Taking it slowly, but doing it well.

wishingthemortgaheaway

morning all (Says Wish creeping back in and hoping nobody's noticed my slackness!)

It is a dire month budget wise.
Eating out has had to be wammed frequently and now stands at nearly double the originally budgeted amount. All have been lovely events, just a shame they all came at once. I am very grateful I do have the funds to do this though.

The main saving grace in my budget is that I've not had to fill my car up this month. I've still got half a tank left which should Last me through until September. If it doesn't, at the moment I've got enough left in the fuel budget for half a tank which should be fine.

This is obviously impacting in my savings, both the mop pot and the 1p a day challenge are suffering. I will catch up on the 1p challenge when my expenses are paid on Thursday as I know what I'd like to spend this money on so need to fill the pot quick!

Birthday Money update: the pot is currently sitting in a negative amount (£61) overspent but, I have a £50 cheque still to pay in and over £50 worth of returns to make. 2 items don't fit/look right and the others are going back Becuase I realised just about everything I bought was in navy. Now, I like navy, but some variation in colour is required in a
Wardrobe. So, once they are returned/paid in, I'm back in the positive figures. I'm really pleased with what I've bought though (and am keeping) 3 work tops, three home tops a cardigan (Work or Home) and a pair of walking trainers which...

Have already proved their worth when we spent the day yesterday on the Manchester bee trail. A brilliant (and cheap!) day out. So far we've found 61 Big bees and 64little bees. We're going to have another go next week to attempt to collect the rest.
Such great fun and it did my step count good too.

No idea what happening today. Tomorrow we have tickets for the Flying Scotsman (another reason why money is tighter this month and I don't care!) but no idea what's happening right now!

Wish.

Mse August Goals

MOP Pot £315.81 (massively under achieved last month)
1) Next brick on the countdown house £52.53/£52.53
2) interest added £9.17/10.68
3) nice round number 0/£89.32
4) MFW2018 August amount 0/57.47
5) MFW2018 July catch up amount 0/105.81

13 Step plan
£135/£600

NSDs
4/6 (really not home much this month either)

1p a day challenge days
11/31

pinkypig

The Bee Trail sounds lovely. Have a great day on the train, I bet your little one will love it:D

I'm having an expensive month too:( a few big annual expenses, holiday spends and a few things bought to take and my fuel bill which is usually nowt in August is sky high due to hospital trips:eek:
Let's hope September is kinder:). Have a lovely weekend xx

wishingthemortgaheaway

pinkypig wrote: »

The Bee Trail sounds lovely. Have a great day on the train, I bet your little one will love it:D

I'm having an expensive month too:( a few big annual expenses, holiday spends and a few things bought to take and my fuel bill which is usually nowt in August is sky high due to hospital trips:eek:
Let's hope September is kinder:). Have a lovely weekend xx

Thanks Pinky. I think I just need to factor into my life that Augusts are expensive and somehow save more through the year for it (and May too..)

I hope September is kind to you too

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all, since my last update (yesterday morning) things have moved on.

Final birthday check paid in and returns made to 'not thin face' that all came to £102, once the pot had come out of the negative I was left with £25. (I've still got a pair of trousers to take back what ch will recoup another £25) as my 1p a day challenge is looking so dire I thought I'd allocate the money returned to that. I know we've had a discussion on this thread about spending money given to me as gifts but 1) I had more money than the items on my list of wants actually required and 2) I have plans for the 1p a day money which will as this money returned - watch this space. Now up to 26/31 days of the 1p challenge done for this month.

Today - Flying Scotsman was fab. Pickle was brill - he even had his photo taken on the footplate which I wasn't expecting. A good value day put. We took drinks, snacks and a picnic with us and grandad had sent money for Pickle to get some souvenirs (t-shirt and fridge magnet) so actually a nsd woohoo.

In other money news:
Payslip arrived - about £300 over what's 'needed' to find next month's budget
Expenses approved - about £180
House insurance renewal received. About £150 less than the money in the house insurance pot on ynab, still going to ring and say 'is that the best you can do?' But, even if they say no, I'm going to go with them as I like their service and the renewal quote is less than last year's amount

Add this to the money already saved/overplayed this month and things look like they may be ok. I don't think I'll hit all my targets, but I'm a lot closer to them than I thought I was going to get.

Wish.

Mse August Goals

MOP Pot £315.81 (massively under achieved last month)
1) Next brick on the countdown house £52.53/£52.53
2) interest added £9.17/10.68
3) nice round number 0/£89.32
4) MFW2018 August amount 0/57.47
5) MFW2018 July catch up amount 0/105.81

13 Step plan
£135/£600

NSDs
5/6 (really not home much this month either)

1p a day challenge days
26/31

gallygirl

Not really sure how YNAB works but I assume you will now OP the spare home insurance cash :j. That will be nice in view of the expensive month you've had :T

I loved seeing the Flying Scotsman a few years ago, glad Pickle enjoyed it

Great to see that mortgage date coming down

wishingthemortgaheaway

gallygirl wrote: »

Not really sure how YNAB works but I assume you will now OP the spare home insurance cash :j. That will be nice in view of the expensive month you've had :T

I loved seeing the Flying Scotsman a few years ago, glad Pickle enjoyed it

Great to see that mortgage date coming down

Hi Gally, thank you for dropping by.

