living the 'high' life: £100 per week

fieldend

A bad hair day today... weight crept back up, although I'm not really eating much, and I'm low carb-ing a bit.

Haven't had lunch yet as I'm working from home and I was in back to back calls from 11 until now. My plan to run at lunchtime was ruined because of the calls, and it's also been raining heavily so even if I didn't have any calls.... Bad migraine now, but need to finish two reports for work (and eat something too). Not feeling like cooking anything for dinner, so the idea of take out appeals, which should be a no-no.

Money-wise not much to report, NSD today but my upcoming grocery bill is over £60, although I kept cutting from it. I'm clearly doing something wrong. After setting aside all money for regular expenses, I'm at £275 left until the 25th, which is less than my ~ £100 projected per week. In fact I'm £75 short on that, as it's 3.5 weeks until the 25th.

I feel like shutting down my laptop and going to sleep for the rest of the day.

Arrrggghhh!

fieldend

Back to the diary. Haven't ordered any food in the end, cooked chicken pasta for DD and I made myself a salad with the leftover chicken and whatever greens I was able to find in my fridge. So the day stayed NSD... but I'm still feeling low energy and depressed, I wish I could call in sick for the rest of the week (or perhaps month?)

On a + note, I checked bank and credit accounts today, and found a payee reference pointing to an old bank account of mine I forgot about, with Metrobank. Logged in and found £17 in the account. I opened this account several years ago for travelling in Europe (no withdrawal fees)... but I barely used it and completely forgot about it. Transferred the cash to my Barclays account and called to close the account.

fieldend

Hello hello!

I've been neglecting my diary lately, very busy with work and well, life! Good things and bad things to report. I've restarted yoga and went running a couple of times this week, and went swimming today (while DD had her swim lesson - she's moved up a level, happy for her). I lost more than 1kg in one week, not too shabby. Dropped under 70kg earlier this week and stayed there.

Money-wise can't say I'm so pleased. There are 3 weeks left until pay day and I'm once again £100 short. I budgeted £100 per week and I'm at £197 (not counting DD's swim lessons costs which I set aside in a savings account). I ate out twice this week one dinner and one lunch. In my defence, I didn't know I was going to pay for the dinner. A friend of mine was promoted and she invited me to dinner to celebrate.. a couple of months ago I was promoted and invited her to dinner and paid for her meal, but I guess we have different views on things, as she didn't feel like doing the same. I'm not British so sometimes I'm unsure about etiquette... but anyways it doesn't matter, I'm still happy for her (and £30 short... as we did dinner and then some drinks and so on). Also splurged on books for my DD and for myself... and frames for my DD's glasses, and so on. I'm now thinking that, on top of the £100, I also need a contingency fund, like £100 per month or something like that, to allow me to stick to the budget.

On the + side though, next pay slip will be much higher - I got promoted in January and they've only gotten around to processing that now for March payroll, so there's 2 months worth of back pay in there - of that half will go to my Tesco credit card, and the other half probably to cover this month's deficit, pay for piano and dance for my DD, but also support extra expenses (grocery, bus tickets) as my mum is coming over to look after my DD during the Easter break.

The rest of this weekend will be NSD and mostly indoors... hope to get some free time tomorrow to go for a yoga session. I have 24 session left on my yoga card, which is enough to last until July or August.

Dating-wise nothing much to report. I hope to get out a bit more when my mum is here... also my ex has finally moved back in town and we'll need to arrange some sort of a regular schedule for DD to stay with him. I'm hoping for at least one night every week, like we've done in the past when he lived close by.

fieldend

Quick check-in from me, just paid £500 to one of my credit cards and cleared it. One more credit card to be paid off, but the balance is £8500 - all of it at 0% promo rate until May 2017. Hope to clear it by Christmas though.

I'm celebrating tonight with virtual :beer: (this forum needs a wine icon ) It's been two weeks since I sealed the envelope with all my credit cards in it... I still can't believe I'm doing this, it's such a good feeling not to touch credit, not even the overdraft.

Health-wise this week's diary looks good: running on Tue or Friday and Sunday (Sunday with DD who outruns me), yoga on Wednesday, and swimming on Sat (while DD has her lesson). Yoga is already paid until August. Swimming is only £4, and running is totally free

Food: no eating out this week and next week, to make up for last week's sins, and to ensure I have enough money to live on until pay day on the 25th. I must not touch the overdraft!

