New Mission, New Diary

snowscreamer

Great to hear things are all going well and you enjoyed your week away. We are off on hols for 5 days on Monday 15th June and I just can't wait!

Re. the reward cards, our two are back on full monthly repayment and as YNAB is always checked and we are only budgeting what we have we know we can't go over. We stuck our ~£1000 holiday spend this weekend on his 1% card (backed up by over £1000 in cash and all in the budget) so that will be ~£10 back Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

MoneyMission2015

Hope you have a great holiday SS. Fingers crossed you get some good weather too, it's so unpredictable at the moment!


That's exactly what I think with the reward cards now. I'm sticking to my budgets anyway, so not overspending just because it's on a credit card and then at the end of it I get a reward. It might be small, but it's still something.


I haven't had chance to properly read through my diary again & rethink targets etc, but I am going to do that today. It will keep me focused, especially with the expensive summer holidays approaching. Good news is all our birthdays are done now, so my birthday budget each month can go straight in to savings now ready for next year . Christmas is the next big one, but for the first time ever I'm saving for it. It is amazing what an effect one piece of software can have, I must admit I wasn't expecting YNAB to be much of a help but now I wish I'd found it much sooner!

MoneyMission2015

Ok, so for now I am going back to basics on the target. Sometimes simple is best.


My targets this month are


Have 2 no spend days per week. I have had 2 this week already so at least I'm on target. I will also try 1 per weekend.


Stick to my grocery shopping list. Although I haven't been going over budget, I have been buying things that weren't on the list & weren't needed.


Try to put an extra £100 in to my savings account. Usually I would say to overpay this on to a credit card, but because they're currently all on 0% I want to hold on to my money for a little bit longer, to earn some interest. Then when my 0% deal is coming to an end I will just pay them off with some of the savings.


That's my financial targets for now, as I said I'm keeping it simple.


I'm going to think this weekend about the long term goals I want to set, but this will need a proper thinking session because I want to set something realistic.

MoneyMission2015

I can't believe it's only been 10 days since I last updated, it feels like I haven't been on here for ages!


My no spend days are going fine, I'm on target for these & might even go over.


I don't think I'm going to get an extra £100 in to savings this month. I've put my regular savings away already but I wanted to put away a bit extra this month. On our usual income I would probably have been able to do this but it looks like OH wont be able to pay as much in to the joint account this month because he paid money upfront for our holiday. The holiday is budgeted for monthly, but he has just paid it off in one lump sum. Obviously over time this will even out but for now he is short for a few weeks.


I have started again on YNAB. It wasn't messy or anything & reconciling all matched up, but because I have now decided to use my credit card to pay for things I wanted to get it straight in my head & I found it easier to just have a clean slate.


My savings are looking good, although I did withdraw a bit recently to buy myself a few new clothes. I have a monthly budget for clothes, which I have been putting in to the savings account & I needed a few bits for the summer so I just withdrew the clothing amount to spend. The good thing is, before YNAB I would have just bought clothes with not much thought to other things I had to pay for & when bills were due I would have just gone overdrawn or taken money from elsewhere to pay for it. But now I have a proper budget for everything & it feels so much better buying things because I know I don't have to worry about how much I've spent because I know what my budget is.

MoneyMission2015

Not much to report at the moment. Monthly bills are mostly paid now, I just have a few small ones that come out at the end of the month but the money is in the account ready for that. The only other 2 payments then are the Halifax & Barclaycard credit card, but I already have the money for that too. I actually look forward to paying them now because I know that I'm not paying any interest so I can watch the balances reducing much quicker than before.


I've got to start thinking about the summer holidays. I've got a few weeks of childcare to cover, some which will have to be the child minder but I want to keep costs as low as I can, so I need to work out when I can have time off and when OH can have time off. Its so difficult & expensive!


I get a little bit of extra money in my wages this month for some extra hours I worked. It's not a huge amount but it will help towards the summer childcare. I might try & do some extra hours over the summer on the days that my OH will be at home with the kids, so that I can make back some of the extra money that I'll be paying to the childminder.


I've started doing surveys. I used to do them a while ago & earned quite a good amount of vouchers, but then stopped because it can be a bit tedious at times. It's still tedious & I have found that surveys seem to be longer than they used to be, but the points are adding up so hopefully I should have a few vouchers to spend at Christmas. I'll keep using TopCashback too & converting that in to vouchers, so by Christmas I will be able to buy some presents without actually having to take money out of my Christmas savings pot. If I can get to around £200 in vouchers with various shops then I will be happy. This is bearing in mind I already have about £60 on Amazon because of my TopCashBack payouts.


In my last update I said that I didn't think I'd be able to put any extra money in to savings because my husband was going to be short this month because of paying for our holiday in one lump. Well yesterday he said that he can pay the normal amount but in 2 separate payments, so I'm happy with that. It means I will have extra to put in to savings which is good because one of the savings pots is 'Holiday Money', which is currently not very high, so I think I'll try & pay a bit extra in to this pot and then see if there are any other pots I'd like to boost.


