Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

Owe to savings £2674/£2674 100%paid. Pay by Christmas 17

Other debts paid since 1/1/14: £14,331

So first for posterity, the current signature which I am about to update.

PurpleFairy - I totally cheated on the target because I got a much bigger bonus than anticipated. Very little of it came from old fashioned money saving . On the plus side, I haven't spent a penny of the bonus, and now have a fairly decent savings account balance. And no debt... (ahem though see next paragraph)

So - next target is the monthly credit card. This is currently a bit horrific. The theory is we spend all our food shopping, fuel etc on it for the miles, but I transfer money when I spend it. I've been very bad at this historically, and I'm (gulp) £600 short on it this month alone. And there is a further lapse, with flights on it for a holiday later in the year. This might become a cancellation though - I booked avios flights that are fully refundable; and looking at the price of accommodation for when we want to go, I'm not sure we can begin to justify it. So that might come off.

The target therefore has to be to get ahead of this monthly credit card, and to pay off that holiday, assuming we go. Starting with the monthly credit card, I'd say I'd like to 1) build up a £1k slush fund and 2) find a way to keep on top of it going forward.

Will dwell on that.

brizzledfw

Am sure you'll figure out a way! We have faith dear MFM..

Well done on the bonus too

X

mfmaybe

Thanks brizzle

First step actually has to be closing the c£600 gap in budget this month. It's not actually a budget gap, it's because aforementioned card has got out of hand. So target pre-1 has to be that.

Thoughts. I have something to return for £170. I have a DVF dress unworn that I could sell. There's very little budget slack but will give it more thought.

mfmaybe

OK so here's the first approach to getting the buffer fund.

Every time I spend on the Amex, move money into card account. Check EVERY day. When doing so, round that payment up to the nearest £5 and the balance becomes the start of the CCBF.

Just done this for the food shopping at the weekend so have a whopping 0.1% .

Any other surplus income (eg cashback or dividends) also to go to this CCBF.

Technically I shouldn't really need a CCBF. I've got a pretty detailed budget, and If I properly start to move money into this account every time I use the card then I will always have enough saved up. So this will in time just become an emergency fund. One I will try to keep separate from all the genuine saved up pots (eg car insurance).

At the same time I have to try to close that gap on the current account this month. It currently stands at £589. The above strategy makes that worse if not better but I definitely need "the fear" to keep things under control. (Edit, it's actual £575 as double counted something, and have identified a potential £155 in savings if I can manage only 1 tank of fuel this month - a big "if")

Point to note. There are 5 weekends this month for food shopping. We have £300 left in budget to do the next 4. That's a £75/week shop which is do-able so long as we don't do lots of top ups.

mfmaybe

So small increase to CCBF. Current account shortfall at £576 but think this will actually get £60-100 worse :eek: as DH has reminded me he has bought a couple of things I owe him money for. There is still some potential reduction in the budget so I can take it down a little, but it's not great news so far .

However I am managing to keep the new system going of transferring money across to card account as per plan. I'm usually good at the beginning of the month and less good towards the end.

Oh yes and food shopping ended up being atrocious this week. But we have been given a stack of cheese so our meal planning will have to work around that.

I've also got some paperwork I must get completed to potentially improve the financial position. In fact will go and get some (cheese based) lunch, then work on that.

in_need_of_direction

is it a freezable cheese?

mfmaybe

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

is it a freezable cheese?

The freezer is rammed with it, so I hope so! It's cheddar which I think is ok?

in_need_of_direction

Yes. Try grating it pre freezing. You can get it into gaps if you put in small bags.

mfmaybe

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

Yes. Try grating it pre freezing. You can get it into gaps if you put in small bags.

I've done a mix of grated, sliced (cheese on toast style) and larger chunks. A bit sick of the sight of it now .

mfmaybe

So although not a MF diary (yet?!), I had cause to check our balance today. We are now under the £200k mark. Obviously still a huge number, but it's all relative I guess.

Finally did the paperwork I was meant to do the other day - that will go in the post tomorrow and hopefully result in a small cash influx.

Also remembered I must get my tax return submitted as small rebate due from that too.

Bank looks ok in as much as I'm not overspending, but a long way off sorting my shortfall. Ugh.