Golightly72

Well done, that must feel great, and well done on not touching the cards too. :T

fieldend

Thank you. I really hope I can keep that envelope sealed. Overdraft is even more challenging, as it's right there available in my bank account... currently the first £300 is fee/interest-free, but it will drop to £200 fee-free thanks to Barclays 'generosity'.

I've decided to skip the main grocery shopping this week, use whatever is in the cupboards and just top up if needed. And do a 'no spend weekend' except for swimming session and buying bread. And do packed lunches at work for the rest of the week.

I'm so looking forward to pay day this month... and hopefully I can keep the overdraft intact.

fieldend

Hello diary.

It's been a really busy week but I'm not complaining. Credit cards are still in the sealed envelope, but my bank balance is dangerously low, currently at £99 - which is supposed to last until the 24th. All bills were paid, so this is only food and other living expenses. I doubt I'm going to make it unless I dip into my overdraft. My grocery spend next week will be higher as I skipped the one this week, and more importantly, my mum is coming over next week so I need to buy more food. I've got enough food to last until Friday when she's arriving, but I don't see how the £99 will last until the 24th. I need to buy one week worth of groceries, and a small present, and other bits and pieces that always seem to appear out of thin air.

Weight-wise I'm doing fantastically well, was able to cut carbs and I'm now hovering around 68kg so that's more than 3 kg lost in 3 weeks, right on target! I'm also very active (well, for my standards), have been doing yoga 1-2 times per week now,1 swim per week, a bit of lunch time running, some cycling this weekend, a lot of walking... and it shows, my energy levels are up, I'm getting plenty of sleep, and my skin doesn't look dull any more! I'm also drinking tons of water, and haven't been out in a while, so no alcohol. I'm not a big drinker anyway, I never buy alcohol at home unless someone's coming over, but I do like to drink wine when I go out (I'm a cheap date as my friends say, only two glasses and I'm very happy ).

Dating wise... not much actual progress BUT I met a very interesting guy on Tinder - it hasn't happened in a while - and we're meeting next week for coffee.

Have a good week everyone!

fieldend

Looks like a 'good' start of the week. My boiler broke down. It started displaying error messages over the weekend, it stopped working, but I unplugged it from the power source and plugged back in, and it worked. Until today, that is.

Luckily I have home emergency cover that I added last year on top of my contents insurance. They're sending an engineer tomorrow morning to see what's wrong with it... fingers crossed they'll be able to fix it, it's not an old boiler, it's not even 4 years old. There's no excess on the policy so in theory I won't pay anything.

Fingers crossed I don't have to dip into my emergency savings. And hope tonight won't be too cold, the flat is well insulated.

fieldend

Hi all, I'm back after a long absence.. life's getting crazy. My boiler was fixed and I didn't have to pay anything, I put an insurance claim in - it pays having home emergency insurance. Spending a bit more at the moment because my mother is here visiting, but that's fine as I'm not paying for holiday childcare so it's OK.

In other news, some good, some bad, some to dos.. I need to redo my SOA as some of my expenses changed.

• childcare fees will increase from September by £60-£80 per month, not good. Long story, I cannot avoid it... and I need to find a childminder
• energy bill went down from £65 to £55 per month due to provider switch
• service charge went down from over £70 to approx £60
• one of my credit cards is completely paid off and I'm left with only one, Tesco at £8.4K.
• need to start saving pots... one for citizenship fees (2-yr timeframe counting from now), one for my flat leasehold extension (this one's long term so say 5-yr counting from now), and one bathroom fund (I hope to do this from bonus money BUT I still want to start a small fund).
• on the to do list - a big one - my mortgage deal is ending in July and I need to find another fix rate with my current lender (could switch from 1 May) OR if I can, re-mortgage to another lender (I doubt it because of my credit card debt...). A lot of research needs to be done.

On the weight front I'm doing fab (if I say so). I'm being very active physically and hovering around 66-67kgs which is a good weight loss, not too sudden. I'm low carbing but not 100%, I'm just avoiding sugar, bread, and potatoes... eating a bit of rice one in a while.

Dating-wise things are improving. I'm seeing a guy I met on Tinder, we're on the 3rd date and it's not bad at all... a bit complicated with kids and all (we both have kids and out of sync schedules) but we're trying to rearrange it all

That's all for now, I'll check back in later this week as I redo my SOA.

bellevie

Aside from the childcare increase, that is a nice update!


Well done - and good luck with the dating