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

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 17: Day 2

The DC are back to school today, so some semblance of normality will resume. I'm hoping to get a bit of work done today and this evening to try to drum up some work - I have a very quiet month ahead for my main business and I'd like to use it to focus some energy on my smaller business (last month I said that and then ended up busy with the main business again, but I'd be ok with that too ).

Also need to do a little bit of house tidying. It's actually not too awful after half term, but I think one of the things that gets me pining for work on the house is just not having it clean and tidy. I know we've discussed before about buying lifestyle or clothing items to 'make up' for not actually leading that lifestyle (ie buying nice house bits instead of spending the time on the house, buying lovely new yoga gear instead of just focusing on practicing daily). Must be careful not to fall into that trap again.

Going to be on tenterhooks all week as DH has a meeting about his possible pay rise on Friday. Really really hope he gets a bit extra.

to do today:
1. NSD
2. batch cooking for dinner today and tomorrow, as we have changed the boys' swimming lesson day to a Tuesday, making Tuesday a manic run of swimming and Cubs (for eldest).
3. Clear all the ironing.
4. Tidy the sitting room (one room a day again!).
5. 2hrs work.
6. Move monthly savings (for Christmas, birthdays, car servicing etc) across into savings account so I'm not tempted to spend them.

to do this week:
1. finish painting the pickets for the front fence
2. plan June's working time (still haven't 'gone back' to work thanks to half term). Done!
3. roughly plan out summer working time (i.e. where I can squeeze in the odd hour while the DC are on holiday)
4. apply for new 0% balance transfer card
5. research utilities providers - I suspect we can move again and save a little bit.

Treadingonplaymobil

Ace, DH has managed to transfer the MBNA balance (of which £3k was accruing interest, and repayments were coming off the interest free portion first) onto a 0% barclaycard deal, which is 0% until Sept '18. It had a fee attached (I think 2.5%), but still cheaper long term than paying interest on the MBNA for ages. I'm just waiting for all the balances to clear and I can redo our stoozing snowball calculator and see whether it's made much/any difference to the DFD. It will up our minimum payments (about £80 a month I think), as the minimum repayment on the barclaycard is higher than the MBNA, but that can't be a bad thing in terms of forcing us to pay a little more! That will just mean what we were seeing as overpayment will now become minimum payment, but won't change what we actually pay by more than about £25.

enthusiasticsaver

At least no interest will be paid on it and no bad thing to have higher minimum payments. You know that you can get 0% deals which is good for other cards with deals expiring in the next few years. Of course the only debt they can see is the credit cards and Tesco loan not the parental loan so in lenders eyes you only have £36k of debt. When does Tesco loan finish again?

Treadingonplaymobil

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

At least no interest will be paid on it and no bad thing to have higher minimum payments. You know that you can get 0% deals which is good for other cards with deals expiring in the next few years. Of course the only debt they can see is the credit cards and Tesco loan not the parental loan so in lenders eyes you only have £36k of debt. When does Tesco loan finish again?

Erm... October 2024, assuming we don't manage any overpayments at all. Our snowball has us overpaying on it for the last few months so it finishes earlier in 2024, and I'd like to improve that further.

Treadingonplaymobil

I have just had a genius idea (have I mentioned how modest I am?:rotfl: ). The areas that we keep overspending on - food, diesel and family kitty, I have broken down into weekly budgets rather than monthly ones. I think it will be easier to see how much we actually have left, rather than blithely going 'ooh, we have £350 available, let's spend it all on the 1st of the month and then live on fresh air for the remaining 29 days'. So my new 'weekly expenses' YNAB category looks like this:


Also I figure it's an extra incentive to underspend, because each week I can split any leftovers equally between budgets for the following weeks and debt overpayment, and we can shift budgets around at the beginning of the month if we know we have an expensive week with guests or something. It's a similar theory to taking out X amount in cash each week, which doesn't work for us at all because we forget what we've spent on and fritter it away - both DH and I agree it actually feels more like real money to us on a card (because we know there will be a record of the transaction and we are accountable) than when we spend cash. But hopefully this weekly budget system will give us the benefits without the drawbacks of cash.

Hoping that this helps to tackle the overspending issue on those major culprits.

[Deleted User]

Sounds like a plan x

Silver_Queen

TOPM, that's a great idea. I feel the same about cash - it actually feels less like real money to me so if I have it, I just spend it!

Cherryfudge

Just a word of warning from someone who already does a weekly food allowance - it's still easy to overspend! Whether because I think I will recoup in the future, or because of 'something special' (guests, birthday...) or because DH doesn't have time to get cash before going into the supermarket so he pays for a small item and gets cashback (£40 allowance becomes £41.99, which adds up a lot when it's a habit).

Nevertheless, it's worth a try - but the bigger food savings come from trying downshifting brands, going to discount supermarkets or shopping online, meal planning, buying in appropriate sizes for what you need and use, having a stock of low-cost, well-liked recipes etc. Oh, and living from the cupboards/freezer every now and then, and freezing leftovers before people pick at them!

JWPopps

Hi TOPM!

I can't actually remember if I've commented on your diary before, but I've been reading it for a while!

I have a (weird) tip I use to keep my food bill down, but I don't know if it only works for me because of my vegetarian/pulse-based diet (oh who am I kidding, my diet is primarily cheese...):

I decant all my dried goods into clear glass jars, and I keep them on kitchen shelves instead of behind a cupboard door. I even do this with pasta!! Currently I have about twelve jars of fusilli, and my parents in particular think it's really odd, but for me it works because a) those jars act as portion measures; one jar is enough pasta for a meal for 2, and b) I can see at a glance how much pasta or lentils or split peas or dried beans I have. I used to be terrible for picking up another box of something 'just in case' but I've now trained myself to know exactly when i need to replace anything!

It's not a tip that I imagine would work for everyone, but thought I'd share anyway...

enthusiasticsaver

I use clear checkbook which does similar to ynab but uses envelopes for various budgets. If you overspend on one envelope you have to take from another. So if you overspend on food by £40 then you can take £20 from gifts and from entertainment envelopes for example.