Cheery's buttling diary: tea in one hand, plant pot in the other, running shoes on

Pippilongstocking

Cheery I'm so glad you can claim 'emergency cuppa's' on expenses!

That seems very appropriate!

Hope today wasn't too long and twangled.

Cheery_Daff

I can, although I may well not :rotfl:

Today was indeed long, but not too twangled (what an ace word!) Lovely day really, chattering to lovely folk. Picked the right day weather-wise too - glorious sunshine and not much in the way of delayed trains either

However, it did end up being rather spendy...

£1.50 bus to town
£3.90 lunch (I took leftovers but person we were meeting at 11.30 cancelled so lunchtime was VERY long so we sneaked off to a cafe for some plotting and scheming )
£1.50 (more) tea and lion bar (well, we were in the cafe for a LONG time :rotfl: )
£3.10 eggs and banananas and chocolate for treating valentines breakfast in bed
£6.80 taxi home :eek:

Not even going to bother adding it up :$ :rotfl:

Going to do a big add up tomorrow or Saturday (half way through the month) - I'm not writing spends anywhere other than here so have NO idea where I'm up to...

Tomorrow I MUST investigate blithering library stuff - got a DVD out, Mr Cheery lent it to Friend A and told her to give it to Friend B to bring back the next day when she visited - only it wasn't Friend B who was visiting, it was Friend C, who has the same name as Friend B... Friend A said she'd take the DVD back herself, but I've had another email from the library to say it's more than 2 weeks late now...

Must also do council tax-y things (yawnarama)
And run
And ring roofer (maybe)
And and and and.

Oh, and a community garden meeting in the evening (just for an hour)

And something romatic I suppose :rotfl: :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear, I didn't do ANY of those things! Stayed in bed til lunchtime (which was GREAT, I rarely do that these days ) then went for a lovely rainy walk with Mr Cheery - although :eek: my wellies sprung a leak! :eek: Both feet!! :eek: Fortunately these were only £3 from a charity shop the other week, so I shall be back wearing my industrial strength blood-and-acid-proof steel toe cap ones until I can find a hanging-around-in replacement.

Anyway... long walk and lunch in a cafe

£13 (but comes from treats budget so doesn't count )

Also popped to shop later, but Mr Cheery paid for milk etc from food budget so that doesn't count either.

Gosh - does that mean I actually had a NSD without realising?? :eek: :eek: Or doesn't it count because I still spent from treats budget? But I'm not trying to restrict the treats budget (absolutely not!!) and I have no control over the food budget, so should I ignore them altogether??

What do other people do??

I reckon if I was only counting my own actual personal spends I could fit in LOADs of NSDS :j :j :j :rotfl: But that might count as cheating :rotfl:

Not toooo spendy today:

£4.30 all day bus ticket
£4 flute choir room hire
£1 tea
£2.38 tofu and veggie sausages (should probably come from food budget, but they're not something we usually buy, I was just trying to avoid cake and hankering after sausage and mash instead :rotfl: )

Ignored £3 library fine

Tried to get another £250 cash out to go towards new car - only cash machine said 'TRANSACTION FAILED' and its little flap just opened and shut and no money came out :eek:

Stood there like an idiot, then the screen went back to 'Welcome to the bank!' so I let the people behind me use it - no problem - then I tried again and it said 'YOU HAVE EXCEEDED YOUR DAILY WITHDRAWAL LIMIT!' :eek:

Tried to ring bank, couldn't remember phone number, so stomped round to branch, which was shut. Managed to ring, and woman said 'yes, you've exceeded your cash limit for the day' - er... weren't you listening?? Grrr.

Apparently, 'if the cash machine realises it hasn't actually paid you' it will be credited to my account within 24 hours - it best bloody had be!!

Fortunately we now have a joint account so I just pinched it out of there instead (I'd transferred it out of the joint savings anyway, just stuck it in my own account to take out because I knew I'd have the card with me)

Blah blah

Bit grumpy today (but much better after parsnip-and-sprout-and-mash-and-sausages-and-gravy :j :j )

Going to go upstairs and try to sort out the tip that is my post-painting attic. I may be some time...

DedicatedDFW

Hi Cheery

Hope you get plenty of things sorted out in the attic

Very annoying about the money from the machine - its worse too when you get to speak to someone and they don't seem to listen :mad: Hopefully it'll be sorted out without any more trouble I think my bank telephone number is on the back of my card - just as it may help in future

What is happening with your old car? And what is this exciting news about the new car?

Everyone seems to set their own rules for NSDs so i would say to try and work something out that will work for you - eg if there is an area you feel you are overspending in and want to cut down on then put in a rule that will focus the mind on that.

