The Spreadsheet Diva's MF Diary

A_Frayed_Knot

lulabelle1 wrote: »

My DH has a magazine subscription too.... I never budget for it as it comes out once per quarter and is in the region of £10. I always hold a few hundred pounds back in the current account (after paying bills and doing the money shuffle etc) to cover for cash withdrawals,, school lunch & school bus money for DS1 and other bits and pieces that just seem to come along.....

over on postcodelottery there s a special offer today re magazine subscriptions, go to loyalty offer and scroll down.
http://http://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/?af=true&awc=970_1449854696_9e5da3c63ff513c57da0e300ccfeecb2 and if you try to leave the page, will come back with a code/voucher for 15% off:D
also an £8.00 bonus. If you haven't joined here's my link,
http://freepostcodelottery.com/?ref=363425
Even f you don't need a magazine subscription you can always join free postcode lottery:D

A_Frayed_Knot

:j:j:T:T:j:j:beer:Just gave you your 10,000 th thanks

Karmacat

A_Frayed_Knot wrote: »

:j:j:T:T:j:j:beer:Just gave you your 10,000 th thanks

10,001 now :j:beer::j:beer:

SueP19

A_Frayed_Knot wrote: »

A Tin:eek: - start with this - into isa/savings - anything that pays interest - now !!!:D

I agree and would not be my choice but psychologically it's fabulous, we have a mini ceremony when he puts it in and we colour a spreadsheet, I would recommended it to any one who is trying to give up.

Better money in tin than non at all

SueP19

Karmacat wrote: »

Sue - I looked at your SOA again, you're spending £280 a month on petrol/diesel - that might be just a long commute, or ferrying DD around or something, but journeys need to be thought out carefully, even though petrol prices are dipping. Driving shortest routes between a variety of places, even a bit of attention paid to acceleration and braking (Martin wrote some great articles on that a while ago, in the blog).

Long commute, I was doing 500 miles a week but DD left on saturday so mileage being cut to 205 :T:T:T OH a lorry driver so I have the miles per gallon on all time and try to optimise

Karmacat wrote: »

Is your DH on board with attacking the finances? You've got a year to work on him

No he is not on board, well if I spend money he moans but quote "I don't have much" and "no point making plans as something always happens" To be fair he has got better these last few years, funny when we had more bills than money coming in he would want to splash out but know he is always saying how much and watch it. Plan is to OP for 6 months and then tell him

Karmacat wrote: »

Even for three adults, this is really high, sorry Sue. For two adults, you could eventually halve it and still be eating well - I appreciate that takes time and a lot of learning how to get the best out of your shopping and cooking.

Hangs head in deep shame, this has been a constant problem and OH does not help, he sees the volume of food directly related to how much money we have, only this last year has he accepted "yellow sticky" stuff
Thanks Karmacat :beer:

SueP19

A_Frayed_Knot wrote: »

over on postcodelottery there s a special offer today re magazine subscriptions, go to loyalty offer and scroll down.
http://http://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/?af=true&awc=970_1449854696_9e5da3c63ff513c57da0e300ccfeecb2 and if you try to leave the page, will come back with a code/voucher for 15% off:D
also an £8.00 bonus. If you haven't joined here's my link,
http://freepostcodelottery.com/?ref=363425
Even f you don't need a magazine subscription you can always join free postcode lottery:D

Thanks for heads up :money:

Karmacat

SueP19 wrote: »

Long commute, I was doing 500 miles a week but DD left on saturday so mileage being cut to 205 :T:T:T OH a lorry driver so I have the miles per gallon on all time and try to optimise

No he is not on board, well if I spend money he moans but quote "I don't have much" and "no point making plans as something always happens" To be fair he has got better these last few years, funny when we had more bills than money coming in he would want to splash out but know he is always saying how much and watch it. Plan is to OP for 6 months and then tell him


Hangs head in deep shame, this has been a constant problem and OH does not help, he sees the volume of food directly related to how much money we have, only this last year has he accepted "yellow sticky" stuff
Thanks Karmacat :beer:

You're welcome! I just bolded some of your response - look how much you've done! Plus with your mileage dropping anyway after DD's left, that'll help.

If OH likes to see volumes of food, what about setting up a storecupboard of stuff you'd use anyway? It doesn't challenge his thinking, true, but it might help short term - it's always good to have stock of flour, sugar, cooking oil, tins of baked beans and if you've also got the herbs, spices and flavourings, then you could cook more from scratch and bring down the cost of what you're actually eating?

SueP19

Karmacat wrote: »

You're welcome! I just bolded some of your response - look how much you've done! Plus with your mileage dropping anyway after DD's left, that'll help.

If OH likes to see volumes of food, what about setting up a storecupboard of stuff you'd use anyway? It doesn't challenge his thinking, true, but it might help short term - it's always good to have stock of flour, sugar, cooking oil, tins of baked beans and if you've also got the herbs, spices and flavourings, then you could cook more from scratch and bring down the cost of what you're actually eating?

You know that is a good idea, he is always moaning "nothing in" It stems from his childhood, I had planned to make from scratch more now DD has gone, she is a pasta/pizza girl and he is a gravy king..............so cheap stew meat is a great option. I do need to start meal planning again too, just been such long days these last few months I have let my petticoat slip to my knees :rotfl::rotfl:

steveouk

Interesting thread.

If I may make 2 quick suggestions.

I see that your home phone and internet services come to £23 a month. We are with ee home phone on a very good package and it costs us about £6.50 a month for both. We paid our line rental up front and also got a good deal by going into the local ee store.

Also I notice that you pay £16 a month for prescription medication. If there are medications that you need prescribed every month then it may be cheaper to pay out for a pre payment certificate. A one year certificate costs £104 working out at £6.66 a month, saving almost £10 a month.
Factoring in the cost of line rental paid upfront you would save about £11 a month on your phone and internet plus the £10 from prescriptions - £21.

The link for prescription certificates is:
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Pages/PPC.aspx

SueP19

steveouk wrote: »

Interesting thread.

If I may make 2 quick suggestions.

I see that your home phone and internet services come to £23 a month. We are with ee home phone on a very good package and it costs us about £6.50 a month for both. We paid our line rental up front and also got a good deal by going into the local ee store.

Also I notice that you pay £16 a month for prescription medication. If there are medications that you need prescribed every month then it may be cheaper to pay out for a pre payment certificate. A one year certificate costs £104 working out at £6.66 a month, saving almost £10 a month.
Factoring in the cost of line rental paid upfront you would save about £11 a month on your phone and internet plus the £10 from prescriptions - £21.

The link for prescription certificates is:
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Pages/PPC.aspx

We are very rural so we are very limited on internet providers, were with EE but they came in at £32. I will be looking into paying yearly as the next lot of renewals come round to see if I can shave it more it would certainly be worth a shot, my £23 is full price so am going to hit the PO with "how much to keep me" tone lolol

I have looked at prescription certs before and are only cost effective if you have two or more prescrip each (£8.66 per month) This is for one each.

Thanks for looking and I will try again with the internet because it does bug the cr*p out of me as our download is only about 700kb :eek::eek::eek: