My 'I Need A Diary' Diary!!

Anoneemoose

Dear Diary, I’m sorry I’ve neglected you!

Nothing much to report as I’ve had lots going on with the house. Sadly, it’s been more costly, but I shouldn’t really be surprised..our house has always been awkward!:rotfl:

On a positive note, I’ve stayed under budget on a few things this month, so that’s good. And by that I mean the things I would normally go over, like groceries and ‘fun money’. I bought some metal water bottles in the summer so my daughter has been taking that to school with filtered water in. They keep it really cold so she’s been enjoying it. That actually saved us around £14 on the little bottles of water she used to get with her lunch. And it’s less plastic waste which is always good! All of our other budgets have been about right, give or take a couple of £s.

I have just got my first £20 voucher from Shoppix so got an Amazon one as I regularly get a couple of things from there. And I think I’ve got some cake stuff that will sell, so that’s hopeful.

I’m trying to jiggle stuff about for the house stuff so we can pay back what we borrowed. Just working things out.

Another thing is that my Mr Anon’s pay date is changing from the 25th to the last working day of the month, which means in November we’ll have to stretch an extra week or so. I might pick up an extra freezer or store cupboard item with each food shop between now and then. Even if it means having a week of ‘shove in the oven’ dinners.

I won’t leave it as long next time..:D

Anoneemoose

Well, it’s payday here. All budgets and funds sorted in YNAB. I love a fresh new month!

My aim again for this month is to stick to our budgets again and then once we get into the habit of doing that properly, maybe up until Christmas, I will look at reducing each one.

I’ve managed to sell a couple of pieces cake equipment, so that’s a total of £70, £32.64 of which is already in the bank. I will use this to pay one of the credit cards.

I also noticed that Halifax is doing a round it up type thing, where when you use your debit card, it rounds your spend up to the nearest £1 and then transfers it to a savings account. I’m not sure whether that’s the sort of thing that would work though. Maybe we’ll give it a try.

Went to Home B@rgains and only bought what I needed. Yippee!

On the downside slightly, we’ve had a payday takeaway from KFC, which was a treat. And out of our fun money budget. It was rather helpful too, to be fair. My daughter (and I) were up half the night as she wasn’t very well. I’ve been struggling pain wise for a week or so, so it was good not to have to worry about cooking. Must get something sorted for tomorrow though.

Anoneemoose

Well, I have been missing in action for quite a while...oops! I was determined not to let that happen, so here I am back again. In fairness, I have had a lot going on. We finished our bedroom (including self assembling Ikea wardrobes for Mr. Anon ). Mr Anon had also severely sprained his ankle at this time so it took some doing. We've also got DD suffering from some kind of mystery leg pain. We've been to the docs with no progress or idea of what it could be so my next step is to take he to a podiatrist, in case it is foot/gait related.


Back to the finances. I got to the point where I felt like I was landed with the burden of sorting everything out and allocating what we were spending our money on, when Mr Anon was just oblivious to it all (even though he has access to all of our information). So, we had a heart to heart and he is on board. We have been working together over the last few weeks to make sure we stick to our budgets and it has been so much easier to achieve while we're singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak.


We added up all the debt after borrowing some off his parents to finish the bedroom, and I've updated my signature to reflect this. It's a bit embarrassing but it is what it is and that will be the last time it will be that high.


My aims for the time being are to keep within budgets and post regularly to help keep me motivated. I've sold some things and also cashed out £40 from Onepoll, so that's all helping. We're still going to have takeaway once a week, but we've allocated for that. Last week, instead of takeaway, we went to the seaside for fish and chips and a £1 on the 2p machines and we had such fun!


I've spent on some laundry liquid and some wraps, strawberries and mince pies today, and we may have a our takeaway later so there'll be that, but otherwise, that should be it.

Anoneemoose

Well, I couldn’t sleep for ages last night..no particular reason, just one of those nights. And then woke up early even though I could have laid in! Typical!

