Ruby's Paying off Debt, Planning a Wedding, Buying a House and Everything Inbetween!

ruby_eskimo

Went food shopping last night and spent £46. It's a little more than I wanted to spend but we did get toilet roll, bin bags etc and we're still under my £50 a week budget.

Speaking of budgets, I've budgeted £25 a week (so £100 for the month) for "spending" money like toiletries, clothes, drinks out etc. With 17 days to pay day I still have £50 left and feeling quite proud of myself. The last few months, where I've been losing weight, I've been going out and spending £30 quid here and there buying new clothes that I don't really need. So to actually stick to it is quite an achievement for me! Especially when there is a whole new world of stores open to me now I'm a more mainstream size!

ruby_eskimo

Cheque from OH's dad cleared yesterday so have transferred it over to the wedding fund. Now we can actually start allocating some money out to wedding things and making decisions, which is the hard part! We were going with navy as our colour scheme and OH wanted to wear a grey suit, but now he's found a french navy suit he likes the look of so I don't know if it would be too weird for my one and only bridesmaid to wear the same colour as him?

Have been quite good on the NSD front recently but tonight will need to buy some snacks for bookclub and train fare to get there.

We did have lots of plans for the weekend but OH isn't very well and my best friend (and future maid of honor) might be popping by at some point on her way to France (we live on the route they'll be taking to the ferry) so I need to get a handle on the fly lady thing and clean the flat ready for their arrival. That can be tomorrows job I think.

Right better get cracking on some work, I have a list of things a mile long to look at!

ruby_eskimo

Afternoon everyone. Monday is here yet again. Had a really good time at book club on Friday, it's my only chance to have "girl time" as I don't really know that many people in the area and those that I do know are guys as they're DF's friends (and now mine as well). DF perked up on Saturday so we ended up having a date night and went to Wagamama's. The food was really good and it wasn't too crowded. Plus it wasn't that expensive (£30 for the 2 of us). DF paid so it will be my turn next month.

Flat is mostly clean, just have the bedroom to sort out. Hopping back on the flylady train this week and already have my to-do list in my phone ready for when I get home tonight.

Today would have been a NSD but my laptop charger decided to die last night. The laptop is 7 years old and has had a new hard drive and battery but I can't afford to replace it at the moment so a new charger is winging it's way to me for the grand total of £5.54. I do have a kindle fire tablet but all my wedding and budget spreadsheets are still on the laptop! Once the overdraft is paid off I'll use some of the extra cash to buy a new portable hard drive and start transferring stuff off. Once that's done I can look into saving for a new laptop.

Have been looking at wedding budget stuff and we're right on track. So much so that we should have a large chunk left over to put into the house deposit fund. Have put all our details through Martin's mortgage calculator and we're on track to hopefully look to buy something in late 2016. Still, I can waste some time perusing rightmove and dreaming of the places we could be living!

ruby_eskimo

Hi everyone!

Pay day was Friday and I ended August with £30 floating freely around the bank account. That doesn't include the £15 left over from my monthly "spending" allowance or the £36 left in the food budget. Feeling very pleased with myself.

Paid a chunk off of the overdraft and will probably clear that next month and not put any money in the wedding fund, just want it gone now!

Speaking of wedding stuff, we've booked our honeymoon! Just popped into town to get an idea of how much we might be looking at none of them were that helpful because the flights hadn't been released yet. However we decided to visit the Virgin Holiday's desk and they had all their flights till 2016 and 10% off for the bank holiday weekend, so we took advantage of the low early bird prices plus the discount. We're going to Disney World in Orlando for a week and then flying up to New York for 4 days. The internal flight we'll have to book in December and we're still looking at NYC hotels as the ones they had weren't that great but I think we may have picked something out now. The best bit is that it's all coming in way under what we budgeting with is a bonus!

Had my refund from work for the Leeds train tickets but have reinvested this into tickets to go see my best friend in October. Took advantage of all the advanced tickets and now have a return to the North West for £40.

I'm thinking about changing our broadband supplier. Currently we're with Virgin and the signal isn't that great and they've just sent me a letter saying they're increasing the subscription by another £1.50 in the next few months. To be honest I don't think it's worth it so I'll be looking into other suppliers in our area.

Think that's about it on the money front. Need to buy a shredder so might have a look on Amazon for one later, I have a box of things that need to be shredded and nothing to shred them with!

ruby_eskimo

Morning everyone! Well the big de-clutter has started; listed a few books on amazon yesterday and have already sold 1! I should get a couple of quid out of it after postage a fees. Every little counts!

ruby_eskimo

Well hello there, haven't updated in a while. Nothing much to report on the money front really. Sold a few books on Amazon and made about £20 so far which is going towards the debt pot. Have made the decision to pay it all off when I get paid at the end of the month. I'm having a week off work so I won't be paying for travel costs which means an extra few pennies in the pot and my only plans are to list lots of things on ebay and do some shredding! I'm quite excited about it really!

ruby_eskimo

Had a P800 through from HMRC saying that I owe almost £160 in tax! Apparently both my old employer and my new employer gave me the tax free allowance in March. HMRC's response was that I should have started my new job at the beginning of the month. I've sent a letter to appeal it as as far as I am concerned, I did all the necessary things. To be honest, I thought I'd paid too much tax that month! Fingers crossed they ask for the money from my employer rather than from me.

ruby_eskimo

I'M DEBT FREE!!!!!!! Whoop Whoop! I'm so excited to now get a handle on the savings and having every account being in the black! In the past few months, my attitude to money has definitely changed. By paying cash for everything I've been debating about whether I actually need to buy it.

I'm now going to celebrate by posting some parcels of things I've sold on ebay!

ruby_eskimo

Oohh look, I have a shiny button under my name now

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It's very exciting!

Have made almost £150 from ebay / amazon sales and have decided that this money is going to go towards new clothes / shoes as where I've lost weight, not a lot of my wardrobe fits me anymore! I've weeded out everything I want to get rid of and need to start listing it on ebay. If it doesn't sell then I might contemplate a boot sale but otherwise I'll just donate it to charity. Definitely need a new winter coat for when we go to Prague and it's snowing and some new boots too. Only 10 weeks till we go!

Wedding stuff is coming along nicely - we're on track with the saving and I need to pay the next installment to the venue soon. Been to try on wedding dresses which was an experience I'm not going to go into again as it stressed me out rather a lot! OH is going to look at suits on Saturday which should be hours of fun!

Work is rather busy at the moment. Have just been asked to meet with my two managers in a couple of weeks to review my job description as my fixed term contract is almost up. They're being a bit cagey about whether they want to keep me on and this latest email sounds like they want to keep the post but not necessarily keep me in it. Which is a shame because I like it here and it's pushing me to develop my skills as I'm the only analyst rather than being part of a team where you'll get allocated the work that the senior analysts don't want to do. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

ruby_eskimo

Did a bit of a money shuffle today after my dad sent me some money. It's part of the money he wants to contribute to the wedding but we're using it towards the house fund instead. Plus I got some interest from the ISA and have added that to the misc savings pot. Off to update the signature with new totals.

Checked my Equifax report (and then cancelled it) and things are looking good. Need to update my YNAB tonight (let it slip the last couple of weeks) and will be so happy to see no debt payments there!