Baby Steps With Variable Income

Hollysan

Yes, I think it's too much as well. But there are four of us and the two who were the littlies are bigger than me and eat more than me! Also they have packed lunches and we work at home so nearly all our food consumption is at home and we rarely eat out.

I have been to A1d) today. I have shopped at Leed1 for years but A1d) is closer now. However it only ever does some of the shop and I have to top up elsewhere. But as I said in earlier post, I'm working on it!

Hollysan

Hollysan

Hello again,
I have been truly hopeless at keeping up with this diary - but I have been busy moneysaving, with some success, so all is not lost!

A bout of lurgy followed by half-term and not having a computer for a few days has meant that I haven't been online much, but we have been discussing our MFW plan and I feel as if we are a bit closer.

Last week I made a real effort to investigate all bills which I felt were too high:

Rang Anglian Water and negotiated a reduction of our monthly DD from £67 to £60. Also had a long discussion with their guy who was very helpful, working out what our usage was, which areas were higher than usual usage and where we might be able to cut down. Seems our usage has gone down a bit, hence reduction, so that's good. :money: Over-enthusiastic toilet flushing and washing machine seem to be the areas for improvement. So will report back on how we get on....

Also rang NPower - we had an underpayment from the first 6 months in this house. That has almost been paid off. A bill is on it's way and then I am to ring back to discuss the monthly DD amount - currently £144 :eek: I'm sure that will come down.

Best of all - I had a reminder from BT (landline, broadband, YouView) - our landline is paid up front in one lump and is due. I rang them to discuss and as a result we have a discounted package for phone and broadband for a year which is £15 cheaper! I must remember to ring back before it expires next year....

So now I am moving onto insurance - house, car, pet, in that order, as they come due.

Groceries-wise I am trying to reduce our monthly spend from around £500 (this includes toiletries, household goods, dogfood as well as food) to around £400. I have £1.72 left in the Feb budget! I find that termtime is fine - it's the holidays which are difficult. Two weeks at Easter will be hard - we are bound to have family visiting and although I mealplan and try to cook ahead and use what we have in stock feeding 9 or 10 people for several days is expensive.

Income-wise, things are looking quite good :beer:
OH has lots of work coming up this year and I am going to have my best year yet. It is a bit up and down, running our own businesses as we do, but we have decided that we can afford to pay a sizeable chunk towards the remaining CC debt in March, and the plan is to keep doing this over Spring/early summer and then when it's clear we will move onto the mortgage overpayments which are our real goal.

The car is being serviced this week and we have £680 in our Car pot on YNAB. Hopefully that will cover any repairs but we will see...

YNAB tells me that we spent less in February than we have during any month since we started using the software last summer. I know Feb isn't quite over, but my purse is shut tight until the weekend

The next job is a mealplan for March, but I think I will catch up with some of your diaries first to see how you are all doing. Thanks for reading.

Hollysan

ourcornercottage

Go you!

In terms of water saving we follow the 'if it's yellow......' (I won't go on its gross!) Approach but that's cos we have a septic tank.

Hollysan

I'm immune to that - we've never had a septic tank but our neighbours did, so I know where you're coming from! :rotfl:

Forgot to mention - I sold another item on Ebay - £10 in the pot.

If the car service is pain-free we have decided to put the balance into paying off the CC. We have a service plan which will take care of the service and MOT, we just need the car pot for any repairs/parts. If there are none, that's £600 to pay off the card. Fingers crossed...

Hollysan

Luckyinlife

Good luck with car we all need luck when it comes to them haha

£600 off the card will be awsome

Hollysan

Oh dear I haven't been very good with updates to my diary... However I have made some progress - the car cost us c. £250 for new tyres and a few bits (over and above the service which was paid for by the service plan which we pay monthly). That's fine because it was all budgeted in YNAB and the cash was sat in the bank ready. However we have been told that the service plan will go up by 33%!!:mad:

I managed to put £400 towards the CC after that, and we have made another monthly payment towards the mortgage and my sig now reflects the new totals on both. So some good news there....

I was £1.78 over the £400 budget for food/household/toiletries in February and have already spent £279 of the March budget, but we are stocked up on cupboards, dog food, toilet roll, washing powder etc, so should only need milk, fruit, lunch box items and fresh veg for the remainder of the month. The first half of April will be heavy though with the holidays/visitors etc and we have two family birthdays in the same week. :eek:

I need to menu-plan the rest of the month because I think I only got as far as the middle of next week! We have eaten all the leftovers in the freezer so they can expect lots of pasta and beany stew-type combos :rotfl:

It has been a slow month so far for me income-wise but that it is because I am finishing some projects and will be invoicing several all at the same point - before the end of my year. Overall it all seems to be going to plan - just far too busy to spend the time I would like on the money-juggling. Needless to say ebray has gone out the window....

Now I would like to catch up on how everyone else is doing. Bye for now.

Hollysan

Hollysan

Sorry Luckyinlife I forgot to say welcome and thanks for your encouragement. You are certainly right about cars... that's why we only have one at the moment. The costs are SOOO unpredictable.

Looks like you are at the beginning of your mortgage journey - good luck with your house purchase, it's always a bit nerve-wracking but you will be so happy once you are in and can get cracking on the work you need to do.

Hollysan

Hollysan

Oh dear, as usual I have been lurking and not posting. I can't believe that I haven't posted since March, but then I have a history of this - so few posts in nearly 10 years!:rotfl: It has taken me a while to search for this thread - I must save it this time.
On the positive side, we have now paid off the credit card and are ready to start on overpayments to the mortgage - pretty much on schedule.
I need to calculate what we can afford in repayments but we are limited anyway - we can't overpay more than £500 per month without being penalised.
We managed to get away this summer; nothing fancy - a couple of staycation trips but that's fine by me. My son takes his GCSE's next year so we are planning a trip abroad to celebrate, so also need to start saving towards that.
Spends have been pretty much the same. I have managed to get our groceries bill down to around £450, and this month I am doing the September grocery challenge. Used to do it years ago but got out of the habit. I'm doing spectacularly badly so far. £450 includes food, household and toiletries.
We are considering getting our second car back on the road. OH is away for work more and uses the car and DD and DS both play football and do other activities which sometimes leaves us with a transport dilemma. Also my Dad has not been well this year and was in hospital recently. I am worried that if he lands in hospital again I might not be able to see him because I have no transport if OH is away/busy with the car. The second car has been SORNd for the last eighteen months so will need money spending on it. We do have £500 in the car account to pay for this.
I have been dipping in and out over the summer reading other people's diaries and it's impressive the way some people are progressing. I hope to keep up this time!

Hollysan