Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

roxy7699

mfmaybe wrote: »

At work and don't have access to my spreadsheets. So I did a back of an envelope calculation and this month looks horrific. Monthly CC is huge so that will take up 26% of salary. Gulp. House account and nursery is 45%. Other DDs 23%. Other credit cards 7%. The beady eyed amongst you will notice this is now over 100%. I normally put over 20% into annual bills savings but I can't do that. Food etc will go on the monthly card but budget for lunch etc is basically zero. Yikes.

At least you are aware. Nothing worse than realising when it is too late.

mfmaybe

INOD, absolutely no way. I'm so very lucky.

Roxy how are you?? Lovely to hear from you.

mfmaybe

Busy day at work but a good one, and now off until after Christmas.

Need to sleep, but have been reflecting today (and over the last few days) on the horrific events that unfold seemingly everywhere we look. Berlin last night of course. And the news from Syria over the last week or so has been, if possible, worse than ever before. I feel truly lucky to simply have a safe roof over my head. Some days you just need to stop and remember that, and I'm having that today.

in_need_of_direction

It's so true. So many of our gripes are first world problems. It's just sad that it takes real tragedies for us to see that

mfmaybe

Very true INOD. Life is so very hard for many people.

But - I know that the detail of our own lives matters too. And if I can get all my finances in better shape, I can afford to be more philanthropic than I currently am. So on that note I will return to regular diary issues, but will aim to keep the complaints to a minimum!

So back to money matters:

Got our final electric bill for our old supplier and it's £200. Flipping heck. Bearing in mind we've been paying £55/mth, and that's not heating, it's pretty horrific. Can't work out what our worst cuplrit will be. DW is on daily, as is WM. We don't use a TD. Breadmaker on maybe once a week. Microwave usually on for heating up leftovers for DS, and porridge in the mornings. We do have an oil filled radiator in our walk in wardrobe, as it was so cold it was getting damp; but it's not really on that often; and has only been for the last couple of months, on a thermostat. We have a lot of downlighters with halogen bulbs (gradually being replaced by LEDs) and we are bad for leaving lights on, so trying to switch them off as much as possible. Electric heating in bathroom almost never used. I think it's just little things - putting the coffee machine on for ages before we use it, sometimes forgetting to turn the oven off, boiling the kettle 3 times before finally getting round to making the tea. I'm going to try to do a monthly meter read to get a better idea of how much we are using. And keep switching the lights off :rotfl:

What else? Had a very splurgy lunch today but it was a special occasion and was with my joint-favourite person in the world (DH). Don't do it very often. It was lush and nice to talk about grown up things without our wonderful but chaotic little whirlwind about.

Plan for tomorrow is to hit the supermarket early and try to get most of my Christmas food, leaving only stuff that will not stay fresh. Then a bit of baking and as much advance food prep as I can manage. I love Christmas food.

mfmaybe

So I did the shopping after dropping DS at nursery. It was quite quiet, with the exception of every aisle being rammed with the online shopping people, and their trays. A fairly expensive shop (£140) but there's obviously extra people, lots of baking, and a lot more eating than normal. :rotfl: Still got to get the M&S bit, but that's part paid, and really I have nearly everything now.

Managed to make Christmas Rocky road (mostly stashed in the freezer), mince pies (mostly stashed in my belly), the syrup for the baklava, and the red cabbage. I made a full head's worth, and will freeze half. Tomorrow I think I will make the soup, maybe some cupcakes and am undecided about the baklava. That might wait until Saturday. On Christmas eve we are having poached salmon with chips, salad and homemade mayo. The good news is we cook the salmon the night before or early morning so it's quite an easy meal. Also need to make the cake for Sunday as well as some veg prep. Oh yes and I was planning on doing the Nigella Pannatone French toast for breakfast on Saturday. Yikes that's a lot of cooking :eek: But on the plus side, a lot of eating too

mfmaybe

Belated Merry Christmas!

Everything went well, food was great and have been using up leftovers. We went for Goose this year which was really lovely and made a surprisingly delicious stew. DS had a blast, mainly being entertained by a string of different relatives. The presents were still a bit of bafflement to him but he's found delight in some of them, the rest will come I'm sure. He's been on such good form, it was a shame to ship him off to nursery this morning, but we are both working.

