My Journey To My Pot Of Gold

MuffinTops

You're right Rosa, I'm not big on little men! , but I'll certainly "make do" with Jack(pot) Man! .

That's really made me smile!

Right <ahem> where was I? ... Oh right! Financial updates!!!

MuffinTops

Yesterday, I made such a mess of YNAB with all the moving and shaking I do on there, that I made a fresh start. This time I allocated every penny of every account to a budget so that it was all accounted for. Phew! I've also added the budget for February in so am - my exact salary amount. It won't matter if that changes in any way as I'll just tweak the allocated budgets.

I've also been thinking that I have other benefits attached to accounts I have that I need to exploit more. I can get 5% cashback on £100 contactless spends in TSB. I have the Santander cashback card I need to make sure is working hard enough for me and I also have an M&S and a Tesco credit card for their voucher building. None of these cards have any money on except Santander as I get cashback for my oyster card top ups.

So today I'll go through and find their benefits and use the ones that are worthwhile and close the ones that no longer work for me.

I'm off to the radio later, and have just finished putting my show together. It's so damp and dark out there I want to stay home and cosy up, but I love it when I get there. I have my one trainee from 4pm too.

It's Friday!!!! Yay to that! For me it's exactly one week until payday!

Have a great day! MTxx

doingitanyway

Hi Muffintops,

You sound so organised with accounts and cars and YNAB! I keep looking at YNAB and wondering if I need it? Would you recommend it? I'm thinking of getting another account to pay my bills from and those things that come out infrequently, then I can keep my account I have now for day-t0-day expenditure. I'm with FD so thinking of a regular severance my increased salary comes through?
I hope your show goes well. Or, break-a-leg...I think that's what they say for shows. Anyway have a good day DIA x

RosaBernicia

Hi DIA

One of the things I love about YNAB is that you can track allocated pots of money within it, and not have to run separate accounts, as I got fed up (and less organised) trying to track many of them. There's lots of info on the YNAB site and the software is free for a month if you do want to try it.


Rosa xx

doingitanyway

Thanks Rosa, sounds like I need to do the trial and if it works i won't need to open other accounts. I can probably get by just using my own account and opening a savings account with them. I'm all for frugality but I'm disorganised so keeping it simple might be better for me. Thanks again Rosa x

jodles16

MT your account management- though sometimes it needs re-working- is amazing!! I only have two main accounts...have finally taken the plunge and applied for First Direct with the awesome offer, been with Barclays for 18years :eek:!! Do make use of Santan though!

Also I think Onepoll is being naughty, I get screened out for being married!! Hmmm!! Never tried Swagbucks, may look into this!

Jodles

MuffinTops

Hello DIA, I'm a bit opposite to Rosa in that I maintain lots of bank accounts and savings accounts and I like that YNAB puts them all in one big pot for me, so to speak. So from Rosa to myself you can probably see that it can work however you maintain your bank accounts.

I definitely recommend YNAB, but you do have to keep on top of it and update it regularly for it to be worth using. I hope that helps, but please feel free to ask any questions if you do decide to go with the trial.

doingitanyway

Thanks MT,
I'm starting to think YNAB is fine tuning and at the moment I need to get used to living within a budget. I'm not too organised at the minute so I doubt I'd use it well and keep on top of it. I'm going back to basics for a few months to get on an even keel. I like the idea of getting a regular saver account going and I need to build an emergency fund too, but as beanlou says, baby steps...

I hope all is going well for you MT x

MuffinTops

My weekend has been quite mixed. After getting my finances so organised for next month, I've been a bit haphazard with my spending. So YNAB needs some updating, which is my next job!

My washing machine looks brand new again! I sat and scrubbed it through on Saturday afternoon and very happy with how lovely it's looking. My washing has such a strong fabric conditioner smell again now too. My next project is to get my oven looking brand new again!

I've managed a little more decluttering, but my main aim this weekend was to organise my box room, which I've been using to store the things I want to pack away for a new home - which I've now done. I've also decided to "throw" in the things I'm not sure about if I want to keep or remove, but there's plenty of room in there. I've also organised this years bill box so that's all up to date.

My journal has been suffering a little, so I sat and wrote some bits and pieces out yesterday, but I need to start diarising events I want to happen now and give them specific dates to start etc. Otherwise I drift along too much. So, this afternoon, after YNAB is cleared up, I'm going to go through my planner and note the things I want to achieve and put dates to them.

The new Director is off work this week, and lots of people have phoned in sick!!!! But that's good for me as there's less distractions in the office and I can get on with things. I've been asked to train up one of our engineers in the new role I've started, so I'm a bit overwhelmed with that. I'm happy to do it, he's a lovely guy and will be a pleasure to work with, but I'm learning it all myself and worried I'm going to teach him bad habits!!!! Although he knows I'm new to all this, so hopefully he'll also take that into consideration during our working time together. Not sure how I keep getting this training role when I'm not good at the tasks myself. It's lovely, and I love the trust that gets put in me, but I'm finding it a little overwhelming right now as I'm not confident enough in the role myself.

The day seems to be running away from me, so I'd best get back to it. I hope everyone's having a lovely start to the week.

MTxx

Domayne

Hi muffintops! :hello:
Thank you for stopping by my diary and sorry for taking so long to reply! I've made another resolution to post more often as I've been rubbish for ages now! :rotfl:

I'm happy to see that you took your diary back up after mentioning it ages ago though! and check you out, You seem so on top of things and organised! I've been wanting to get more organised and get rid of a lot of paperwork - I still have all my bank statements/payslips etc dating back 12 years and they are just taking up space unnecessarily :mad:

I was thinking about downloading YNAB because so many people on here rave about how great it is, but then I read about some changes that would be happening with it soon? and thought I would wait a while until I see other peoples opinions.
For now I'm just using a spending tracker to see where I fritter money away, But I don't really have a lot of accounts or many bills so I don't know if it would be worth it for me?
Good luck training your engineer! I'm sure you will be a brilliant trainer even if you don't feel too confident at it yourself yet :heart2: