Single 20 something mum - time to kick myself up the bum!

Bobarella

Glad you had a good birthday!

timetobefrugal

Thankyou Bobarella

Had a great weekend at the show although costly! Taking my sister out for lunch tomorrow for her birthday which takes up the rest of my spare money but have no plans for the rest of the month so should be fine. Next month is tight too (my daughter's father gave me a lump sum last year to cover maintenance until mid April this year and I spent it on car repairs :rotfl:) but not much planned. I'm going to see the weeknd in Birmingham but hotel, ticket and train ticket all booked and paid for ages ago so just need to budget food money. Also my step brother's birthday so will send him some money in a card. Will be a frugal month that's for sure!

Looking forward to when I'm not saving £80 a month towards my best friend's wedding as that'll free up more money to chuck at the debt! Should have saved enough by August and plan to continue to save around £40 a month so I have an emergency fund.

On a plus note today is my last day at work until next Tuesday :T:T:T:T Nice long weekend for me including relaxing in a nice hot tub hope everyone is having a good week!

timetobefrugal

Well not a lot to report this week! Had a good birthday weekend for my sister, took her for some lunch and a few drinks, also celebrated sat night with a few bottles of prosecco and a hot tub :beer:. Although means my budget for the rest of this month has been eaten up and I need petrol so I'm sooooo skint until payday on 27th (hurry up Monday)!

Had a really lazy week so far feeling lethargic, think a late night at the weekend triggered it as I've been so tired and haven't exercised once this week yet. Plus I didn't get a great mark on my most recent essay, it's by all means a pass but not what I'm aiming for......so feeling bit sorry for myself in general!

Took a day off work today so nipped to aldi as house was desperate for fresh food, got some chocolate to make some rice krispy cakes so cheap play day with my daughter making those. Have seen a job I'm going to apply for, around a 3k a year pay rise and think it would be a good foot in the door for legal experience.

So goals for this week:
- Every day to be a NSD bar when I fill up with petrol
- List going out dresses that have been sat in a pile waiting to be listed on ebay
- Complete job application
- Get prep for next uni essay done
- Do the pile of ironing waiting on my cuddle chair :rotfl:

Bonus is I only have a 3 day work week this week :T:T:T

timetobefrugal

So goals for this week:
- Every day to be a NSD bar when I fill up with petrol - FAIL :rotfl:
- List going out dresses that have been sat in a pile waiting to be listed on ebay - DONE
- Complete job application - PART DONE
- Get prep for next uni essay done - PLANNED FOR TODAY
- Do the pile of ironing waiting on my cuddle chair - DONE

Got a few of my jobs done, daughter is with her dad today so I'm cracking on with my uni work. Did a balance transfer from my barclay card and closed the account the other week and surprise surprise they want to give me 37 months 0% on balance transfers :T so just got approved for £3800 limit which means I can transfer a big chunk of the only CC that I am paying interest on at the minute although there will still be over £1000 left on interest.

Feb has been a really expensive month so don't feel like I've achieved as much as I'd liked debt and savings wise but I've got my head down for March although it is mother's day and my step brother's birthday so will again be a very frugal month!

Have a LOAD of toys I need to sort out for a start, we're hardly ever here for my daughter to even play with probably a 10th of what she has! So my goal for March is to sort all of those out and list on eBay/gumtree. Any money I make from those is going to stay in my paypal and go towards her summer wardrobe.

