Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

Ugh, weather has turned miserable here now - it was not bad this morning. It's basically lashing sleety rain. Horrible. Forecast still looks rubbish for next week as well. I've got to go back out in it. I am very very thankful I powered through and did all my horse chores this morning, so just need to feed them tonight.

Did the food shopping. £51 was more than I'd hoped. Bought loads of mince as am going to make a lasagne later in the week, so will have leftover ragu to freeze I hope. Could probably have managed without the jaffa cakes I put in the trolley though . Other than that, I am as usual confused as to where the money went. On the plus side it's a planned menu. I doubt anything will get wasted. And I did get 10p off a litre of fuel. Shame the nearest filling station is a good 15 miles away! Also bought the DIY item I need so might get that done tonight if I don't freeze or get blown away first.

I did get a TCB credit for car insurance the other day that was a wee bit more than anticipated. Think I have £90 in various stages. So that's good news. In more alarming news, I got an annual statement from the 0% card I just tarted. I actually put £2300 on it last year on top of the balance transfer I have paid off about £800 of it, but it's pretty rubbish. A large chunk (over £700) was car tax that fleabay was supposed to be funding. Ha!

Anyway, onwards and downwards. Focus is needed. I better go and start scouring the house to get more stuff up for sale.

Thought I'd add a priority list:
1. Get ahead of monthly credit card, so all spends are put aside
2. Keep setting aside money for annual bills and potential spends (eg car repairs)
3. Save up for maternity
4. Continue to pay off family debt
5. Pay off 0%
6. Pay off OH for the medical bill

mfmaybe

OK so now have the £200 set aside that I wanted towards my monthly credit card bill, but I do need to keep very tight control of my cash budget to ensure I don't overspend elsewhere. The down side is, looks like there is still another £250 to spend before payday. Fuel, food shopping, a very much needed hair appointment, food for the horses amongst others.

I did however sell my item on fleabay, will try to post today. Should net about £18 profit I think. Should really just add it to the credit card account. TCB looks like it's a long way from being payable but that's ok, will help a payment somewhere I'm sure! Must try to get more on Fleabay though, to keep chipping away.

Had a NSD yesterday though and hopefully also again today, I do need to pay for a bale of hay but the cash is set aside already. Lunch already made for tomorrow and it might do Wednesday as well.

Think that was all I had to remember :rotfl:. Now only 16 days till payday, too. Love a short month!

mfmaybe

Hmm just lost a post. Anyway, have paid for my postage with cash so transferring £21 into my monthly credit card account. It's the first thing on my list after all!

Now need to figure out what else I can sell. After winter I will probably sell a couple of horse rugs but they'd need replaced with something else more suitable. And a wash

mfmaybe

Quick post. Today was free coffee day (loyalty card) and have lunch with me. Almost a NSD but will probably buy horse food on way home as running low.

Also pleased with today's lunch which was essentially made up of tins and staples. Probably £1/ portion which is ok given it requires no cooking and is pretty healthy too!

mfmaybe

Just read back my last post and thought, hmm not sure my lunch sounded that nice after all. Rather, err, metallic. And those staples played havoc with my gums :rotfl:

Anyway I did get feed on the way home (including bird food - those blighters eat a lot, especially as we've had snow again). Was about £33 and had £50 in budget, won't need any more so that's good news. Have applied the £21 from fleabay against this payment (on monthly CC). Have also just paid farrier which was £30 under budget as I took my horses shoes off this month. And reworked how much hay I will need until pay day.

So, that should so far leave me with another £55 to go against the monthly CC. I'm up to date with it so far, but have more to spend (fuel, food shopping). The less I can put on it the smaller the gap will be. So far, looking like about a c£150 shortfall which is already about £100 less than I thought yesterday morning.

Sorry if it all sounds confusing, it's because I'm managing the bank budget (to keep out of overdraft) as well as the credit card. So some savings are instantaneous and some just mean less future liability!

