Lemons to Lemonade!!

doingitanyway

I agree brizzledfw I want to repay my debt more than anything too, that's why I'm here. I think the 'because I'm worth it' mentality is a modern scourge and I fight it, I really do...:o
Happy Easter MSE folk
DIA x

basketcase

Hi HJ and all.

Love the L'Oreal moments!

We need an MSE upgrade. To show expensive doesn't always mean better...

How about 'No need to buy it because you're worth better'? :money:

Or perhaps 'You're worth it but is buying this?'

brizzledfw

basketcase wrote: »

Hi HJ and all.

Love the L'Oreal moments!

We need an MSE upgrade. To show expensive doesn't always mean better...

How about 'No need to buy it because you're worth better'? :money:

Or perhaps 'You're worth it but is buying this?'

Yep BC...I'll take both of those lines if I may

basketcase

brizzledfw wrote: »

Yep BC...I'll take both of those lines if I may

Hi brizzle.

Feel free...

Hopefuljoy

Well typical me! I got really excited about "putting myself out there" and then got an attack of the collywobbles about it all and didn't post!!

So here I am and how has it been? Well, I seem to have turned into a 1940s housewife. It's the Easter hols and being a divorced teacher and mum to DD I finally have the time to parent and financially plan! Yesterday I decided I didn't have the money to pay for a fencer after the storms. Truth to tell my bank account really decided but we'll draw a veil over that one.... So £31 and a lot of swearing later and me and DD had replaced it ourselves. Girl power!!

Of course then DD had a shower and then the bathroom floor flooded into the kitchen......... no comment!!! So another '£15 and I am now fully armed and dangerous with tile grout and silicone. I will never surrender!

In between all this domestic mayhem I have started batch cooking to save money as well. In my freezer are now; 8 portions homemade mushroom soup, four portions spaghetti Bolognese (a cat got two portions as they were cooling!), and eight portions lasagne. I've also frozen twelve homemade burgers.

As you can see there's a heavy reliance on mince so far but everything was bought at Li$ls within my £35 per week budget for all food and domestic shopping so I'm quite chuffed.

Tomorrow I am making twice baked cheese souffles to freeze (6 portions) and 8 portions of carrot and coriander soup. I am on a mission!!

My goal is to fill my freezer for the coming half term which is seven and a half weeks so DD and I have all our evening meals sorted. Then we only have to take a meal out in the morning to defrost for the evening. That should save us all the money we waste going go sainsbobs when we can't be bothered.

I am feeling angelic:A but also tired!!!! So for now goodnight and see you soon. I shall post my statement of affairs asap!!

juliejim

Sounds like you've made a really good start and will be all organised for going back to school.
Well done on the fence girl power!

Jue

please-let-me-be-lucky

Well done you for fixing the fence! I wouldn't have known where to start . Xx

brizzledfw

Excellent news!! Well done you two...great role model for your DD too in just getting on with stuff...am impressed...:j

Have a great half term and talk of all that scrumptious food is making me hungry....wanders off to look for yet another croissant..

Hopefuljoy

Hello wonderful visitors! It's so nice of you to drop in and offer encouragement as I trundle on through my money saving journey. :j

I promised a state of affairs so here goes..... everything is per calender month based on my CAP UK budget so some numbers might seem a bit random.:rotfl:

Income Job - £1545
Child benefit - £ 80
Child support - £ 248

Total £1849

Outgoings

Mortgage int only £247 (need to start paying far more to pay off)
Council tax £120
Gas/Elec £ 58
TV Licence £ 12
Water £ 47
Mobile phone x 2 £ 46
Internet/phone £ 22
Buildings/contents £ 12
Food and cleaning £160
Clothes pcm £ 16
Contact lens £ 10
Dentist £ 2
Bank account od £ 6
Haircuts £ 9
Diesel £108
MOT £ 4
Vehicle maintain £ 22
Vehicle tax £ 15
Vehicle insurance £ 21
School Trips £ 5
DD Allowance £ 5
Cats/Dog meds £ 16
Dog insurance £ 14
Dog grooming £ 8
Amazon Prime £ 7
Christmas £ 20
Birthdays £ 20
Holidays £ 42
Life Insurance £ 26
Charity £ 25
Car loan £ 125
HMRC £ 55
Credit Card £ 25
Dad Loan £ 50
Home imp £ 50

Total budgeted outgoings

£1430

Surplus pcm £ 419

Now this all looks fine so far and I should feel really pleased, however!! All those L'Or!al moments erode what's left over and I regularly go into overdraft by £200 pcm. My YNAB shows a more accurate picture but I think I'd be writing it out for hours!!:T:rotfl:

As you'll see I've got a CC and a car loan which I want to pay off asap. The CC is 0% until September '16 and I'm making minimum payments then transferring it to another 0% until I've paid off the car loan. At the moment it is £975.

