Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

in_need_of_direction

Such a good resolution.

brizzledfw

Just catching up...went on holibobs over Christmas (as cheap as possible, campsite fees cost us €10 a night ) and have been missing my MSE friends..

We are also in for a tough month. So will join you on the road if that's OK. I have some big CC bills to pay down as I struggled last month and the month before trying not to take too much in drawings, so as to pay the tax. But that's all behind us now so can move upwards.

Had a very quiet NYE..lots of chores after hols, 5 loads of laundry and counting..:eek: - and then nice dinner with family and a sedate drink until 11:30 with neighbours. Lovely. Let's enjoy the small things in life!

OH now away for 3 weeks...as long as I am hyper organised should just about manage

mfmaybe

brizzledfw wrote: »

Just catching up...went on holibobs over Christmas (as cheap as possible, campsite fees cost us €10 a night ) and have been missing my MSE friends..

We are also in for a tough month. So will join you on the road if that's OK. I have some big CC bills to pay down as I struggled last month and the month before trying not to take too much in drawings, so as to pay the tax. But that's all behind us now so can move upwards.

Had a very quiet NYE..lots of chores after hols, 5 loads of laundry and counting..:eek: - and then nice dinner with family and a sedate drink until 11:30 with neighbours. Lovely. Let's enjoy the small things in life!

OH now away for 3 weeks...as long as I am hyper organised should just about manage

The more the merrier (or, you know, sober-er!). Glad you had a good Christmas break, and your NYE sounds perfect. Ours had all the ingredients for a lovely one with just the two of us. DS asleep, cocktails, fire on. But I had a blinding headache and spent most of the evening feeling sorry for myself. Meh. Better today though.

Good luck for the next 3 weeks. You'll probably just have the routine sorted by the time he gets back

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

Such a good resolution.

I'm hoping it's one I can keep more easily!

mfmaybe

So I've formalised my NY resolutions into a version of "project 365". There are 5 things I'm going to do each day, most of them small and all designed to make me feel a little bit better. Sometimes life feels like just a run of chores. I've managed 3 for 3 so far.

Back to work today. Some money spent, hadn't really planned lunch so needed to top up.

Got confirmation of the cashback from our energy switch, which should be with us soon.

mfmaybe

So monthly credit card is £1656. Horrific sounding, but....

Less £465 work expenses
Less £318 OH expenses
Less £200 OH share of joint expenses
Less £377 presents (saved for separately)

That leaves me with £300 to fund next month. That's a stack less than last month. I should still be able to set aside a little bit of savings, but no doubt I've forgotten something. Next up is getting my 2017 budget together. And doing several tax returns, sigh.

As well as the utilities cashback for switching, there's £13 of cashback in the joint current account with another £14 pending. Which is just as well, as the £200 final payment for our last utilities supplier has come out. On top of paying our annual broadband upfront, the current account has taken a bit of a hit recently.

mfmaybe

Just doing a tally:

1poll is at £25. This won't pay out any time soon.
Boots points about £57.
Nectar points £111
Amazon vouchers - £120.
Sw@g - not much, about 680 points.
Clubcard vouchers TBC
Cashback rewards - about £7 in own account and £27 in joint account
TCB - £27
Quidco - £3
Paypal - £4
M&S - £114
Gap - DS has about £70 on a gift card. For his own clothes only.
Sainsburys - £35 for DS for clothes.
Book token - £20 DS
Book token - £20 me
John Lewis £30 voucher

This last one is a little annoying as DH just bought something there, and we forgot we had the voucher.

Need to work out strategies to get best use from the rest.

mfmaybe

Just doing some work on my 2017 budget (starts from January payday, in 2 weeks, so I have some time ). I have re-jigged the way I budget slightly so that everything has a monthly category. I already saved for big things like car insurance or repairs or whatever, but wasn't budgeting for the more ad hoc things like train tickets. So I've given everything a monthly cost, and I will either pay it (eg, mortgage), save for it (eg car insurance) or it's a "flexible" item like kindle purchases. I've also added a bit more into my annual savings, eg Dentist, haircuts etc. In other words, everything that I would spend money on, but not a regular monthly cost. Things like food are in my "flexible" category because they are areas where belt-tightening can occur. Doing it that way gives me a budget that is the same every month. And it allows me to potentially underspend in some categories. The main issue unfortunately is still the drop in income. But I'm going to work on the basis, for now, that I don't have that all year.

My current annual savings balances as of now are as follows:
livery £300
Road tax £100
Lorry Costs £610
Horse Holiday £300
Holidays £300
Presents £470
Vet £200
Car repairs £120
House Repairs fund £0
Horse Yard items £28
Clothes £20
Tax provision £500
Flat repairs fund £200
Car insurance £250
Emergency vet £1050
Unallocated £3000

Once I pay off Christmas, I will have c£100 left in the presents account which I will transfer to unallocated - these are my proper savings, which I'm about to all but wipe out to pay off the 0% card when it runs out. I will also have about £15 left from the car insurance fund. Will zero both those out for the start of the year and start again. Need to get my tax return done to see what that looks like. Maternity leave means I've absolutely no idea! The emergency vet will stay untouched as one of my horses is uninsured. All the others stay as they are as a big bill could hit at any time (Holidays not so much, but I like to keep saving into this pot, and it could be tapped at any time as needed).

Pleased to have got £55 cashback tracked already for rearranging my car insurance today. I tried to do my Landlord insurance today but needed to call up so have held off. It renews on the 6th though so better crack on.

And on the budget, the next step is to fine-tooth-comb my 2016 budget to see what I missed last year, and make sure I include it this year. No Surprises.....

mfmaybe

Tax return isn't looking great, but I do have money set aside. Just hoped it might somehow work out less, due to being on mat leave. Nope....

Have also made good progress with Relative no 1. Years ago I used to have to manually enter everything in to the cashbook and analyse it all out, now I can just download it all from the bank into excel and, with the help of filters and shortcut keys and a variety of formulas, I can get the whole lot down in about 90 minutes start to finish :T.

Have decided that some moneysaving just isn't worth the effort. Once debt levels are back to normal and income too, I need to ensure time (which I'm also very short of) is well used. SB surveys, for instant, are just not worth it. 1poll I can live with. But I mentioned I had transferred my personal mobile phone bill to our joint account so I can earn 3% cashback on it. Well it was scuttery in the first place, but then I got a text today to say it hadn't been paid. I spent about 20 minutes on online chat trying to sort it out. Basically despite it saying "you pay by direct debit" followed by the new bank details on the screen, I was still meant to know that I had to set it up as such. :mad: Anyway I've paid it manually and allegedly it's all set up now.

Done another bit of cupboard clearing out. Made some cereal bars with some apricots that have been open for ages, and added some flax. Next on my list of random use ups are puy lentils, cashews, and hemp seeds (??). I have no idea where most of these things came from!

Anyway the cereal bars and soup I made should take care of most of tomorrow's office eating so that should help.

mfmaybe

So. The big news is.......

Today, I paid off my credit card

:j:j:T:T:D

Will update sig etc in a moment.

It's not over though. I used savings to pay it off as the 0% rate had ended. I am glad I managed to put aside money to do that, but in reality it was from a bonus; not as a result of financial dilligence. I need to up my game significantly. Plan is to save up that payment exactly as if I was still paying off the debt. So £2,674 to go. Christmas 2017 is my target.

mfmaybe

Credit card 0% Highest £6354.82 :mad: now £2674 57.9% paid. Pay by Jan 17

Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £10,650

Here is the signature as of today, before paying off the debt.