Oh No Not Again! Right. This Time......

Nagme

Well we went out for pizza for mum's birthday, but Pizza express wouldn't cater for eight so we went to Ask. It was so loud and I couldn't use my gift vouchers, but Dad chipped in a chunk so we had to pay a bit less, £30. I also bought a knitted dark teal tunic dress from Fatface , reduced from £55 to £20. I shall now force myself to consign one of my bobbled rags to recycling.
DH back to work tomorrow, then DS back to school on Tuesday

Nagme

DS liked the £28 school shoes from next , much cheaper than his usuals!
I'm going to do a food menu for this week and see if we can go without a delivery from MrT.

Why did we end up in this mess?
We went from two incomes to one without budgeting. In 2007.
We had an offset mortgage up until last May, so we used cards for everyday spending to help reduce the interest on the mortgage. For 7 years.
We're both petrolheads. DH has 2 motorbikes and a brand new car, I have a sporty hatch and a classic mini.
I have depression and zero willpower.
We have a champagne taste and lemonade budget.

I have always done this. I have always had either overdrafts or credit card balances, often both. For the last 20yrs.
One of the areas we go wrong is I budget for the bigger bills such as car insurance, servicing, maintenance, but I never move that money to a separate account, so when the time comes to pay for one of those bills, the money isn't there, so it goes on the card.
This week I will arrange for a dedicated account for those costs.

Nagme

Right, I've opened an e-saver account to cover vehicle costs.

Insurance
Superb £240, renews September
Fabia £200, renews January
Mini £260, renews ?
Motorbike £260, renews June
Total annual insurance costs £960. Divided by 12 is £80/month.

Road Tax
Superb £145 renews September
Fabia £145 renews January
Mini £145 renews September
Bike £80 renews ?
Total road tax costs £515. Divided by 12 is £43/month. I haven't included the 2nd motorbike - it's SORN'd and DH can't ride it thanks to the ride position and his bad back, I can see it being given back to dad/ being sold for dad.

So that's £123 per month so far that should be piggybanked.

But what about garage costs? Superb came with 3 years/30k miles free servicing so I don't need to budget for that, but I do need to consider tyres. DH's last commuting car went through 4 per year roughly, so I shall use that as a guide, so allowing for 4new tyes per year @ £120 per corner...£480.
I should allow £700 per year for the Fabia, and £300 per year for the bike.

£1480
£0123
£1,603

This works out to £134 per month for insurance, tax, and maintenance. It doesn't feel enough what with the Fabia's aircon problems and munching through it's turbo last year costing £1,000 but it's a start and at least if we're unlucky enough to get another big thing going wrong this year we've got a pot with something in it to ease the pain.

MOTs.

Okay, add £150/12=£13/month. Add £134=£147.

So a standing order for motoring costs to the e-saver account for £150/month then.

Yup - need to sell the mini!

Nagme

Amex interest taken today, £27.10. The statement estimates that next month's interest charge will be £17.30.

Did 2hrs at work today doing the boss's paperwork.

Really need to pack the christmas stuff away but feeling very tired. I should probably take an iron supplement, and have an early night tonight. I've taken photos of the mini and spoken to a mini dealer but I am delaying over the next step. I will definately do something before Friday though. My head is buzzing with things I want to do, just need to get me some energy.

Nagme

I emailed the mini dealer, unfortunately the bodywork is not perfect enough for him. I may need to sort the rust out for an easier sale after all.

NSD yesterday, then this morning I dropped parents off at train station for dad's hospital appt in London, so whilst I was in town I popped into Sainsburys with my £5 voucher to use up - spent £16 on fresh stuff, moisturiser for DH's dry skin, and a half price rolling pin (last one was wooden and went mouldy in a damp kitchen cupboard). Then got a cheap carwash (the car is red again!)whilst eating a sausage and egg mcmuffin as I hadn't had time for breakfast and I was starving, and took DS's school shoes back to next (the size that didn't fit). I remembered my £15 on the pockit card, so I went into marksies and bought a pair of black footglove pumps reduced from £40 to £22, and a pair of jeans reduced from £15 to £8. The pockit card wouldn't go through and the till lady didn't know how to split the sale, so I got her to cancel the transaction so that I could use the pocket card for just the jeans, which worked, but I had to pay for the pumps using a card and leave with £7 credit still on the pockit card. I shan't bother reloading it with credit.

8th of Jan - I've drunk no coke for 8 days.