To my shame I have no idea what the outstanding balance on my car loan is so I'm going to ring up on Monday and update my sig with the figure. However, to redeem myself I did pay off an extra £250 this month!:A

It's really weird writing this all out for an audience!! Very exposing but quite cathartic. Now I need to get my act together and start to seriously moneysave.

My goals in this order are.....

1 Pay off car loan and make overpayments where possible
2 Pay off credit card once loan gone
3 Finish paying the tax credit overpayment (their mistake years ago and still paying for it!) in November this year then divert the money to loan repayments.
4 Once those have gone start overpaying mortgage to clear in 15 years maximum. when my official teaching retirement age is. Ideally I would prefer to pay this off in 10 years and retire at 60. It currently stands at 94500 so this seems an impossibility!!

That's the financial side all revealed. I am also overweight and not especially fit so my goals are to shed two stone and go dog walking three times per week for starters with the aim of meeting target weight by my 50th birthday in September. One thing I won't try to tackle is my depression meds as I've tried that before without success. It was a disaster!! I treat the tablets like a diabetic would insulin and am happy sticking with them. Life sometimes gets very stressful for me and I would really struggle otherwise. Also it's not a great time as my Mum has just been given a terminal diagnosis and she needs me fully functioning so I can support her and Dad with my two sisters. We've become a really tight family unit over the last few years after a rocky decade and a half when I was married to a domestic abuser. They hardly saw me and since I left him it's been overall great but with some dodgy readjustment moments. Anyhow, enough of all that!! You don't need me wittering on!

I'm off to any early bed now and hope I haven't bored you rigid. Nite nite!!:D

Hopefuljoy

Good morning all! I hope MSE land finds everyone well.

I am having a slump today and am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I've seriously overspent this month so far and am reaping the rewards in the form of having £66 pounds per week left to cover food, petrol and DD allowance......... it's doable but hardly pleasant and leaves absolutely nothing for emergencies... and it turns out the bathroom issue is more complicated than I thought. I had a bath this am thinking I'd tackle the grouting and silicone later today. To my absolute horror water is still coming down the kitchen wall so it seems the leak is under the bath itself!!!!!:eek::(

I suspect that some hair clearing Mr Muscle type stuff I got at DS recommendation has damaged a seal. It was called MELT and I think it has!!!!! I am going to try to tackle it myself as I can't go to my parents for more money. It's humiliating although they do have a lot of it and have been very good to me. I can't wait til pay day on 24th as it will have caused too much damage by then. I really hate myself today for being such a prat overspending on rubbish and wish I didn't have a wobbly brain.

As Beanielou says I shall keep on plodding and things will right themselves. I think I am overreacting because of Mum's illness and there are souls with far more on their plate than a slightly leaky bath!!!!

I've realised that I seriously misrepresented my DDs allowance in my statement of affairs. You must think I am a really stingy mother as I recorded she had £5 allowance per month! It's actually £5 per week.:A DD is wonderful, she looks after her cousin twice a week for three hours and she's landed herself a great weekend job at ***bucks which is only a mile away. She's also doing her GCSEs this summer and then she's going to join my school twenty minutes away as we have a sixth form. I will be teaching her as well!!! Can't wait.

I work four days per week as that's when I'm at my best and able to do really well at my job. The day of per week allows me to regroup and I really appreciate it. The headteacher was lovely when I asked to reduce my hours and said he was only going to allow it as I am excellent. That gave me a much needed boost as one of the torments with a wobbly brain is the occasional notion that I've failed at everything.

Sorry folks! You don't tune in here for self pity so I shall shake myself out of it immediately!

Today I have MSE plans as follows.

* Take the old fence panel to the dump together with a parasol that was destroyed by storm Katie.
* Take £25 cash out and do the weekly shop at L$dl. My parents and sisters are becoming more and more impressed with what I can get there for a fraction of what they spend!!
* See if I can get my balance of loan off their website and let you all know what it is.
* Calculate the 1% challenge amounts to do to pay off everything asap.
*Investigate what the sealed pot challenge is. I saw it on Sun Addict's thread and don't have a clue but it seems really good.:rotfl:

I have been reading Sun Addicts thread from the start over the last 48 hours and she is amazing!!!!!!!!:T:T Am going to follow her and post as she is fast becoming an idol for me. I have no clue how she has managed so far. I'm on page 75 out of 148 and can't stop reading. Then I'm going to read PLMBL's thread all the way through as she is already a hero of mine. :AThere are such amazing people on here!

If anyone knows anything about fixing leaks under a bath do let me know. I'm going to investigate the hinterweb as well but everything is helpful.

Have a really lovely day in the sun if you have it!

:cool: