New Life, New Diary

newgirly

You have been busy! How do you keep track of spending is it an app? I don't think I want to know what we've spent this year too scary :rotfl:

philhbug

I use Micro$oft Money Sunset Deluxe edition (or something). Basically they stopped supporting it and released the final version for free. On-line updates of stocks/funds don't work but everything else does, including some of the business accounts things.

I have it tracking all my cash/current account/credit card spends plus savings accounts, mortgage/student loan balance and the payments are calculated automatically.

Does various reports that you can customise and save to view the data how you want it.

It takes a bit of time to get everything in, and putting in backdated transactions can take a while (I did about 18 months when I first started using it) but a few mins here and there sticking in payments/income is all it takes now.

philhbug

So the last few days have been a bit of a mix.

Sunday had some spending at the garden centre (changing some of the garden to make it more appealing when I come to sell the house) and a couple of bits here and there. Also got a trip to the tip in which got rid of a load of junk from the garden. Spent the afternoon tidying up for winter.

Went to see Ross Noble on Sunday evening, very funny for anyone who hasn't seen him, driving home there was a strange scraping noise, diagnosed as a loose wheel bearing which was tightened but slightly concerned about why it got loose in the first place, will have to keep an eye on it.

Yesterday had a combined £6.50 spend on tennis match fees and a drink afterwards, I cycled there so not even any fuel cost. The mortgage payment went as well which puts me down to £67,897 balance.

NSD today as I've been at work and then in all this evening.

philhbug

I've been looking in more detail at the spending of me and OH and in the past year, all post tax expenditure came to just shy of £34k :eek::eek: and the total surplus was ~£12k.

The actual spending was 79% of net income (slightly higher than previously estimated due to overtime/bonus).

We also had some other incomes which were one off to give us the higher surplus.

With my target of 50% savings in mind, this all boils down to having to spend 12.5k less than currently and if all fixed bills (car costs, groceries, utilities, phones, tv etc) were left as is that would require stopping ALL discretionary spending (~£12k).

Seeing as this is clearly not possible/desirable some trimming of the fixed bills is necessary. Will see what I can do and hopefully the changes will filter through slowly.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning Philhbub, I hope. Tilly Tidies have been a big help to me although when I go through no spend days, there aren't many pennies to tidy :eek:

Good luck with your plans.

Best wishes Tilly

philhbug

Well I've had a fairly spendy few days, went up to see OH's family on the weekend and stopped in to my sister to see my new nephew on the way back.

On the plus side I've found out my bonus will be about £1k after tax and i got an above average payrise which will be around £40-50 per month after tax. Student loan is now £98 a month, it'll be so nice when that's paid off in a few years.

Nothing much planned for the next week or so, I suspect I'll get back to jobs around the house and getting a few bits for my car if it['s dry enough to look at it.