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

Treadingonplaymobil

Urgh, have been down with a horrible sinus/swollen gland thing for the past couple of days. Had to drug up and work yesterday as I'd committed to something that would be a nightmare to rearrange. Got home at 7:30pm and was asleep in bed by 8:15! Feeling fractionally more human this morning, but still fairly pathetic.

Counting down till the end of the month now. DH gets paid on Thursday, although his pay rise still isn't confirmed so we won't see that this month (and still don't actually know how much it will be), and I'll be submitting a big invoice next week, but meanwhile we are decidedly over budget for this month, with a weekend in London still to go. It should be a fairly cheap weekend (can make packed lunches etc), but we will still be obliged to buy the odd round of cake and coffee for our hosts when out and about, and there's bound to be an entry fee or souvenir for somewhere. Ho hum.

Cherryfudge

Hope you're better in time for the weekend! Enjoy London - and submitting the invoice.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 15: Day 5

Feeling fractionally more human today, finally. I hate being ill! I don't cope well with not being able to achieve lots of things. I am aware that this is one of the reasons I get ill - I'm terrible at slowing down when I am fractionally under the weather, which makes minor illnesses turn into bigger things.

DH got paid today. He had a small payrise last month (along with the rest of the company) which is appearing in his pay packet (only around £30 a month net, but every little helps), but hasn't had his (hopefully) bigger pay rise approved yet, so that will be June at the earliest.

We are overspent for this month by a couple of hundred pounds already, and no doubt it will increase over the weekend. I must remember to look back over the months since LBM on 1st June, and see how much my overspend has generally been. Hitting home particularly this month, as I have also eliminated some of my business account buffer by spending the money on the front of the house, so I don't have lots of money sitting in a neighbouring account to make me feel better! Also I know that I'm going to have to use a fair chunk of my big end of month invoice to cover the shortfall so that there is enough in the pot for June.

to do today:
1. Hand washing and drying.
2. Paint more pickets for the front garden fence (I'm onto the third coat, but only have enough space to dry around 1/4 of the pickets at a time, so still a fair way to go on this).
3. Chase a work enquiry, who got to the point of confirming payment, but never actually paid - need to make sure payment hasn't gone missing somewhere.
4. make pasties for long car journey tomorrow night so we aren't tempted to stop for dinner.
5. measure out the picket fence with string and stakes so we can make A Plan.

to do this week:
1. Finish painting the pickets.
2. Plan weekend in London for minimum spends.
3. clean the front of the house ready for painting. This is going much slower than anticipated!
4. Buy the house paint and fence posts (DH thinks he may be able to get the posts cheaply at work, must get him to check before buying).
5. lose another 0.5kg.
6. get a little ahead on work so I'm not trying to do any over the weekend while we're away. This is going well, hopefully will be where I want to be by this evening.

armchairexpert

Preparation for painting is the worst job! Have a great weekend away.

Cherryfudge

Another with paint brush in hand here! And I agree, hard work (especially in this heat) but keep going because the end result is well worth it.

Kittencat

Hope your OK? Missing your updates. Xx

Treadingonplaymobil

I'm alive! Have had a lovely half term, enjoying spending time with the DC and haven't worked or been on the computer at all. Feeling very de-stressed and like the reset button has been hit. Have spent a fair bit, but not nearly as much as I was expecting and probably 20% what I would have spent in a half term pre-LBM. Going to balance the budgets later when DH is home and I can sit at the computer for an hour, and I'll be back with a full update.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 16: day 7

Well, another month begins (a few days ago, but whatever). I've been through and updated debt totals, and am pleased that despite the millions of wobbles I had throughout May, our debt total now stands at...

£64,127.72

That's pretty good, I think. Almost £3k less than our LBM debt in mid-Feb. It's not going down as quickly as I originally thought it would, but it is, crucially, going down rather than up. I'll settle for that.

