Real Life on Hold

-Selene

"They say money talks... Mine just waves goodbye!" :wave:

That's a common joke, currently making the rounds on my social networking feeds, but it's something that describes my finances right now. I have so many plans for my money -- to put in savings, to put aside for yearly maintenance like a long-overdue service for my car or my line rental (I get £5 a month off for paying a year upfront) and to actually start paying for things I really do need, like home and pet insurance -- but it never seems to happen.

I'm currently signed off work and getting paid SSP, which is £200 less than my normal wages, not including any overtime I'd have signed up for if I was still working. So that's a major dent in my finances Am submitting a claim for top-up Income Support this week but when doing my SOA, realised I currently have an underspend of £132 per month. I'm currently borrowing my rent money for food / necessary expenses so I have no idea where this has come from :eek: I do get paid four-weekly though, but the SOA calculates it to monthly, so it might have miscalculated between my annual income and my available income... :think:

I want to get my finances sorted my way before the IS gets paid, so that I don't fritter that away too. So I'm posting my SOA in the hope that someone can help

*SOA has been edited out as it made the post very long and as the first post shows up on every page, scrolling is a nightmare when posting on my phone*

Things I need to buy/put money aside for:

Home insurance
Pet insurance (although considering registering one cat with PDSA and self-insuring the other two)
Driving lessons (before you ask, the reason I bought a car was because mum is wheelchair bound and lives 110+ miles away. Visiting her / having her come to visit on public transport is very stressful when you factor in luggage and the large family dog. Car actually works out cheaper too as it averages £12 one-way and the train with advance ticket works out £20 or more for me (or £15 or more for her as she has a railcard) :j)
Car maintenance -- service overdue _pale_
Christmas / birthdays

Any suggestions for whipping the SOA into shape? Or anything that looks like I might have forgotten is an outgoing?

Thanks in advance

Skinnylatte

Just had a quick glance and here's my thoughts...

£20 in new clothes, bin this for a while until you get your self back on track
£200 on food, I'm assuming this is just for you? I reckon you could halve this for the time being. Batch cook and freeze, yellow sticker, buy a big bag of potatoes from the farm shop and see how creative you can get.
£40 hobby? What's this for? Seems a lot of money

You have a car but you're still having driving lessons?

You really need to be putting something away for car maintenance, and vets bills.

Can you earn any extra money working from home? There's lots of online opportunities these days.
Anything you can sell to pay off the debt?
Good luck :T

-Selene

Clothes -- currently working on decluttering my wardrobe and selling unwanted clothes, this should fund the new clothes. Will not be buying any more until I have my money sorted

Car -- as explained at the bottom of my first post, it's a necessity in order to make mum's life a bit easier as she travels down quite often, usually visits once a month for a few days so that's two trips and then while I'm visiting her the car is used to run around for her. She lives five miles from the nearest town so it does make a difference. My dad currently drives me around while I'm learning, the plan is once I'm confident enough to drive without an instructor I can use my car to clock up extra practice hours as no-one in my immediate family owns a car, hence why it's a necessity.

Car maintenance and vets bills are definitely something I want to put money aside for, as mentioned in my original post, it's just a case of not finding the funds as usually I do it at the end of the month when I'm broke. May ask my bank if they'll let me create basic accounts so I can set up payments to those accounts and treat them like bills and see how that goes. Will investigate.

Have looked into doing Avon etc but am not sure whether this is feasible whilst signed off from my main job. So it's on hold until I'm back at work.

Yes, I'm clearing out stuff to sell. Am putting the proceeds into savings / my sealed pot which should help in case of emergency.

Hobby is crafting -- woodwork, painting, personalising items, sewing etc etc. The reason it's so high is because I hand make gifts for birthdays as part of the hobby, hence why 0 is budgeted for birthdays. I don't always spend £40, it's usually less, but that's my maximum budget per month.

Thank you very much Will definitely pop into the bank and see if I can do anything about new accounts for yearly expenditure.

-Selene

Forgot to add -- £200 on food is for me and three cats. I've been overeating on junk food since being signed off so this is something that I definitely want to tackle! Am signing up to the July Grocery Challenge and going to do a cupboard stocktake this week. No idea where any local greengrocers may be as family usually buy from supermarkets, I did this this last week but was disappointed that all the fruit and veg I bought went off quickly and the eat by date was four days after I'd been to the shop

Great minds think alike re: that big bag of potatoes! Did this last week and made three enormous meals for two people over the week and still have about half the bag left :rotfl:

liltdiddylilt

Hi Selene!

Thank you for your post on my diary! I'm not ignoring you on there but am coming on to bookmark your diary so I don't lose you!!

I'm sorry you've got flu! Is that on top of being signed off?! Or is that for something else? Feel better soon!

I think skinnylatte has done a grand job of finding the holes in your SOA. How come nothing is budgeted for hair cuts out of interest? I have mine done every few months but budget in a nominal amount to cover it.

I know it's an expense and you've probably seen it all over my diary but YNAB has been a budgeting life saver for me. Not only that but then you don't need the hundred basic accounts as pots as you have all the pots right on your computer. I've stopped looking at what's in the bank as a measure of how much money I have and that is the key to saving. I've got pots for everything!!

