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

Lula-Hula

Hello again

Seven and a half pence per grape :eek: good grief that's outrageous.
Love how you've embraced this money malarkey with your usual cheery enthusiasm.

I'm quite besotted with my spending tracker app as you know I did pay the £1.99 to upgrade as the full page ads really irked me and I feel that the hard evidence of the 'Sweets at Work' slice of the pie chart coming in at £7 for November might just mean I don't add anything to that category next month ... thereby providing me with a future net saving of £4.99p :rotfl:

Banana liqueur ?

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, don't mind if I do Oh - I'm going to have to make it from all my frozen bananas aren't I?? :rotfl:

:eek: at your sweets at work pie chart - I fear if tracked mine may come in at considerably more than that... I think last time I checked (a while ago) it was up to about £40 a month :eek: I decided at that point it was worth paying for slimming world membership again :eek: :rotfl:

Spent NOTHING today :j :j Not left the house Done lots of work though Off out to the university tonight to a talk (about online social lives ) and then will get the bus round to a pal's to meet up with Mr Cheery :j :j

Cheery_Daff

ooh, and then I'm PAID tomorrow :j :j So much shuffling and budgetting and nonsense :j :j

teapot2

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Banana liqueur ?

Noooooooooooooooooooo don't do it! Banana liqueur is evil. We acquired a bottle on hols - possibly in Holland and I was very unwell on it . I seem to remember it was a luminous green colour and the thought still makes me shudder :eek:. Stick to banana bread or muffins - much safer

Karmacat

Loving that you're out at a talk on online social lives :j

starnac

Hi cheery

Your budgeting app sounds like a good one. Especially if it's helping you not spend on cake :rotfl: it'll be like :money: and SW rolled into one!

7.5p a grape?? :eek: that's extortionate! :rotfl: at Mr Cheery actually counting them though!!

Cheery_Daff

Gosh teapot :eek: I might stick to putting bananas in my porridge! :eek: :rotfl:

Starnac Mr Cheery is very committed to the idea of frugality

Talk was really interesting KC The guy was a psychotherapist (I think ) Talked mostly about online networking where you use your own name (arsebook, sometimes twitter etc) and how they can fulfil some of the functions people need (recognition by others etc) - but how because of their nature they can fulfil them in quite odd ways (so spending lots of time, having various aspects of yourself 'recognised' by the 'like' button, for example - which isn't very deep and perhaps doesn't cover much of your internal self).

I'm not explaining very well but it was interesting

And I got all brave and asked a question, about his views on the way relationships were formed online in forums where people didn't know each other in advance :D I'm VERY interested in that I spend more time talking to you lot than some of my real life friends (individually I might only see them an hour a week or something), and I talk a lot more about my internal processes, thinking things through, than is probably polite in civilised conversation :rotfl:

Then someone else asked a question and I recognised her voice - and it was a friend, sitting about 2 rows in front :rotfl:

Anyway, payday :j budget fiddling been going on for a while, will start another post...

Cheery_Daff

SO...

Still trialling the YNAB software and getting head round it. I think my difficulty is because I've previously had things in lots of separate accounts, whereas YNAB treats the total that you have available to budget as covering ALL accounts.

To stop my head exploding I have done a bit of twiddling and now have

(1) joint current account (now includes all savings pots eg car fund, house maintenance etc)
(2) emergency fund in joint savings account (won't touch this but it's easy access)
(3) Patchwork fund (currently in my savings account but as soon as ISA is opened it'll be going straight in there)
(4) VSP

Feels a bit :eek: seeing such a high balance in the normal current account :eek: but the idea is that you spend on the basis of the BUDGET shown in the software (so I know that I have xx for treats ) rather than thinking YIPPEE!! I have several thousand in my current account!! :rotfl:

Currently watching an online tutorial to make sure I've got it right... :rotfl:

Cheery_Daff

So, after a load of fiddling, transferring accounts, and FINALLY setting everything up right, this is where we stand...

£1000 easy access emergency fund
£4200 patchwork fund (aiming for £10,000 by the end of next year!) :eek:
£24 car repairs
£208 home maintenance
£200 car insurance/RAC/tax (insurance and RAC due Feb)
£145 sat ready for TV licence at the end of this month
£224 sat ready for house insurance in Jan
£85 holidays
£60 no quibble
£22.06 VSP

All bills accounted for, £170 cheery spends for me, £50 in joint treats budget

Makes sense to me anyway, although it always feels a bit bizarre to have really specific odd numbers in each category :rotfl:

App thing set up on phone to track ALL spends (and see the budgets decreasing as I spend from them - this has been VERY instructive in the last week or two...)

Ooops, just remembered I haven't put anything aside to actually BUY the darn software when the free trial runs out :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Also, MUST remember I bought 5 cinema tickets through Groupon for £20 a while ago thinking it waas a bargain - it was, but I might have overestimated our desire to go to the cinema as we haven't been once yet :rotfl: They run out on 19th Dec...

HOWEVER - don't know whether I mentioned it but Mr Cheery was an extra in the new Mike Leigh film Turner Strangely, I'm far more excited about going to see it than him :rotfl:

I've done a lot of pilfering from various savings budgets this year so hopefully keeping track will help me pilfer less and them build up a bit more. That's the idea anyway! :A Also got a couple of Mr Cheery's cheques to pay in so that should boost things nicely

Right - going away this tea time and need to take a load of stuff with me (printed, photos etc), also got to log in to work to submit a pesky journal article (could take anything from 10 mins to 4 hours depending how much I have to do...) so best crack on!

Karmacat

That sounds great, now that you've used the trial and it can help you keep so on track of everything. And the talk really does sound interesting, very funny to have a RL friend attend as well

Enjoy your time away :beer: