Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

OK so have identified which items I will put into annual bills this month, and which I can't afford to. Other risks on day 1 of new budget:

1. I think I may have slightly miscalculated the amex bill and DH doesn't owe me quite as much as thought.

2. The nights out I mentioned.

3. Car tax - now going to have to pay 2 at the same time and don't have nearly enough set aside. Not sure if the thread title will ever come true, but I can always try.

4. Fuel might be tight, but I think I might be able to just manage.

5. Other CC - some unsaved for expenses on here too. About £50 that I haven't budgeted for.

All in I think I could really doing with magic-ing up about £200 extra this month. Sigh.

brizzledfw

Can you do extra hours? As OH is at home? Just for a bit?

You'll find a way

mfmaybe

brizzledfw wrote: »

Can you do extra hours? As OH is at home? Just for a bit?

You'll find a way

Sure, plenty. Just not for any extra pay :rotfl:

In all seriousness, I earn a lot of money, work F/T already, and don't spend enough time with my guys as it is I'm sure I can close the gaps somehow.

mfmaybe

Having a very Meh day. I said earlier in the diary I wouldn't complain too much given how easy my life is compared to so many people; so I'm not going to dwell on what's getting me down. I just feel like everything is too squeezed (time, money, family, fun) and the balance is wrong. Meh again. But we are trying to do what we can about this, it's just taking too long (ie house selling for starters). So, dwelling over.

Money-wise, I came in £5 under budget on one of my spends today. That isn't free money, it just helps close the gap a bit, but at least it wasn't over budget!

House account looking good. Managed to pay for the last lot of firewood out of it, and will be able to set aside a decent whack into savings - ie the council tax money hasn't already been spent, hurrah. :T

On that note, need to pick up DS in an hour, have wet hair, washing needing hung up, animals needing fed, and some paid work to do, too. Best crack on!

mfmaybe

So the night out was great. I drove instead of drinking, so avoided transport costs and had a much lower bill accordingly. £30 spent. Little bit more than I might have hoped but was really good fun.

However I then went a did the food shopping on Saturday and somehow managed to spend £96 :eek: plus another £10 on a soda stream gas. That included £5.50 as a gift for someone, £12 on YS items I put in the freezer for next week's meals, £3 on olive oil and about an extra £5 on items as we had family dropping in for bacon rolls. So underlying it was probably still £70 which isn't great. I did stock up a bit on chopped tomatoes, DS' snacks etc as quite a few things were on offer. Anyway hopefully next week can be a LOT less to make up for it! On the plus side I've moved my share of it into my credit card account so the new plan is working so far.

WFH today so hoping for a NSD. No need to buy food , nothing to post etc. Oh and taking a leaf out of Brizzle's book, I managed 2/3 AFDs this weekend.

mfmaybe

Claimed £6 from my rewards account which is going to go against the CCRF when it arrives. Really must get the other box of books posted as well.

In our house account there's already about £45 either payable or pending. That will just go into joint savings though. My aim is to add £500 to that account in 2 months - should be do-able between 2 months council tax, normal savings, and the rewards money.

TCB is about £134 :T but only £4 payable so far. £-co has £3 but it's not payable.

mfmaybe

Well yesterday wasn't a NSD after all. Bought a small item off fleabay (soap dish - have decided to use up all my various bars of soap rather than buy liquid soap so should be an investment ) and then decided to order a photo calendar with lots of DS photos. Again a bit of an investment as we hang it in the kitchen and write down our meals for the week ahead.

Today was a low spend day (coffee only, and I got my last loyalty stamp so it will be free tomorrow) and had lunch with me. Didn't spend anything else, except I apparently have been charged £30 from Amazon. I need to look into this urgently. I signed up when I was looking to sell a few books and CDs, but it would appear the sort of "oh I wonder if I can sell them this way" approach has somehow signed me up to a ridiculous pro version.

OK have emailed them requesting a refund of the fee and to close the account I appear to have opened. So that £4 I earned for a box of CDs has actually resulted in a net loss of £26. Flipping magic.

PurpleFairy26

mfmaybe wrote: »

Well yesterday wasn't a NSD after all. Bought a small item off fleabay (soap dish - have decided to use up all my various bars of soap rather than buy liquid soap so should be an investment ) and then decided to order a photo calendar with lots of DS photos. Again a bit of an investment as we hang it in the kitchen and write down our meals for the week ahead.

Today was a low spend day (coffee only, and I got my last loyalty stamp so it will be free tomorrow) and had lunch with me. Didn't spend anything else, except I apparently have been charged £30 from Amazon. I need to look into this urgently. I signed up when I was looking to sell a few books and CDs, but it would appear the sort of "oh I wonder if I can sell them this way" approach has somehow signed me up to a ridiculous pro version.

I found Amaz0ns online chat tool very useful when DH accidentally signed up for prime last year. They refunded the money, no quibbles (and I didn't actually have to talk to anyone!)

mfmaybe

Thanks pf. Chat was closed last night but I got a helpful reply telling me what to do to change the account and promising a refund. It really wasn't clear though, I had no idea I was commuting to a fee.

£6 transferred to CCRP and sig updated. Baby steps!!

mfmaybe

So the £6 rewards landed and signature updated accordingly. Going to take a while at this rate :rotfl:. But so far not much in the way of suprise spends so that's good. And today was a NSD which was brilliant, as I was in the office. I always buy one coffee. They are subsidised via our employer, I use my own mug for a 10p saving, and 9 coffees = one free one. So I nearly always spend money. But my loyalty card was full, I had lunch with me, and resisted some kind of snack late afternoon when I was getting a bit peckish. Now about to have Haggis, Neeps and Tatties for tea (Burns night, of course!) which should fill the gaping hole in my tummy haha.

Thought I'd describe the Amazin fiasco incase anyone else is thinking about it - as it was a diary on here that gave me the idea. Basically I was shopping around via zippit, webuybooks etc, and thought I'd look at Amazin. On the home page, there is a "Sell" button on the main menu. That was the only one I could see, clicked it, and then clicked the first button that said "Start selling on Amazin". This turned out to be a "pro" account. The email I got from them last night told me how to make it an individual account, but you seem to have to give a month's notice so I'm not sure how you sign up as an individual in the first place.

A scary thing I learnt this week is that I won't be able to get higher rate tax relief on the interest on my BTL mortgage going forward. How this passed me by I've no idea but it will totally change the way I approach the mortgage. I've never bothered overpaying due to the tax benefit, but this will probably change in a couple of years.