Silly student debt diary

greensalad

Bobarella wrote: »

Ha ha I know that feeling GreenSalad. Are you near the cash out limit on anything? Or do you have equivlant nectar points you could zero sum from your shopping budget to make the difference?

No I just cashed out OnePoll, and we save our Nectar points for the Christmas double-up to spend on presents/christmas food/decorations

£1 would do it, so I can rob £1 from my food budget for next week

greensalad

Still eagerly awaiting payday. I have £2.95 in my account!

Because they were unable to sort out my overdraft (changing it form 500 to 0) when I was in the bank, the manager said she would attempt to do it over this week and call me if I needed to pop in to sign anything.

So I've been making sure that I don't dip back into my overdraft while I wait for that to happen. Hasn't happened yet! I can still see the OD on my account.

Can't wait for payday now. Just gotta get by these next few days!

Also paid off our Oktoberfest table fee so that's all sorted. Money for holiday will come from my second job payment and the normal payday I get just a few days before we go.

Tomorrow I will hop to the bank at lunch and pay in a £50 cheque I have. Get that sorted and as soon as it comes in it's going on the CC.

So the rejigged plan:

£849.13 utilities, £175 joint spend, £44 car, £40 work lunches, £40 other food, £70 phone, £20 health, £20 home things, £161.87 credit card, £22 hair, £10 TV, £20 birthday £8 holiday

greensalad

Ugh, another rejig! My friend has not left his clothing company just yet so I'm using the 60% off option to get all my winter clothes (and leather shoes) for cheap.

£1470 end Aug: £849.13 utilities, £175 joint spend, £44 car, £40 work lunches, £40 other food, £32 health, £27 home things, £22 hair, £10 TV, £83.80 clothes, £97 Kris, £50.07 misc

In other news, I just got my Experian refund back for £16.36! I think it will be refunded straight to my credit card so I will leave it there.

I'm ordering some home things via my cousin's JL discount before she goes away to uni. £25 but worth it. When I go to collect it I can pop into the bank and pay in the £50 cheque I got for my Halifax complaint. Finally!

Also got a reply back to resolver from Southern Water saying they're sorting out my complaint, crediting me £15 and issuing my final bill. I expect the final bill will be less than £15 so there might be some back.

Other than that I'm still progressing with my design work but it's a little slower.

Since I started tracking spending on YNAB on the 5th August I've spent the following:

- £248.30 paying off credit card debt
- £83.71 on extra food (coffees etc)
- £76.75 on beauty stuff (don't need anything now for a while!)
- £47.46 on lunch at work
- £43.67 on business expenses
- £42.31 on misc (mainly sympathy flowers sent to my great aunt)
- £23.50 on clothing
- £20 at restaurants
- £15.14 on things for the house
- £9.60 on extra groceries and fuel
- £3 on medical stuff

Eek! In general I think above is pretty good. I could reduce the work lunches a bit by not getting fruits and salad but I still mainly shop at Asda for work lunches.

The big problem though is other food outside of the grocery budget. This was one £35 takeaway (for me and partner, but my treat). But the rest are all small spends on coke, chocolate, crisps etc and Costa. I seem to be addicted to Costa and Starbucks! I need to go into town, and go to sainsburys instead for a tasty lunch not to Costa! I think my target will be to reduce that to only £40 next month. That means I can still buy a bottle of wine when I go round to my friends' (they usually cook me dinner) and still get the odd coffee but not be totally overspending.

greensalad

Ugh just been to dentist. I have to have £350 worth of dental treatment! Well I just had £46 worth for my appt and x-rays. Three weeks time I've got three fillings for a cost of £255 And then another appt after that (will have to wait until October I can't afford it otherwise).

It needs to be done though, so I'm just going to have to hold back on debt repayment.

I do get £150 of it back from my healthcare though.

greensalad

Just got £100 in vouchers for a shop from a friend who is leaving the company! Have to spend in store though so trip to London...

Also paying in £50 cheque tomorrow at the bank. Plus it's payday! And then picking up an order for some home bits I needed which my cousin got me on her discount! I'm so well connected lol

Bobarella

Humm my suggestions if you like going out for coffee would be, could you either go down a size in drink or alter your order? For example a latte costs more than an Americano. By several pence (around 40 I'd guess)
Also Starbucks don't have a loyalty program so I'd maybe just do Costa. At least you will get every however many drink free using your points.

greensalad

I think the reason I spend so much there is because it is the only cafe near to my work. We always go once a week. Then I usually end up going on the weekends too. I think I need to keep the work one and skip the weekends (because I like to try and be sociable with my colleagues!) I usually order small drinks but I always get a sandwich.

Bobarella

greensalad wrote: »

I think the reason I spend so much there is because it is the only cafe near to my work. We always go once a week. Then I usually end up going on the weekends too. I think I need to keep the work one and skip the weekends (because I like to try and be sociable with my colleagues!) I usually order small drinks but I always get a sandwich.

Do you think their sandwiches are nice? I have to say whenever I look at them I just think 'how much':eek: a lovely well made hot drink is one thing I can justify but the cost of the food, I think because I own my own food place & know exactly how much they cost to make....and you don't even get any side salad or crisps etc as you would somewhere else for a similar spend.
I'm not being a fun police, but could you just make sure you eat before you went? Takes the risk away.

greensalad

Yeah I'm thinking I just need to skip the sandwich. I can't really eat beforehand because we only have a short lunchbreak. I do love their brownies though, they're the best brownies ever eaten (and at £1.95 I don't think they're too bad).

I think the problem re: the food budget is more weekend food being an issue than mid-week food.

greensalad

It's the end of mu first month with YNAB, although I only started using it on the 5th August so not quite a full month!

I'm definitely converted. It's really helping me manage my money. For example, looking ahead into September I would normally be worried and have no idea how I was going to make it through the month but this month I'm feeling good. Though money is still pretty tight this month, I've got my plan all laid out.

Bit miffed to discover this morning that I have been charged for having the Barclays Graduate account, £7! Despite specifically saying in my bank appointment that I did not want the Graduate account, she upgraded me to it anyway and now I'm getting charged! I've written a complaint through Resolver and have asked them to wipe the fee for a period of 6 months, and to review it after 6 months (I should be able to transfer straight to a current account in 6 months). If they can't then I'll run a switch and go to Santander or elsewhere, which I'm considering anyway. I'd rather not as Barclays have really good apps and I like having my own picture on a card but it's not really worth staying with them if they are going to charge me £7 for nothing where Santander would pay me as much.