Spending my dash more wisely while clearing the debt to do so

Nintud

He pays £1500 towards household expenses plus his work expenses on top of that. Groceries and fuel are put on the joint credit card which some of his £1500 goes towards (but I'm currently using left over holiday spending money to pay cash at Aldi so this month's cc bill will be lower than usual).

In reality we draw on the remortgage extra to top up the joint CC payments each month.

I know we are facing impending doom.

pelirocco

Nintud wrote: »

He pays £1500 towards household expenses plus his work expenses on top of that. Groceries and fuel are put on the joint credit card which some of his £1500 goes towards (but I'm currently using left over holiday spending money to pay cash at Aldi so this month's cc bill will be lower than usual).

In reality we draw on the remortgage extra to top up the joint CC payments each month.

I know we are facing impending doom.

There may be a mistake in your SOA , you put down food and fuel and also included £1300 per month for clearing cc which you have used for buying food and fuel ........so you may have duplicated the food and fuel expenditure ?

Nintud

I think you're right

Nintud

Oops, posted early.

The £1300 to clear cc (which varies from £850 to £1500 depending on purchases. Although thinking about it, the £1500 was the month with three offspring birthdays and a party to pay for) does include household food and my fuel as well as clothes, outings and anything joint family related).

The shortfall shouldn't be as much as I've calculated.

Keeping a spending diary is going to show me where the money is really going.

Nintud

Spending since I last posted;

Petrol £62
Pizza £35

DD2 decided she wanted Pizza to celebrate her GCSE results so we took advantage of a 2 for 1 deal. dSS2 joined us and ds2, ds3 and DD2 completed the ice bucket challenge with dh and dss2 releasing the verrrryyyy cold water! Phone camera ran out of memory midway through and they repeated the soaking again for the camera. Madness, but all for a good cause. Next spend will be a donation :-)

maggiecon

Nintud wrote: »

Spending since I last posted;

Petrol £62
Pizza £35

DD2 decided she wanted Pizza to celebrate her GCSE results so we took advantage of a 2 for 1 deal. dSS2 joined us and ds2, ds3 and DD2 completed the ice bucket challenge with dh and dss2 releasing the verrrryyyy cold water! Phone camera ran out of memory midway through and they repeated the soaking again for the camera. Madness, but all for a good cause. Next spend will be a donation :-)

Did you do the ice bucket challenge?


Pizzas are a great way to celebrate, my kids want me to take them to burger king to celebrate their results/birthday.

Nintud

I've escaped the ice bucket challenge so far. Dss3 and dd2 both nominated me but when I offered to do it (and get it over with) they both said I should wait until I'm over this cold and have finished my ear drops (picked up an infection in Cyprus) and neither would douse me. I think I'd rather just have got on with it as I'm anticipating numerous nominations when I get back to work next week.

Spending since last post:
SW £4.95 for magazine, cereal bars and raffle entry (I didn't win!)

Aldi £31.11

Mr S £64.40 (this included lots of yellow stickered meat for the freezer and a reduced price toy for the birthday present supply for one of the parties ds4 will be invited to soon).

New tumble dryer :eek: £239 ( this went on the joint cc so will be paid in full on the November payment). I just can't face a winter of pegging washing out every day before work and coming home to wetter rain soaked laundry. I do 10kg of washing, minimum, per day and it's taking the entire day to dry half that on the airer in the conservatory. The other half sits around in a basket waiting for a drying slot so I feel like I'm constantly checking and rotating washing. Ds1 sleeps in the conservatory and it can't be pleasant sleeping with wet washing every night.


Appointment tomorrow with an ikea kitchen planner. Only replacing the utility, which we took out in June, as dd1 leaves her job there next week and will lose her 15% discount. I need a couple of wall cupboards, a narrow floor cupboard and an L shaped surface. We had the sink taken out because I never used it and I need more surface space to fold all that blasted laundry :rotfl: I've only ever had a shelf on the wall in there and need much more storage than that offers so this should help with the overall house organisation and decluttering.

