Time to Knuckle Down - Boots Up the Bum Welcomed

Shortie

Hi everyone. I hope nobody minds one more Savings Diary sneaking in? I need to keep myself motivated as I have a long haul of savings before I can finally move into over paying the mortgage. I'm hoping my diary will keep myself motivated and a few might join me along the way to give me the boot up the bum I will probably often need. I am very Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde about saving - some months I do really well, others I am abysmal. I need to learn to level out and get into a steady 'plodding' mode

There is myself, Mr Shortie and two children. I work full time and currently Mr Shortie is a SAHD as our eldest has health issues which until he's older we feel much more comfortable having someone at home who can dash to school / the doctors / hospital if needed while I keep my head down and bring the money in. He claims carers and our eldest's DLA also helps cover some costs he incurs


So, where am I in my journey? Where have I been to get here and where do I want to go?

Up to last year I had a lot of debt. I knew exactly what the money had gone on (an extension on our old house, and the deposit for the new house so that we could keep the old house to rent) and I suddenly realised that I was just about scraping by every month to meet the debt repayments whilst we had all our equity locked up in the rental house. If we'd have sold the rental house to buy where we are now,we would have been debt free.

That realisation stung.

So, last year we sold the rental house, cleared off all our debts and paid for a cruise which we can't wait to go on


So where I am now....

Up until last week I had all my self assessment tax money aside for the up coming tax return. I now owe it £2,500 as I bought myself a car that I have been wanting to have one of for yonks. I know it is considered a luxury, but I have decided I'm not going to make myself miserable whilst saving either - life is too short. And now I have her, and she's HUGE fun

Last month I borrowed quite a lot from our holiday money spending pots to sort out the garden and also to keep my account out of the red as we got into an awful habit of eating out. This needs topping back up asap

Long term saving goal? We love the location of this house but it needs building work done (as in... building repairs... :eek:) and while we're at it we're going to go big and get extra rooms added and the kitchen made bigger. Current quotes are to the tune of £50k for the work :eek: but the house will be exactly what we want, there will be space for the children to be adults in this house if they are unable to afford to move out as young as Mr Shortie and I did, and the house will be everything it should have been in the first place. We currently have the architect fees saved (drawings in progress) and need around another £800 for the planning applications etc



So, as it stands:


[STRIKE]Top up the cruise spending money £370[/STRIKE] repaid :j
Add back into tax return savings £2500
Save for spending money for our week in IoW for October half term £300
Save for the building regs fees [STRIKE]£800 [/STRIKE] £335.32
Save for building work £50,000 (:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)


Some of these are quicker things to pick off, the tax return one will bug me till it's paid off, and the building work amount seems bonkers

Wish me luck!

Shortie

So it dawned on me that when I let little spends increase, I seem to relax too much and big spends (like sorting the garden) also jump on the bandwagon

Here, the saying 'watch the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' definitely needs to be applied to my spending habits

I have this month allocated myself £60 for personal spends - the main damage is done at the weekend when we pass McDs and the kids want something and I cave in. They know now that this has to stop (or at least drastically reduce) I'll allocate an average of £15 a week - that should be more than plenty. Known spends per week are on milk for tea at work - others are 'ad hoc' spends


I got paid today so soon I will start making the cash withdrawls for the month: food shopping, petrol money, etc

I have updated my budget again as well and should be able to pay back all the cruise spending money this month :T

Personal spends so far: £4 / 60. Today I bought a lovely dress from someone on a local fb site. I have put weight on (which I'm trying to lose) but in the meantime I'm trying to feel better about myself so have decided to buy in a few nice bits for the size I am at the moment. The dress I got today will do nicely for work and the cruise

Oh and I had to buy new windscreen wiper blades and arms for my new car as I discovered this morning in the rain that the blades don't fit anywhere near flush to the screen So I got a lift to the station and the wiper arms and blades should arrive by Thursday

Shortie

So today I'm on day two of a course. I need to buy tickets for part of the journey as my usual monthly ticket doesn't cover all the journey. I've already budgetted for that. I found out on Monday though that I can claim the extra travel cards back from work, including last month's travel - result!

I did realise though that I haven't budgetted for the whole month's station parking. I used to park my old car on the road side but I'm not sure this one will make it up the grass verges plus I don't want the paintwork scratched by the brambles. There is leighway in the budget for it though (just means there is already less potentially spare at the end of the month to start paying back the tax account)

Shortie

I'm sitting facing the back patio door an watching the gorgeous sunset as I type - there's something so calming about watching a good sunset

Tonight's dinner was hm curry, rice and hm rotis :drool:

Today turned out to be quite eventful in a nice way:

- there is apparently a new sales rep between the software co I did the training with and the co I work for, so he took me for lunch (I'm under no illusion - it was to get some contacts :rotfl:) but it was much nicer than the cheese sandwiches I took to eat, cost me nothing as he expensed it and I have he sandwiched ready for tomorrow's lunch instead
- The £10 cheque from the McDs Monopoly game turned up today so I'll pay that and other (different) £7 cheque into the building regs savings pot - every little helps!