I still haven't opened a new savings account! I really want one with 'pots'. At the moment all my savings are just in one account so I only see the total figure and if I want to know how much is in a particular category (Xmas, birthdays, holidays) I have to check the transaction details to see what description I put, then add up all the transactions with the category I'm looking for. It's not too bad at the moment because there's only a few months worth from when I started on here & started using YNAB, but as each month goes on that's another months worth of transactions added to the pot. I have to make this my mission to sort an account out.


I've had 2 no spend days this week already :j Hopefully I can get another one or possibly 2 out of this week.

MoneyMission2015

I forgot to tell myself off in my last post. I have to stop using cash! I sometimes withdraw cash from the ATM or my OH gives me cash & I make sure I transfer it on YNAB so it's showing in my 'Cash' account rather than the current account.


But I then find I spend it without thinking & by the time I remember to check and update YNAB, I have forgotten what I've spent the cash on so don't know which budget to take it out of. Generally I know it's been food or occasionally fuel, but sometimes it might be food for the household so I would normally take this out of the grocery budget, but sometimes it is for food for myself so I should take it out of 'Work Lunches', then other times I might have spent it on a one off item like for instance Fathers Day this weekend. Problem is I never remember. So for instance at the beginning of last week I had £100 cash but today when I remembered to check, I have around £50 plus a bit of change in my purse. I know I bought some fathers day cards, but don't know how much. I know I bought myself lunch a few times last week but it would be a rough guess on the value, I also know I popped to Tesco for a few things. I could probably find the receipt for this, but this isn't really the point. I have a few entries on YNAB that just say 'No Idea' under celebrations, groceries & work lunches. I've just split the value over each category making sure I've not gone over any of the budgets, but in reality I think I may have gone over the celebrations budget slightly because of Fathers Day.


So, a telling off for me - AVOID CASH!

snowscreamer

MoneyMission2015 wrote: »

I forgot to tell myself off in my last post. I have to stop using cash! I sometimes withdraw cash from the ATM or my OH gives me cash & I make sure I transfer it on YNAB so it's showing in my 'Cash' account rather than the current account.


But I then find I spend it without thinking & by the time I remember to check and update YNAB, I have forgotten what I've spent the cash on so don't know which budget to take it out of. Generally I know it's been food or occasionally fuel, but sometimes it might be food for the household so I would normally take this out of the grocery budget, but sometimes it is for food for myself so I should take it out of 'Work Lunches', then other times I might have spent it on a one off item like for instance Fathers Day this weekend. Problem is I never remember. So for instance at the beginning of last week I had £100 cash but today when I remembered to check, I have around £50 plus a bit of change in my purse. I know I bought some fathers day cards, but don't know how much. I know I bought myself lunch a few times last week but it would be a rough guess on the value, I also know I popped to Tesco for a few things. I could probably find the receipt for this, but this isn't really the point. I have a few entries on YNAB that just say 'No Idea' under celebrations, groceries & work lunches. I've just split the value over each category making sure I've not gone over any of the budgets, but in reality I think I may have gone over the celebrations budget slightly because of Fathers Day.


So, a telling off for me - AVOID CASH!

Hey MM,

Do you have a smartphone? If so you can download the YNAB app for free and have it sync with your main YNAB on your computer (using Dropbox which is also free). Takes a few minutes to set up but has worked flawlessly for us. We use YNAB on three computers and two smartphones all synced on the same budget.

When I pay for something with cash (which I tend to avoid but sometimes it's unavoidable), I enter it on the smartphone app as I'm walking out of the shop - that way it's all allocated to the current category. Once a month or so we count all our cash and reconcile that amount with the Cash account on YNAB and we're never out by more than a couple of pounds.

MoneyMission2015

Hi SS


Yes I have got the app and was using it all the time, but sometimes if I'm just popping out quickly I don't bother taking it with me, so then it doesn't get updated straight away, then I forget about it. It's my own fault, I just need to be more disciplined.


I've actually got £130 cash at the moment in my purse but I'm going to take it to the bank today so I can't spend it without having a record of it.


I was sorting out my purse this morning & my daughter saw that I had an Asda Christmas savings card in there. She asked what it was so I told her that I was using it to save a few extra ££'s for Christmas. She got very enthusiastic about it so we were discussing savings and she was coming up with ideas of how she can save us money too :T. Saying that though she has probably got more money than me! Whenever she gets any money for her birthday etc she puts it away in her money box. I will have to count it for her soon so that she knows how much she has got & can decide what she wants to do with it. I do have a savings account for her but I just have a DD set up to pay in to that every month anyway, so that one can just stay locked up for as long as possible.

MoneyMission2015

Hello Diary


All is going well. I've stuck to my budgets for everything & am still waiting for OH to pay more money in to the joint, so when he does that I'll have more money to budget for the rest of the month. All the bills & necessities are already budgeted for, so the money that I am waiting for is just for the other non essential budgets, like birthdays, Christmas etc.


I've been really good with cash too after giving myself a telling off. I have had to carry a small amount of cash around for things like the school fete & the odd snack money for the kids, but I've been putting it straight in to YNAB so have been keeping track.


