Getting it together...one £ at a time!

Homegrown0

ohshithowdidthathappen wrote: »

I could have written that myself... I eat really well during the day, but from 8pm it goes to pot, mindless snacking with a glass of wine. It's my way of unwinding, but not the most healthy way of doing so!

Yep, this is exactly right. Snacks include nuts, crisps, ice lollies (whether winter or summer!), cheese, sweeties, chocolate. You name it. And once i start, it's so easy to just keep going. Even when i feel totally full, i'm still looking for something to have. I totally link it to relaxing/ unwinding.

And i'm not particularly overweight, it's 100% how i feel that's spurring me into action.

Homegrown0

doingitanyway wrote: »

I laugh at your countdowns but you have helped me see the value of having good things to look forward to.

Re eating rubbish. One thing that worked for me was breaking the connection between TV and snacks altogether (although you may not wish to do that) so I changed to only ever having tea when I watched TV. I did start getting very nice tea to make up for it. Might be worth a try?

Yes, it's so important to have something to look forward to. It's what keeps me going!

That's a great idea about breaking the connection between TV and snacking. We never used to be that bad, but over the last 1-2 years have been pretty terrible with snaking. Just eating for the sake of it. I like your idea of substituting with tea. I do love a green tea/ lemon tea so maybe that can be my TV thing? I need to do something, it's dragging me down.

teafor2

Hi HG Hubby is the same with snacking while watching TV. It starts about 7.30pm and goes on until 10pm or until we go to bed. The snacking is up to him but it's the constant pausing of the TV when we're watching something so he can go in the kitchen for his next course that really aggravates me :mad::rotfl:

I'm like DIA, I'll sit there and wait until certain times so I can have a cuppa or a hot choc if I'm feeling particularly devilish

Habits are funny aren't they, easily picked up, not so easily broken but I'm sure with your mindset you'll find a happy medium. xx

doingitanyway

Happy New Year. I'm sure you will continue to inspire me in 2020 x

Homegrown0

January 2020 ROUNDUP!

The first monthly round-up of the year, and indeed the decade is upon me already! This month has been crazy busy (I say this every month, yet it's always the same). But I am trying hard to keep on top of the finances, even if i don't manage to post as regularly as I'd like.

I spent some time this morning revising and going through our budget sheet to reflect changes to some bills and to my husband's wages so it seemed an apt time to do my January overview.

Balances and paid amounts
Loan: £0 / £15,792.30 (£15,792.30 paid off - 100% paid) :j:j:j:j:j:j
CC1: £4,370.11 / £4,736.59 (£366.48 or 7% paid off)
CC2: £3,344.58 / £5,031.14 (£1,772.38 paid off - 35% paid)

Total: £7,665.28 / £25,619.44 (£19,391.25 paid off, 76% paid)

Good things:

• THREE QUARTERS OF TOTAL DEBT PAID OFF!
• LOAN PAID OFF!!
• Into the £7ks!
• So close to £20k paid off!
  :j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j
  

Savings

• £550 in savings
• £100 in clothing/ gifts account...not touched it for this month (and don't expect to)
• £150 in Christmas saver (restarted in November)
• £150 in credit union (restarted in November)
• We booked our summer holiday earlier this month on our CC (a consciously made decision to take advantage of low ferry costs) - Already paid £800 to it this month and the rest will be cleared by March alongside all other commitments/ goals being kept to.

Days until pay day: 10
Loan payments left: NONE!!!
Childcare payments left: 6

Homegrown0

Hi all,

Just posted my monthly status and I'm delighted to say that we've paid our final loan payment which is so liberating! Delighted about that. It's not like we'll have free money to start throwing about, it's just freeing us up to finally get on with the things that we want to achieve with our house, which will be hopefully starting in a few months.

In the meantime, i'll be saving this as part of a coordinated approach to savings. I've got pots for holidays (we're hoping to do a special trip with the kids this Christmas but ONLY if we can afford to) and a general savings pot which will cover things we need (like car service, MOTs etc) as well as furnishings after our renovation works. It won't cover everything, but i want to make sure we're saving enough for the essentials (like a couch) and the rest can come later and a bit at a time.

Such a juggling act!

In some tiny nice news, my husband got his annual wage increase. It's set by their regulatory body and works out at £14 per week which is not life-changing, but better in our pockets

I have yet another busy week ahead work-wise but a fairly quiet one aside from that (besides the usual chauffeuring for the kids) so I'm going to try to use that time to catch up on things in the house and spend time with the kids a little more in the evenings. These little acts of self improvement and just being a bit more conscious of being present will hopefully make a difference to all the things that whirr around my brain.

Hope everyone is well and managing to get through January as best they can!

abba1772

That's fab news about the loan being cleared well done xx

Homegrown0

Thanks Abba I'm so pleased - it's just one step closer to our renovating plan that's been on hold for 5 years... This is the year that we kick things off and start to make progress!

Homegrown0

Morning all!

This morning has been productive work-wise, just need to keep that going. Having some heavy music blasting in my ears definitely helps me to focus so i've been listening to the music of my teenage years which is a nice throwback and has really boosted my motivation. It's the little things...

Today has been productive so far:
- Reordered son's prescription
- Paid all childcare bills for the month
- Emailed plans to kitchen company for quote/ design
- Emailed Amazon about a 'Free time' thing for £7.99 that has been being charged to me for a couple of months but i have no clue what it is (maybe to do with son's tablet?)
- Booked appointment with chiropractor
- Cancelled NowTV subscription
- White washing done and hung up
- Dark washing on

Let's see what else I can get done around my work today.

I have still been potting coins when i remember, although i need to remember to update on the debt-free challenges board to keep the momentum going.

My husband did some overtime yesterday which should result in 6 hours at double time and we should see this in his wages next week. Not sure how much extra that equates to, but i'll either plough it into the holiday credit card or into the savings account.

January is always an odd month - the hangover from Christmas overspending (although it wasn't too bad this year) takes a while to see the full effect and January is a LONG old month. We've almost made it through! And it's nice that February is a short month - 4 weeks exactly been January and February pay days, and it's a council tax free month which is great.

Days until payday: 9
Childcare payments:6
Weeks until holiday: 22

ohdearhowdidthathappen

How lovely to have the loan paid off and to have some nice plans to look forward to in 2020