Actually no, I don't need that new mop...

PawsForThought

OBL That's a really great idea I do have one savings account but I try to view it (somewhat unsuccessfully) as untouchable. Maybe opening a second would help with that? I will look into it

So I was successful at the interview on Wednesday which is both incredibly exciting and also sort of sad. I really do love my job and will be gutted to leave, but this is an opportunity I can't really turn down. Unfortunately it does come with a fairly significant salary cut. It's only temporary but it will make things tricky for a few years. I suppose now is a good time for it to happen while I'm (sort of) learning how to become a more savvy frugalista :cool:

A few cheeky Christmas presents ordered so the NSD count has epically dropped. November and December are always going to be spendy times though! Bought our advent calendars with the tesco clubcard vouchers which a totally legit use of the 'free money'. I am SO excited for December to roll around :j

Onebrokelady

Yay, well done on the new job, there is nothing like a pay cut to focus your mind on being frugal,if the opportunity is a good one it will be worth it in the end

I'm getting excited about December now,this is a new experience for me because I normally dread it and spend the whole month alternately spending money like a mad thing and then worrying myself to death because I know I can't afford it,not this year though, I am going to enjoy December this year
Totally agree about using the club card vouchers for advent calendars too,I save my Boots points all year and then use them to treat myself to any bits I want

Fla603

Just wanted to say Hi and you’ve just saved me £10 with your first post!! You mentioned Te2co vouchers and it made me wonder if I had any “unspent” ones. (I usually leave the posted vouchers at my back side and inevitably they get lost). Sure enough when I logged in I have £10 worth of vouchers waiting for me!!! Going to get them printed out and in my purse. Thanks!

I’m enjoying your diary and will subscribe... when I work out how too ��

PawsForThought

Hi OBL - thanks for the congrats it really is an amazing opportunity and you’re right - it totally will be worth it. I will need to have a strategy in place and have been browsing the boards on here for some inspiration. Along with some shopping websites. The internet is such a mixed bag for me.

So glad to hear that you’re looking forward to December - the shift in mindset represents a HUGE success for you, it really shows what a long way you’ve come so well done! :beer:


Fla - So pleased to have contributed to your savings this month! I hope you treat yourself to something nice with that extra cash There’s a subscribe button at the top of each thread and then you can see ‘unread posts’ in your profile to see when people post on the threads you subscribe to. There might be better ways of doing it but I’m not massively tech savvy to be honest!


Well, it’s been a horribly spendy week, hence my guilty absence from posting. :embarasse I’ve been defending and justifying spends by telling myself that I’m celebrating and so deserve these treats. Or that, since for the next few years I’ll be earning less, I really ought to spend more on Christmas presents this year as it’s the last time I’ll be able to do so for a while. I’m not really sure how I managed to justify the false eyelashes, except that they had a little discount, and they make me feel just ever so slightly pretty.

Anyway, I’m ready to poke my nose out of my shame-filled hiding place now and get my rear in gear. After a really successful start to the month, I’m down to an embarrassing 9 of 19 possible NSDs this month, which means I’ve spent on more days that I’ve not spent.

On the plus side, I’ve been trying a ‘thing’ where I cook 2 different meals on nights when I have energy instead of the usual one (I usually make enough to have leftovers anyway so there always seems to be a really excessive amount of food). I now have a freezer full of lovely meals to curb my emotional spending/eating habits. Fingers crossed!

Onebrokelady

We all have those horrible spendy weeks now and again, the trick is to learn from it and to try not to keep repeating it,maybe set aside a little treat fund for things like eyelashes:)

Spendy_Spenderson

Congrats on the successful interview Paws!


Looking at your SOA, £30 seems low for a whole month's entertainment fund. I guess that needs to cover any meals out, take aways, drinks / pub visits, coffees, cinema - basically any and all social events and date nights? Maybe it's just me and I spend too much (very possible!) but I would really struggle on £30 for a whole month - even a normal month let alone December and Christmas party season.


Note this isn't me telling you to spend more which obviously wouldn't be very frugal! But just to ensure that really is a realistic budget for you to live by each month.
...And if you can then please give me some tips!

PawsForThought

Wow, it's been a while!

Life got a bit (a lot) hectic I’m afraid and totally took me away from the forum, and then a few things happened (mostly positive) which have totally turned my situation around, hence my absence:

1. I became a full-time student again. Whilst this came with a pay cut, I have managed to secure an arrangement where I receive my full tuition and a fairly generous stipend (basic living funds) without any loan, so I’ll never have to pay any of it back!
   
2. There were two additional benefits to this, the first was a cheeky overlap where my last month and a bit pay from my old job came through at the same time as my first stipend instalment – so I whacked that on my debt, woo! The second is that I rang the Student Loans Company and told them I’m a student, and they have deferred the over-payment until I complete! So I’ve effectively (in my head at least) written that off for now.
   
3. On the PLUS PLUS side, I received a tax rebate and a council tax rebate!! I was unashamedly buzzing and bouncing off the walls. The majority had to be thrown at the debt obviously and not squillions of fancy treats for myself (and I coyly told friends and family that it was going into savings), but I did keep a little aside and invested in some really good quality running shoes and a super cute, functional and waterproof Cath Kidston backpack because I’m a student now and this is what students need (plus it was like 30% off).
   
   [LIST=3]

Now that people know that I’m a student I have a legitimate reason to be poor and feel a lot better about organising super cheap social events, or just turning them down when I need to. This is a huge relief to be honest.

[*] On the downside, the university is a 60 mile commute. This obviously has pretty huge implications for travel costs; however, my supervisor has been really relaxed about the amount of time I have to spend in the office and I’m generally doing 1-2 days a week unless I really need to be in for something. So not too bad usually.

[*]It also had implications for my poor old car though, which struggled to say the least and started requiring some costly repairs fairly quickly. I tried using public transport but it was more expensive and added 2 extra hours to my commute (making it 5 hours each day which was frankly absurd). Amazingly, and thanks to OH’s generous parents, we found a brilliant solution. OH was in the market for a new car; we part exchanged my old banger (instead of his much nicer car) for a shiny new one, and his parents topped up for his deposit. We then managed to negotiate for me to take HIS old car (only 3 years old) and continue paying finance at a much cheaper rate with a view to owning. Genius! I love LOVE driving this car – it actually goes uphill properly – and it shouldn’t start clocking up problems like my old one any time soon.
[/LIST]

So my new debt situation is:
£1860 /£2500 CC
[STRIKE]£209/ 600[/STRIKE] Car repair loan gone!
[STRIKE]£160/ 1600[/STRIKE] Bank loan also gone!
[STRIKE]137.50 / 3300 [/STRIKE]Student finance (effectively) gone!
640 /8000 total debt to go

Which means I have paid/got rid of a whopping £7360 (without having as cheapo a Christmas as I had planned... whoops).

I know that Student Loan overpayment debt is there really and I plan to pay it off as soon as I can. My intention is to put any earning from PT work into a savings account and then pay off the Student Loan in chunks, gradually. I don’t want to commit to monthly payments because my schedule is so varied that some months I might just not manage and I don’t want to get into trouble.

So, going forward, I just need to work hard, scrimp and save to ensure that I don’t fall into the deadly trap of accruing more student related debt as I’ve done in the past. This time I’ve refused to even entertain opening a student bank account – I know there are perks but I just find overdrafts too enticing and that’s exactly how I started getting into debt in the first place.
I’ve cut up my credit card and will continue to overpay what I can each month. I’ve got an adjusted budget and I think I should manage. Money is tight but there’s just enough to start an Emergency Fund and start saving for Christmas.

I have lots of catching up to do on this forum, I’m so looking forward to seeing how all the people I was following have been getting on. Will post an updated SOA when I can (better get cracking with writing now, deadlines are looming).

Starmummy

So Good to see you back Paws...and thank you for stopping by on my diary with such kind words.

What exciting changes for you in such a relatively short time. Yes ok the budget has to balance and the debt has to go...but more importantly you have to live. Going back to education to study for a career you really want is really inspiring. well done you.

does this mean moving back north is on hold now?

Take care
SM

PawsForThought

Thank you Starmummy - it's good to be back! I feel so focused and motivated already; I hope I can stick with it this time! I am so enjoying being back in education and I think that once I'm a bit more settled I'll have the energy to devote to some PT work and increase my income a bit. I'm amazed that you've remembered my moving back north plan! It's definitely still my goal but yes, on hold for now. I think that this qualification will enable me to get a job that I want more easily there, so fingers crossed!

Coming back to the forum has made me reflect on how I’ve been doing in more day-to-day and personal areas of finance, particularly with FOOD. And because food is always at the forefront of my mind. Is it normal to be this obsessed with food?? :rotfl:

Was feeling super grumpy all day today and nearly didn’t bother cooking, but finally just got stuck in and made an absolutely gorgeous ‘deconstructed’ moussaka – so glad I did!

I am pretty MSE when it comes to food most of the time – I meal plan and usually stick to it, I used to batch cook a lot and I pad out meals with things like lentils and tiny chopped veg to stretch them further and make them more nutritious. I also have a bunch of store cupboard items so once in a while I have a ‘use up week’ where I only buy milk, eggs and fruit during the weekly grocery shop and get creative with what we have. I know I could be doing things more cheaply but we’re currently eschewing cheap and filling staples like pasta and bread as OH and I signed up to a 10k charity run, so trying to optimise our health through nutrition as well as our training (about my absolutely last choice of fundraising activity as I HATE running, but he lost a family member and his extended family asked us to join).

I’ve always sort of known this but MY GOD eating well within a budget is super super difficult, and right now I’m choosing to prioritise our health over saving money in this department (without being ridiculous). A big part of this for me is making sure I have a wide range of fruit and veg throughout the week, and a mix of healthy fats like nuts, seeds and dairy. So that all adds up… I do like a good challenge.

Anyway, after a brief interlude of being a bit rubbish, I am back to Meticulous Tracking and Budgeting.

I’ve come to realise that we’re terrible for buying extra crap to ‘treat’ our guests when we have people over so will spend silly amounts, for example, OH’s parents visited this weekend and we spent £20 on booze and another £8 on snacks – not including the actual meal - for just one evening (and then have loads left which, you know, we might as well just finish). We also bought an indoor plant so that the house could look 0.5% nicer for them for some reason. This has to stop. It is a really nice plant though.

During my time off the site (when I wasn’t accountable for anything) we also fell prey to a small number of greasy take-aways, particularly when we felt we were due rewards for having eaten so well in the last week or so. I’ve been ignoring the financial costs of this in favour of calculating whether I can ‘get away with it’ in my nutrition plan, which is ultimately a bad philosophy to have in every conceivable way. So, in true MSE fashion I spent the weekend trying to prevent this from happening again by doing an epic batch cooking session and have clogged up the tiny outside freezer with:
• 10 portions of turkey and bean chilli
• 4 portions of ‘chip-shop-style’ veggie curry, with 2 portions of sauce left so we’d just need to fry up some meat or veg and voila
• 8 portions of chickpea and potato chana masala (with leftover onion bhaji bits in)
• 10 mini cauliflower-crusted feta and asparagus quiches for quick go-to breakfasts

I think that’s a pretty decent start! :A

PawsForThought

Quick post to keep me accountable as I get back into the swing of things!

NSD today, and since the start of the month I've been walking rather than taking the bus. My commute is over an hour and even then I can't park on site - I have to park a mile away (and still have to pay for a parking permit!) The two miles of walking a day will also be good for my health I'm sure.

I've been very good at remembering to pack breakfast/lunch so I don't have to buy at work (and feeling smug). I had an important meeting with two investors today and my supervisor brought posh biscuits to keep them sweet! She's so lovely. So I've enjoyed free tea, biscuits and phone charging all day!

Sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees, but the little things do add up eventually.