With ynab I budget an equal amount each month to cover the annual bills. Then, when it comes round to paying it the theory is I have enough, or hopefully more than enough to pay the following year's expense then either save or overpay the surplus. It's very easy to 'move' money around in YNAB and I don't then have to touch savings accounts.
Technically the 'cash' to pay for the insurance will come from this month's salary, I will just put a bit less in the account that covers those annual bills. Rather than take from savings and put back into savings.
All very complicated (when isn't it with me!) but it works for me.

Pickle is very tired today. Lazy morning of playing trains and some tv treat time followed by an early lunch and nap for him and we'll head out for some NT fun this afternoon with friends.

EagerLearner

Hello Wishing, loving your diary so far and great to see another YNAB fan, you're doing brilliantly and your posts are so motivating. I'm definitely subscribing!
I've set up my diary now and hope you'll stop by to say hello sometime.
What's the £0.01p a day challenge, is it £3.56 a year towards something?
I'm a big fan of never spending any £2 coins, they always get saved too ha.

wishingthemortgaheaway

EagerLearner wrote: »

Hello Wishing, loving your diary so far and great to see another YNAB fan, you're doing brilliantly and your posts are so motivating. I'm definitely subscribing!
I've set up my diary now and hope you'll stop by to say hello sometime.
What's the £0.01p a day challenge, is it £3.56 a year towards something?
I'm a big fan of never spending any £2 coins, they always get saved too ha.

Hi Eager, thank you for dropping by, please tell me you haven't read my entire drivel?

I will pop over to your diary shortly. I've got out of the habit of checking out 'new' diaries so I shall correct that.

The 1 p challenge is where you save 1p on day 1, 2p on day 2, 3p on day 3 etc right the way up to £3.65 on day 365. If you do it properly you end up with over £650 at the end of the time. I don't do it 'properly' as in, in Feb (short month with few expenses) I managed quite a few of the 'expensive' days, and tend to do several days at a time. I've got a sheet I downloaded from (I think) the skint dad blog that I use to keep track. If, for example, at the end of a day one of my 'everyday pots' is £51.34 I'll do day 134 (£1.34) and cross that off. Sort of Tilly tidying. With the £25 'left over' birthday money I calculated how many days I could cross off with that money.

I need lots of little, competitive, montocating targets to keep me going, which is why I have so many targets, goals and challenges.

Wish.

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all - is it Autumn? Rain has thrown down all day here.
Pickle was shattered this morning, so I lulled him into thinking it was lunchtime
At 11am, he was in bed for a nap by 11:30 and I got him up at 1. Then we headed for a national trust place for a look around and a walk. (I've got my 10,000 steps for today)
We then 'collected' another few Bees on the way home. We're up to 137/253 - we will 'catch them all!'

All this means a NSD and my 'simple' August target met.

Tomorrow: morning a walk around a local lake to get next week's step count on the right track at the start of the week. Some grocery shopping probably and sorting out for the week ahead.

I hope you all have a lovely week.

Wish.

Mse August Goals

MOP Pot £315.81 (massively under achieved last month)
1) Next brick on the countdown house £52.53/£52.53 :j
2) interest added £10.68/10.68 :j
3) nice round number £0.83/£89.32
4) MFW2018 August amount 0/57.47
5) MFW2018 July catch up amount 0/105.81

13 Step plan
£145/£600

NSDs
6/6 (really not home much this month either) :j

1p a day challenge days
26/31

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all, don't ask me what happened to yesterday I just don't know. Onto today!

Work all day, haven't left my desk and a technical (by my rules) nsd. I did renew the house insurance, same provider (we do like them!) but £34 cheaper than last year and over £175 less than I'd been saving throughout the year. (Wooo hooo)

So: 1p challenge for the month finished off with the most expensive days I have left (£2.71-£2.75)
The rest put in the mop pot.
Expenses (£180) and Wages (£300) still to come in so I will hit my mop pot target even if I don't get to the £600 for the 13 step plan. I feel so much brighter today about my finances which is ridiculous Becuase I've spent £190, I've not created £175, but I guess that's the way budgeting (and YNAB) works. Every penny has a job and it's ok to spend the pennies on their jobs.

In terms of money to spend I have £20 left in the pot! I have £20 cash in my purse from birthday money (this money given specifically towards the gin making experience I'm going to be doing at Christmas) so, I'm going to move the £20 out of the 'spends' category on ynab and put it in the 'gin experience' category and go cash only for the rest of the week. I can do this!

Wish.

Mse August Goals

MOP Pot £315.81 (massively under achieved last month)
1) Next brick on the countdown house £52.53/£52.53 :j
2) interest added £10.68/10.68 :j
3) nice round number £89.32/£89.32 :j
4) MFW2018 August amount £57.47/£57.47
5) MFW2018 July catch up amount £18.43/£105.81

13 Step plan
£145/£600

NSDs
7/6 (really not home much this month either) :j

1p a day challenge days
31/31