Getting worse before it gets better...

Claree__x

Thanks alice_kate, I still can't really believe it haha!

Claree__x

Morning everyone[/no one!], me again. Was studying yesterday so laptop was off all day so no time to update. Off to do my banking now before I start work...which I officially started 40 mins ago, oops!

Eek. Problems, problems, problems! So on Monday night we were having a look at Vegas hotels 'cause that's where we're thinking of going. On Booking.com it said it was a book now with free cancellation so I thought right okay, let's book it and then we can decide later 'cause it was a really good deal. Booked 3 different hotels and it turns out they've all taken a payment from my card! Total £374.70 :eek: I've cancelled all of the bookings 'cause we were changing the dates so I just need to figure out if I can get that money back, not the stress that I need this morning!! Hopefully it's just a pre-authorisation and it'll go back onto my available balance in the next couple of days but that'll teach me not to do that again! Anything else I've booked with booking.com has been fine - you just pay when you get there! Excuse me while I stress the !!!! out!

The majority of our bills have now come off so I've a better idea of where we are for the month [excluding the disaster above!]

OH Phone - £35
Lottery - £8 [Cancel?]
Bank Acc Fee - £12.95 [Should be last one]
Spotify - £4.99
Audible - £3.99
Sky - £52.40
TOTAL - £117.33

So this month [my month runs 26th to 26th, haha!] I have decided that I'll buy no clothes and no makeup. So no avon. No bargains. Nothing. Not sure how well that'll work, hah!

We went for dinner last night on a groupon voucher that we'd bought last month - it wasn't very good and still cost us £20 after we got starters and drinks! Urgh. Always good to try somewhere new I suppose. Planning to stick to one meal out/takeaway per week. I know that's probably loads for normal people but if you check my spending diary last month you'll realise it's nothing to us lol!

alice_kate_2

I can't believe booking.com took the payment! We've booked with them so many times and that's never happened - including to Vegas...

Hopefully you get your money back.

I know what you mean about one takeaway/meal out feeling like not much - we'd easy do at least 3/4 times a week sometimes so that's a major thing we're cutting back on :rotfl:

Claree__x

Checked with booking.com and they've confirmed that it will be refunded but might take a couple of days - which freaks me out a bit. Spoke to H about it and he pointed out that we have money to cover it and it's not the end of the world but I was planning on things going smoothly this month!!

We have £255 in the bank with £118 still to come off...panic! It doesn't do much for my anxiety - haha! £375 to go back in takes it back up to a reasonable amount - maybe it'll stop me spending so much! Child benefit will come in at some point this month - £82 odds, not sure when that is.

Claree__x

Morning!

So yesterday I nipped into the supermarket for some bits & bobs for dinner/packed lunches and a costume for world book day. I know the MSE way would be to make something but honestly I forgot about it 'till last night and my craft skills leave a lot to be desired anyway!

Tiny one wasn't well yesterday - she's caught a cold and is all stuffed up/feeling sorry for herself so we had a bit of a rubbish night. I have an exam next week which usually induces some stress based insomnia, add to that a poorly toddler and a snoring husband and things are not good. Took tiny one to nursery this morning where she had her breakfast and then was sick all over herself and had to be picked up - thankfully we'd bargained for this so OH had the car since he works a lot closer than I do.

Biggest issue now is that she can't go to nursery tomorrow either. OH is off in the afternoon, which is fine, but the morning....I don't know! OH suggested that I ask to work from home but I don't think that'd be fair since I wouldn't get any actual work done with a poorly child and the 2 others in the office have a lunch meeting booked for 12 and I wouldn't get here 'till 1. I could take an emergency half day but I've already been off a day and a half this week && I'm off 2 next week for my exam so I don't want to take liberties. My stepdad has offered to take her tonight and into tomorrow which would solve the problems but I feel guilty about it 'cause she's my baby and she'll want to be with me when she's sick...but I really need to study as well! Urgh, being a mummy is hard!

Claree__x

Urgh, what a day. Had a blazing row with my boss which involved me walking out of the office in tears. He eventually apologised but I was so, so angry. I ended up speaking to a recruitment consultant last night, possibly a knee jerk reaction but we'll see what comes of it.

My money for the hotels has gone back in - lost £4.53 in foreign transaction charges which is a bit annoying but not much I can do about it, at least I've got my money back!

Bills still to come off
Lottery - £8
Bank Acc Fee - £12.95 [Should be last one]
Spotify - £4.99
Audible - £3.99
Sky - £52.40
TOTAL - £82.33

About £500 in the account at the moment so doing okay. No huge expenditure expected - said I don't want anything for mothers day and I'll pick up some cheapies for my mum and MIL, neither of them really go in for mothers day anyway but it's nice to get a wee something.

I'm going to do a meal plan today and put it into mysupermarket, print off the list and take it to lidl, cross of anything that I can get there and go get the balance at asda. Or I might do an online tesco shop...I know I shouldn't but it's just so. much. easier!

Claree__x

Been neglecting this a bit lately as had an exam yesterday that took up most of my focus this week. I think it went well but won't know for another 6 weeks so really just need to put it out of my head until then!

And now back to real life! Exam time is crazy 'cause it really does take all of my free time and focus so things get neglected. Really rather looking forward to getting home tonight and sorting the washing/ironing/doing a general tidy! Never thought I'd see the day, haha!

Sorted my spreadsheet this morning and it's all looking okay. A bit more spent on food lately than I would have liked to but again, it happens around exam time.

Bills still to come off
Bank Acc Fee - £12.95 [Should be last one]
Spotify - £4.99
TOTAL - £17.94

I might get away with the bank account fee as we're switching to first direct on Monday - I'm a bit nervous as I've never switched bank accounts before but fingers crossed it will be as seamless as they say it will be...I'm not holding my breath!

There's just over £200 in the account and exactly 2 weeks until payday. I was hoping to put away an 'extra' £100 this month but I don't think it's going to happen - I need to do a proper food shop and the diesel light came on this morning so that's at least £100 for those two things.

Spending diary wise we're doing okay on the areas I wanted to work on.
- Cash: We've taken less out in 'general' cash and I know where it's gone this month for the most part.
- My Spending: Okay it's higher than last month but it's almost exclusively on getting my hair done which was my Mother's Day present and not something that I do on a monthly basis. I've cut right down on little spends, though, and my no-makeup, no-clothes month is going well so far.
- Eating Out: Less than £50 this month so far. I know we're only half way through but it was £255 last month! Really pleased with this.
- Food: Looks like it will be roughly the same as last month, which I'm okay with.

All in all, it could be worse considering I've really taken my eye off the ball this last week.

Claree__x

So I've been totally neglecting both this diary and my spending diary and generally keeping an eye on things - mostly it's 'cause the change of bank account has really confused me and I'm not sure where everything is! All I know is we've less money than I thought we did - eek! Away to sort my spreadsheets now and see where everything is.

Eek. I don't even want to look at it - haha!
Negatives are my spending this month; it's all been on my hair and makeup for the ball so I can see where the cuts can be made [pardon the pun!] and it's not a monthly expense anyway but it's still pretty high!

Eating Out I'm quite pleased to say we've halved from last month which is a big bonus! It's still higher than a normal human's eating out bill but it's going the right direction. Conversely we've spent more on buying food [ie. supermarket] but not proportionally && it's not a bad things really - grocery bill is still fairly reasonable.

Present spend down a little too which is nice - still relatively high but that's what happens with big families and we can afford it so I like to do it.

Also - I've done super well on my no clothes/no makeup! I've not bought a single thing. My only spends this month have been on hair/makeup for the ball, getting my hair done for a mothers day present & cash for lunches/general spending [£70] and 1 audible book at £2.99 - I'd say that's doing pretty well! If I moved my hair spend into presents [as it was technically for mothers day...] my spending wouldn't actually be that bad! I'm going to attempt to carry it over to next month as well && see the results from no salon visits and no spends.

All in all it has been a fairly positive month this far. I did have to move £100 out of our savings back into the current account but we're still saving £650 this month - and we usually save nothing! - as well as paying £350 towards the house we don't even live at any more, I really should stop beating myself up about it!

Claree__x

Happy Monday everyone. Urgh, is there such a thing?

So the switch from RBS to First Direct seems to have gone okay. There was an overdraft left on the RBS account of £80ish which I tried to clear on Friday but because of the switch process anything paid into the account gets transferred out...so it just bounced back to where it came from! I phoned this morning and they gave me a link to pay it so hopefully that account can now be closed and forgotten about.

Was a bit of a spendy weekend - OH went out on Friday night with his work colleagues and we took monster child to a reptile house effort with our friends and their daughter but I think that only cost about £25 all in, including lunch, and we had a good day so it's definitely worth it.

I had a job interview last week that could see a rise in my salary if I both get offered the job and take it, haven't quite decided if it's what I want to do or not - I don't want to say that the salary might swing it but unfortunately that is the way of the world!

Claree__x

So today is a good day.
- It's payday! Expected that it'd be tomorrow since 'official' payday is 26th but they must have paid early due to the Easter weekend. Not complaining!
- WE GOT AN OFFER ON THE HOUSE!! I'm so super excited about this it's not even funny. It's around £1k less than what we 'wanted' but we're more than happy to take it at this point considering it's costing us about £600/month to keep it! The buyer is completing on their own property on 1st April and wants to move asap so hopefully will be a quick turnaround with no chain at either side. Super, super excited.

It means we have to sort out the negative equity, though. There's about £92k owing on the mortgage and the offer is for £74k which leaves £18k. Plus about £2k for the solicitor and estate agent fees and we'll be walking away with £10k debt each [us & husband's cousin]. FIL has offered to loan us the money which is obviously the preferably option but we'll need to speak to him to see if the offer still stands and how liquid his assets are if the buyer really does want to move quickly. We can get a loan if not - £10,000 over 5 years is around £200/month so already less than what we were paying for the house ongoing.

Otherwise - the job I interviewed for came back and wanted to offer me the job but with a £4k pay cut...yeh, not ideal! Told them thanks but no thanks. Not even just on the basis that I can't afford to take that cut (I probably COULD, if I had to) but I think it's a bit cheeky to even ask!

Spending diary done for the month and I'm pleased with the areas we managed to cut down on. It could have been better and I'll work on that next month but we're going in the right direction!