DD's accountability thread

DD265

Made a decision this weekend that the replacement car will be on finance; most likely a lease. It's not my preferred approach but I just don't have the budget to buy what I need outright, and this way is taking so much financial pressure off me which is worth every penny. OH keeps suggesting cars... F-Pace @ £450 a month, 'you could get a Tesla' etc. Umm no dear. I need to do more research but for leasing, the cars we're looking at are £200-250pm; the lower the better obviously. I'm going to see if there are any used-car leases around too; I thought I saw some before, but not sure whether they were actually a different type of finance. I'm looking at SUVs (small-medium) for two reasons; the entrance to our shared driveway has a hump and it's a sod for scraping the underside of your car, and secondly we'd like a rather large dog in the not too distant future.

I've managed £500 of credit card payments this month. I've confirmed two (out of three) bonuses for the end of July, and should hear about the third next week, so that's a positive but I am behind where I wanted to be. I want to somehow clear another £300 this month (I don't have it currently).

Sold a few more bits on eBay this week but I'm still waiting for my postage invoice for everything so far. I'm going to keep better track of it going forward; I don't like having these funds set to one side, not knowing if I need the whole amount. Still got loads more to get listed and I need to crack on.

Receiving a £100 Amazon voucher from work for length of service. I've got quite a few bits on my wish lists but I might hang on to it for a while. I feel like I should buy something 'permanent' with it, buy something I can't otherwise justify, or use it totally practically - at the moment I can't get all three to align. I'll likely do a combination. Nice problem to have

My budget for the rest of July is naff, to be honest. Well, the 'spending money' category is. We went out with a friend at the weekend, who stayed over. One meal out and the cinema tickets is fine - the second meal out is pushing it, but I ended up spending £60 on booze as well; to make cocktails and we didn't have a single one of the ingredients. I didn't realise that a) I'd be paying, b) we'd be keeping what was left and c) how much it'd add up to. Given that the booze has stayed here, and said friend is already generous, I feel bad saying we're not paying for it but I will definitely say something next time before we even get that far. On the bright side, that booze will last forever. Hey ho!

DD265

Received £200 from a family member - most of it was owed and they put a bit extra on. I'd written it off so that was a nice surprise. Paid straight off the MBNA card - down to a nice round £2000. Come the end of the month, if I can't manage that extra £100, I may have to decide whether a round number is more important than getting under £2k. :rotfl:

I've listed my wedding dress for sale, on Sell My Wedding. I paid the one-off £10 last year when I sold the bulk of things off, so I might as well start there as there are no more fees. Also got a mother of the bride outfit to put on and a few other bits. I certainly wouldn't put these things on eBay without a final value fee promotion! I wouldn't be too surprised if the dress doesn't sell, but on the other hand, the designer went bust and it's a fairly hard to come by style so you never know. It's still in the back of my mind to donate it, but for now it's not in the way.

We went to Matlock on Saturday and I loved it, really felt at home. We're already planning a trip back - there's a food festival on the August bank holiday weekend. Unfortunately?! I found a soft furnishing shop and it's going to be bad news for my bank account. Last year I bought some cushions from TK Maxx/Homesense for the sofa, couldn't find any more of the range anywhere. This shop supplies/upholsters in the same fabric. To make matters worse, there are two variations - my cushions are grey with multi colour spots (we have a grey sofa) then there's a striped version and more of a tartan.



I bought the spotty throw. I would like to get striped cushions to replace my tired knitted-by-me ones, then I want to use the tartan to make curtains for the window and possibly the sliding patio door. Chances are I'll want the stripey throw too. It is going to be a big saving up jobby. I think it's worth it though, to have a home that we're excited about. We own the house and plan to stay here, so I'm happy to plan future splurges on things that we love. There's nothing wrong with IKEA furniture for example, and it's served us brilliantly, but going forward we'll be in the position to look for last-a-lifetime pieces if we want to. The thought of it makes me happy.

Work is quiet at the moment, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to do some eBaying. The sooner I get the credit cards paid off and the car sorted, the sooner I can start saving for the 'fun' stuff. :rotfl:

beanielou

Love the spots

DD265

Me too Beanielou! I've no idea what we'll do with the rest of the room but the fabric bits are going to look good. :rotfl:

I've lost one of my excuses for not eBaying so I'm back into it. Last time I'd checked you could only schedule 20 listings for free per month, and I wanted to end them all on a Sunday evening, when I was usually listing late at night mid-week. Turns out you can now schedule for free, so I've got my 8 active listings and 38 scheduled to start on Sunday. It's a £1 max final value fee weekend so I plan to make the most of that.

Earlier in the week, OH decided to get two Phillips Hue bulbs to replace our cheap smart bulbs (they aren't 100% compatible with our phones) - the kit also had a hub in it and a Google home mini. We'd need the hub, and wanted another mini for our bedroom. The kit, normally £185, was on sale for £70. Though my work rewards scheme and already having a bit on a Currys voucher, we paid under £60.

