Paying the car tax via EBay, and other shenanigans.

mfmaybe

Things are very boring now. If you don't spend money, your bank balance doesn't move, the spreadsheet can't be updated, there is no change for the coin jars, and there is nothing to write in the diary :rotfl:

Still cross about the broadband, and determined that we must be able to beat our current £36/mth phone and broadband. DH is also going to call up Sk*. We pay about £26/mth and watch it incredibly rarely, mainly use netflix, so are very happy to call their bluff. Technically he pays for that and I pay for the TV licence but if we cancel Sk* I'll move the TV licence to our joint account and we'll both be a bit better off each month.

OD is forecast to come down a good bit this month. It's a bit tricky because of the BT card in that it's taking a couple of months to roll through, but the card has now arrived. It also has 0% on purchases for 12 months so going to use this until the OD is completely gone. However I have set up a system of "Virtual savings" so that even though I can see my OD is say £2500, I know that I've also set aside £500 for a future bill that's on a credit cards, so my true balance is £3000 (example figures). So far it's working out for me, I'm not really looking at the balance per my bank statement, but believing the adjusted balance by my spreadsheet. So the OD won't be paid off until it is 0 even with the virtual savings taken off. Makes sense to me anyway

Also got notified of a payrise today. Effective 1st April, looks like I will be about £40 a month better off. Not going to set the world on fire but it's better than a kick in the teeth. I think I will direct it into a "save up money to pay off card once the 0% ends" account. I like my pots to have snappy titles. :rotfl:

Have about £14 to move into my car tax fund. Fully paid one already the next one will be at £98. Unfortunately I remembered that I want to put a year on this one (due to a quirk of the timing of insurance and road tax if I don't) so I need to find another £120 still. I have another sale off FB but can't confirm this amount as the person who is buying the item did me a favour that I owe her for. Main hope is that I end up net positive, not the other way around...

In less good news, I found out one of the cars is due an MOT that I thought wasn't until August (just bought it a few months ago). And my other car is also due in the next month, neither of which I have savings pots for yet. Hopeful that neither need much work, but my car probably needs 2 new tyres which will be expensive. Still, I am trying to use that annoyance as a strengthening of my resolve that, this time next year, the savings pots will be ready for these expenses. :money:

roxy7699

Hi

I know the feeling of stagnation. It's a pain isn't it. I now have about 5 days where I dont have anything to do on my banking. I still log in though just to check it still matches.
Good news on the BT card, challenge sky, I called to loose sport and they gave me half price things. Im only £4 worse off a month for getting rid of sport - which may not have gone down well.

cazmanian_minx

Congrats on the payrise :T:T:T:T:T:T

mfmaybe wrote: »

Things are very boring now. If you don't spend money, your bank balance doesn't move, the spreadsheet can't be updated, there is no change for the coin jars, and there is nothing to write in the diary :rotfl:

I so know where you're coming from with this :rotfl: I get round it, to a certain extent, by having the business accounts to play with as well, which do have something going on every weekday, but I can see my finances starting to get sorted now and I want to hit the fast forward button, dammit!

mfmaybe

roxy7699 wrote: »

Hi

I know the feeling of stagnation. It's a pain isn't it. I now have about 5 days where I dont have anything to do on my banking. I still log in though just to check it still matches.
Good news on the BT card, challenge sky, I called to loose sport and they gave me half price things. Im only £4 worse off a month for getting rid of sport - which may not have gone down well.

I'm confused (easily done!). How come you are worse off without sport??

I forced something to happen in my accounts today by moving paypal funds :T signature probably needs updated again actually.

CM my job allows plenty of spreadsheet fun, I should probably focus on that more than my daily spend spreadsheet. Just how long can I stare at it when nowt is happening??

Oh my NSD became expensive when I had to pay for an IVF test. But as I said earlier, I'm not counting these, they are the most important thing we can spend money on right now.

mfmaybe

Gosh a few days since I posted. Been quite spendy in various ways. The broken bit on the Horsebox was repaired, the landie got delivered up north for its MOT (family mechanic, cheaper to pay the fuel than a local garage as it will likely need welding etc) and Friday was waxing day. Only the cheapest one of those was in budget but again this is really symptomatic of a) the life we have and b) the fact I've not got any pots set up. Annoying but I will get there. On the plus side I've been very good about all the controllable stuff, haven't bought lunch in ages, food bill is much reduced, and no other purchases. I really need a new electric fencer. Mine got pinched :mad: and it was about £300. I've been putting it off as I can't afford it so trying to work out how to fund it. But at least I haven't just bought it first and worried about the payment later!

Anyway I am owed £10 more to the tax fund from a friend, and one poll is over £10, also have some money on TCB. However fleabay not good, I need to resurrect that as I've currently nothing listed.

Oh, we got the £100 cashback for our RBS mortgage switch. :j that's gone into our joint savings. The first payment under the new rate has been made so there was a £312 overpayment, except it won't technically be an overpayment for the first 3 months as we added the £900 fee to the balance.

I've been reading other diaries that include "things I'm grateful for". I think I need something similar. The other day I was doing one of my horsey chores, it was hard work and unrewarding. I commented that it wasn't the highlight of my day. So I'm going to record The Highlight of My Day on here :beer:

Yesterday the HOMD was a great fun hack in the sunshine on my horse :j

mfmaybe

Yesterday was a sort of NSD, as in no bought lunches etc, but I did do the food shopping, 4 days late. Bit annoyed as managed to spend £53 even though I only menu planned to the weekend :mad:. I bought a cold sore treatment and dry shampoo, both quite essential, but I did spend a lot on Friday nights dinner. steak salad and a bottle of wine came to over £20 :eek:. I think that I need to have this as a monthly treat, not fortnightly as it currently is. I'm still kind of confused as the where the rest went though! Lots of milk, but was a good offer. Pack of coffee with an 80p off voucher. Porridge oats, eggs, fish for tea tonight, bag of rice (MrT not Tilda), yogurts, bananas. A few other bits and bobs and it adds up fast.