Today has been an NSD, apart from milk, which technically won’t get used until tomorrow, but my Sains delivery won’t come until after it’s needed for my morning coffee .

I’ve also made some fudge, using an out of date tin of evaporated milk and leftover bits of caster/icing sugar.

We’ve also decided to have my in laws over for a buffet type tea tomorrow. It’s their anniversary and they normally have us over every Sunday, so we thought we’d give them a break.

Aiming for an NSD then too, apart from grocery shopping, which will include a few extras for the party, but we’re trying to do it quite cheaply, using what we already have in.

Anoneemoose

Yesterday was lovely - it was a nice change to have my in laws round, and our niece is such a cutie!

Our buffet tea cost slightly more than anticipated, but not too much - and Mr Anon managed to get some yellow sticker bargains to use. We also have a few leftovers, which will be used for lunches for the next couple of days as Mr Anon is working from home. That will save the money he would have spent in the canteen.

Today should be a NSD. I am going to see The Full Monty show tonight, but it's already paid for, including an ice cream and drink.

I was up ill last night so hopefully just resting for the afternoon.

Anoneemoose

Afternoon, diary!

Well, last night was hilarious..really enjoyed myself and didn’t spend a penny! Today, I’ve had a little bit of a spend - had to put £10 in a card as DS2 is going to his friend’s house for a birthday tea. Then I went to Lidl and spent £7.56 on some of the non toxic cleaning stuff, as I usually use method, but these were recommended.

I realise I haven’t really set out plans for debt repayment as yet. At the minute, until after Christmas, we will just be paying the minimum on the credit card. Then once Christmas is out of the way, we will be throwing all our spare money at it, as well as doing a £100 standing order to my in laws each month to repay the debt to them. We’ll also look at skimming our budgets as well, if possible.


November and December are expensive times as we have DS1 and DS2’s birthdays four days apart. And then there’s Christmas! We do set aside money for these things, but we’ll need to top it up, hence not paying any more than the minimum until the new year.

Choccygirl123

Hi anon

Good to see you back posting again and it sounds like you're really focussed. We're the same just trying to create good habits before Christmas. My aim is not go over the budget then giving up for the month and blowing more.

Anoneemoose

Morning (just)!

Been to Sainsbury’s for some milk, fruit and bread so spent £7.90 there. Should be an NSD for the rest of the day apart from parking possibly. I’m popping into town with my mum, DD and DS2 to get some trainers for DS2’s birthday (from my mum and dad).

Just popped some bolognese (all from scratch) into the oven on slow cook, which will be made into lasagne (white sauce from scratch too) for tonight’s meal. I managed to chop the onion ok, but my hands hurt now! I also ‘peeled’ my thumb and grated my knuckle the other day. :eek: I hate not being useful so try every now and then to do this sort of thing and look what happens! My hands are sore.

I need to rest before going to town with my mum so I’m going to do that until school run time, then hopefully I’ll have some energy to get there and back. Will have a quick check of Onepoll first though.

Until next time.....

Anoneemoose

35p on Onepoll!

Anoneemoose

Typed a huge post and then oafishly lost it...oops.:rotfl: Will try again.

I've been awol again for the past few days due to illness, however, I've had some low spend days because of that. Technically NSDs because everything bought has been out of allocated budgets. DH and I have been doing some online Christmas shopping and have managed some good savings.


We've also done well with our fun money budget..this is something we often used to go over on but we're actually under target this month and that is with an extra week to go. :T Sadly, our groceries budget is depleted but that's only a problem because we have an extra week due to DH's pay day changing. We are going to go through the freezer and see what we can manage on next week. One good thing is that we are at a party on Saturday night so that will feed us!:D

I've done a few onepoll surveys in the last few days and am up to £2.40 already. They have changed their cash out amount so hopefully it won't take as long this time (think it was about 5 years for the initial £40:eek:).

The minimum payment for the credit card came out too so will update my signature to reflect that. It's not a massive amount, but it all helps.