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

WelshKitty85

Lovely positive post. You're making great progress. Well done!

Honeysucklelou2

A huge well done TOPM...

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 86: Day 2

Thanks all. I do feel like a total grown up with all these savings pots. Mind you, it is only the 2nd of the month and there's plenty of time for it all to go hideously wrong :rotfl: . But let's enjoy the smugness while it lasts.

Not a lot to report today, just popping in before I start getting ready for clients later this morning. Ooh, I put on my big girls pants and wrote a proposal to the people I do my contract work for, basically saying I'd like more hours and explaining what I think I can do. No idea whether it will come to anything, but at least I've put it out there. What comes of that will really dictate my future seeing clients or not, so I'm a bit nervous about what they come back with. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I also wrote another post for my website, and my social media following for it is slooowwwly inching up, so I'm hopeful that all the blood sweat and tears over the website will one day start to pay back in financial terms. I am really enjoying writing for myself again, rather than for someone else, and I hope I can turn it into something financially viable.

To do this week
1. Menu plan for this week and next, using freezer contents where possible.
2. Process the last of the fruit from my mum (a few apples and some pears).
3. Make a double batch of granola
4. Make sourdough.
5. Make oatcakes.
6. Check and amend food shopping delivery.
7. Clean and prep the house for clients on Tuesday.
8. Contract work for next week.
9. Plan any handmade Christmas gifts.
10. Renew car insurance.
11. Plant bulbs for Christmas.
12. Make candles for us and for Christmas gifts.

October money goals:
- £2.17/31 October rounding down pot.
- £3,971.02/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal. Almost up to £4k!
- £45/775 income for November.

Ladyonamission

Hi TOPM,

Great diary, how do you go about organising your pots? Are they seperate accounts or one account with allocated spend? Wanting to do something similar and wondering the best way to go about it. Thanks x

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 86: Day 5

Morning friends! I'm pleased to report that I just actually just trod on a piece of playmobil walking to the computer to type this morning's post :rotfl: :T :rotfl: .

Such a busy week, I've hardly had time to reconcile my budgets, never mine post on here. Good busy though, seeing my friend for life coaching yesterday and doing nice work on Wednesday.

Ladyonamission I use You Need A Budget to separate out my pots. We only have two bank accounts that we use - my personal account which is used for my business, and a joint account for everything else. It's a learning curve compared to traditional budgeting methods, but well worth it - I would say it's largely responsible for the fact we've actually paid some debt off over the past couple of years!

Speaking of debt, annoyingly I didn't realise I have a DD set up for the Santander CC, which they took regardless of the fact that I paid the minimum payment on the 1st. Must remember not to get excited and pay that early again. It's only £59, but £59 that I now need to find elsewhere! I will use my rounding down pot to reduce that negative figure over the month, and balance out what's left at the end of the month. Not a major drama, just irritating. On the bright side, it has taken my debt repayment for the year over the £4k mark! Which is very exciting. I might actually pay off £5k this year. Although I will also add some back on with Christmas spending. Ho hum.

Had a great life coaching session yesterday, and have some real concrete goals to try to get my website making a tiny bit of money before Christmas this year. No idea whether it will work, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and there's no financial risk in trying. I am so desperate to move away from my client facing income source. The way in which I intend to make money from the business also lends itself well to sharing some of the budgeting/food type tips I have learned and shared on here over the past year and a half, which is nice.

Have spent an absolute fortune on food this week - had a food delivery with 2.5 weeks worth of tinned food/ other things that we can't buy plastic free, and then did a massive shop at the grocers and zero waste shop for everything else. Hoping not to need to top up for a while, but still shocked at the amount! Almost £200 in total spent on food so far this month. Every cupboard is heaving though. Going to have a real 'use it up' week in a fortnight or so as the food starts to run out, with a view to emptying out all the last half jars of random grains (buckwheat, anyone?) and tail ends of packets of noodles etc. Bought the most hilariously massive pumpkin and sweet potato from the grocer on Tuesday, and he gave me them much cheaper because no one will buy the huge ones - the sweet potato is almost as big as my head! They will make great batches of soup.