I'm very jealous of your hobby. I wish I was remotely crafty but I am just... Not. :rotfl: I make the gift tags from iced biscuits or handmade the cards at Xmas and that's about it!!

Have subscribed and will pop back in as well as replying to my own diary tomorrow! Well done on sticking with the 156 pages of utter rubbish!! :rotfl:

Lilty xxxx

-Selene

Hi Lilty! Thanks for stopping by!

Ah yes, the insane flu. Yup, that's on top of being signed off for anxiety and depression

My haircuts are usually either paid for by wonderful Mummy Selene :lovethoug or DIY botch jobs with a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair dye bought in the sale (and counted as part of the groceries budget as that includes toiletries) -- my last hairdresser was not impressed with the state of my hair the last time I went :rotfl:

I did look into YNAB but although they have an app for the iPad and iPhone (I own both) you have to actually download the software onto a laptop / PC to start with, and my laptop has been broken for the last year or so. It's fixable, but at a cost of £200-300 and I'm happy to use the iPad for everything else so I haven't gotten around to justifying the expense of repairing it just yet

I'm jealous of your ability to stick to the diet and to cook from scratch! I think if I had a Jellytot of my own I'd be happier to cook from scratch but as it's just me, I can't see the point of going to all that effort Actually, that reminds me: mum bought a basket of various chutneys for her friend to thank her for cat-sitting while she was away. Friend was so excited you'd think she had received a basket of gold :rotfl: Turns out she loves making curries from scratch but hates spending a fortune on various spices so uses chutney in the sauce instead for flavour (and I remember one of them being "Curried Peach" flavour so definitely interesting) and it actually saves her money as well as bulking out her curries So I thought of you as you cook from scratch quite a bit and have some really delicious-sounding meals (will you be my personal chef when I win the lottery?! :rotfl:) and thought perhaps that tip might help?

I've subscribed to your diary too and am slowly making my way through everyone else's in the madhouse I saw your location says Hogwarts so I'm presuming you're a HP fan and will understand just how fast I read when I say I read Order of the Phoenix for the first time in five and a half hours on release night so trust me, 156 pages in three days is actually quite slow for me :rotfl:

Selene xx

liltdiddylilt

Hahaha!! I am glad you're another fast reader. I read a lot, and usually at the pace of a couple of hundred pages an hour, which people think is bonkers. My mum used to test me on it Yes I am a bit of a HP fan. Haven't read them in ages though!

Am :rotfl: at being your personal chef! This morning I have made 42 'fat bombs' from coconut oil, butter, almond butter, cocoa powder and a splash of sweetener. they are freezing at the moment and look once popped out of the mould like big rolos. They boost my fat with less than 1g of carbs per 2 fat bombs. Am not liking the sweetener though. Must try them without next time. You can make all kinds of them though, and it just helps me with boosting my fat as I m struggling with a small appetite at the minute. Bet you don't fancy eating those

I like the idea of the chutneys in the curry... but.. and this is naughty... two entire shelfs of my big cupboard are dedicated to my spice and herb collection. I get through a LOT. I buy in big bulk bags from 'buywholefoodsonline' and use them religiously. I add in about 20 spices to my curry recipes, :rotfl: - and chutney is something I've never been a big fan of. But I occasionally like some mango chutney or caramelised red onion I must try it though. Have a feeling Him would love that kind of curry.

Thanks for the haircut explanation. I understand now! I daren't do my own. I used to chop my fringe but then decided it would be easier to grow it out. I'm a bit stuck as the hairdressers I go to is one I walk past daily, so I can't really switch away from them without the embarrassment of having them stare me down twice a day. Its more than I would usually pay, but they do a good job. I just try and eke the haircuts out longer each time!

YNAb is definitely not very useful on iPad or phone. You can't budget from there, so yes you need a laptop, but it isn't worth repairing yours for that!

Hope you're having a good day today xx

-Selene

Will be passing a supermarket this evening and have decided to pop in so currently searching their website for their cheap own brands and doing an online shopping list in the hope of sticking to a budget.

Total cost is £37.05 but this doesn't factor in the a) cashback I'll be claiming from ClickSnap and Shopitize and b) the staff discount I'll be using (I'll be considering the cashback as extra money to pot in my sealed pot (which eventually gets banked into the savings) instead of reducing my grocery budget as I'm only choosing things I would otherwise buy / eat. For example, there's an offer of 50p cashback on a £3 block of cheese, but I haven't added this as Iceland's £2 cheese is plenty for me ) So not including my cashback, my spend after the discount will be ~£34. I'm going to carry £50 into the store so I can take advantage of any yellow stickers that they might have (since I don't normally shop in the evenings) and in case I spot anything and forgot to add it to my list. This should keep me going for two weeks easily, although with the stuff I already have in my cupboards and freezer I'm hoping to eke it out for a month.

No fruit and veg in this shop because I'm hoping to visit a couple of greengrocers tomorrow to enquire about vegetable boxes and see how that pans out.