Nagme

Mini guy passed my details onto a friend of his who just called, he sounded keen to come and have a look at my mini. Must not get too excited. He asked how much I wanted, I said £4.5k.We'll have to see, but this weekend the polishing mop is coming out regardless. Oh my woolly word!

Nagme

Mini guy hasnt called back, so I'm going with original plan of sorting the bits of rust, then advertising him. I'm thinking Spring will be a better time anyway for selling a mini.
Incidently, January is a good time for buying a caravan :whistle:

So... we have self financed the caravan purchase from the house savings pot, which will receive the money back when the mini sells. The 'van cost us £4,655, less £500 deposit from nan's money, so the balance to come from house pot is £4,155. The whole family is excited, plus we've sold the tent to a friend for £100 which I'll put into a savings pot towards storage.

I paid £126 off the Argos card today, there's a balance of £59 which I'll pay with the next paycheck as it's on 0% till Feb.
It looks like we spent about £30 on food last week as we didn't order a delivery just had a use-up week, so that was good, but left the caravan place so late we ended up eating out (£30 but still no coke) on our way home - I guess everyone was a bit excited.

I have done some calculations and there will be approx £300 left in the current account after the last few direct debits go out, plus there's £176 in my account. I'm going to try paying the Fabia's road tax on monthly dd, not sure if they'll take their first payment out on 1st Feb (current disc runs out end jan), but that's what I'm expecting. I was going to SORN the mini but that would make test dries a bit tricky, the drive is only 4 metres long.

Looking forward to sticking another payment to amex in a few weeks.

Nagme

Nagme wrote: »

Right, I've opened an e-saver account to cover vehicle costs.

Insurance
Superb £240, renews September
Fabia £200, renews January
Mini £260, renews ?
Motorbike £260, renews June
Total annual insurance costs £960. Divided by 12 is £80/month.

Road Tax
Superb £145 renews September
Fabia £145 renews January
Mini £145 renews September
Bike £80 renews ?
Total road tax costs £515. Divided by 12 is £43/month. I haven't included the 2nd motorbike - it's SORN'd and DH can't ride it thanks to the ride position and his bad back, I can see it being given back to dad/ being sold for dad.

So that's £123 per month so far that should be piggybanked.

But what about garage costs? Superb came with 3 years/30k miles free servicing so I don't need to budget for that, but I do need to consider tyres. DH's last commuting car went through 4 per year roughly, so I shall use that as a guide, so allowing for 4new tyes per year @ £120 per corner...£480.
I should allow £700 per year for the Fabia, and £300 per year for the bike.

£1480
£0123
£1,603

This works out to £134 per month for insurance, tax, and maintenance. It doesn't feel enough what with the Fabia's aircon problems and munching through it's turbo last year costing £1,000 but it's a start and at least if we're unlucky enough to get another big thing going wrong this year we've got a pot with something in it to ease the pain.

MOTs.

Okay, add £150/12=£13/month. Add £134=£147.

So a standing order for motoring costs to the e-saver account for £150/month then.

Yup - need to sell the mini!

got my sums wrong...

Nagme

Okay, start again:

Insurance
Superb £240
Fabia £200
Bikes £260
Caravan £100 (estimate)
Total £800

Road Tax
Superb £145
Fabia £145
Bike £80
Total £370

Maintenance inc MOT
Superb £550
Fabia £750
Bike £350
Total £1,650

Grand Total £2,830

Add caravan storage of £425 per year

= £3,255

divided by 12 = £271 per month.


good grief.

Nagme

Cutting it a bit fine now in the current account, but I'm feeling impatient to see results.

I've paid £126 to the Arg0s card as it was at the end of the 0% period. There's now a balance of £56 which I'll pay from the next paycheck. I've paid £50 to next, balance of £100.

I'm hoping that the £40 from 0nepoll comes through soon, and I had a pleasant surprise when I logged onto Valued Opinions - as I'd given up on being paid for a £4 survey I'd done ages ago, but it's been credited, so I'm now at £8.45.

Went out with a friend today, spent about a tenner in the cheapo shops, got some bargains, all essentials (well okay the Marylands aren't essential but at certain times of the month they are, and at 29p it'd been rude not to). Unfortunately it was my round for lunch, so goodbye pretty £20 note...

And I spent £24 on prescriptions (at that rate I'm better off with one of those cards) Got me another load of iron tablets and another blood test tomorrow. Dr says the symptons point towards chronic fatigue syndrome but he's reluctant to say it's that because there isn't a cure, so we're tackling it at multiple levels, with iron tablets, checking my vitamin d, and small amount of walking every day etc etc.