In other news... Dd2 is bringing her new beau home for dinner. This has given me the impetus required to clean the house and I have worked my toosh off for the last 5 hours. I've been banned rom cooking the curry I bought the ingredients for yesterday (first attempt at a SW tikka, it could have gone drastically wrong!) so will be serving frozen fish, chips and peas. This wouldn't be quite so bad if he wasn't a trainee chef :rotfl:

Nintud

Sig update but nothing positive. An extra £6 on Mr T as I didn't account for interest (story of my life) and 1lb off my weight loss as I'd gained a pound when weighed on Wednesday. Really should have left the ice cream craving back in Cyprus

Nintud

Positive sig update with another £69 off the Nationwide card. Grocery spending is looking a little scary as I've restocked on salad items and a few other bits at MrA. I went in with a basket instead of a trolley and still managed to spend £23! Freezer is full though, with several batch cooked meals. Cupboards fit to burst and no room in the fridge so apart from fresh produce, milk and bread we should be within budget by the 15th when I'm paid and the 'month' starts again. I'm going to plough through the ironing for a couple of hours and then start on a batch of SW chicken tikka. Should have done this yesterday but dd2 banned me from making it for first dinner with new bf!

Utility planning appointment went well, just waiting for a call from the fitter. Cupboards and surface come in at £899 but will get 15% off that. Fitting is another £700 and I need to price up tiles too. Cupboards and surface will go on joint cc as it is currently £800 below its normal amount (we pay this off in full each month), Fitting it will go on 0% finance unless I can jiggle things around, e.g. slice £100 off the grocery budget and dip in to Christmas & birthday fund and emergency fund (currently together around £400).

First £100 car payment for daughter's car is due out next week and I need to consider that in my planning plus final payment for child tax payments is also due and that is a little higher than the norm. Have also had bill for annual travel insurance policy and that has to come out of next month's salary too. I currently pay £40 for annual family travel insurance. I should probably shop around before I renew.

I'll ponder on that lot while I wade through the ironing!

Nintud

Back at work after the summer hols and I've not updated my diary for a few days.

Grocery budget is looking good. I've got at least 12 batch cooked evening meals in the freezer (that's meals for the whole family, not individual portions) and ingredients for another 3 planned meals. I could probably scrape together another 3 meals if we had a hotch potch of different dinners. I still need to buy lunch box ingredients. If I buy biscuits and crisps too far ahead of time they just get snacked on so I buy lunch materials throughout the week as I drop in for milk and fresh fruit and salad. I started budgeting for groceries on the 18th of August so shall end this budget period on the 17th of September. With 13 days left to cover I have £122 left in the budget. Dh is now giving me his receipts so I can get a more accurate picture of family grocery spends. If DH keeps an eye on what he buys, we should come in within the £500 budget (just). We have bread, milk, fruit and salad to see us through until Sunday but I'll have to go to Aldi for fresh produce again on Sunday morning. I may start adding ds3s dinner money in to the grocery expenses to get a more accurate idea of what goes on food and sundries.

No further debt repayments made, if anything I've added about £50 to one of my cards (must be interest, I need to take a closer look at my online account). I'll round down my bank account tomorrow and try to get some more off the CCs.

First car payment has gone out to ds1. No hardship caused so far and I suppose it's one less person to buy a Christmas present for :rotfl:

Final payment paid to child tax credits :beer:

Kitchen installer came yesterday to measure for new utility cupboards and surface. The plan has been reconfigured (and the price increased of course) so I will now have to move my freezer elsewhere. No idea where that might be, could well have a freezer in the playroom for a while!

Ds4 started school on Wednesday. He went in with a smile and I left him with a sniff. He's not too keen on going daily though!

Dd1 started teacher training on Monday. She has an awful drive in to school so I'm glad she's doing it in a new car. At least I'm not worried that her car won't start on a school day. My own car threw a hissy fit on Sunday and required a Green Flag start. The car, like myself, clearly didn't want to go back to work! Now that I'm back though, I'm enjoying the new students- new start feel. Now if only school didn't require a 6.30 alarm call....