They arrived today and OH had bought bayonet bulbs; we haves screw fittings. Currys told him they could be returned for a refund (to our instant voucher) but not exchanged. That would mean a £65 Currys voucher we have no use for - or an extra £120 for the correct set. :eek: A collection was arranged, but we considered changing the light fittings (not much out there in bayonet these days) or getting adapters which I am less than keen on.

'No, this shall not do' thought I, and I picked up the phone. 10 minutes and a very helpful customer service assistant later, and we'd organised an exchange for the correct bulbs at no extra cost to us. Winner is me!

DD265

I managed to get all the ponies (aside from duplicates) listed on eBay last weekend - that's 78 auctions ending this evening. 15 currently have bids; hoping for some late entries! Everything that doesn't sell is set to automatically relist. Some of the duplicates need cleaning and listing. I've not started on the other items yet.

Been doing some DIY this weekend. I put in a pond on Friday evening to surprise my OH, then I've just managed (after a bit of cursing) to get the curtain rails in our bedroom back up; they fell down - we hadn't put them up first time! It makes me want to get the entire house replastered as the quality of the plaster, which crumbles when you try and do anything with it, is just rubbish. The ceilings - which are artex - will definitely be done, so I'll probably get quoted for the full rooms and see if it's worth it.

Our food shops still seem to be quite expensive. Instead of my husband buying his breakfasts/lunches from his own account, they come out of the joint account. He did increase the amount he pays in, but as we have other increased bills, I'm still noticing the difference. Additionally we're eating a lot more chicken, cooking snacks from scratch etc and it all adds up. I think the biggest thing is the fresh produce we're buying. I keep saying we should go into the market and see what prices are like there, but it's finding time.

I asked at work if I could condense my hours into 4 days, instead of 5. It wasn't an immediate no, and my manager needs to have a discussion with HR. I suspect the answer might end up being no, but if they agreed, that weekday would be the perfect time for things like going into the market to get the best prices.

beanielou

Hope that you can get condensed hours.
They seem to work really well.

DD265

It would be nice! I think that could be a very productive thing for me.

On the eBay front, I made over £60 yesterday (after fees and postage) so added to the running sales total in my PayPal account that's another £100 off the MBNA card, making it £1900. I am very pleased with that result!

I don't like that Shutl (eBay's postage thing) doesn't have any visibility of the charges you've been racking up; they invoice once a month, but aside from when you buy the postage and agree the charge, you can't see what each individual transaction has cost. In June for example, my bill was over £90! The extra insurance, if required, can add up. So now as I go, I'm adding the postage into a transaction in YNAB that way I can keep tabs on the final bill.

It would be great to get the MBNA card down to £1k in August, but that's going to be one heck of a challenge. Something to aim for, so will see what pay day brings as I think that will be the deciding factor.

beanielou

Well done on the sales & your new MBNA total.

DD265

Pay day today, and I'm really pleased because I broke the £3k takehome barrier. OK it's an isolated event and at the end of August I'll find out what my new basic take home is after the changes in April/May.

After a bit of overspending in July, I've been able to set £600 aside for the MBNA card off the bat. I've made an extra payment of £300 already, direct debit is for £200, then I'll keep the last £100 in reserve for a bit just in case. I don't think I can get it down to £1k, but at the same time, this being such a good pay month, it's worth throwing as much as I can at it. I just know that I wanted to spend a bit on the house/garden, and we've at least one social event too which can add up reasonably quickly. What I end up doing - like I did in July - is borrowing from the car insurance pot, thinking I can put it back later, which I did today.

The front door is also paid for, so I've started the car deposit pot. Feels like progress! I pay in £100 a month for savings, then we do the Lloyds Save The Change from our three current accounts which rounds up our purchases and transfers the 'change' across.

Unfortunately OH has to pay for his driving lessons, then be paid back (they are a gift). He's taken so long to book them, that the family member who gifted them has some big bills to pay. Between that and flights for Dubai that we need to be booking for September, we may have to balance the books rather carefully for a little while. Neither of these warrant using the emergency fund though!

DD265

eBay auctions ended tonight - four sold at £4 each (including one I didn't think would) and a fifth for £7. The problem with the £4 ones, is that I was making 30p profit on each one - ignoring the ink/paper/time/fuel, though I do walk to the shop where I can. The reason I just calculated it was that eBay have changed how their postage system works and the new one is a LOT of hassle. Started thinking it wasn't worth it and worked out what I was making. I do well if somebody buys multiple items of course. In any case, I've bumped all my starting bids up to £5 - at least it'll be over £1 profit then!

I've also upgraded to a PayPal Business account, so I can keep my PayPal Access Card. It seems to be the only way that eBay will now let me pay my account fees and postage directly from my PayPal account - rather than my bank account - so I'm exploiting that loophole. If I just got paid into PayPal, why would I not want to use that money to cover the costs? I can only think it's eBay/PayPal out to keep my money in their account as long as possible, not that there's a lot of it!

I'm up to £42.35 in PayPal - waiting to get to £100 to pay it off the MBNA card. I'm due two refunds from Amazon when I return the stuff, so I might put the refunds in that pot which will get me up to just over £80.

The budget looks OK for the month ahead; we'll see how things go!