For me direct debits don't count for NSDs - this is because they *have* to be paid, come out at all different times and i have no choice but to pay them
Petrol - it is a *need* i don't top up on a set day (which i'd prefer to do) as my Mr often uses my car instead of his which uses up my petrol and i then end up spending more than my budget :eek: so i just put petrol in when i need to and within budget
Food - this varies - mostly it is from budget and essential *but* if i go to a shop and treat us to something we don't *need* - a bit like with the sausages - then i class this as a spend. Especially because any money saved on food goes towards the house so that is a good motivator for me
And treats - although i have a budget for them i also don't want to be spending every day / most days so if i spend on treats then it is not an nsd

Looking forward to hearing how you go on with the attic transformation

Cheery_Daff

Thanks dedicated will have a think our treats budget is definitely 'joint treats' - mostly going out for breakfast or lunch

my spends is basically just treats for me so that's what i need to keep an eye on.

just added up the month so far (i'd do fancy colours but i'm on the phone and it's too hard )

£5.02 donations
£15.50 clothes
£19.53 'treating foods'(sausage, chocolate, slimming world cereal bars etc)
£16.90 travel (this is weekend bus or taxi etc, doesn't include work travel)
£9.90 tea and cake (with people other than mr cheery )
£6 magazines
£34.50 race entry
£37.42 misc (attic paint and brush, candles, hair bobbles, birthday cards etc)

total so far £144.77

:eek: monthly budget is £200 :rotfl: :eek:

which just goes to show exactly WHY i need to start writing everything down again...

Cheery_Daff

Ok, two weeks left and just over £50 in spends budget...

Should be ok...
sun - community garden then running - both free (NSD??)
Mon - work in office, slimming world eve (£5 cereal bars)
Tues - work in office, al anon (£2 donation
Wed - work at home, no evening plans
Thurs - work at home, no evening plans
Friday - long run
Sat - parkrun
Sun - community garden

so nothing actually *planned* in terms of spendiness... be interesting to see if i can manage

Cheery_Daff

blithering formatting!

was wondering if i could manage four NSDs this coming week???? :eek: :eek:

:rotfl: :rotfl:

DedicatedDFW

Good Luck with the NSDs Cheery

Yep - thats why i find it good to focus as the small spends mount up surprisingly i find - quite sneaky of them really

How'd the attic arranging go ?

Cheery_Daff

I finished it, thank you! :j :j :j Lots of things still stuffed under the eaves, of course :rotfl: :rotfl: but it LOOKS tidy, which is all that matters

Shame the same can't be said of the rest of the house :rotfl: :rotfl:

Anyway, today was SO nearly a NSD! :j :j :j And then I went and spent £1500 on a new car :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Quite impressed, I dragged a friend along but Mr Cheery couldn't come, so I had to test drive on my own (the bloke actually sent us off without him, with all his tools in the back :eek:) We, er, got a bit lost so I think he was quite relieved when we eventually turned up again :rotfl:

Wibbled all the way home - I've never test driven a car before, never bought one on my own before, and actually only ever driven our current one, two rickety old transit vans and the one I learned in.

But of course it was all fine

Need to do things like sorting insurance, finding the best way of disposing of the old one (which actually still drives, but the water tank is full of oil - may be a five minute job if you know what you're doing but for various reasons we decided not to fix it). Should at least get a couple of hundred even if we scrap it, and will also get 6 months insurance refund, 2 months tax refund etc.

Also - theoretically this one is a LOT more efficient than the old one, and the tax is £100 a year less, so (theoretically) we should save £700 a year on fuel/tax and maybe even a bit on insurance too :j :j :j

Of course the new one is ancient too, so may be just as inefficient :rotfl: but right now I don't care :P

Need a stiff brandy :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

Right - been out for tea and come back, and now need to sort car insurance :eek:

Could leave it til tomorrow but I'm at work all day, and this 24 hour thing runs out at 2.45... (not that we'll be needing it tomorrow!)

Just need to figure out - I am now registered keeper, because I was there and Mr Cheery wasn't and one of us needed to sign the V5 thing. Except we need Mr Cheery to be the main driver for insurance purposes - he uses it most, and I have no No Claims Discount (cos I've always been just named driver) so current quote for me first is £600...

So - some things to find out:

* can we have me as registered keeper and him first on insurance?
* how easy is it to change to him being registered owner/keeper/whatever? Do we have to wait for V5 thing in the post?
* we still possess old car (although are planning on selling/scrapping in next couple of days) - for insurance purposes do we officially 'have access to two cars'?? Surely not - by the time they've sorted the paperwork we'll have sold the damn thing!

Goodness me how much I hate anything like this!