Young, free and simply stupid; MrCF takes control!

MrCrimeFiction

Hello Everyone :j

Today is a good day, its the first of 3 days off so I have lots of time to relax and get things done. Today is paperwork catch up day along with reading. Haven't managed to read my book for a while so im setting aside a few hours for it today.

Logged on to internet banking and cancelled my rent standing order as im moving out soon. Although I did have to set one up for £750.00 which now goes into the joint account on the first of every month.

Also set up 2 more standing orders for the 1st of each month, both for £25.00. One is going into the ISA to bump up that balance and the other is overpaying my smaller loan. Its not a huge amount but at the end of the year it will amount to maybe a few hundred pounds so I should shorten the loan by a good few payments

Went into the gym the other day and cancelled my membership (£19.00). The lady told me that I had already paid for this month so it shouldn't come out my bank in February. I also cancelled Netflix so that's another £5.99 saved. Together they should pay for my new ISA monthly savings

I also requested my TopCashBack payout so that's another £21.00 on way to my account. That's on top of the £50.00 I put in last week from my eBay sales. All this talk of money makes me excited to do my end of month update as I've been pretty good this month. Other than a few small spends at work at in the shops, I've not spent a great deal. With the eBay sales, TopCashBack and the raffle winnings, I think its covered my expenses.

This weekend were off to look at house bits and bobs. Hopefully she doesn't see anything too expensive :rotfl:

I've also been looking at getting a bike when I move house through the Government Cycle to work scheme. It would be a small payment every month from my wage which I probably wouldn't even notice. I few of my work buddies have done it and say its great. It means I get fit and I reduce the usage of the car, so my fuel spends go down. Winner Winner

Got my payslip this month. No overtime at all..Still higher than expected though so cant complaint. Never had a month without any overtime.

Is there any other ways I can save money? If I add my car finance to my loans, I'm pretty sure the total is close to £17,000 :shocked:

Anyway, enough rambling on. I hope there is someone out there actually reading this

MrCF

WantToBeSE

I'm actually reading this

MrCrimeFiction

Afternoon.

Thanks WTBSE. It's great to know that someone is actually reading.

The £21.00 payout from TCB made its way to my account today so I'm rather delighted. It's payday soon and February is such a short month it's great

Most of my raffle winnings have been spent on fuel. I put £20.00 into my Xmas savings fund and I used the same to treat OH and I to the cinema last night. We were both feeling the strain of staying in the house every weekend so we had to get out. We got cheap snacks from our local Poundland

I have £15.00 left of the raffle money so that will be used to top up the car tomorrow. That should then see me through till February.

OH and I bought paint for the house yesterday from B&Q. We got a good deal so bought a few cans. We also bought our washing machine today. Getting it delivered to the house and it came in £1 under our budget so it's all good. Another £250.00 spent though. Might need to calm it down a bit until we find out the first mortgage date. If it's February we might struggle, but if it's March we will be great

How does everyone advise we pay for electricity? Month fixed DD or just wait for the quarterly bill?

Away to read for an hour of so. Finally managed to get back into my book.

MrCF

enthusiasticsaver

I am reading your diary MrCF and well done on getting your house. Personally I like fixed direct debits for utilities and often the energy supplier gives discounts if you pay that way. It makes it easier to budget too. You asked about phone service providers and if it is critical that you have a phone immediately you might want to ring up beforehand and make sure it is easy for them to just flick a switch on. When my daughter moved into her new house it took a week or so to get the phone connected up and there was a connection fee so if not urgent you might want to rely on mobiles initially. Also it is cheaper to get phone and broadband together so you might want to check the comparison sites to get a cheap provider. Happy moving!

MrCrimeFiction

Thanks enthusiastic saver. What a great help you've been.
I will fix up monthly DD amounts and add it to our monthly budget.

I didn't really think about the phone and internet provider about the set up to be honest. I will phone about to get that covered.
I'm so glad it's electricity all round. No buying oil or gas

On a brighter note, just finished a 13 hour shift so that's 2 and a half hours in overtime. I think I might be getting some overtime in the office too on Thursday so that might be an added bonus. Every little helps.

Did spend a few ££ on food at work today but I was properly dying of hunger so it was required :rotfl:

Payday tomorrow :j

MrCF

juicyjackieb

Fab diary and congrats on the new house, your financial ethic is very admirable

Eyebright

Hi MrCF,


Finally read through and caught up with your diary! You are doing fab juggling debt busting, saving and moving house :eek:


We moved into our house right before Xmas 3 years ago, not sure whose bright idea that was, we were skint for months and my poor CC got battered! As you can tell by my debts


Keep up the good work, I've subscribed


EB xx

MrCrimeFiction

juicyjackieb wrote: »

Fab diary and congrats on the new house, your financial ethic is very admirable

Aww thanks ever so much. It's admirable now I've gotten myself into a mess but it's slowly improving. I think getting the house has helped a lot.

Do you have a diary I could follow?

Eyebright wrote: »

Hi MrCF,

Finally read through and caught up with your diary! You are doing fab juggling debt busting, saving and moving house :eek:

We moved into our house right before Xmas 3 years ago, not sure whose bright idea that was, we were skint for months and my poor CC got battered! As you can tell by my debts

Keep up the good work, I've subscribed

EB xx

Hello EB :j

Thanks for popping over, it's ever so much appreciated. We can help each other with motivation. I'm already engrossed in your diary by the way!

We're just after xmas which is bad enough. HOPEFULLY the first mortgage payment isn't until March and that would give both me and OH another pay to prepare.

Thanks for the kind words

MrCF

juicyjackieb

My diary is nowt compared to your goals, a simple £600 emergency beginners fund is what I am aiming for this year, it's over here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5156712

MrCrimeFiction

Thanks JJ, I will pop over at some point and see how you are doing. Cant beat a bit of support

Well January has come and gone in the blink of an eye. I am sooo busy at work at the moment I dont know where to look.

Anyways, lets get down to the figures.

I finished 31st December with a total of £3217.13. I had £2179.17 in my current account and £1037.96 in my ISA.

Lets have a look at January's Bills

Loan 1 - £307.41
Loan 2 - £126.37
Car - £154.03
Rent -£200.00
Gym - £19.00
Phone - £23.34
Fuel - £79.00
Spending - £29.92
Joint Account - £750.00

Total Outgoings - £1689.07

Now this is where the bad news is. My wages had no overtime this month and it was the lowest it had been in ages. I only managed to get £1675.59

In theory, my wage - my spending = -£13.48

As I added to my emergency fund, it is a little higher than last month. So as off the 31st January 2015, my savings is as follows

Current Account - £2150.00
ISA - £1053.63

Total Savings - £3203.65

I thought I would do a little bit better, but I had to pay for both the money into the current account and rent at home, which nearly adds upto a thousand pound.

The money from Ebay, the raffle and TCB did help though as you can see from my modest fuel and spending totals :rotfl:

OH's parents were talking about giving us money for the house but we kept on declining saying we were ok etc. OH found £500.00 in her bank account today from them so that's been added into the joint fund for February.

6 DAYS TILL WE GET THE KEYS

MrCF