Scrimping behind the scenes - with debt of £31,000!

mooomin

Have a lovely time in Scotland - we've got good weather at the moment anyway

Seasidegal58

Thanks mooomin - had a wonderful time and the weather stayed lovely and hot!

We stayed in a beautiful apartment with concierge service – they left a bottle of champagne for me as DD had told them she had taken me away for my belated birthday. We didn’t get round to drinking it as we were out in the evening so I brought it home! Will come in handy for later on so very MSE!:D

However……….. after eating out, taxis, bus tour, etc I came in overbudget by £135.96 for Week 4 of Scrimp Month 2 :eek: ! I did have £65.61 left over from the other three weeks, plus £12.62 left over from the food budget, so this brought the debit down to £57.73. But……… I got paid today and my “finders fee” was included which came to £310. So after deducting the debit I have £252.27 extra to sweep over to the Halifax debt :j !!!

I was really lucky otherwise I would be really scrimping away this month like mad, and so pleased that I’ve been able to hit the credit card debt with some extra funds.:)

Well today is the beginning of Week 1 of Scrimp Month 3. Started out rather expensive as I am going up to visit DD and her OH the weekend after next so I bought my rail ticket. This was rather expensive at £114.15 as it was decided over the weekend that I would go and there was not much in the way of advance tickets as I’m booking quite near the date of the journey .I always book these tickets through the rail company’s own website rather than trainline or one of the specialist train websites as I usually come off better because you get loyalty points that can be used to redeem tickets, but there are only so many seats on offer and these had all gone this time round.

Also, today I had lunch out with a colleague - £22 – and my mobile phone charger packed up today so I had to buy a new one - £17.99! (I hate spending money on things like that!). Also am out tomorrow night with my sister to meet up with two of our cousins that we have not seen for a while.

So will be scrimping crazily for the rest of Week 1 from Friday to Tuesday!

As a P.S. – I had not heard back from the Post Office about whether I’m getting a 0% card from them. I ended up speaking this evening to another nice person there who checked, but said that the relevant department was still reviewing! She said I would hear in the next three to five working days so this is dragging on and on and I'm feeling like I'm having a Groundhog Day moment. Probably end up not getting one!:(

mooomin

Re train tickets - you can get RedSpottedHanky vouchers when you exchange Clubcard vouchers.

I use a Tesco card as my main spending one and those points can add up with one or two big purchases. You can also buy via Topcashback for 1% cashback on the cost of the ticket. It's not a lot, but the little things do add up!

in_need_of_direction

I know exactly what you mean re phone charger. It's like you spend money to get what you had. I resent stuff like that.

horsechestnut

Topcashback will also pay out in Tesco vouchers, so your cash back goes even further.

mooomin

I can't remember if you had been looking, but the You Need A Budget software is £7.49 if you buy from Steam. I've lost track of everyone I've seen mention it

joedenise

Hi SSG, Just read your diary from beginning to end. You are doing absolutely brilliantly.

**subscribing**

Denise

Seasidegal58

Thanks and waves :wave: to all the above for their posts and advice and hi :hello: to horsechestnut and joedenise.

A special ta very much to mooomin for alerting me to the YNAB reduction on Steam. I read your post when I was surfing through the forum on my phone late on Thursday night on my way home on the train. When I got in I went straight on line and downloaded it even though all I wanted to do was go to bed!Lovely price of £7.49 and worked out beautifully as it was the last day of my free trial!:T

My Girly Cousins’ Big Night Out on Thursday came in £43.70 for food and drinks, plus £12 for taxis as it poured with rain on the way to catch the train home and was quite late when I got to the other end. Lovely to see them and had a great time at a wine bar overlooking the river.

So what with papers, I’m already overbudget by £42.07 on ad hoc spends and the week’s not over yet! :eek: Today is going to be a NSD and I’m going to make sure I’m going to last till Tuesday with just buying my newspapers!

I also sent a nice potted plant to my sister’s boss to thank her for last week’s theatre trip. This was £25 online at M&S, but it was free delivery and I went through quidco, plus had a voucher to earn extra loyalty points on my M&S card – the cost came out of the gifts budget.

Looking at the calendar for the rest of the month, I’ve got my weekend away at DD’s next weekend, but the rail tickets have been bought. I’ve just realised that the Tour de France is starting in Yorkshire that Sunday so could be a reason all the cheapie rail tickets had been snapped up.

I’ve also got an all-day outside concert the following Saturday that I go to every year so ticket and minibus to pay for, plus food and drink to take. However, I do have my free champagne from last weekend’s trip to take, plus I’ve got my greenredeem voucher to spend in M&S.

Apart from that I think I’ll will especially scrimping and turning down invites for the rest of the month!:D

Re. bills, a couple of things that have increased – my dental plan goes up £2 this month and I’ve just been notified that one of my water suppliers have increased my monthly DD by £3 to £14 from July.

Also had my half-yearly service charge in for my flat and this has gone up £12.93 for this period to £369.18. What really annoyed me is that the freeholder has just sent in the yearly bill for the buildings insurance for the flat and it has gone up by £12.54 to £278.54. Under the terms of the lease they arrange the insurance and then bill the leaseholders and I always feel that they overcharge just because they can and someone somewhere is pocketing some cash – I mean - £19.99 of the cost is an “Insurance Administration Fee” :mad: - really?! Rant over now and I have budgeted for it all, but :mad::mad:

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll hear about pay rises at work - would be nice to get something!

Seasidegal58

Evening all:hello:

It’s the end of Week 1 of Scrimp Month 3 and I have come in £46.02 overbudget on ad hoc spends and underbudget by £2.31 on food. So MUST TRY TO DO BETTER for the rest of the month! I do want to have some cash left over by payday to sweep across to the CC debt.

I bought an early birthday present for DD today– I was walking past the book shop near work lunchtime and celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo was signing copies of his new cookbook, so as she likes him I bought her a copy. It was only £3 off, but he put a lovely message inside for her and I got a kiss so that bucked me up for the rest of the day! Would probably been able to get it cheaper on line, but it has been personally signed and I wouldn’t have got to smooch with Gino! I’m going to have to tell her about it though in case she goes out and buys a copy!:D

Seasidegal58

Start of Week 2 Scrimp Month 3 went very MSE today. Just bought paper 60p. The two things that have been going well since my LBM have been taking my own breakfast and lunches into work. Am enjoying my Milicano instant coffee instead of firm's awful brand (thank you again asparagus for alerting me to Milicano). Apart from when I've been meeting someone for lunch, I've been good with my packed lunches. Once you get in the swing of it it gets very easy - trick is to try and make them the night before!