DD's accountability thread

beanielou

Good news on the exam :T

DD265

It has been a busy week, with several social engagements.

The first was a team meal with coworkers and relatively inexpensive - about £30. I tend to average £30 for a social outing, come to think of it. The second was the awards ceremony in London on Thursday, which was fantastic. For that, I'd bought new shapewear and a bit of makeup, but already owned the dress/shoes/bag/cardigan - I wore the dress for a work event 4 years ago! In the end, it was such a rush to get ready (had about 45 minutes!) that I went for my usual makeup and just straightened my hair anyway. It was a fab night though, and all expenses paid.

Today, I went 'home' for a personal training session. Then I went to the butchers there and stocked up on a few bits (not least because I couldn't get to our local one this weekend) and I spotted a dress in the charity shop window. I was convinced to try it on, even though it's a few sizes big on the label, and it fits like a glove - perfect for the charity ball in a month, £15 and means I don't need to re-use Thursday's outfit. I've got shoes etc that will go too. I also popped into TK Maxx to kill a bit of time, and bought some new winter pyjamas - less than £15 - as I wanted to chuck out a pair. I like the look of wide/straight leg, but the warmth of the cuffed ankle ones! Also got some socks, and some metal straws to keep in my handbag.

I then met a friend for lunch - cost £20 inc tip - and then saw some other friends (back to the stables where I kept my horse) for a catch up before coming home. As I was coming home a bit later than intended I was able to avoid the lure of the Homesense I pass; I think it might just be my favourite shop.

We did go to IKEA last night and bought some shoe mats, to use on the conservatory floor when I bring the plant pots in. It's good laminate and I don't want to scuff/water damage it. We were looking at desks so we can swap the office and spare bedrooms around, but I think we'll DIY those. We did see a bed at IKEA which I think will be perfect for the smaller spare bedroom, as the existing double will take up virtually all the space in there.

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/hemnes-day-bed-frame-with-3-drawers-white-90349326/

It'll work as a day bed, but pull out into a double and there's a little underbed storage for bedding etc. This would mean that when we don't have guests we can put the clothes horse in here - it can fit in our bedroom but it's a squeeze, and we don't particularly want it in the office!

ETA, I spoke to HR about my take home/PAYE but they couldn't answer and suggested I ring HMRC. That's on my list for this week

DD265

I spoke to HMRC - and whilst it's a bit weird, everything is correct for the year so the guy (who was really good) said there shouldn't be any issues. Still, I'm frustrated that my takehome feels like it's barely increased despite the pay increases earlier this year.

What will help, however, is the MBNA card being paid off this week. Got down to £350 on it, my £200 direct debit goes out on Monday and I already made a manual payment for the £150. :beer:

We swapped the office and spare bedroom around, and it works brilliantly. The double bed is fine in the smaller room, so no rush to change that, and we have a lot more space in our new office which is great. Unfortunately, in the process my ancient frankenmonster of a PC had a fit, leading me to agree to purchase a second hand one from OH's brother - to the tune of £590 (over two months). :eek: It's a much better machine than the £300 or so I'd have spent on an admin box, and I've been putting off upgrading my PC for well over 5 years, but it's still a lot of money.

I'd also agreed to pay for my sister's first year of YNAB, so I'm feeling rather penniless! I have two social engagements to go this month; a day/evening out with a friend and a charity ball. I'm definitely going to take a bottle of booze to the charity ball, will have to take my handbag to Tesco and see what bottles I can get in it. :rotfl:

I found a new dress for the charity ball in a charity shop window - it's vintage Monsoon and pure silk for £15 - I posted about it on the charity shop thread. I thought about getting it cleaned but I have a handheld steamer, so I'll try that first, along with the "hanging it in the bathroom when we shower" trick. I'm wearing my wedding shoes, and I found a bag to go with those yesterday (£15 from TK Maxx, nothing in the charity shops ) I am getting my hair done - both cut and coloured the week before (it's overdue!) and styled locally on the day, as I am hopeless at styling my own hair. Thankfully, the colour will be half price as my hairdresser is running a sale in November, so that has helped my budget. My next hair appointment after that is January, and then I'll give some thought to DIY colouring - at 31, I'm not ready to let the greys out!

