Taking it slowly, but doing it well.

DrSpendLittle

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Quick pop in to say it's child benefit day, so that's been allocated, including the £2.80 Tilly tidy to the mop pot, lovingly referred to as 'Pickle's rent '

Pickle's rent :rotfl::rotfl:

wishingthemortgaheaway

DsL - Pickle's rent is going to be a whole £655.20 between his birth and his 18th birthday. I think he can afford it....

There seem to be lots of different views in mse over the child benefit money. How it is spent obviously depends on everyone's individual requirements, needs and beliefs. This is our approach:

It's £82.80 every 4 weeks (July is the '2 payment month this year)
£2.80 gets assigned to the mop pot
£30 goes into 'long term savings' for Pickle
£50 goes in the 'Pickle spends' category of Ynab. This I let build up to £150 maximum when it hits £150 anything ice and above that gets put into long term spending.

The spends money pays for:
Shoes
Clothes
Some toys
A fridge magnet souvenir when we visit places for the first time.

When I went to college my mum gave me £40 a month of 'family allowance' money. And this was when I started to learn how to budget. I think we will do the same for Pickle when he's a bit older (taking inflation into account of course)

We are very fortunate that we don't have to use this money to feed him or pay the bills and we can save a reasonable chunk each time.

Anyway- onto today, low spends whilst out on a work trip. That is all.

Good night.
Wish.

MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £61.46/£100
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target 0/£100

NSDs
5/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all, a nsd today for me. Crazy busy with work stuff. But, I did get a message today from someone wanting to buy the travel cot I'd put up for sale on a local fb site. And they collected it today too. So that's not only £10 for the mop pot, but I've also got back what I paid for it about 2 years ago. Which I think I s very mse and excellent.
Wish.

MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £72.33/£100
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target 0/£100

NSDs
6/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

an unexpected nsd today due to a work issue taking up lots of my time today.
I have started a current account switch to take advantage of a switching bonus that's worth over £100 in cash.

Once it's all settled down I'm going to open another account, with a different bank who are offering 5% interest for a year.

That's all folks!

MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £72.33/£100
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target 0/£100

NSDs
7/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all, not a nsd today. Few bits & bins at the supermarket this morning, then lunch out with a friend. All comfortably within budgets at the moment. Lots of little spending from lots of different pots so some effective Tilly tidying done too.
Quite pleased with my Tilly tidying effects so far this month.

I'm adding another target for this month/next month. I need to put £1500 into my new, switched current account to claim the switching bonus. I did a test transaction of £1 this morning, then transferred £300 over this afternoon. I can't do anymore at the moment as the debit card hasn't arrived yet and I'm quite squeaky on cash, I don't want to touch the cash in the isa really. I'm sure I've got until June the something to put that £1500 in, so I've got time. I should get the switching bonus money in August and then again in June next year. All pennies for the mop pot.

MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £75.31/£100
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target 0/£100

Current account switch funding
£301/£1500

NSDs
7/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

Evening all,

Quite a spends day today. My friend and I took Pickle to a local attraction - pay today and get in for the rest of the year. I also paid the upgrade to be able to take him to the attraction next door as well. (We'll be doing the other one on Monday)

Pickle was so tired this afternoon that it was 2 films, a slice of toast for his tea (he'd had a good lunch and doesn't eat well when very tired) then straight to bed.

Debit card for switched account has arrived, just need the PIN number to come now and I can use it.

Tilly tidies made (I've also calculated the exact amounts for some of the subscription type things and moved over the excess. I feel so close to my next mop pot target, yet so far.

MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £84.93/£100
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target 0/£100

Current account switch funding
£301/£1500

NSDs
7/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

Morning all,

Checking in as I've just paid my landline rental for the year. £20 and some shrapnel over saved which means I've met my next mop pot target. I've not transferred it to the mortgage account yet though as I'm actually feeling quite cash poor.
There is £5k in the isa which is technically my emergency fund, & house move fund. But those two pots on ynab only add up to about £3k at the moment (due to the work done on the house) so the rest is my 'sinking funds' for annual stuff. I think I can cash flow everything by the end of the month (supply money, expenses & wages will be paid into cash accounts but allocated to savings pots on ynab)

All very complicated - yes (When isn't it with me??)

Will see if I can get through the month with out touching the isa - that's the challenge (oh and putting £1199 into new current account to qualify for the switching bonus. )

Bring on the challenge.


MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £100/£100 :j
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target £5.09/£100

Current account switch funding
£301/£1500

NSDs
7/15

wishingthemortgaheaway

Just popping in as I can officially count today as a nsd (line rental from a sinking fund, therefore doesn't count as a 'spend' for nsd purposes)
So, up to 8 now - and not quite half way through the month (I usually always sabotage myself in the second half of a month!)

Hope everyone has a lovely evening.

Wish.
MSE April Goals

Mop pot:
1) mortgage interest added £55.82/£55.82 :j
2) nice round number £29.26/£29.26 :j
3) £400 capital reduction £100/£100 :j
4) £500 capital reduction (and hopefully back on track for my mfw 2019 target £5.09/£100

Current account switch funding
£301/£1500

NSDs
8/15

Lois_E

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

I'm adding another target for this month/next month. I need to put £1500 into my new, switched current account to claim the switching bonus. I did a test transaction of £1 this morning, then transferred £300 over this afternoon. I can't do anymore at the moment as the debit card hasn't arrived yet and I'm quite squeaky on cash, I don't want to touch the cash in the isa really. I'm sure I've got until June the something to put that £1500 in, so I've got time. I should get the switching bonus money in August and then again in June next year. All pennies for the mop pot.

Hello Wish

I'm returning from a few years away from MFW (and am restarting my own diary) and came across your diary. You seem to be plugging away at it very conscientiously, so well done!
Please could you explain what "mop" and "ynab" mean?

On the subject of paying £1500 into your new account, it may help you to know about something I did a while ago. I had several accounts that got rewards of one kind or another for paying in however much it was each month. My salary used to come into account A (my main account), and then I'd move it from A to B, from B to C, and from C to A. Then the money would be where I needed it to be, and all 3 accounts would have been "funded" that month. (Actually it was a bit ore complicated than that, but you get the idea.)

Anyway, one month I decided it would all be much better if I moved some of the days of the months on which various parts of my shuffle happened. But that meant that one particular account, that needed to be funded by £1000 per month, would only get £900 that month. So, I went to the branch, I withdrew £100 cash from the cashpoint, went inside and paid that same £100 cash in at the counter, and voila! the account had had its full amount "paid in". Check the small print, of course, but if you need to pay in £1500 and only have £300 to spare, there's almost certainly nothing to stop you paying that £300 in, taking it out, paying it in... in, out and shake it all about... until you've done it 5 times and the "£1500" condition has been met.

HTH!

wishingthemortgaheaway

Hi Lois,

Thanks for dropping by:
Mop pot = Mortgage OverPayment Pot. I think this is my term I think most people just use op, but I'm not sure.

Ynab is you need a budget. It's a subscription service budgeting app that has transformed the way I think about money and manage my finances. There is lots of stuff online about it's 4 rules. It's amazingly helpful to keeping my financial life on track.


Thanks for the suggestions about funding the new current account. I will do some switching out and putting back in if I need to, but between now and the end of May/ beginning of June I have a reasonable amount of cash coming in so I think I can do the juggling required.
This is my account that I want to continue to switch, so I'm keeping a couple of direct debits active on it (as this is what most switches require) so will set up some automatic transfers to make sure everything works out ok in the end.

Thank you.

Wish.