Are we nearly there yet?

Pauper1

It is very frustrating. I don't feel like it will stop until February at least!

DebtFreeDuo

You sound on top of everything at the moment which is great, you know where all your money is going and why its there, you are in control. You have had a couple of hiccups but you are getting right on top of them which is amazing, well done!

Pauper1

Hubby had last week off and then DS and I got ill again, dammit. So things were really all over the place, house is a mess and we've been spending way too much. My mum has DS this afternoon so I've been doing some budget adjusting and sorting out the new bank accounts.

In terms of savings:

The new savings account has little pots you can set up, so I've used that for my "yearly spends". At the moment we have 72% of our spends (birthdays, Christmas, holiday, car insurance) saved up, and are paying £55.52 a month into that account, splitting it into the pots.

Our "emergency funds" account (3 months of expenses) is down £380 due to the washing machine and I'd set up a standing order to pay £31 in there.

Finally, our "buffer" account (any extra spends, end of month panics etc) is down £313.57. We completely spent it out last month, with the double birthdays and week off, so DH's bonus got swallowed up in to that, but didn't cover the whole deficit I've not set up anything to go into this, as I'm hoping that anything I make will go there.

So, monthly budgets:

I don't think I can really do anything major about income, so I have to focus on spending instead.

Our bills are at £1215 and after my work in October, I don't think there's much else I can do to bring these down. Hopefully our settlements will go ahead soon and we'll be able to stop paying £50 a month to Stepchange.
The monthly savings total £96.52. I'm setting groceries at £250 and petrol at £150, which leaves us with £99.36 a month. It's not much but I know we're lucky to be able to save what we do, so I just need to rein in my spending.

Whew. Now I need to go and open the letters I've been avoiding this week.

DebtFreeDuo

Sorry to hear you have been poorly, good that you are right back on top of your finances though, I think we need to allow ourselves a little slack when we aren't very well.

I love the sound of that savings account, might have to look in to that for next year.

Pauper1

I'm liking it so far - it's the new online-only B bank. We only joined because of the £250 cashback but I do like the pots, and the current account also has little helping hands like keeping track of categories of spending. Our switch only went through 2 days ago so there is definitely still time for things to go wrong!

DebtFreeDuo

I've just googled it and it looks really good, I think this could really help with my pots as I'm really struggling with it at the moment and just feel like pots aren't for me.

Pauper1

A little update from me. (I've got so off track lately but I know there's not much I could have done about it. I don't know if I'd previously mentioned the car accident but it's affected me a lot the last few weeks, and I need to be kind to myself.)

Our savings standing orders will come out on the 1st, and will take our 'emergency fund' up to 91% of where I'd like it and the 'yearly spends' up to 74%.

I used all of our 'buffer' account to pay off what was left on our credit cards. It seemed silly to be paying 30% interest on a debt when the money was sitting in a savings account only earning like 0.05%. I'm going to get my online food shopping on my credit card and move money across to the 'credit card account' as soon as I've spent it, so it's there to pay off when the statement comes. DH will do the same on his card, but for petrol. Hopefully this will gradually improve our credit rating.

Our final settlements are erm, sort of moving along a bit. We've had an outright no (from a debt of £54! *is there a rolls eyes emoji?!*), a no but with a counter offer of 80% and a yes. So we're one debt down (one of the smaller ones unfortunately), and waiting for six replies. Even if all the rest of them say no, we'd have reduced our current debt from £27k to £11k, which is much more manageable. I'd be annoyed though, because we sold our house to become debt free.

Pauper1

It looks like the weekend credit card spends aren't showing up yet but I've guessed to the best of my memory and moved money across to the 'credit card' account and will check later in the week. I need to start writing down all my spending as it happens, it'll also allow me to see where I can cut back, because I need to.

I think I need to move some money from the Christmas pot of the savings across to the main accounts, which is a bit annoying but the presents cost more than our spare money this month and it is what that's supposed to be for after all!

We've only got £68 left in our 'groceries' account which is a bit weird. It gets confused because all the spending comes out of the same account. After adding it up it looks like we've spent £120.80 already this month (7 DAYS!!) but we did have our shopping for the week delivered yesterday, so hopefully won't need anything until next weekend. It should have left us with £129.20 in our account though so I guess we've been taking out of there for other things. I think that moving all the grocery spending over to my credit card will help with this confusion as well. I'll need about two weeks worth of shopping to get through this month, so I need to find £31.43 from somewhere.

I'll probably only need another £20 of diesel this month, and DH will need about £80 of petrol, so that means we're on track in that account at least.

Pauper1

I've had two NSDs this week as DS and I have only gone to pre-paid activities so far (swimming and 'Wild Tots', which I pay for in batches/direct debit)

I've also been focusing on uni work in the afternoons as I have an assignment due next Friday and I'm a couple of weeks behind. It does mean that DS is spending a lot of time in front of the tv unfortunately. My mum will have him for a bit tomorrow so I will feel less guilty as she'll do something fun with him no doubt.

I'm gradually working my way through the tidying as well, so the house is feeling a bit more back to normal. I really want to sort through DS's toys at some point as he got SO much for his birthday and I'm sure it'll be the same at Christmas!

Pauper1

So I underestimated our credit card spends by £22, which really shows me that I need to start keeping track a bit better, especially of weekend spends. A £22 underestimate each weekend is at least £100 a month so that's where our spare money goes!

Today is going to be my 3rd NSD in a row, but it wasn't supposed to be! I got DS and I out of the house by half 8 so we could go in to the big town near us to get the last bits for his advent calendar. It was a good 40 minute drive in pretty miserable weather and traffic. Got to the underground carpark, took a token thingy, went to put it in my purse.... and I'd forgotten it! So we just drove straight back home. What a waste of fuel. DS had fallen asleep though and was super miserable before that so maybe worth the aggro!

I've come to my parents and they've taken DS out for lunch so I can crack on with my uni work. As per usual though, I'm on here instead! Haha.

Have a lovely day all