Stop coasting and get serious!

FacelessNumber

Hi ourcornercottage. We will be going in January-February. Thinking of flying Emirates with a stopover in Dubai as I've only heard good things about them but haven't looked into booking it yet. Booking the flights is on the to-do list for August!

FacelessNumber

Today is pay day for me so some money moved around and some figures updated. Joint money stuff happens tomorrow which is when we both put our money in the joint account so more updates to come tomorrow!


Today's activity:
£210.08 paid into my savings - £75 into my car fund, £50 into my holiday fund, and £85.08 into the uni fund/general savings.
£50 paid off 0% card that my uni fees went on last year.


My general savings are also my uni fund at the moment so this is subject to go up and down depending on emergencies - mostly it's fairly stable as my car is usually the only problem (has it's own savings pot) and we also have joint savings which deal with any house problems but you never know!


This equals £135.08 towards the uni goals so 1st year covered, and £46.09 to start towards next years cost. Next years aim of £2700 is currently an estimate, I won't know the exact cost until I enrol on the modules I want.


This months budget has also been worked out, it's a bit tight as we are away for 5 days and have a wedding to go to which I need a new dress for (unfortunately I have nothing suitable). I do already have shoes that I can wear so it's only a dress I need and will have a shop around and see what I can find. Also need an ink cartridge for my printer which I'm going to order today through TCB.


Motivation is high at the moment, I think it helps to have clear goals to aim for! Other money saving activities today - list 2 items on gumtree, shopping list and meal plan, work out last few months food spends to compare.


Edit: Monthly grocery average (not sure how accurate this is, based on bank statements): £197.17

Mrs_E_3

Runders wrote: »

Good look with your journey FacelessNumber! Where are you planning on having your dream honeymoon?

I am trying to reduce the food spending as well, I'm a guilty M&S food shopper. Alchemilla and Mrs_E do you find the quality to be good at lidl?

I think I have only found one item that wasn't quite so nice and I can't remember what that was now. The fruit and veg are great quality, and the meat so much cheaper and tasty.

Hubby refused to go into Lidl in the beginning and now he won't go any where else.

Runders

Hi FacelessNumber,

Wow New Zealand, I'd love to go there and CornerCottage made it sound amazing! I can concur that Singapore is an expensive stop over having been there several times for work. It's a brilliant place though and loads to see.

Sounds like you are going well with your savings for uni

FacelessNumber

Hi Runders!


The numbers look good because I started the diary just before payday, progress will definitely slow down until next payday!


Today's update is regarding the joint finances as we both put our money into the joint account on the 1st of the month.


£38.20 added to honeymoon fund making a total of £259.07 which means we are 5.2% of the way to that one! I should add that this will probably drop at some point as we do have some house stuff we have to do which will come out of the savings - we haven't made separate pots, we are just keeping it all in one place.


Normal mortgage payment has gone out, as has an overpayment of £171.80. This gets us to £6164.00 paid off the mortgage, which means we are 61.7% towards our goal of 80%LTV. Pretty happy with that!


I also have some mortgage stats based on our overpayments so far:
Our capital is currently £1914.15 less that it would be if we had made no OPs.
Our daily interest is 15p less than it would be with no OPs (so essentially for every day our mortgage continues we are saving at least 15p on interest!
We have so far saved ourselves £24.29 in interest, this will only increase as time goes on!
We have paid off 2.47% of our initial mortgage, would have only been 1.64% without OPs.


Seeing the stats like this, after less than a year of the mortgage, keeps me motivated to keep going with it! We are only making regular OPs at the moment as we have so much other stuff to pay for, but every little bit does make a difference, and thanks to compound interest, the earlier you start the better!


