New Mission, New Diary

Daisychain1

Glad to hear your week has been good and well done on sticking to your present budget. I'm sure your mum will love the bits you have bought her.

Don't worry about last nights little slip. It happens to us all but the thing to learn is to enjoy what you had and then get back on track the next day.

Happy baking session. Please send me a virtual slice of cake

MoneyMission2015

Hi Diary (and any readers). Hope you all enjoyed the virtual cakes : )

Well I had a fairly inexpensive weekend & didn't spend anything I wasn't supposed to. I got diesel on the weekend, was going to use some of the budget to fill up but it was so cold that I couldn't bear to stand out in the freezing cold for too long so just put enough in to make a few essential journeys but I will need to fill up now tomorrow.

I didn't do a grocery shop on the weekend because we had plenty of food in, plus my mum cooked a load of food & gave me some bits to bring home. I have now ordered some groceries though to see us through to next week. I've ordered a few things to make some batch meals which I will freeze. I have stayed in budget, actually spent less than the £60 that I had budgeted but did pop into tesco in my lunch break yesterday because my car was desperate for screen wash. That was £3.50 & the grocery shop I ordered was only £43, including a delivery charge which was only £1.

I've been making little money saving notes in a notepad I had and have started writing my budgets in for various things, including birthdays, Christmas etc. I'll keep track now when I buy any presents to make sure I don't overspend. I've set our grocery budget at £60 per week for the whole year but then allocated an extra £20 to the months of my kids birthdays so I can get cake & some extra bits to do party food and then an extra £40 for Christmas because we usually have friends over for Xmas dinner a few weeks before Christmas Day & other friends visiting throughout the month too. As long as it's budgeted for I am happy to spend that extra money.

MoneyMission2015

My update yesterday was a little bit rushed, although saying that I haven't got an awful lot to update about.


I did forget though to update how confused I was on Monday when I checked the joint account & realised that we had more money than I was expecting us to have in there. I then realised after a quick check of all payments that the council tax does not go out in February & March. I know some people have this split over 12 months, but I quite like having these 2 months off. Plus we don't struggle to cover those bills anyway each month, so I've decided that for February & March I am going to use that spare money to pay towards a debt. That's £176 per month, which is a good chunk off something :j


Not so much a money saving thing, but I really need a good declutter & tidy up around the house. I know that some things can be sold so there will be a little bit of money in it, but I won't be bothering with putting clothes on ebay because they go for hardly anything now & for me personally it would be too much hassle for hardly anything. However I did notice the other day that H&M give you a £5 voucher for every bag of clothes you take in to them, as part of their clothes recycling scheme. I think it's a great idea but I need to research it further to see exactly what they will & won't take and how big this bag has to be. I don't fancy dragging a black bag through the city centre!


I'm on track with all my budgets. Will get diesel today & have the money aside for that already. I just hope this full tank will last me now until towards the end of the month. I've got £60 of the budget left, a full tank costs around £50 at the moment because of the lower fuel prices, so if I can make it last until the last few days then I can use the spare £10 to put in when I run low. Hopefully that will get me to the end of the month then & my budget starts again. One good thing is it is half term next week & I have booked a few days off work so I won't be using the car on these days. That should hopefully help.

MoneyMission2015

It's no wonder people get in to such big debts so easily. I have been checking my account balances today for cards etc & one of my cards has gone from a £5,500 limit up to £10,500!! That is an astonishing amount & what's scary is when I think that 10 years ago I probably would have been really stupid with that amount of credit and would have just blown it all on a holiday or something. I'm glad I am no longer in that frame of mind and instead I'm working hard to clear my debts rather than just spend, spend, spend :j

MoneyMission2015

Well I'm pleased to report I've had a great weekend & even a good Monday (which is very unusual).


First of all on Friday I had some expenses paid to me that I wasn't even expecting, this was backdated a few months. So I did allocate some of this money as treat money because I knew that I already have more than enough of my target to overpay my credit cards. In the end I spent approximately £150, I know its roughly that much but I haven't got the receipts to hand & the amounts aren't showing on my account yet.


Then today I noticed in our account that we've had our refund that we were due from our old energy supplier so that's more money again to pay something.


So I've done a few calculations & transfers and realise that after everything this month I should have around £600 to overpay something!! I think I'm going to go for the highest interest again & I'm really pleased that I have such a large amount to overpay as this is going to make a huge difference.