May roundup:
God, did I lose the will to pay of debt in May or what? I had a shopping crisis, I spent on doing up the front of the house, I overspent in pretty much every category it was possible to overspend in. But anyway, here's the main culprits:
house makeover - this expense was big, and will be ongoing as we work on other areas of the house. It sucked a large part of my business account cushion away (I'm seeing it as partly a business expense, because I have clients come to my house, and a large part of my work is about presenting the right image). It's also made me face up to the fact that we need to do more than just prettify the front of our house, and we've been talking about the extension we need to do. On which more later.
food - wouldn't it be nice if, just once, we didn't overspend on food? We spent £532.91 on food in May, out of a budgeted £350. Oh dear. SO MUCH work to do on this area. Too much nice fruit, avocados, green smoothies etc.
family kitty/entertainment - cough. £249.01, out of a budgeted £125. So 100% over.
school trips - DS1 has been invited to participate in a couple of G&T (gifted and talented, not gin and tonic, sadly) events by the school, at the bargaining price of £35 each, so I had to find £70 for them.
birthdays - I had forgotten a couple of friends and godchildren that I always buy for when budgeting out our birthday spends, so I had to pull another £50 out of the budget for them.

All in all, pretty crap, spends-wise. Luckily I earned so much in early May that I've been able to fund it, but that extra income could have gone towards debt overpayment or savings for house extension, so it's still not ideal. Also business has been very dry since then, so I don't have the same cushion to have such a terrible month again. The summer is never as good as spring or autumn for my business, so really I need to try a bit harder on all fronts to ensure I don't plough through my last bits of financial cushion before September.

All of that was so epic that I've run out of time on my tea break now, so I'll pop back with my thoughts on extending the house and the lifespan of our debt later on.

Now I'm off outside again to work on painting the house, which is looking about 1,000,000x smarter since we started the makeover. At least it's had a positive effect!

Suffolk_lass

Don't beat yourself up TOPM, look at what you have achieved since February! If you don't want to look at the £s, focus on how much you have pulled your DF date in. In just five months you have brought it in by an additional 5 months. If you are able to maintain that for ten months of the year you are looking at losing three-four years of debt. Then you are looking at a five year plan - not a nine year plan.

Well I'm impressed girl, I don't know about your other readers! :T

Cherryfudge

I love Suffolk lass's analysis - a five year plan instead of a nine year plan is a huge achievement and you could now have that in your sights thanks to what you've done so far.

My thoughts... yes, you've spent out on the house but there are a some things to look at here. Firstly, as you've said, it should help with the business, which makes it an investment. Secondly, lesson learned, in that you now know you need to budget for upkeep/appearances and you have some up to date figures as to what the costs are. Thirdly, how often will you need to repeat the process? Some plants need to be replaced seasonally, others may last longer. Paint and gravel - five or ten years? So maybe build a little into your long-term budget for doing the work again, but it will look 1,000,000x smarter for a long time, and after that, maybe 1,000x smarter, which is still a win.

Incidentally, I remember from times in my life when there's been an impending dearth of cash, I've 'invested' in small things before it hit (once it was a duvet for a toddler outgrowing a cot... but I knew I had to get it then or the child wouldn't be able to move beds). That sort of thing... I wonder if this is what you're doing? You know you are planning to pull your belts in so you are making investments at the beginning that will make things easier later.

Food... well a taste for avocados may not help but at least you had them and they were healthy for you. (Incidentally, did you know the stones from the middle are also supposed to be good for you?) When it comes to modern food and cheaper alternatives to go-to superfoods, I recommend Jack Monroe. Her website is worth a look if you haven't already seen it.

Family entertainment - yes, but you don't get that time twice, so perhaps that was an investment too. Don't regret it, just plan for the future. I can't remember the ages of your family but ours have had loads of cheap entertainment out of supermarket pizza and silly games (like the one where you have to guess who you are, or the card game 'sussed'). Maybe aim to alternate a cheap family activity with a more costly one?

School trips - they do dent the kitty, don't they? Did he enjoy them?

Birthdays - learning curve - you will know next time around.

So yes, May was a tough one but you are still making progress, and not just on the debt front. And you know you only have to shout out on here and people will come up with helpful things.