So I got my requested Christmas present from the very kind Santa, so cutting some firewood is on the agenda. Also clearing out the food cupboard to find the nearly out of date stuff to use it up. Car insurance and house insurance both due within the next 2-4 weeks so I need to get those quoted for. I think we are going to give up Sky soon, so that will save some money. Need to try to be really frugal with day to day living just now as income still under pressure. Cleaner isn't coming this week though so that's a bit of money we can "bank". Also need to pay nursery, it will be another smaller month due to being closed for a couple of days.

We haven't any New Year plans so don't think we should have too much expense for that, might just cook a nice dinner at home. Not like we go out any more anyway :rotfl:

OK brain dump completed, off to do some more paid work!

mfmaybe

I'm giving some thought to my 2017 budget (I do an annual budget, but done monthly, each year). I am trying to draft a list of things I might need to realistically buy in the next year. Eg I will certainly need to buy shampoo and conditioner but I won't need to buy any make up I don't think. Similarly I don't think I have any clothes I will need this year unless my work shoes don't make it a whole year. Obviously I won't include things that are essential - cat litter, horse food, clothes for DS etc. But I'm trying to focus my mind on what little controllable spend I have. I will draft my list, and then only allow myself to spend outside of it if something breaks or runs out. I'm not sure it will help that much, I'm not a huge "shopper", but I have my moments so will see how it works out.

On the plus side my lost income is showing some signs of maybe being reinstated at some point in the next couple of months - I hope.

Oh and S&y told me today that the phonebill I had paid for in advance would be offset against my tv bill until it was cleared down. Not sure I agree with this approach so this might be a further reason to ditch it.

Haven't really been out and about so no money spent in sales (see above re what I don't need to buy ) and not even done anything online. Except cat litter. And need to order more Feliways. One of our cats has been stressed and losing weight. Vet found nothing untoward and the Feliways seem to be helping. Shame they are so expensive but needs must.

Edited - things that aren't in current budget
Roadside recovery*
Car parking for trips into town eg when I go to the hairdresser
Random train fares for trips into town
Cat food/litter^

*This could be covered under car expenses which I save for monthly, but as my car is getting older I probably need to up this anyway.
^Tend to include within the Food Shopping budget

mfmaybe

So started on the food cupboard clear out.

There are 6 not-very-organised shelves. Extra spices, sweets, misc odds and sods at the top. Then tins and condiments. Then dry goods (pasta, rice etc). Then cereal etc. Then baking stuff. Then booze and other drinks at the bottom.

Did the tins and condiments, which didn't yield much and most was very sweet-based.
Tin of red grapefruit segments
2 tins ambrosia custard (out of date)
Tub of palm sugar. No idea why I even have this
2 jars of homemade chutney. Should be fine but must use up.
2 tins chestnut puree (out of date but should be ok)
tin of nestle caramel (very out of date)
tin of beansprouts in water

So grapefruit and (maybe) the custard could be a dessert one night. Palm sugar - will check my recipes from our trip to Thailand several years ago and see if this yields ideas. Chestnut puree - this sounds like a trip to Nigella-land to find a recipe. The beansprouts, if use-able, can probably go in a stir fry or similar.
The chutney will happily go with cheese, and the caramel might just be too out of date to consider

(OK Chestnut Chocolate pots are going on the menu tomorrow - all ingredients already in the house apart from a little bit of double cream needed)

I actually think my dry goods shelf might be quite up to date. I know my baking one isn't that bad - maybe some random rye flour I could put in the breadmaker, and I seem to have a lot of crystallised ginger pieces. The one with the most random stuff seems to be the booze shelf. There's a coconut rum in there I swear is 20 years old :rotfl:. The Gin's pretty fresh through

mfmaybe

Happy New Year :beer:

Well the chestnut got (nearly) all used up with some hotpots in the freezer, some chestnut chocolate ganache also in the freezer, and some no churn chestnut icecream also...you guessed it......in the freezer :cool:

Thought I'd get a start on financial resilience for the year, by transferring my mobile bill to the account with the cashback. Cue all sorts of password complications, systems being down, etc. still not done. Also rec'd the bank account. £270 left with over £400 of DDs still to go out. Safe to say I won't be spending much money at the moment. Next up is to have a look at the monthly CC to see how next month looks. On the face of it the bill looks huge but I know I have £460 of work expenses, about £500 of DH's spend, and a stack of presents that I have money set aside for. So fingers crossed the bank account won't be so tight next month.

Anyway on that note I'm off to stick to my NY resolution which is to focus on me a bit more . So I'm off for a shower, as a tired DS naps.