I was surprised at myself on the weekend. I had plenty of money in my account but we took a trip in to town & I had a look round a few shops, spent a bit of money but nowhere near as much as I would have previously and actually I did see some things I liked but decided I didn't need them so didn't bother getting them. There was one thing I did see that I liked but it was in a shop that I know I can get cashback from if I order it online instead, so I left it to order when I got home but then when I got home I decided I wouldn't get it anyway :T


I had a few no spend days last week & should be on track this week too as I've got a few days off work so won't really be going anywhere. I need to actually count up how many no spend days I've had this month though as I can't really remember. I have been making a note of them in my diary though so I'll do a quick tally up at the end of the month.


On my credit card with the big limit that I mentioned a few days ago, I logged on to the account today & they are offering a balance transfer promotional rate of 10.9%, so I might transfer both my other cards on to this one. It will mean the balance is really high on this card, but it will be at a lower rate and the other 2 cards will then be completely clear so I can throw them away. I'll have a think about this, check what the transfer fee is and decide what I want to do. I know the interest rate is lower but it's also very psychological with me because if I transfer the balances then that card will have around £8,000 on it!! I know it's no more than the debt now spread across several cards, but it somehow plays on my mind more if the balance on one line of credit is particularly high. This card has just gone below £5k too which I was really pleased with because that was my eek figure, so I'd have to deal with it being over that for quite a while.

MoneyMission2015

What a strange day today. It was so sunny & bright this morning and has been bright for most of the day but every so often the hail has been coming down, quite heavy too so the ground looks white. Very pretty but glad I'm not out in the cold.


I've just signed up to trial YNAB. I've seen it mentioned on here a few times so thought I'd give it a go. I did want to create a spreadsheet so I will use this trial month to spend time creating a spreadsheet & then see which one gives me the results I'm looking for. I've only been using it for a few days so still getting the hang of it. Like everything though, I want to keep playing with it but I've not spent anything & had no DD's go out so nothing to update.


I'm looking forward to the end of the month so I can finally see what money we have left over so I can make a payment to my card.

MoneyMission2015

Had a good bit of post when I got home today : )

It was from Sky TV saying I was due a refund of just over £20. At first I thought it was a scam to try & get me to call a bogus number & get my account details because our current Sky account is actually in my husbands name, but I put the number into Google & it brought me straight to this site, to an article saying that this is genuine & apparently quite a few people should be expecting these refunds if they closed their accounts prior to 2012.

I've called them now & will now await the cheque. Once I've received it I will pay it into my account and pay it towards one of the credit cards.

stoplurking

Hi MM2015. Hope you've had a good week moneysaving. You are doing really well and will soon see those balances dropping. It really is worth the effort for you and your family. Is your OH on board or do you have to persuade him on board yet?

snowscreamer

Hi MoneyMission, subscribed
Good luck! I am with you on previously having a problem spending money we don't have on things we don't need... but all that is in the past!
Am a self-confessed YNAB-aholic, saving me around £1000 a month I reckon in (mostly) pointless expenditure - am sure you will also become as addicted as I am

MoneyMission2015

Hello to SL & SS, thanks for popping in.

My OH is on board & is getting to grips with meal planning & cooking his lunches in advance. He's on a diet but he doesn't follow any of the fad diets, he has just started eating more veg & reducing the amount of bread, pasta etc. While he does his lunches he has started putting the chicken & tuna aside for me to make sandwiches too, so I've definitely started noticing a difference in the amount of money we're spending.

I must admit I am becoming a bit obsessed with YNAB. Got paid yesterday so have allocated the money into the pots. I've used a lot of the preset ones & have created a few of my own that I know we need, like school dinners & my daughters Beavers group. I know the Beavers group could have probably gone into entertainment but I prefer to have it split out because I don't want us to accidentally spend all our entertainment budget before we paid for Beavers, as it's the only after school club my daughter does.

I have decided I am going to do the balance transfer to my card that is offering a promotional rate. I wasn't sure whether to do it because I was stressing a bit about the balance on one card being so high, but then I thought about it & realised that it's silly thinking like that, because the debt will still be the same amount, just on one card instead of spread across 3. Plus the lower interest rate will be good because I'll just keep paying all the money to that card but it will be paying more off the debt rather than interest. So that's one of my goals for today, get the card details I need to set the transfer up.

I got to the end of February & was right in thinking I'd have around £600 to overpay something. In fact it was £673.21! I've decided I am going to pay £550 to one of the credit cards & I am going to keep the remainder as a buffer, which if it is still available at the end of March I will then use to overpay the card again. I was going to pay it all to the card but at the moment I keep thinking I've forgotten to budget for something, so at least if I have a buffer this month I can then try & rejig the budget accordingly in future.