I've just transferred the month's grocery shopping money over to Mr Shortie. I still need to take cash out for petrol and holiday spending money

Spent nothing other than my planned travel card today so still have £11 of this week's allocation in tact.

westy22

Just thought I'd say Hi and Welcome, Shortie - just in case you were feeling lonely as 333 people had viewed your post and nobody even commented

Shortie

Lol - thanks Westy22

Happy waffling away to myself - it's fairly standard anyway.. I walk around the house talking to myself at the weekend as it is I totally spooked the plumber out last month as he kept thinking I was talking to him as I walked past him - I was just thinking out loud :rotfl:

But some company would be great too

Shortie

Today I've managed to get get some savings repaid, the rest of the month will be about money-preservation to try and keep as much in my account in the hope to have some left over to add more savings :-)

Savings/Budgetting

- There was a bit more in the 'building regs' savings pot than I first thought which is great

- I have transferred two lots of money into the 'building regs' - I moved over £25 that we have saved as of this month by getting the price of our BT package reduced. I've also moved over £100 that we normally put aside for oil (we have no gas in our village) as the account now has plenty ready for the next top-up so excess above that is being syphoned into savings

- I've just paid in two cheques for £17. When they are cleared into my account I'll add them into the savings account and update the total

- I've taken out the cash to add back to our 'holiday spends' pot


General:

- I've taken out next week's 'personal spends' allowance while I was at the bank so that I have the cash ready for the car show on Monday. I've still only spent £4, have put £1 aside in my work drawer for milk next week and have £25 sat in my purse for the weekend. I do have my eye on a £5 dress though on eBay but they buyer is very local to me so I have messaged them to ask if I can collect instead otherwise that really bumps the price up on the dress when it's only 3 miles away from me, lol

- I ate breakfast at home, am currently munching yesterday's lunch, and have a twirl from home waiting form me for when I get the munchies later. Okay, the Twirl is neither healthy or super cheap but I fancy it and it cost 25p in a multipack as opposed to 65p in the vending machine at work

- I've taken out the month's petrol money to keep in the car

- I'll be leaving my purse at home tomorrow - no purse, no tempation!



Ooooh and the windscreen wipers for Princess turned up this morning so hopefully I can start driving her again (I daren't at the moment in case it rains and I get stranded) :D

Personal spends: 4/60
Off to update post #1 with the savings updates

Shortie

Oohhh, and I've just realised that The Lego Movie is on the El Cheapo cinema now too - I promised the boys I would take them when it hit the El Cheapo cinema rather than when it was at full price. Now all booked up ready for Sunday

We'll also take the boys to the softplay place next door - it's free to get in for us as I bought a year's membership last year so will just need a little bit of money for some squash in there. I have £25 in my purse from this and next week's personal spends so I'll put £5 to the drinks on Sunday

We also take all out our squash and snacks into the cinema so there will be no extra costs to the cinema either

bowlhead99

westy22 wrote: »

Just thought I'd say Hi and Welcome, Shortie - just in case you were feeling lonely as 333 people had viewed your post and nobody even commented

To be honest, a personal blog updated twice daily with information about what type of chocolate bar Shortie has waiting for her when she gets hungry later, or whether there is a nice sunset outside the patio door, is not necessarily the highlight of a discussion forum largely focussed on savings and investment products.

So, I can see that hundreds of people might look at it and simply think "that's not why I came to this site, isn't it the sort of thing best suited to a personal blog site or Twitter?", but not actually bother to post anything on the thread.:p

I'm not denying that diaries and mutual support love-in threads can be useful, indeed there are some dedicated forums here for it (debt-free wannabe, mortgage free wannabe) which cover the same ground of doing what you can to meet a savings or debt reduction target - say, by avoiding the more expensive cinemas and parking on the verge to avoid parking fees.

But you might get more engagement from others by simply chipping in to the existing, extensive threads like "fall in love with saving money" or "starting from scratch savings diary" which have hundreds of posts from people looking to achieve the same as you.

To be brutally honest, and no offence intended (well, not much), you doing that instead would suit me down to the ground as I'd get to see the rest of the new threads with less scrolling past the one that has you just "waffling away" with content that you've already admitted is going to be "fairly standard anyway".

Inevitably some people will disagree and will probably mutter that it's a free country and I should just grow up and skip past the thread title as soon as I work out I don't want to read it.

But I'm just sharing a point of view that quite a few people hold, which hopefully helps to explain why the thread is not the most popular we've ever seen. I'm all for welcoming newbies but 7 posts in 3 days with nobody feeling the need to ask questions or comment in between, isn't really the purpose of a "discussion forum".

It's just a blog with free hosting and a ready-made captive audience - I can see why that appeals but if everyone did it, the quality of the board would drop quite a lot, IMHO.

Bah humbug!

atush

Yes, perhaps too much updating.

And you are VERY undisciplined still, having booked a cruise and another holiday and yet owe money for taxes? Buying a car? Eating out too much and putting on weight? So buying close in your new size? obv you need a few but........

You need to do a savings diary and record EVERY pound you spend, even on a pint of milk and a coffee.parking. See where your waste is and cut it out.

Have you done the MSE things like checking your utilities/insurance/phone are the cheapest possible?

The set strict budgets. and stick to them. Move money to savings on payday so you can't spend it.

I can certainly see how you got into debt in the first place with your impulsiveness.

And make sure the CB is in your OH's name so he gets his NICs

Shortie

atush wrote: »

You need to do a savings diary and record EVERY pound you spend, even on a pint of milk and a coffee.parking. See where your waste is and cut it out.

Yes, hence the point of this thread, it's a diary.

I don't think I am VERY undsciplined - and I didn't expect to come here and be so harshly judged. I do need to knuckle down, hence starting this diary.

The car was bought before the diary started, and I can afford to pay my tax bill right now if I needed to (but it isn't due to be paid until Jan 2015 anyway....) - it's just the way I segregate my savings - I can pull the savings from any of the pots at any point to pay it if I needed to. I wasn't planning on buying a whole new wardrobe, just a few key pieces and they are second hand so cheap.

Anyway, enough of me defending myself. I'll stop updating after this one to let this thread fall away and stop cluttering the boards with my waffle