It's an eBay £1 FVF weekend, so that's my plan for the rest of it, though need to do a food shop as well. Hopefully, eBay sales will bring me a bit of extra cash and not too much hassle!

DD265

MBNA card balance is nil :beer: :j :j :j

beanielou

Excellent :j :j :j

DD265

Thanks Beanielou!

I'm at that point in the month where nothing much happens. I had an expensive weekend - it wasn't necessarily expensive in the grand scheme of things, but it used a lot of budget - and the cats were at the vet tonight for their jabs, so feels like money is definitely going out a bit fast at the moment.

The car deposit is at £145.52 - nearly 10% of what feels like the minimum I need. I'm leaning towards leasing, but we'll see. Buying (an older car) outright is not going to be on the cards unless I take out a loan, so we'll see what repayments look like across the various options.

The plan was to use my emergency fund to bump up the car deposit, then when my existing car sells, use that to replace the emergency fund and put the extra towards the next savings goal, whatever that will be. In the mean time, we'd have OH's emergency fund to fall back on. My emergency fund is still nearly £600 down (and no word on when I'll receive that, though I've told myself that I won't start pressuring until December) so we'll have to see how things go nearer the time.

The present fund is looking a bit low but it'll be manageable for Christmas. I have a tendency to buy random presents throughout the year (like a £12 bottle of mead at an event yesterday for OH) which I think have drained it, plus I spent £70 out of it on my sister's YNAB subscription.

My main aim for the rest of November is to get through it without borrowing from future me - i.e. using budget pots that I've then got to replenish. I've done it a few times this year, and it always bites me. In contrast, if I don't have to play catch up, I feel very well off when budgeting my salary.

We have the charity ball this weekend. I'm getting my hair styled as I'm useless, but I'll do my own makeup, and plan to see what bottle of booze I can fit in my handbag to spike my drink and save at the bar. :rotfl: The weekend after my husband has plans but I don't (and I do love having time to myself; it's always productive) and then we have pay day before the next weekend. So I think if I can get through this coming weekend I'll be fine. :cool:

DD265

Pay day today, and I often enjoy budgeting for the month ahead. This month it's really hit home how much more money I have when I'm not playing catch up. OK, £295 went into November for the second half of my new PC, and ~£85 for some storage boxes for the garage that I got on sale (it looks good!), but still.

I've put £50 more than normal in the gifts category just with it being Christmas, but I won't need to do that next year; it's been the first one I've borrowed from if skint. And no MBNA payment at all, though I plan to start putting fuel on it. YNAB will immediately move the payment from the fuel category to the credit card category. Only £100 into the new car pot this month; not quite enough really, but with the PC I couldn't manage it. Will be able to do more in Jan onwards.

Leaning towards keeping the Golf now; took it in for wheel rebalancing and tracking alignment, and it got a gold star. The rusting on the sills is purely cosmetic so we don't need to worry unless it starts getting holey. Seems a shame to get rid of such a good car, particularly when it's not worth that much. We'll see though - OH will have to take over it's costs if he wants to keep it, and we might decide that £1.5k or whatever is more useful in our bank account than on the driveway.

The joint account particularly is looking healthy so far for December, and I've increased the vet bills pot. We ultimately need to be self insuring I think, as we'll end up paying a fortune in premiums and both mogs already have exclusions at 3 years old. OH bought a smart doorbell in the sales; as the office is upstairs, we find delivery people rarely patient enough! That will require professional installation, and we've a few other jobs for an electrician so I think that'll take a decent chunk from the food/household budget. I'd really like to be putting £50 a month or so aside for tradesmen/home improvements as there's so much we'd like to do, but we're not at that point just yet.

