MrsS is getting serious!

MrsSave

Well one good thing from these early starts is that it means bargain hunting time. I've found a couple of Christmas gifts this morning. One was reduced from £9.99 to £2.99 and the other was reduced from £9.99 to £2.49. I checked both toys on Amazon and they are both around £8-£9 at the moment. I then checked the amazon camel site and neither toy has ever been under £5. That's 2 children done, under half their budget used.

I've decided that with gift budgets, my son will get the full amount we've set. Not necessarily in toys, but if we have bought what we would like for him and he has some money in his budget left over, we're going to pop it in his savings. With everyone else, the budget is the maximum amount, and I'm aiming for rrp's to be around that mark. I'm not going to buy 2 or 3 things for people because that's the amount left over in their budget! Hopefully this means we can save a few pounds from our budget with careful planning and shopping around.

I've got the shopping bug now. Uh oh!!!

MrsSave

Managed to pop an extra £40 into the emergency fund today. That's up to £110 now, but should be over £200 in a couple of week's time. I'm also working pretty much full time during May, which means my pay at the end of June will be pretty good. Should manage to get enough put away for our August holiday. I'm aiming that by September we will be able to start working hard at paying off the debts.

Bank holiday weekend.....we're off out for food tomorrow night, but we have money to one side ready for it. Sunday should be a nsd and then Monday we are going to a local farm/zoo type thing, but no entry price as already have tickets and we are taking a picnic with us. Should be another nsd.

MrsSave

I've only gone and done it............I've bought YNAB. I spent a few hours trying to get my head around it on Thursday, and lots more hours yesterday, but I think I get it. I think I've budgeted it all correctly (time will tell), and I love the fact that I can update it when I'm out and about from my phone.

Oooooh, I'm also happy because I had a letter from V*ry offering £15 off if I spend £25 with opening an account. I was needing to buy my brother something for his 30th and was planning to spend £30. I've got a couple of nice gifts, which should've come to £28, but with the £15 (and free delivery to a collect+ which is literally around the corner) it has cost £13. I call that a good thing!!! A saving of £17!! Woohoo!!

MrsSave

I'm still working on getting my head around ynab, but so far I'm loving it! I'm also working on getting a few extra pounds in the account this month, because pay isn't great at the end of the month. I've priced up selling 3 different books, and that comes to just over £11. I've made a sale from my crafting business today, which is another £6. I have a couple of ebay items that have sold, but so far they haven't been paid for. Annoying!! I'm trying to decide what else I can sell now before the end of the month!

MrsSave

Another week or so gone.....where does time go??? :huh:


I'm in the middle of sorting our June budget, still bits of pay to come in before the end of the month though.


It's a bank holiday weekend and the start of a week off. I struggle with both of these financially and slimming world wise. Today we have spent around £100. I upgraded our Dropbox for £79. I'd been thinking about it for a while, but I'm sure the laptop is on its last legs and I'd be completely gutted if we lost all our photos and videos. Especially the ones of our ds. Crawling, walking, rolling, playing, chatting....I've spent ages watching them tonight. I'd never forgive myself if it died and lost everything.


Also popped to the supermarket to collect a click and collect order and spent a tenner. Then Picked up some new pj's for ds (£5 for 2 pairs) and finally popped to Wilko and spent another £5. :mad: It adds up so quickly!!!


NO MORE SPENDING THIS WEEKEND!!


Add to that I've eaten like a pig and feel sooooo stuffed. I've managed to lose 22 lbs so far, don't want to give up now!!!


Right, my plan for the week off........

Box up text books for selling,
Send dh up the attic for another bag of clothes for me to eBay (first lot nearly all gone,
Complete outstanding craft orders,
Finish sorting June budget,
Plan a week's food shopping for £15. Shouldn't be too difficult (so she says),
Arrange courier for Tuesday to post current eBay sales,
Enjoy free/cheap activities with ds over the week.......will make a list of these again.

MrsSave

One thing that really annoys me........

People who bid on ebay items, win, and then don't pay!!!!

Grrrrrrr!! :mad:

Now I've got that off my chest.............. This has been a little bit of a spendy weekend. Mainly in the supermarket. That place keeps taking my pennies!! But, a spendy weekend is very different now to what a spendy weekend once was! I have paid a deposit on a holiday. It was a bargain 4 night UK holiday my ds will love. The deposit was £100 and there is another £200 to go. £300 for a school holiday time holiday is a bargain!! Add to that the dropbox, as well as the supermarket, and I've spent around £200 this weekend. Yikes!!!!!!

Back on the debt free wannabe wagon tomorrow!

MrsSave

Why do I keep spending at the supermarket?? I've been struggling with Slimming World, so decided to do a huge 'nice' shop, which included just about every fruit known to man. Don't get me wrong, we've eaten tonnes of it, and my son has tried new fruit this weekend so it's not all bad. Not sure my bank balance agrees though!!

I had an email this morning from eBay offering 100 free listings today only. I had a few things waiting to be listed next month, so I've popped them all on today. I now have 20 items for sale! Fingers crossed I get a few pounds back. I also have my son's clarks shoes for sale on Facebook. They've only been worn a handful of times, and are like new, so would be fab if they go.

YNAB is all ready and sorted for June. I reconciled all my accounts yesterday, and they all matched up! Yay!!!

Back to work tomorrow after a week off I k ow how work brings in the money for everything, but I so miss spending quality time with my boy when I'm not with him. I've loved us having a week off together. My maternity leave ended over 12 months ago, and I still get the yucky feeling every time I have to go in

Laura2014

MrsSave I have found you.

The holiday sounds amazing and such good value. Lovely thing to look forward to.

Just a though you might want to try aldi for the fruit. They do their super 6 deal. I find food shopping so hard. I pop in from one thing and come out £20 down and two bags.

Boo to work. My friend said that she tells herself every morning "I'm working for my son"...... It's easier said than done though. I'm not even there yet and cannot bear to think about going back to work after maternity leave xx

MrsSave

Wow! It's been a long time since I've updated. A lot of changes during that time. We've done what most people would advise not to, we've consolidated our debts into a loan.

Our reasons are:
Our debt wasn't really going down. We were only paying the minimums, which were obviously decreasing each month. It didn't appear to be scratching the surface of the debt.

We had a couple of loans previously for different items (all 0%). All have been paid off without a single missed payment. Since paying them off, despite the good intentions the extra money didn't go to service the debts. It disappeared each month. I know that that part is my fault.

I have never missed a payment before, for anything. I have no intention of starting now.

I haven't used a credit card since our lbm. I am not worried about using them again. I am waiting to see that all payments have gone through correctly, then the accounts are being closed.

The interest rate on the loan is 3.9%. With the balance transfer fees I'd have to pay each time the 0% ended, I believe this way actually works out cheaper.


By doing this, I am not kidding myself that we are now debt free. We have just changed the type of debt.

I now have 60 payments to make before we are debt free (other than the mortgage). I am going to be back following the grocery challenge, and also looking at ways of making a little extra money, through eBay etc.

MrsSave

Second post in just a few days! Wow! :rotfl:

This week is going ok. I'm still working on using the loan money to pay off debts. Bank of Scotland don't like to make it too easy! You can't just 'make a payment' using any debit card, only a bank of Scotland one. You can pay in a branch (none anywhere near me) or telephone banking. I've decided to change the direct debit payment to full payment, change the account to where the loan money is, so I'm now waiting until that goes out (another week to go).

MBNA make it a little easier. Can make a payment easily. But, reading the small print, if I make an additional payment to the direct debit, they will still take the direct debit. So, I've paid off everything minus the direct debit, and will keep an eye on it to see whether I'm right and the rest will go out in a fortnight. If not, I have the money waiting to pay the rest off.

Phew, think that kind of makes sense.

I've managed to add a little to the emergency fund, so have now got that at £523.11. I want to get that up as high as possible in the next few months as I'm really worried about November-January wages. Eeeeek!

I've also got £13 left in the food fund to last until Sunday night. I've done the weekly shop this week, the cupboards are full so shouldn't be a problem. :T