Got my £10 owed from my friend so somehow need to bank that without spending it! Bit annoyed as bought cat food online the other night (much cheaper and get TCB as well). Paid with PayPal, changed it to come out of my card, but somehow must have ticked the wrong box as it cleared my paypal balance first. The annoying thing is I'd left it in to cover the fleabay invoice. Just a timing thing really but annoying none the less. Must pay more attention to this.

Need to get back on the fleabay wagon actually as nothing currently listed. Got a bit downheartened when a few things didn't sell or went for silly money. But every penny helps. I think the weather doesn't help, we've had the odd dry day but generally the rain, wind, grey skies and mud are proving hard going. We live in an area of heavy clay so with the horses it's awful. I seem to spend my whole life saying "hmmm if I spend x I can repair that/hardcore here/put anew gate in to save going through the mud there etc etc. And even the hard surfaces are covered in algae or thin mud or just damp and rainy. Sorry that was a bit of a rant, I'm quite tired and run down (hence the cold sores, I've 3 of the blighters :eek:) and just feeling a bit weary.

Sigh...

Oh yes HOMD from yesterday. I'm finding it tough, it was just a do work/do horse chores day. So I'm going to say sitting in my Jammies on the sofa next to my lovely OH, watching Dexter, after a long day.

mfmaybe

Lost track of when I last posted. I feel like things are slipping a little bit so need to refocus.

Positives:
Food bill continues to be much lower than normal
Have only bought lunch one this pay-month (today)
Used a tesco "brand match" voucher thing to pay for lunch.
Finally have a few dry days forecast.

Negatives
Slipping into coffees again
Menu planning has lost focus
Tree felling started which OH paid for so I'm now in debt to him. Though we do have a lot of firewood for the next few years!
Have started looking into some capital projects seriously, and not sure where the budget for these is coming from. Our joint savings don't cover it all.
IVF is going to be a bit more expensive than budget due to some additional tests.

All in I'm feeling a bit down, but feeling bad for it. I know that any problems I have are just a consequence of how we have chosen to live our lives. I know I go through phases of feeling tired and overwhelmed and I'm sure it will pass. Going to go home via a very fast Mr S shop (with meals planned), do my horse chores as quickly as possible, and a bit of housework as it's looking quite unkempt indoors. This will include hoovering, putting away all the dry laundry and tidying the kitchen including the floor. I'm writing it here so that I can't back out!

mfmaybe

Goodness my last couple of posts were very negative. Today I feel loads better, finally we see some sunshine, I can't believe how this improves my mood. I don't think it's SAD, just concern about my clay soil. But today it will end up drier than when the day started so that's a plus :j

OH and I just had a quick chat about appealing our council tax. We are a band G, and although we have a house that looks large and has a big plot with stables, it is only 2 bedrooms. We also don't own any land other than the garden. I've tried to look online at the historical sale price but for some reason it isn't showing. I've emailed my solicitor to ask his advice on where to find the historical prices. I am fairly sure that the price paid in 2001 (by previous owners) was around the £140k mark. By this reckoning I'd be astonished if 10 years before that (ie the 1991 cut off) it wasn't somewhere between the E and F threshold. Of course the risk is it goes up, I'm not sure if they take more into account than prices, for instance the stables weren't there in 1991.

In other MS ways, we have an appointment with out GP to see what tests he will do for us to save us paying privately. I've done 3 IVF rounds already so had a lot of the tests; but have decided to go to a different clinic this time as our last hurrah. They want the tests redone and also do a pre-cycle course of anti-bs as standard, so hoping GP can do a lot of this for us. I feel slightly entitled, as we've done all our rounds privately despite both being higher rate taxpayers, so I reckon the state owes us this little bit

Did the planned housework last night so house looks a bit better. I tried to put my £10 from friend into bank last night but machine wasn't working, so might have to squirrel it away for a cash bill. I'm Working from home, so no spends, hurrah :T Although I do need to do food shopping, last night I only bought enough for one dinner. Must get back into a proper habit. Have made myself a latte so I shouldn't feel such an urge tomorrow. Will have to have a bit of a spendy day on Friday as going to a client, most of it will be claimable on expenses at least.

I do waffle on a fair bit on this diary, but I'm finding it a very good discipline and really notice when I'm not confessing regularly on here. I'm still finding big bills to manage, but the difference is I'm always looking for ways to fund them rather than just continuing to tan the overdraft. And I'm trying not to hide/delay paying any more. For instance my farrier I normally pay by cheque then hope he doesn't cash it for ages. Now I've set him up on digital banking and can just pay via the app immediately. :A. I feel so much better for knowing exactly where I am. For instance even though my OD is looking healthier I know there are over £400 of expenses in there that needs to go against the credit card next week, so I'm not being fooled by the true balance.

mfmaybe

Yikes. Just had a scare, the DD for my new Te$co card wasn't actually set up. Payment was due today, luckily I checked! Made payment via their online banking via debit card so hopefully it's ok. Took a screenshot of the confirmation so hopefully I won't lose the 0% :eek:

Now I appear to have a DD set up. I hope....

in_need_of_direction

As you'll know from my diary, we all hit the dreaded slump. Hang in there, I need the company