I hope you don't mind me posting my shopping list, it won't be something I do every time, but I think if I start off posting my lists then perhaps someone will have ideas on how to reduce it (And I'm sorry to tell you that I hate lentils, Lilty, so won't be adding those to my shop :rotfl:)

2x Kingsmill Farmhouse bread @ £1 each, plus £1 cashback each
2x Kingsmill burger thins @ £1 each, plus £1 cashback each
4 pints milk @ £1, plus £1 cashback
Philadelphia Lightest 180g @ £1.85 plus 35p cashback. There's also a deal on for 2 of these for £2 so got the garlic and herb version too. No idea if the cashback will work if it's in a deal but worth a try, and if not then that's something I'd have picked up anyway.
Pizza base mix @ 50p
BBQ pizza sauce topper @ £1.10 (I do plan to use it for other things as well... Like with things that I add to grilled cheese on toast to make it more filling )
2x baked beans @ 25p a tin
Jar of mustard @ 35p
Tin of pineapple @ 40p
Sage and onion stuffing @ 20p
Sponge mix @ 25p
Tin of sweetcorn @ 30p
Vegetable stock cubes @ 25p
Furniture polish @ 45p
2x 1L apple juice @ 70p each (must get rid of my Coke addiction )
2x box of 8 lollies @ 65p each
3x Quorn burgers @ £1 each (half price so stocking up!)
Quorn family roast @ £2.50
Chicken style kiev @ £1.80 or 2 for £3
Falafel @ £1.80 or 2 for £3
Mediterranean bakes @ £1.80 or 2 for £3
Vegetarian hot dogs @ £1.80 or 2 for £3
Mini houmous selection @ £1.55 (tried houmous as a sandwich filler but liked it sometimes, other times not. So forking out for this one now so I can try each flavour then get a bigger pot of a flavour I like for less knowing that it won't be wasted)
Quorn pepperoni slices @ £1.75
Quorn wafer thin chicken @ £2
Quorn wafer thin ham @ £2
Broccoli, tomato and cheese quiche @ £2
Mediterrean vegetable quiche @ £2

And that's it... Any suggestions for improvement?

Also very annoyed with my dad right now. After telling him, "This petrol is lasting forever in BP, let's always fill up at BP!" he goes and fills my car up at Esso :mad: Car does like Esso so could be worse but still not impressed. It is 10p more per litre but the tank lasts much longer with BP so money is saved by not filling it up quite so much :mad:

Skinnylatte

Loving all the cash back :T

Does petrol really last longer from some stations than others? I'm diesel so it might be different, i never noticed.

Get to £1land for the hair dye!!

-Selene

Can't be bothered to get the receipts to work out exactly how much I spent -- had to split the shopping into two as one app's cashback was being claimed off my normal shopping, then two different apps' cashback on a different receipt (different items, I'm thinking its a no-no to claim multiple times on one item with different apps?) and had a bit of a :doh: moment when the cashier looked at me oddly... I used my staff discount on both receipts Think this flags up possible abuse of the card to my employer? (In the FAQs it says cashback is provided by the apps, not the supermarket, and I'm entitled to take advantage of supermarket discounts as well as claiming cashback, so I thought it would be okay. Lesson learnt: Must plan cashback shops better!) The rough total is £42-43 and this included some yellow stickers and things I forgot to add to the shopping list. So below my budget of £50.

skinnylatte you'll be pleased to know I have more cashback planned for tomorrow's lunch

I read somewhere that each company of petrol add their own additives to normal petrol to make it "their" petrol, and it certainly made a difference to my mum's car. £25 with petrol station #1 lasted a week, with #2 it lasted 2 days. #1 was excellent for local travel, #3 was more economical for long distances. I loved that car. It had a nifty screen that told you exactly how many miles of petrol you had left (hence how she worked out which company was more economical).

NO!! :eek: I bought £land "blonde" hair dye and dyed my hair. Result: BRIGHT GINGER. Like... the shade where putting my hair up in a ponytail caused my friend's five-year-old sister to loudly proclaim, "Selene has a carrot in her hair!" :rotfl: And guess what was happening the next day? School photos :rotfl: I think I'll stick with buying my branded dye when it's half price / on a 2 for £5 offer

-Selene

Lilty! :eek: I missed your post this afternoon, sorry about that

:rotfl: at the spice shelves! I have... out-of-date basil and out-of-date oregano At the moment I only use basil for adding to my tomato soup and can't remember what I last used the oregano for... Oops. As for the fat bombs, I think I might pop over to your page for the recipe, the picture I have in my head for fat bombs are shockingly similar to Oreo truffles so those might be a more waistline-friendly version to gobble :rotfl:

When I cut my own hair, it's mostly cutting bits out that are insanely tangly to avoid my hair getting into a mess Or cutting the whole lot off into a pixie crop, which I haven't done for five years DIY botch jobs in between free hairdresser visits tend to do the trick if you don't mind your hairdresser telling you off :rotfl:

Ack! I was hoping I could borrow a laptop, download YNAB, and after that use it from the iPad / iPhone. Clearly not Although it begs the question of why the apps were developed then... :think:

I hope you had a good day too Mine wasn't too bad, thank you! xx