We've gone from not hosting at all, to hosting both Christmas and New Year! Not quite sure how that happened. :rotfl: Christmas is a takeaway that Mum's bringing, and NYE we'll just hit up Iceland for party food which is what we'd have done if we'd been on our own anyway. I wanted to make a Christmas wreath for the front of the house, and we're going to put the tree up for a change this year. We can't find the set of lights the cat chewed through (OH was going to fix them - a couple of years ago!) so we'll need to replace those, but OH didn't like most of my wreath designs bar one, which we already have the materials to make (baubles) so no crafty shopping spree for me. Spoil sport. :rotfl:

DD265

New PC is set up - it's fab. Unfortunately it was too powerful for one of my old hard drives (we were taking two over) which promptly blew itself up, and I've ended up spending another £65 (using Cyber Monday sale and through the work discount scheme) to get a second SSD. That should be fairly future proofed now though! OH is trying to convince me to change my monitors (I have/use two) but there's nothing wrong with them. Apparently they don't even make them with such a small resolution any more but I'd be looking at £200 and I am adamant that the money is better used elsewhere right now. If I do that, suddenly this £600 PC is creeping up to £1k which is 3x more than I'd originally wanted to spend.

We were back up in Yorkshire this weekend, and had a wonderful trip to the South Lakes Safari Zoo in Cumbria yesterday. 400 miles driving and £40 worth of fuel later, but totally worth it. I got to feed the giant sea otters and they were so greedy, but incredibly cute and very funny. We've said we'll definitely go back next year, so I'll keep an eye out for half price experiences again.

We made another purchase in the Black Friday sales - something else we've been watching for over 6 months but not taken the plunge on; the Tefal pans where the handle detaches. We got a 13-pc stainless steel set, suitable for induction hobs (I am adamant we're getting one when we replace the kitchen) and it includes both frying and sauce pans. It'll be a massive space saver in the cupboards, and some of our pans are showing significant signs of use. I think we have a tendancy to overheat them, so will be more careful with the new lot. We got it for £114 instead of £260 - very pleased.

We've agreed this month to try and not do those little trips down to One Stop etc - limit it to one lunch per week and no evening trips. It's occasionally a lack of organisation, but mostly because we want something to nibble or a 'nicer' lunch than what's on the cards at home. I'm trying to get back on WeightWatchers fully so it's a good incentive to behave!

DD265

I'm getting frustrated with OH at the moment. He's not on board with the budget; it's OK because he doesn't spend much generally, but it does mean he's not really aware of how things are going/what wriggle room we have. He's now passed his driving test, and I can tell he's turning his attention to a motorbike license.

What he doesn't seem to get is that the budget is generally tight. I think at least 10 months - if not every one - this year, I've had to move money from one category to another. In December, it'll be into the car maintenance pot, as the Golf needs something doing. His account balance also tends to stay the same, rather than increasing, i.e. he's breaking even month on month.

I can pay off my credit card, get a new car on finance, pay off his credit card, pay off what we owe my step FIL (OH is paying these last two) but I can't do it all at once whilst also saving up for a new boiler, kitchen, garden overhaul, bigger emergency fund, 6 months salary in the bank etc.

I think we need to have a sit down, and get him budgeting properly, and agree what our goals are going to be. If he starts allocating money to various pots when he gets paid, instead of keeping it in one pot, and we go through the joint account, I think he'll have a better view of what we can and can't afford, and we'll start to see his bank balance creep up.

DD265

We had a takeaway tonight - and realised it's the first one since the start of November! I'd like to get to the point where it's only one takeaway/fast food a month as we tend to have fast food a little more, but we'll get there. We've managed to cut down drastically on the lunch time shops too which is good.

I've been working from home all month due to the company's new office not having internet up and running yet. I finished for Christmas today, but it's meant that I can get away with filling the car up twice this month, rather than three times which has been very helpful. Said car found itself in the garage on Tuesday due to a snapped coil spring - £140 later, which OH is splitting with me.

I think I'm going to re-jig the budget in January. I think the cats are costing us more than we realise, and I may need to start putting more into the joint account, so I want better visibility. I'd also like to merge a few categories - like utilities for example - and I'll take the opportunity to trim the surplus from a few categories. It's also the ideal time to review goals for next year; obviously after a new car is purchased and the credit card paid off! Will make OH sit down and do it with me, and bully him into budgeting properly too. :rotfl: