I’m taking control of my life, now.

boxofpaws

Just quickly logging spends - £35.98 petrol.

There are some more that I owe a friend for some washing powder and tomoatoes but not sure what yet

117pauline

It's strange, isn't it, once we start paying attention to our money situation, we seem to come up with different ideas to solve our problems.

Personally, I would build an emergency fund then hit the credit cards as they would concern me too. That extra money will give you a bit of leeway so that will make your budget more sustainable over the long term.

And perhaps, add in a little treat budget to help you along the debt-free journey

Take care honey
Pauline

boxofpaws

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

If you can afford that £200 each month - yes! If you need it to build your emergency fund - no. Once your emergency fund reaches 6 months bills, you could start overpaying by £200 per month (or more, if your consumer debt has gone by then).

6 months bills!:eek:. I neeeeed to see the big number go down

117pauline wrote: »

It's strange, isn't it, once we start paying attention to our money situation, we seem to come up with different ideas to solve our problems.

Personally, I would build an emergency fund then hit the credit cards as they would concern me too. That extra money will give you a bit of leeway so that will make your budget more sustainable over the long term.

And perhaps, add in a little treat budget to help you along the debt-free journey

Take care honey
Pauline

Thanks Pauline.

I like the idea of a treat budget but I do have a feeling that my life is one long treat

boxofpaws

Quick catch up

Good things:j

• I am getting a bonus of £2.5k (before tax)
• Got a payrise of 3%. Shoud be about £55 extra per month
• Expenses for trip to other office - £20
• Husband overtime of 5 hours this week - £55
• Still logging spends
• work is going well
• well stocked up on just about everything (ie freezer is full, lots of cat food, dw tablets, washing powder, wine)

Bad things:exclamati:exclamati

• Irritated to find the the stepchild spent the £50 we gave him because he had run out of money on an Indian takeaway for him and his friends (we havent had a takeaway in ages because I cant justify the cost)
• Council tax has gone up (£8), as has sky (£3.50), and water (£1) and bt (£3) and even tv licence has gone up a few pence. My payrise is ebbing away.

All things aside, we are pleased with the way things are going, and we are going to have a Chinese takeaway tonight to celebrate my payrise


Saintliness 5/10

Drawingaline

I received my water bill today, £5 increase, council tax £15 a month increase, sky, going up etc etc. It's depressing, especially as I have all April's bills logged in ynab and going to have to rejig them :mad:

And I, to would be fuming at the stepchilds thoughtlessness. Although being nice to friends is a good quality I suppose :rotfl:

redofromstart

You must be pleased with that bonus. Well done you :A

boxofpaws

Drawingaline wrote: »

I received my water bill today, £5 increase, council tax £15 a month increase, sky, going up etc etc. It's depressing, especially as I have all April's bills logged in ynab and going to have to rejig them :mad:

And I, to would be fuming at the stepchilds thoughtlessness. Although being nice to friends is a good quality I suppose :rotfl:

He wasn't being nice to his friends. I was :cool:

redofromstart wrote: »

You must be pleased with that bonus. Well done you :A

I am pleased, btu I had secretly thought it might be £2k after tax, and was kind of banking on it. Serves me right for assuming.:p

boxofpaws

I've just totted up my spends so I am adding them into the diary. This is 16/02 - 17/03 - 1 - 2 days shorter than typical month.

house 10
toiletries 31.53
groceries 297.4
petrol 108.32
pet food 20
entertainment 192
birthdays and gifts 107.5
stepchildren 100
cash 20

This month £886 on all cash and card spends. This is about £150 than I put in my previous projection/spreadsheet. Its not a budget, it's just what we spend. I don't think I know how to budget. I don't know if I need to right now. I a not sure how typical the last 4 weeks have been, I certainly feel like we have spent more than usual on birthday, presents, giving money away and entertainment than normal but I suspect I will probably think this every month.


I will do a proper SOA once the wage rise has come through and we have the new mortgage but here is is in its very roughest form, all rounded up

Income - £4000

Mortgage and bills - £1500
Annual bills -£500 (this includes cars and bike, holiday, birthdays and Christmas)
Cash spends - £1000 (rounded up)
Debt payments - £1000

KxMx

I usually say give a spending diary a couple of months, then you can see what is typical and what isn't, and budget accordingly.

As for stepchild, perhaps remember that the next time they ask for/you're tempted to offer money.

You have significant debt and i think you are generous to be giving out cash gifts in the first place. If that money was being spent on essentials then maybe it'd be different.

Suffolk_lass

If you want to learn to budget, I agree you need to track. I think there is a bit of a spreadsheet tracking process to go through. Set up your categories and then track every spend in a month in each category. You will see where your savings can be made after a couple of months of just tracking. Then if you want to, you can drive costs down a bit (I only do this to try and mitigate inflation now). The reason I say do it in a spreadsheet rather than finding an app is so you actually monitor and measure it - then it starts to matter, iyswim

Re your emergency pot, if the £200 mortgage saving is too much, you could use the Tilly Tidy amounts to build it. It just means your disposable income reduces by those rounding down amounts.