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

JWPopps

Hello ToP!

I have just flown through your diary - did you know you have a really lovely way with words? Very readable. I'm sure you haven't had time to do this but when you do, consider skim-reading over your diary from where you were to now... you've achieved huge amounts in a really tiny time-frame!

Bobarella

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Oh, and I got a really good business enquiry yesterday. IF it comes off (no guarantees) it will be another £500 a few times a year.

Horray for repeat business!:T

Treadingonplaymobil

Morning! Last day of taking it easy today. Back to home/reality this evening, and back into the focused mindset. We haven't spent too badly while away, but have learnt even more lessons about managing money/expectations while away from home for future breaks (more planning, basically, especially for long car journeys and hot drinks - must buy a thermos mug. I need to accept I will not escape the lure of tea while out!).

I haven't gone through the numbers exactly, but I think I have another £25-35 towards debt overpayment when we get home, as long as I haven't neglected to YNAB any debit card spends.

JoJoC

Sounds positive! We've both done well on our time away from home with a bit of money left over

Enjoy your last day, and I can highly recommend the metal thermos from Starbucks. My husband bought it about three years ago for about £15 and he can make his coffee before he leaves home at 7am and if he doesn't drink it, it'll still be piping hot at lunch time. Well worth the money!

Fingers crossed with the overpayment!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 9: Day 5

Home at last! I am such a homebody, I love coming home after being away.

Lots to do today as have guests coming later. Have done a fairly budget menu plan, but it's still not going to be the world's cheapest weekend. Will be back later with some lists!

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 9: Day 6
Morning!

Had a horrendously expensive food shop yesterday, miles more than I intended it to be. Going to sit down and examine the recipes later to try to figure out where it went so wrong. Literally about £70 more than I expected (was anticipating huge bill due to lots of meat and celebration food and extra for family staying). We'll have leftovers, but it just shows how quickly it goes wrong when I don't monitor it super carefully. £70 over!!!

In brighter news, the debt is down to £65,133.07. Have achieved the initial April goal of paying off 2%, and have another couple of weeks to try to find that extra £133.08 to get it into the £64k bracket. I'm moderately optimistic we'll manage it, assuming one or two more bits of work come in.

To do today:
1. catch up on all the work that fell by the wayside while we were away
2. laundry catch up, and hang out on the line - last day of good sunny weather for a few days, according to the forecast.
3. make candles. Yes. I am going to do it. Have had enough of waiting for time to come round.
4. knitting - need to finish my dad's socks before sunday! Am 1.5 socks in.

JoJoC

Oh TOP, I know how demoralising it is when you end up spending much more than you wanted to, but you had this issue before with the kids' birthdays and you got through it and covered it, so maybe this is another one of those instances? £70 isn't a deal-breaker (I hope) so if I were you, try to learn from it for the next time you have visitors.

Things you could do in future:
- Ask a family member to bring a lasagne/ a pie/ something else with them?
- Plan every single thing you need to a T and price it before you go (I think you do this with normal shops, yes?) so that you can see the hideous total before you go and mitigate the damage
- Simply free up more of your budget and allow the spend (within reason) for when you have visitors.

You're so close to the next '000 bracket! I hope you can manage it!

Treadingonplaymobil

JoJoC wrote: »

Oh TOP, I know how demoralising it is when you end up spending much more than you wanted to, but you had this issue before with the kids' birthdays and you got through it and covered it, so maybe this is another one of those instances? £70 isn't a deal-breaker (I hope) so if I were you, try to learn from it for the next time you have visitors.

Things you could do in future:
- Ask a family member to bring a lasagne/ a pie/ something else with them?
- Plan every single thing you need to a T and price it before you go (I think you do this with normal shops, yes?) so that you can see the hideous total before you go and mitigate the damage
- Simply free up more of your budget and allow the spend (within reason) for when you have visitors.

You're so close to the next '000 bracket! I hope you can manage it!

The bit I definitely should have done was putting it into MySupermarket and seen the grisly total. I could have adjusted things and moved things around to make it less frightening!

JoJoC

I know...but we all need to learn from our mistakes, hard as they are to swallow sometimes.

I completely overspent in Morrisons this week. I took in my list and was just picking up a couple of bits but then the washing powder was on offer at a good price and my mother in law always buys us a box when it's on offer and never takes any money...so before I knew it, i had two boxes of washing powder in my trolley which REALLY bumped the price up. And £5 for a tub of Lurpak! £5!! It was on offer from £6 and it was the big 1kg tub but still. I feel ripped off. I'm sure I could've got it cheaper, but it wasn't worth the hassle to me at that point. Gah!

Bobarella

I am voting with Jo Jo as well that you will manage to square away the £70 somehow. Do you have any supermarket rewards built up that you could use maybe to take the hit off the next few shops?

Anyway every confidence in you!