NST July - Bobs Bucket & Spade Boogie to the beach!

mothernerd

A SFD. Banked all but £10 of the money DS2 gave me and paid off all the remaining minimums and the 'spending' cc in full. Started the month by having to pay one of the Council Tax bills and a quarter of the water rates on the card so glad to clear it - effectively paying the Council Tax a month in arrears without incurring interest, although the Council charges me £1.50. This will be on next month's debt reduction as I have already counted a whole month.

Tackled the washing up mountain and made a serendipitous discovery. I had taken one of the remaining frozen blocks out of the freezer, thinking it was soup and it turned out to be curry. Thought it was a 'failure' one that DS3 had refused to eat but was very good - must have been from the second batch of Caribbean curry I made when I found the 'dragon's den winner' jars of sauce reduced to 10p. Now thinking that with a few purchases (< £10) I could make what I have last for nearly another week. Next month's food bill will be high as nearly out of everything, used the last tin of tomatoes as well as things like mint sauce and down to the last few spoonfuls of porridge oats. So postponing spending might be the way to go - I really want to move the freezer and if I restock it will be months again. Had the last portion of frozen custard with apple crumble (some crumble left).

Today I am grateful that my mood is better than it was two months ago (was reading about someone struggling to keep going), for doing something even if it isn't as much as I would like and for good music (someone else's choice on as background but lots of my favourites).

Bobarella

Morning!

Those of you who have taken part this month have egged me on & helped me to pay off more than I have in several months. For that I am very grateful thank you. So far the grand total that we July NST'S have managed to deny the Grey Suits is a whopping £5,000 plus:T:T:T

I will be happy to keep updating that figure until everyone has completed their updates (say saturday/sunday) but what a place to start for August. Can we push it even higher next month??

I managed to keep my £££s in my pocket yesterday & had a use it up dinner from the fridge. Home made tomato soup and a chicken salad sandwich. I still have plenty to eat today and tommorow so will keep up the financial fast till Saturday I hope. Have started a list of all the jobs by room I want to tick off before the messy family get home. So will begin that tonight. I get home around 4pm so can easily manage a couple of hours work and still have a relaxing evening.

Enjoy your days everyone.

Bob

Fmess

Wow what a great total between us!


Yesterday was not a SFD as donated some money to someone at my temping job raising money for a charity project. Today, I am hoping for a SFD, but I won't declare it until I get home.


Just two more days of July left, where has this year gone!

apple_muncher

Today I shall have to pay the dentist. I looked at the paperwork yesterday (which I had folded up and put out of sight!) and was pleasantly surprised at how little it will cost me - for some reason I thought it was 3 figures.

I'll also do the food shop, but with dd in tow, it'll be quicker than usual. At 7 I can hardly insist she stays in the trolley! I have my list and shall scoot round as fast as being in aldee on a Thursday will allow...

I was reading one of kat's old challenges recently, where she states in the rules that money budgeted for spending on holiday means you could maintain a NSD so long as you stayed within budget. I've not ever done this - I figure that spending is spending! Otherwise I'd have hit 20 NSDs easily! What do other people do?

Fmess

apple_muncher wrote: »

I was reading one of kat's old challenges recently, where she states in the rules that money budgeted for spending on holiday means you could maintain a NSD so long as you stayed within budget. I've not ever done this - I figure that spending is spending! Otherwise I'd have hit 20 NSDs easily! What do other people do?

Hi apple, I've always used this principle of Kat's when I've been on holiday as I usually spend everyday whilst I am away but have saved the money in advance.

stewby

Yep, I'm the same as fmess. Because I have saved for the holiday, then it is all counted as spend-free days.
A holiday wouldn't be very much fun if you were too worried about SFDs to spend any money (well, in my world anyways).

The_Only_Girl

Good morning, fellow turtles! Sorry for being AWOL recently. I thought that this week, being'a "normal" week, working 9-5 all week, would make me feel normal, but instead, I feel this week has wiped me out completely. I have had to take long naps after work. The good thing is I managed to bag two more SFD's taking my total up to 20/20. We're slightly over budget on petrol but luckily other envelopes could cover the small overspend (£15). Everything else is under budget.

Hubby and I got paid this morning. Slightly disappointed as both salaries were less than we thought. The reality of a reduced pay on my permanent post as compared to my locum pay is starting to hit home and is making me question my decision. It is almost half as much. Hubby is very supportive and is trying really hard to justify our decision. Hopefully after the cc balance is back to zero, we will be able to breathe. It's bizarre because I had a dream this morning about being mortgage free. I woke up at 2:30 am and started to calculate potential incomes if I was still a locum and realised I could potentially pay off the mortgage in less than 5 years. Sleep walking or not? Then I woke up extra early this morning and decided to calculate August budget at 7am, totally forgotten the 2:30 am dream. One thing is for certain though - August will be very very tight. Decluttering is a must if we wanted to make small extra incomes to go towards the cc. Hubby also booked a few overtime for August.

£350 was paid to the cc this morning, making my total debt repayment £975.. £200 was transferred to our cash ISA's (£50 each for me, OH, DS1 and DS2). Emergency Fund now up to £530.

I'm on my tea break and gotta go back to work. I am crossing my fingers that this post won't get lost like the one I posted last night. Have a good day everyone. Will aim to check in tonight, hopefully with another SFD.

Bobarella

Holy smoke, with The Only Girls Total added in we just hit £6,063for July.:j:j:j:j:j

Apple - I dont know about the holiday NSD rules. I havent had a holiday since 2012, so I think whatever you feel is right, works. Seems the other 'old timers' are backing you up anyway. So go ahead and claim those days please by all means!:T

My day was busy again. Really glad for the cash flow, very unexpected in August.

Probably my big Turtle thing to relay is that my OH has been offered a 15 month 0% deal which I can transfer £3,500 to, the card limit. This leaves me with the odd £486 plus whatever the fee turns out to be, but as this saves us £20 a month in interest, this is a good move regardless, plus 15 months is a good long time.
So, with that in mind, I am going to declare my target for August as being £486, but my enormous big fat stretch target as £986.36
I may have to sell a kidney, a steak:) or both

Keep updating your numbers if you havent already!

Bob

Synonymous

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the well-wishes, I've been at training all day and cycled there so I feel active and social today and looking forward to the pajama party tomorrow - I'm taking mud masks and other pamper things too!

I got my wage slip today so have just worked out my figures for the month based on that - £335 overpaid on mortgage, £300 to holiday fund, £500 to FIRE investments and £190 to sit in my interest earning account as I don't want to put any more in my investments at the moment, so a total of £1325.

The caveat here is that I have been depressed and hardly gone anywhere to spend money this month (thankfully I don't internet shop when I'm down!), so from that perspective it's not great that I have saved so much as my quality of life has been pretty pants!

Might not get on until next week now as I have a busy weekend planned - well done everyone who's strreeeeetttched their targets this month and enjoy the rest of the month - I'll see you on the other side for the new challenge! Thanks bob for a great month! xx

Synonymous

Bob, forgot to say, you can usually only balance transfer 95% of the credit limit (gives them space to add any fees on, even if there is no BT fee) so watch out for that - it can mean your transfer request is rejected and everything is delayed until you do it again - might be worth doing it by phone to make sure it goes right first time. (Speaking from experience - Halifax didn't point this out when I tried to BT during account application) x