Anyway have lunch sorted again for tomorrow but will need to buy a coffee (Need, you understand. Luckily they are subsidised!). But have already taken £10 out of the bank which will see me through this week and into next. Already accounted for in budget too.

in_need_of_direction

You're really eating away at the debt. Mind it doesn't get stuck in your teeth along with those staples!

mfmaybe

Haha INOD. Very good . My headline debt isn't really going down, but if I can get the monthly credit card set aside in full (which I guess is really a hidden debt) then I get to the place where I'm basically just running things out of my bank account. So even if I pay things on the card for the points, I transfer the money out of my current account immediately. We've been bad in the past for just booking flights or whatever, then just paying it off out of salary, without really thinking if it was affordable. Which meant, all the things that needed saving up for (insurances, car tax, repairs and maintenance etc) didn't get saved up for.

Thought I should check the current card status.

On one card I have £86 outstanding (for where they don't take Amex). I have £46 set aside, and could use another £20 out of the newly-created House Repairs fund, but thinking that should be for bigger things. Will dwell on this.

Amex. Current outstanding balance £1161.83. OH's share is £402, leaving me £760. £246 set aside. £476 already in next month's budget (from before I was setting the money aside). That's £722. Had to order a couple of maternity items which aren't yet covered, hence the gap.

So overall that's not too bad. Normally, all of that would just get paid from my next pay cheque(s). Hence why I never have any money. It will get a bit worse before payday as I don't really have any more flex in the bank account to cover whatever else I put on it; but it's soooo much better than I thought it might be.

Then maybe, just maybe, I can start the odd bit of saving.

12 days till payday though. Anything could happen!

mfmaybe

Haven't posted for ages. But payday today. Got to month end with £37 left in the bank, although this could have been more but ended up spending £85 on a stupid thing that I decided I needed for doing my hair. We were away abroad at a family wedding so decided I'd need to do my hair myself. I did, and it worked, but definitely wasn't in budget. Not sure how much use it will get from now on so maybe I should sell it on. Will give it some thought. Didn't spend stupid amounts of money otherwise. But going to have to do a quick tot-up to see where that leaves me. I have £100 set aside which won't be quite enough I don't think but hopefully not too far adrift. Anyway it was a lovely weekend away, nice to have some sun, and is very likely to be our last holiday just the 2 of us (even though it was about 30 of us!)

Family debt payment made so now down at £1500. Another £675 transferred into annual bills account. I did however end up about £200 short on the monthly credit card bill (as in, due next month) so hopefully this will be the month I get it all set aside. Having one of those "the more I set aside and the more careful I try to be, the less money I seem to have" moments I'm sure it's just a blip though and I must remember that I have a good bit of cash set aside now for those upcoming large bills.

mfmaybe

Managed a NSD on Friday, didn't even use my free coffee token. Weekend spend was only fuel. Must set aside into credit card account. Figured out we have enough food to do us the week so no food shop needed. :T I am out one evening this week but I have budgeted for that.

Received my first batch of (eek) baby stuff from one side if the family today. Loads of it, but I'm a bit too scared to look at much of it yet .

Otherwise a busy weekend tidying horse stuff up after winter. Going to have to get a pile of rugs cleaned soon, but should be able to sell some of them I reckon. Weather has been so much better the last few days and it makes everything seem more manageable.

mfmaybe

Another nice day here, though forecast looks to be changing again towards the end of the week. Anyway have put the sheets on to a hot wash and am hoping I can get them out on the line later, as I'm working at home. That's always a big moment of spring!

Should otherwise be a NSD although might need to pop down to vet later to get wormer for the cat.

Been thinking about the 0% card. Have set it at £150/month which was just a random figure I made up when I tarted the balance. It's not enough to have it paid in full by the time it runs out, but is about double the minimum. Given I am going to be without income for a few months, I wonder if I should reduce the DD down to just over the minimum and instead set some cash aside to pay the minimum each month I'm on mat leave? I've still got some real maths to do about this to work out how long I can take off. I don't want to set myself too far back in our plans yet at the same time don't want to go back to work sooner, just because of money. Meanwhile I'm still taking the basic approach of spending as little as I can whilst syphoning off any spare pennies into other accounts.

I need to get back into the fleabay habit too. There must be stuff I can sell, I just don't seem to have an eye for finding it. Maybe my stuff is just too well organised :rotfl: