£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

armchairexpert

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Looking at YNAB we are on track for our total outgoings to come in at (or even just under) £3,500 for the month, making it the second month in a row we'll do that. Given that for every month from Feb-July we were spending at least £3,900 (and often over £4,000), and I suspect that pre Feb LBM we were regularly spending another few hundred on top of that, I feel like that's massive progress, even if there is the whole lack of earning/CC issue to deal with

TOPM, your original SOA has your overall income at £3115 or so (sorry, I can't see the post and also type!) - is the difference between that amount and the actual expenditure coming entirely from your income? I.e., you actually need to earn at least £600/month on average to break even?

Treadingonplaymobil

armchairexpert wrote: »

TOPM, your original SOA has your overall income at £3115 or so (sorry, I can't see the post and also type!) - is the difference between that amount and the actual expenditure coming entirely from your income? I.e., you actually need to earn at least £600/month on average to break even?

Complicated answer coming... In Feb-July the extra spending on top of the £3,167 in our SOA came from my earnings - ie I was adding £500-1,000 from my own income to make the budgets balance (and managing to overpay the debt in some of those months too - I had a few really good months). In August and September my earnings have been more or less £0, so although our outgoings have reduced, that shortfall has been largely made up from credit card spends. So the situations is both better and worse, depending on how you look at it.

Also, we have redone our SOA to allow for extension savings, which places a slightly higher earning pressure on me, so our current SOA (which I can't accurately quote or post, as I'd have to go through and add up all my YNAB categories and I don't have time at the moment) is based on an income of £3,367 (£200 extra pm from me, which is manageable based on my annual earnings averaged out, but requires me not to overspend by a grand in the good months :eek: ). So although £3,500 is an overspend, it's actually only an overspend of £133 based on current SOA. So we are heading in the right direction to be within budget, but we still have another £133 to cut - actually looking at YNAB it's only about £85 to cut, as some of that shortfall is DH's work spends that he hasn't been reimbursed for, but I try not to notice things like that or I get blase and end up spending even more!

Hopefully that waffle makes sense!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 32: Day 6

I realised, which chatting to DH last night, that I haven't had a day or evening off work or being otherwise very busy (ie I have worked or had previous commitments all day every weekday I have childcare, every weekend day and in the evening) since the 5th of September. No wonder I'm feeling run down and knackered! Annoyingly, so much of it has been background work on the website or admin, so I only have money to show for it for tiny chunks of that, but hopefully my income will increase as a result of it in the medium term.

I love Fridays, I get to chill out with DC3 a bit - can't believe I am viewing childcare as chilling out! But she is exhausted after four days of preschool and usually just wants some quiet TV or baking or playing, so it's not exactly onerous.

to do today
1. clear laundry and ironing, rather than just turning the machine on and forgetting about it.
2. invoice for some of the work from this week.
3. make a new dentist appointment (I swear, I have never made one six months in advance that they haven't cancelled)
4. go through gifted&talented autumn course programme with DC1 and see if anything appeals - going to encourage him to only do any of the sessions if they really really appeal, as I think he feels obliged to do them and didn't especially enjoy them last time, and they're £40 a pop.
5. plan weekend work.
6. freezer raid or cook for dinner (can't even remember what's on the menu plan, must check).

to do this week
1. keep spends to a minimum while away with work. Went well, only ended up needing to buy one small meal/snack, about £8, in all the time I was away.

to do this month
1. keep the total spend for the month below £3,500 (last month was miles better than the previous average £3,900, going to try to repeat the feat). More or less on track. Ish.
2. get my new website finished and launched (crosses fingers, toes and eyes).
3. just work as much as possible and make some money back to recover the enormous shortfall that faces us this month! Going better than expected, although still need more work in to actually clear the CC

armchairexpert

That makes perfect sense! I knew you'd re-done the SOA a few times but I wasn't quite up for searching through every post. And I know that your ideal budget is less and on paper it balances, I just wasn't sure if the actual effective spend of £3500 was within your current means. It sounds like it is, when that pay-rise (this month's pregnant giraffe?) finally comes through.

Treadingonplaymobil

armchairexpert wrote: »

That makes perfect sense! I knew you'd re-done the SOA a few times but I wasn't quite up for searching through every post. And I know that your ideal budget is less and on paper it balances, I just wasn't sure if the actual effective spend of £3500 was within your current means. It sounds like it is, when that pay-rise (this month's pregnant giraffe?) finally comes through.