Want to get a bookshelf for the living room and have seen a nice one for only £20 on eBay. I'm hoping I make at least that from the sale of my dresses and that'll be my treat for the month. Will update debt totals at the end of March once balance transfers are all done although with fees it will add around £65 to my total

Roll on payday tomorrow :T:T:T

timetobefrugal

So it's payday today :j :j

Had a productive day again got up first thing and listed 3 bundles of my daughter's old clothes. These are to counterbalance the £18.50 I spent last night winning a summer clothing bundle. It had me worrying all night that it wasn't budgeted for hence the productivity this morning :rotfl:

Spent £32.45 this morning on food shopping and this included 3 bulbs, a birthday card and confetti so I was very pleased with myself! I had written down a meal plan so stuck to my shopping list. Made a yummy pesto vege tart for lunch and jam tart with the leftover pastry. Just sat and ate 3 with a coffee :rotfl: Have ingredients to make nachos with fresh salsa, crustless spinach quiche, and houmous and carrot wraps for work lunch this week and plenty of other fresh bits to use with everything in my cupboard so won't need anymore food till next week :T

Back to work tomorrow and although I wish it was a nsd it's our team outing. To be fair we go to a wetherspoons so I never spend more than £10! So aim is for the rest of the week to be nsds!

Tonight it'll be get my daughter to bed, workout, do some uni work and heat up yesterday's leftovers for dinner and watch the walking dead! Got to go as apparently I have to be the beast from beauty and the beast....

timetobefrugal

Well another productive week! Didn't end up spending a penny on the work night out as my boss got the first round and my colleague paid for my dinner.

Did my weekly shop today and was pretty chuffed with myself that I only spent £19.05 and that was including 2 chocolate bunnies (as gifts) For this week's meal plan I have got the ingredients to make thai green curry, baked potato with beans and salad, stir fry with noodles and pitta pizzas. Have made some curried lentils with cauliflower steaks and mushroom gravy for tonights dinner too - leftovers will be taken to work tomorrow! Have managed to fit in a workout 2 days in a row, tackled a big pile of ironing and sold 2 bundles of kids clothes and 2 of my dresses on eBay :beer:

Also cleared out my food cupboard and made a list of things like flour yeast etc that I need to replace as was years out of date

No plans for the rest of the week or weekend coming up as have an essay to get done and money to not spend!

On to a week of work

SavingAtNumberTwo

I loved reading your thread! You are doing amazingly, your little girl must be very lucky to have a mummy like you. Hope everything is going ok with uni? I have been looking into doing my AAT's in September but this isn't accounted for in my budgets and although the course fees aren't as much as university it's still more than I will have saved. I'm in the same boat with my family, they don't know the extend of my debts and I don't want to worry them particularly my mum. My sister (18 months younger than me) asked the other day if I would recommend she got a credit card and I told her no way! Her spending habits are similar to mine and it always seems manageable and a sensible idea at the start. Also, love hearing what you're cooking, beats my spag bol I made tonight! Can I come for dinner? :ROTFL:

Good luck with everything, will definitely check in again soon!

SavingAtNumberTwo

Why do I always get the emojis wrong? Such a newbie!

timetobefrugal

I had to laugh at your emoji fail :rotfl: I think i overuse them lol!! Wish they'd create even more........:think:

Anyway thanks for popping by and thank you very much. I'm hoping by the time she's older all my debts are cleared and I can build a better life for her, first on the agenda will be saving for a little house for us. People think I'm joking but I'm determined to buy some land and build my own little micro home complete with a donkey, 2 pugs and some chickens.

Uni is challenging at times but I do enjoy it, I've been in my job 8 years so doesn't challenge my brain at all anymore. You'll never be out of a job as an accountant LOL so if you are interested in it I think it'll be a worthwhile investment. Luckily open uni is like any other and my fees just get added to my student finance loan. Although the LPC I need to do after this is 10K+ and I have no idea where I'll get that from.....And of course you can come for dinner lol! I've been a veggie for about 14 years so I have to come up with new meal ideas otherwise I get fed up and end up eating biscuits as dinner.

On the sister part, I have a sister 2 years older, no dependants, lives in her mate's house so outgoings not huge and she's in more debt than me! Neither of our parents have been good examples with money, I won't let this happen with my daughter!

Bobarella

I feel like you, I didn't have the best examples in my parents and money either. I feel sometimes I am ramming it home to my DS. But he's a regular skinflint so doing something right