £150. That leaves me about £50 short. Technically I should also be moving £45 into my bills account (a deal I made with myself when I cancelled one of my horse's insurance premiums). But I'm not going to do that this month. In fact I'm going to "borrow" the £50 back from that account to ensure current account stays in credit. I have cash in my wallet to cover a fixed expense next week. But I won't be able to buy lunches next week so need to be more organised than recently.

Then payday on Friday. Taking into account all DDs, budgeted payments and credit card bills, I can pay off my boiler balance in full :j. This will then leave me with £292. I will pay the field maintenance bill £150, and pay back my bills account the borrowed £50 plus the £45 I didn't pay this month. I'll also pay the usual £45 but that's included in my regular budget. This leaves me with £47 plus whatever extra I can save on my cash spends (lunches etc) plus whatever I can make from selling etc. This will probably go into the car tax fund.

My other aims will be to get 1poll up to £40, and get my first £5 from Swagbucks. I have dribs and drabs in cashback accounts but that will probably increase soon as we have to book holiday accommodation!

The car tax due at end of July will have to go on the credit card initially (it always does anyway) and I might just have to fund it out of regular salary rather than set aside money. I'll do my best to divert any extra cash though.

I've managed to keep my small bonus set aside which will contribute to holiday spends.

So - short term plans known. What I really need to do now though is start setting money aside for all these one-offs that aren't really.

mfmaybe

Gosh another few days since I posted.

Saturday was spendy, hair appointment, food shopping, filled up the car. That was twice in a week, mainly because we went to visit family last weekend which uses about 2/3rds of a tank. And then had to go to the office most days last week so extra fuel. Anyway, seeing family was important. Hair was less than budgeted though so that's not so bad. It did rain later in the day though, hard. First proper rain we've had in ages which probably will do the garden good. I was pleased to drive past the farm where I get my hay from and noticed the hay all off the fields before the rain. This year's should be a stonking batch :T. Wet and warm spring and dry summer. Perfect.

Sunday was a productive enough day at home. We did have to spend more money though. Went back to Sainsbobs to get cat milk (trying to fatten up our healthy but skinny wee cat, and she loves this stuff). Decided to buy bbq stuff for that evening in place of the food I'd already planned. Curses to the nice weather . It just pushes other meals back a day really though.

Also, eek, booked our first few nights holiday accommodation. Remembered that we could use nectar points on Expedia, so used nearly our entire stash (£175!!) which made a rather healthy dent in the cost. I've also got a decent supply of Ebookers spend available, over £200, so trying to work out best way to spend that as you can't use part-payment. Have also realised that on hotels.com you get not only cashback but a free night after 10 nights, so going to try to utilise this option as well. So making progress with the bookings. And in a first-ever occurrence, I've made a budget. OK it's not a true budget, it's more "how much will it cost" rather than how much can we afford, but at least I'm pre-planning and spreading the cost a bit. And like I've said, I'm turning 40 and not happy about it, so am preparing to be a bit spoilt :cool:. The good thing is it's not becoming debt, it just means I'm paying my debt off more slowly.

One strange thing. OH applied for a new credit card recently, a L!oyds Amex with free Forex and a good Avios earning rate. He then applied for an additional card for me (as we have done with our BA Amex but in reverse, account is in my name); and L!oyds said they may need to do a credit check on me. This was unexpected, and also annoying. The whole point in him applying was because I'd applied for my 0% card in Feb and didn't want another credit check so soon. :mad:

NSD yesterday. Hoping for another one today as I'm at home, although I probably need to post a card overseas. Not sure I can do it with regular stamps.

mfmaybe

****NEWSFLASH****

I have converted my first £5 from Swagbucks. :j

And 1poll now over £35. Wow, not going to get rich on either of them, but I'm grateful all the same

mfmaybe

Payday :T

Not much of if left though! Paid the house account, paid off most of my boiler, paid my monthly family debt payment, paid the credit card. But things are looking at a bit healthier, if only they can stay that way.

In other news, the total spends last month (including everything put ON a credit card, but not the payments themselves) was the lowest it's been of any month this year. That means future benefits on the month the credit card bills need paid.

Signature about to be updated.

mfmaybe

Thought I'd do a quick update. Bank account looking ok which is good, but the great news is 2 things I'd had on fleabay for ages sold. Should be about £25 after all costs. As I'm on holiday I won't get anything on there for a wee while but it is nice to see movement.

I may just start putting this money towards the 0% card! haven't decided best course of action yet.

Hope everyone is well. Might try to keep reviewing threads to stop me spending too much whilst I'm away!

in_need_of_direction

I'd throw it at the boiler. That one is so close to being wiped out.

roxy7699

Morning.
Well done on the budget of sorts, along with the thrifty holiday choices.
Going to start checking in more often, you are right, when you sway off the boards the attention to detail goes too