Looks like we might get our official planning approval notice for the extension any day now - there has been some confusion over who it can actually be sent to after the old architect quit, as he was marked as the agent on the planning portal. It has been a complete pain to sort out, but luckily the old architect isn't being difficult, so if it needs to be sent to him he will just forward it straight on to us. I need to start thinking about the best way to fund it soon.

I made a load of candles yesterday, including tealights from rescued tealight cups. In a fit of budget-friendliness I have been saving the tail ends of the nice beeswax candles we buy occasionally (OK, so buying the candles in the first place might not be super budget friendly :rotfl: ) and I melted them all down yesterday - I got a dozen lovely beeswax tealights out of the remains. That totally justifies buying them in the first place, right? I do love the smell of beeswax, reminds me of childhood - my mother used to be an antiques dealer and beeswax furniture polish featured heavily!

Gosh, that was all a long and boring ramble, wasn't it?! Must try harder. Busy day today with lots of odds and ends of work to finish off before the weekend, and I need to bake a 'puddingy' sort of cake to feed around 12 people. Any good suggestions? To take to a big family lunch tomorrow. Can't be apple based, as my mother is baking an apple pudding of some description. I have most 'normal' ingredients in the house and am a competent baker.

I am still managing to keep my lists each day quite short (although today's isn't great), and it's making so much difference to my general stress levels. I'm aware that some things aren't getting done which will impact on my income eventually - not focusing on my smaller business at all, not baking quite so much from scratch - but I think for my mental health I need a bit of a break from the hectic lists of doom, even if I find I need to go back to them eventually.

To do this week
1. Menu plan for this week and next, using freezer contents where possible.
2. Process the last of the fruit from my mum (a few apples and some pears).
3. Make a double batch of granola
4. Make sourdough.
5. Make oatcakes.
6. Check and amend food shopping delivery.
7. Clean and prep the house for clients on Tuesday.
8. Contract work for next week.
9. Plan any handmade Christmas gifts.
10. Renew car insurance.
11. Plant bulbs for Christmas.
12. Make candles for us and for Christmas gifts. Made a good start, but might make some more today before tidying it all away - makes such a mess in the kitchen!

October money goals:
- £2.17/31 October rounding down pot.
- £4,029.92/£5,000 2018 debt repayment goal.
- £95/775 income for November.

stoplurking

Hi TOPM

Great diary, I always read but don't post. You are doing well chipping away at the debts and preparing for your extension.

Re the "puddingy" cake - Nigella was on bbc2 last night and she had made some sort of carrot cake but said it was lighter and without the heavy frosting of the usual carrot cakes. Didn't see her make it as I was going out but it looked huge and she said she often serves it at the end of a dinner party and it proves popular. If you can get the recipe for that it might fit the bill.
Good luck with everything. X

XSpender

A victoria sponge filled with berries and cream? A chocolate one with summer fruits is a bit like black forest gateau. Pineapple and butterscotch upside down cake?

PurpleFairy26

This (but obviously replace the apples for other fruit, such as frozen berries) or lumps of jam

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2044/dorset-apple-traybake

Lovely hot or cold, with cream, custard, ice cream etc...

Honeysucklelou2

Magic lemon pudding... might be known by other names but in the 1970s Pennywise cookbook on my mum's bookshelf, it is known as magic lemon pud. You could bake it in advance but would need heating through. It's basically a lemon sponge but you use the eggs separately and mix the egg whites with milk. It creates layers during the baking process so that you gave a lemon sponge top with a lemon custard underneath.

XSpender

Honeysucklelou2 wrote: »

Magic lemon pudding... might be known by other names but in the 1970s Pennywise cookbook on my mum's bookshelf, it is known as magic lemon pud. You could bake it in advance but would need heating through. It's basically a lemon sponge but you use the eggs separately and mix the egg whites with milk. It creates layers during the baking process so that you gave a lemon sponge top with a lemon custard underneath.

I've done a chocolate version of this before for a crowd which is lovely with ice-cream. I often make chocolate trifle or pavlova too.