This is it *ping* lightbulb!!!

kindofagilr

Thanks guys

OH payslip just came and he got a little bit extra this month (he gets mileage back some months) so I am really pleased with that, as we have a lot of extras to buy this month, school uniform, new car seat for my DD, so thats made me smile as it means we can get all those things and still have money left to overpay

Ive just hunted out some clothes from DD and DS room that are too small now, so going to stick some on ebay in bundles, if they dont sell then they will go to a charity shop, may as well try ebay first right? I also found a Sims 3 expansion I appear to have two of, one still sealed so I will stick that on there as well.

Have a good day everyone xx

brizzledfw

Good news KOAG..

CAFCGirl

*cough cough*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! XX

kindofagilr

Thank you Hun

Just ordered a bread maker with my birthday money I can give mam hers back now that I was borrowing can't wait for it to come tommorrow, it also makes jam

CAFCGirl

woohoo!
And YUM!

giblet1979

Ooh....happy birthday. Hope you have a great day

Also great news about the mileage x

kindofagilr

Hi all, wow I haven't updated in a very long time, we kind of got a bit lost in our debt busting ways

We haven't gone astray, just haven't overpaid as such, we've got really good at budgeting tho, so I'm hoping the overpayments are going to kick in soon xx

giblet1979

It can be hard to keep on track, but great news on not overspending loads! Good to see you back x

brizzledfw

Ditto. Keep posting!

kindofagilr

Thanks guys

So, I started feeling a bit low at the lack of overpayments we have made since I started this diary, so I thought I would have a think back at the positives that have come since I started the diary

I have consistently done my gas and electric meter readings every week since march, and in doing that have managed to get our combined usage down from £120 a month to £60 (I am expecting it to rise over winter of course) our DD went down from £145 to £139 at which point we were that much in credit we were refunded £135 and the DD was dropped to £122, so with our current usage we are still building a £55 ish credit each month in time for the winter.

I have been doing a weekly food plan and we have been sticking to it 100% which has enabled us to stick to our £55 a week budget (food, toiletries, nappies etc) I can't even remember the last time we ordered take out. I have recently been trialling a new way of shopping which is even better for our budget, I only work Monday to Wednesday so I have started doing and online asda shop with their £1 delivery slots on Thursdays and have allocated £45 of the shopping budget for that, then what I don't spend out of the £45 I am using to top up an asda savings card, so this week we spent £36.25 on online shopping so I will be topping up the savings card with £8.75 I've only been doing this for two week and already means we have £13.75 on the asda card we will then use it when we have built up a decent amount be it for Christmas food or presents or nappies and toiletries when on offer etc, then on Saturdays with my remaining £10 I withdraw from the bank and go to the greengrocers for fresh fruit and veg and any change from that is going in our copper jar.

I was feeling low that we didn't have money for kids to do activities so we have managed to sort the budget out and £17.40 goes into each child's account every month this has allowed us to take DD to baby music class and my DS started swimming lessons three weeks ago

From this month we are putting £100 into savings for Christmas, MOT's, birthdays etc.

Every month without fail I find 20 things to list on ebay managing to make roughly £50 a month, not bad for things just kicking around the house

So all in all for all we haven't overpaid as much as we would have liked by now, I am very happy at what we have achieved and feel confident that 2015 will continue to be awesome and even better than this year xx