Didn't list the things I was meant to on Gumtree yesterday so that's still on my list, probably won't happen until the weekend now as we are pretty busy but will see if I can squeeze it in!
Got my list worked out for my first Lidl shop this afternoon after work Will post later to let you know how amazing I found it

FacelessNumber

Well the Lidl shop was a success! Spent £55 but that was a big shop and included a £10 bottle of gin (required for some gin and tonic cupcakes I'm making for a friends birthday - of course the rest of the bottle won't go to waste ).


Definitely converted, couldn't believe how cheap some of the stuff was! So far no problems with the quality, although all I've really eaten is salad and cereal!


Doing well on packed lunches this week, although I've been a bit naughty today and bought a Diet Coke - was feeling a bit sleepy and still have 3 hours of work to go so needed a pick me up! I did resist the packet of crisps to go with it though which is good as it's weigh day tomorrow! Not much other news money wise. TCB is building up nicely and still have home insurance to sort out through it. Planning on getting Debenhams vouchers to go towards the wedding suits, saving us a bit of money there.


Also finally rang student loans this week after 2 years (procrastinating much?) and need to copy some pay slips to send to them as they don't have record of some of my payments (HMRC's fault).


Plans for the rest of the week - got a couple of birthday presents to buy and some birthday celebrations this weekend so will be quite spendy, especially tomorrow - a meal out and then to a bar. If I can stick to the planned spends I'll be happy.


Also need to buy the dress for the end of the month soon - I've budgeted £50 but once I know how much I spend I can rejig the spare money into other areas which are a bit tight. Sorry for the long post, got lots in my head at the moment that needed to come out!

Runders

FacelessNumber wrote: »

Well the Lidl shop was a success! Spent £55 but that was a big shop and included a £10 bottle of gin (required for some gin and tonic cupcakes I'm making for a friends birthday - of course the rest of the bottle won't go to waste ).


Definitely converted, couldn't believe how cheap some of the stuff was! So far no problems with the quality, although all I've really eaten is salad and cereal!

Hi FacelessNumber, thanks for the feedback on your shop quality, I'll have to give them a go for my next shop. Let me know how the cupcakes go, I've been meaning to make G&T ones for ages! I've mastered a G&T drizzle loaf, so time to have another challenge.




.

FacelessNumber

Hi Runders. The G&T cupcakes were a success. This is the recipe I used: http://bakeitinstinct.com/2013/08/21/gin-and-tonic-cupcakes/

I would say with the icing use a bit less butter as it came out quite wet, or use lime zest instead of juice.

Anyway a bit of a money catchup:
Had £65 budgeted for the weekend and spent £50 so that helps the budget slightly this month. £10 of that was what I would call wasted - due to poor planning we had KFC for lunch on Sunday.
Extra small spends on food (my biggest area i spend on) were £1.20 on Friday for crisps and diet coke, and £2.24 yesterday on food after a stressful day at work. Need to work on reducing this.

FacelessNumber

I thought I'd do a bit of an update for week 1 of July and start to set some weekly aims to keep the motivation high!
So the positives for last week (1st-7th July):

• Lidl win!
• Finally rang student loans (although this might have been at the end of June, I'm still counting it!)
• Top Cash Back savings for vouchers to put towards the wedding going well. Currently at ~£57
• £15 under budget for the weekend

And the negatives:

• Didn't get items listed on Gumtree
• Didn't get the letter sent to Student Loans
• Didn't get the house insurance sorted
• £14.09 unplanned spending (all on food!)

Goals for this week:

• List 2 items on Gumtree
• Send letter to student loans
• Cancel house insurance and redo through TCB (potential of another £50!!)
• Do some gardening (aim for 2 hours)

Our garden is a big mess still - we moved in last August and have been working at it but it's a big garden and a lot needs doing still. Anyway that's it for a weekly roundup. Will do another post soon with my normal update rather than squish it all together!

jodles16

Hi facelessnumber,

Your mortgage is similar to ours, its amazing to see how the stats stack up! Really motivational! Also I love lists so your goals are very appealing!

Best of luck!

Jodles