Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

so here's the plan.

Budget is split into Fixed, Variable, Preferable and Avoidable.

Obviously nothing is forever Fixed, but that includes all Direct Debits, nursery fees, hay and feed for horses (rarely varies).

Variable is for expenses you have to spend - food shopping, fuel etc; but you can effect some control over the values.

Preferable are all the annual savings - ie for anything I don't just pay monthly. Life would get tricky if I didn't save them up, but in a squeeze you could live without them.

Avoidable - Disretionary spend - kindle books, eyebrow wax, that sort of thing.

So from January (ie January pay), I have £206 on the monthly CC that isn't saved for. I will pay that, the fixed, the variable, and should still have a little to put into the preferable category. That would include any new spends that go on the monthly credit card too - like food and fuel.

However there is also currently £260 on the February statement, so in February I will still be playing catch up, but that should be it.

One of the things I will defer initially is paying back the credit card balance into savings - ie my signature. It's more important that I get back to a place where I just manage everything within my bank account and that the Amex is always saved for. I also won't need to be putting away so much for the tax bill as I don't have the income right now.

If come Feb/March then still don't have the extra income, I might have to think again; but if or when it starts again, it should just allow me to start saving in full for my annual bills again.

mfmaybe

OK so have now claimed the rewards from transferring over to BT. I think I'm going to use the M&S one for new bras. Let's just say the ones I bought when pregnant don't fit any more :rotfl:. Then we get the prepaid mastercard. The trick will be to make sure we use it for something we would have spent anyway. However I don't want to replace the Amex spend as I am going to be tight for earning our 241 voucher this year. So need to use it somewhere that only takes mastercard. It has to be used within 2 months though. I might use it for horse feed and transfer the cash to our joint account.

Hmm that reminds me, I haven't seen the cashback from the energy switch yet, should be due any time soon.

mfmaybe

Wow. So upthread I said that some moneysaving tricks weren't worth the time they took. Today I found that some very much are! I was shopping around for home insurance and found a very good policy that saved me....drumroll please.....

£700

:eek::eek::T:money::j

This is brilliant news. It's with Aveeeeva and their basic valuables cover was quite high which was what helped. Meant I didn't have to list a number of things, particularly items taken out of the home. Also I guess we are now beyond the 5 years of claims from the bad weather years; but our broker should also have known that. I see no reason why they didn't find us a better deal. So they are ditched. One interesting thing - increasing the excess by £250 saved me nearly £100 on the premium. Very nearly a no-brainer that one.

What's great is there is enough in our bills account to cover it, plus the NTS membership which is also due. If we have anything left in there it can buy us more firewood. DH has been chopping away but much of it won't be dry enough to burn this year, we don't think.

brizzledfw

mfmaybe wrote: »

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.

Weyhey!! Brilliant news, well done you:beer::beer::j

brizzledfw

And a £700 saving on the insurance..thats truly A Mazing (as Craig R-H would say on Strictly ..(occasionally) )

Glad youve definitely got your mojo back

mfmaybe

Thanks Brizzle, still really pleased about it.

Have been looking at the joint account and it means that the 2 council tax free months can go straight into the bills account, saving up enough for an equivalent payment next year almost immediately. Therefore anything else we set aside each month (normally about £85) could go into proper savings instead. On top of that we are £40/mth better off as have changed phone, and cancelled S&y. They did offer a tempting deal to stay but I held strong.

(Hmm drafted this last night and thought it had posted. In the meantime I think instead I'd like to put the CT saving into proper savings, and still save up monthly towards next year's insurance etc. I think it's better for the discipline, plus nice to see the savings get a boost.)

mfmaybe

OK have withdrawn a whopping £4 from Payp... and this is going to go against my Credit Card Replacement Fund (CCRF) as the very first payment. This will be a brilliant 0.2% . I also have another box of books to send off, some money in my reward account, and that's all I can think of just now!

Now that I have made certain decisions to square off spending in a different way, I should be able to put surplus income towards the CCRF rather than surviving. Although this does depend on whether reducing payments to my various annual bills fund ends up being a risk. I have some strategies for that. Eg I won't put anything into the car insurance fund for the next couple of months, as I have just paid that, so have longer to save up. I also won't put anything into the holiday fund just now, as that's definitely a luxury. If I can keep some other costs under control I should just about manage all my fixed/variable/preferables. February pay will also be tight as I have the carried over balance on the Amex, but I will have set money aside for things beyond that.

However all this is "helped" by the fact that DH isn't working just now so we've cut DS' nursery days down, from next month. This makes my personal position better, but obviously the joint income takes a hammering. So the sooner he has something else lined up the better. We would rather leave the settlement payment intact if at all possible

mfmaybe

Earlier, I lost a post about how I was worried that my budget was so tight, and to calm myself I was in the process of listing all my "hidden" savings and good MSE behaviour. Short version was huge amounts into pension and sharesaves, equity in flat plus a chunky S&S ISA, and no debt . In addition, I should get a small payrise from April, and with a bit of luck a bonus too, that I thus far (16 days into the year ) have managed to not spend or allocate.
On that note, must go to bed.

in_need_of_direction

You just need to give yourself credit for how well you are doing.

mfmaybe

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

You just need to give yourself credit for how well you are doing.

Aww shucks INOD you are too kind . I feel like I am playing at this mostly, I don't try hard to earn extra money or anything.

That said, I am excited by my shiny new 2017 spreadsheet that I can start filling in tomorrow - payday :j. Looking forward to seeing the joint savings improve via the reductions we've made to those bills, and to see how my new categorisation works for my own spending.

Par for the course though, have already identified 2 nights out within the first payday. Having ruthlessly cut my "going out" budget to 0, this is going to be interesting . I don't often go out (small child, remember) but I'm not inclined to cancel either of these as both are with people I very much want to spend time with. So perhaps have to divert spends from elsewhere.