Pregnant giraffe made me laugh! It sort of is within current means, on average, but the overspend from the earlier part of the year means it isn't ACTUALLY, until I have another good month or two and can wipe the shortfall away. This month is shaping up well though, and fingers crossed October will continue in the same vein.

System

Sounds to me like you are doing everything you can to get more income . When your website is up and running do you envisage that bringing you lots more work ? Can people book you from the website ?

Glad you are getting a quieter day even with childcare. Today is my childcare day for DGD and DGS but I love it .

Have a good day.

Treadingonplaymobil

Cumbria_lass wrote: »

Sounds to me like you are doing everything you can to get more income . When your website is up and running do you envisage that bringing you lots more work ? Can people book you from the website ?

Glad you are getting a quieter day even with childcare. Today is my childcare day for DGD and DGS but I love it .

Have a good day.

It won't be an insta-millionaire sort of income increase, but I'm hoping it will make a noticeable difference within a couple of months. People can book me through it, and it will lead to another couple of income streams that aren't reliant on me being booked by clients (because there is an upper limit on how much client facing time I can fit into my week). My ambition (although still very much feeling my way with it all) is for it to increase my income by around £100 per month within six months, and £300 a month within a year, with a view to that increasing again once DC3 is in full time school.

Treadingonplaymobil

I know I keep posting on work income and it's (a) boring and (b) probably not very clear what on earth I'm on about, but I'm pleased to note that I've just been paid for the larger piece of work from Tuesday this week and it's covered the remainder of October's business expenses and a whopping £25 towards October's salary. First time I've had the next month's business expenses ready to go in advance since (I think) June, so that's a relief. Still unsure where to go with extra income - overpay debt or create a savings cushion - since the last attempt at building a cushion resulted on me having a massive spending spree with the cushion <shamefaced> and I'm worried about doing the same again. I mean, it was semi-essential stuff (getting the garden sorted, work clothes), but equally I wouldn't have spent it if it wasn't there. I've solved one of those problems by taking a small percentage off for work clothes before budgeting my profit, but I'm worried some other 'essential' spend like the garden will come up if we have money. Hmm. Need to think about that as and when there is actually some spare money. I think possibly I've just learned my lesson and need to have more willpower about not spending the business account cushion, but I'm still worried about it. Maybe a division, so a percentage each towards a cushion, overpaying debt, emergency fund and our spending pots so we get some kind of immediate reward. It means none of those pots will grow quickly, but at least if I have a crazy period and 'need' to spend either the emergency fund or the work cushion, there will still be something left!

Suffolk_lass

I know what you mean about the cushion. I have set myself a savings target on one of the threads on here and the competitive part of me won't let me fail. So much so that one account (the bills) was allowed to stay (within agreed limit) overdrawn for a week this month, until the refund of our insurance premium was put back because I could not bring myself to take the money out of savings to cover it. I just hope the fee/charges justify that decision.

I run ours with:

• a bills account - for standard things like direct debits, mortgage, utilities and my work stuff - my salary
• a running costs account - food, fuel, husband's credit card and his union and phone (we need a certain number of payments to earn the loyalty bonus) - his salary
• a near line savings account for our emergency cash fund, this is where I "Tilly-tidy" the rounding into
• a regular S&S ISA which receives a regular payment
• a seven year bond that I locked up some money in (earning 3.5%) that will overpay our mortgage when it matures
• a bit left in the accounts if I am budgeting for a purchase

I do move money back from the cash savings about 4 times a year but this way I have it ready - Home buildings and contents, holiday booking and paying off the %CC when it expired have been the three so far in 2017. Works for me

enthusiasticsaver

I think you need to keep a savings cushion because of your erratic income. As I recall you do not draw a regular salary from your business account but tend to dip in to it when you run short due to unexpected spends? Is that correct?

I think in your position I would try to get to the point where I could draw a regular monthly salary from the business account and work your monthly budget using that figure. If money builds up in the business that will cushion you on leaner months (like the summer months and maybe December?)

My personal preference is to have an emergency savings account and an annual bills account to cover Christmas, car expenses, holiday and house maintenance. At the moment we only have one current account as our budget is not that tight now but in the past we had two. One for bills and one for discretionary expenditure monthly.

In an ideal world you would pay a budgeted amount to the debt every month and then any residual income in the bank account at the end of the month would go as further overpayments.