I've been getting a few payouts from TopCashback lately. There were a few fairly big amounts I was waiting for, from insurance renewals that I did a few months ago. They were confirmed & finally got to the payout stage, so I transferred some in to Amazon vouchers and some in to New Look vouchers. They are great for Christmas because I do buy quite a bit on Amazon and I have 2 sisters, so New Look will be handy for a few small gifts for them.


I applied for a Virgin Atlantic credit card. I was using my Tesco Clubcard credit card to buy all my groceries etc, then just pay it off in full every month, so I could earn clubcard points. We always convert our clubcard points to flying club points, so when I saw the Virgin Atlantic credit card I thought I might as well try it because it would save me the hassle of having to apply for the clubcard points to be converted over. I was accepted and am now just waiting for the cards to come through. For some reason they issue 2 cards, one MasterCard and one Amex. Not sure why, but I wont bother carrying both around with me anyway. I'll just use the MasterCard as it is more widely accepted as far as I know. I'll still continue to pay it off in full, don't want to go back down the route of building up debts when I'm on such a roll with paying off the 0% cards


I love my new mindset. Previously when I would worry about the level of debt I had, I would pay as much as I could for a few months but then get bored or just really really want to buy something, so would fall back in to old habits very quickly. But this time I've really got the money saving bug. I am always looking for ways to save some money, or even earn a little bit extra. I look at the price of things now & think about my budget. I also think about my debts and what I could do with that money every month if I wasn't paying the cards off. My savings pots would look even nicer and I could make new savings pots for things that at the moment I have decided to go without.


I have booked us a little treat just before Christmas. We all love Christmas in our house and I'm always trying to find ways to make the build up to Christmas extra special. So yesterday on the Christmas thread on this site somebody mentioned that Hyde Park Winter Wonderland tickets were for sale. I'd never even heard of the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, but had a look on the website and have booked ice skating and a visit to the ice palace. We will stay in London overnight as well, so it will be a lovely family treat. I've already made up a new savings pot for this. I've had to pay for the tickets up front, so I wiggled my budget a bit this month to pay for these & the hotel wont need paying until we are there, so I have now set a budget to save every month for this. If we don't save up enough money I could cancel the hotel & book us a cheaper one, or worse case we could just go up and come home in a day. The tickets are for mid afternoon anyway, so if we did have to do this it wouldn't be a particularly late day home for us anyway.


Summer holidays soon! I cant believe how quickly this year is passing us by. I have almost sorted out my childcare arrangements for the summer. I have booked a few days off, I need to sort out which days my OH will need to book off, I've booked the childminder in for some of the days already but I may need to book her for a few more. I'm trying to avoid this as it is working out to be a lot of money already, but I might not have any other options unfortunately.


Back on to the vouchers note after talking about Topcashback above, my aim is to get to around £200 in total for all vouchers for Christmas. Well I've added the vouchers in to YNAB now as an off budget account, so I can keep track of everything and the total comes to £254.52!! So I am now going to aim for £300 instead. That will be a great achievement as that would pay for presents for my sisters, my niece, my mum & dad and a present for my friend too, plus some money left over for a few stocking fillers.


As you can probably tell I am already getting excited for Christmas. I know it's not for everybody and a lot of people will probably think I'm mad for thinking about it so early, but Christmas is just my favourite time of year. Plus, because I'm trying to budget better now, I know it's also an expensive time of year for me so I want to be prepared.

MoneyMission2015

Hello Diary


I am so glad it is Friday. I have a long weekend too as I have booked a few days off next week. I can't believe it is the summer holidays already, it's come around so quickly. I bet they'll be over before we know it too!


I've been keeping YNAB up to date and all is looking good. My OH has now set up a standing order for his money to go in weekly straight to the joint account, so at least I know when it is due in & I don't have to keep reminding him. Its going in on a Friday so I can budget that every week now for the following week.


My Topcasback account currently has around £90 earnings but nothing is confirmed yet. I know they're all genuine transactions so will be confirmed eventually but I just wish they would be confirmed faster so that I can decide which vouchers I want to convert them to. My vouchers total has gone down a little bit as I did buy us a Fire stick from Amazon. We got 2 for our daughters a month ago so they could both watch Netflix on their own TV's and they have loved them so far. So we decided to get one for ourselves and then on Wednesday it was Amazon Prime Day and by chance I logged on just to have a look and noticed the Fire Stick was reduced from £35 down to £19. So I've ordered that now and we are going to cancel some of our Sky subscription.


I'm concerned about my Virgin Atlantic credit cards. It was all confirmed weeks ago & I received the PIN numbers almost 3 weeks ago, but the cards have not arrived. I need to ring them to check this as my husband said one of his replacement cards also didn't arrive in the post, so I am worried now that somebody has managed to get hold of them.


My car insurance is due for renewal soon so I will start looking around as soon as I can. I actually haven't had the renewal letter yet so I don't know the exact date, but I'm pretty sure it's around the middle of August.