The light is well and truly on!'

RhiBi

That is an excellent idea to treat those other pots as bills, thank you.

Groceries and petrol will come out of the current account, not the bills account. Essentially, we'll have approximately £900 when dh gets paid. His pay can vary greatly, but £2900 is the lower side of normal, it has very occasionally hit £3400 if he's worked a lot of weekends, those months can mean extra debt repayments from now on, and not extra spending!! Dh gets paid 28th, so approximately £900 for living expenses until the 15th when I get paid and we'll have another £600. That is more than a lot of families have, so there is no reason why we can't sort this. I'll be annoyed and embarrassed if we can't!

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like a good plan.

RhiBi

Morning! I've had a busy weekend, the dancing on ice tour was fantastic we had a really lovely time. Didn't buy any of the overpriced merchandise which I would have done previously! We ordered a dominos pizza to the hotel room for after the show, and had a 30% off voucher code, so the 3 of us ate for £23 so not bad at all! We'll gloss over the weight watchers aspect of this meal choice!

Back to school/work tomorrow which makes spending money more difficult! Today, I'll be making cakes for packed lunches, as well as a roast dinner and general household jobs! Definitely a NSD today!

Have a good day everyone:) xx

RhiBi

Evening!

I've had a pretty rubbish day today! At lunch time I had an email from daughter's mobile phone company, the bill was £81.69... to cut a long story short, when I upgraded last month (to a cheaper tarif) it wasn't set up as an upgrade, but as a new contract so I had in effect 2 contracts running alongside each other. This took a lot of sweat and tears to sort, and I'm still not entirely convinced that I've not been overcharged...

Later, dd 3, who is 13 decided to cause grief. I thought we'd done internet safety discussions enough to understand that you do not, under any circumstances, add strangers to your social media accounts, especially males from the Middle East . At the moment I've got the phone until I can decide what to do. I think it was stupidity rather than anything more sinister, but it's a good job I noticed so quickly. All was fine on Thursday so it's a very recent thing. I'm just not sure how to deal with it. My instinct says to confiscate everything but I'm also aware I need her to work with me on this on this one otherwise as she gets older she'll just become more secretive and cleverer at keeping secrets. Any advice would be welcome!

In other news, I've had a NSD today, other than my PADding, but I don't include that in my NSD's otherwise I'd never achieve them!!

Took lunch to work and will again tomorrow and tomorrow's evening meal is sorted too!

All is looking good MSE wise if nothing else!!!

RhiBi

Evening everyone, what a beautiful day it's been!

I've had a fantastic MSE day today took food to work so no spends there! Our home insurance is coming up for renewal and our current insurer quoted just over £250 which is £75 more than last year! A quick search through a comparison site for us a quote for £112 for the same level of insurance. I tried via quidco but couldn't get as good a deal but were very happy with the new quote, saving us nearly £140 a year!

It's also been a NSD again today, as was yesterday too I'm religiously checking our bank balance and I'm confident that I'll be able to make a good overpayment when dh get paid next Friday

Our accounts are all in order and I really feel we're getting somewhere!!!

All in all, it's looking good

RhiBi

Morning!

Meal planning done and of to visit Aldi soon. I'm not sure what the Aldi super 6 is so need to check that out. It looks to be a lovely day so I think a spot of geocaching is in order too.

Bank balance checked and it's looking very healthy with payday only 6 days away! I'm hoping for a balance of £150 come payday and will split that £150 between the Next repayment and holiday fund.

Ticking along with the Next PADding too which I'm really happy with although I wish it could come down quicker, I have to be patient! I've got one daughter's 21st birthday and graduation , 1 daughter's 18th and our holiday to factor in so I know if I throw all the money at debt repayment we'll end up borrowing to fund those things which is totally counterproductive!

Have a good day everyone, I'll pop back later!

moneyonmymindsam

Hi Rhibi.

You are making really great progress - well done.

Sam x

RhiBi

Hi, I've not posted here for a few days, I've been reading other diaries and keeping up with my spending diary though! It's surprising how it adds up and I am shocked, as people said I would be!! Dh got his payslip today and it's just over £100 higher than the amount I put in the SOA . I should put it towards debt payment but as I have my daughter's 18th birthday I think it should go in the birthday pot!

Talking of presents, she wants shares...!!! I'm not sure where that's come from, but there you go, she likes to be different!!! She doesn't know what company she'd like as any she knows are big businesses and therefore expensive. Any advice would be welcome! It'll be a small amount but hopefully, it'll grow over time.

I've been reading The Money Secret after seeing it mentioned in someone's diary and I'm finding it really interesting, I love the way it's told, and can see a few similarities- retail therapy...

I've made food for work all week, and have soup (homemade) for tomorrow too, meal plan is working well too.

I'm really happy with how things are going

RhiBi

Afternoon!

It's been a busy week, I've not had chance to post much, but I've been reading!

Meal planning and food shopping has been done! £48.75 spent at Lidl, the freezer is bulging so we'll only need milk, bread and a little fruit through the week, so hoping for a low spend week!

I've been doing the food diary for 2 weeks and it is surprising how the spends add up, our spends have only been on living expenses and it's still adds up. We are currently paying for my daughter to have a maths tutor but she has her A levels next month so once that's done it'll save £30 a week!

I've a bad head today, totally self inflicted, but it means a lazy day:rotfl: a good night out with friends though, which was low spend as I'd paid for the tickets to see a local band, so was given the money back which paid for my (numerous) drinks:beer:

The shopping is away, I'm sitting down and don't intend to move for a while!!!

Have a good day everyone, and if you pop in here, please talk quietly :rotfl:

pidge04

(In a quiet voice...) thank you for your supportive message to me today - much appreciated.
£48 in Lidl - that's brilliant! May I ask what meals you have planned for this week? Always looking for inspiration!