Looks worse when it's written down!!

enthusiasticsaver

I think that is a great start and good to see the Next starting with a 2. You should be in the 19s next month. Glad you got the laptop sorted. I would be lost without mine. Spent the morning doing my budgets on my spreadsheets. I don't use YNAB but use the same philosophy in allocating all our money to various savings/category pots. At least I assume that is how YNAB works from what I have read.

GTBT123

I agree, it is great that the Next account is under £3k. My next target is to get it under £2k. I want to clear it within 3 months but because of the laptop purchase it might take me a bit longer, but I feel positive that the total debt is going down anyway so I'm not too worried about it taking an extra month. I actually logged on to the account today & they have offered to up my credit limit by another £2k, they're obviously already noticing the lump sum payment and hoping they can keep me in the spend/pay interest cycle. Haha, no chance this time!

I really hope I am under £20k by the end of this month. It looks promising. I've been paid today, sorted the budgets out and everything is covered for all monthly bills, savings & minimum payments and my OH gets paid weekly so I still have another 3 Fridays wages to allocate when they go in.

Yes YNAB does have the idea of pots, so if you budget £100 for groceries for the month, you keep updating it every time you spend your grocery budget so throughout the month you always know how much is left in your grocery budget. If you want to buy something & don't have enough, the idea is you shouldn't spend it or if you do you have to take it out of another 'pot', but only if you physically have the money in cash or in the bank. In essence what YNAB stops you doing is 'borrowing' from your future money. So instead of saying 'yes I'll buy this because I get paid in 3 days' it makes you think 'I'll wait until I get paid & see if I can budget for this next month'. Hope that makes sense, I've not explained it very well.

I had a productive day today. I took everything out of some of my kitchen cupboards, cleaned inside them, threw out some of the things we don't use like extra tupperware lids etc and then organised the cupboards a bit better. They look so much tidier now & we can actually get to things now instead of having to take everything out of the cupboard just to find a water bottle or tupperware box. I also tidied up our utility room as it was becoming a bit messy & cluttered.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. We haven't got a lot planned but I will be getting out in the fresh air for a few hours if it warms up a bit. We didn't have too much snow where we are and what we did have has completely melted now, so not too worried about getting out & about.

GTBT123

Monday again!

Weekend went so quickly. I managed to get out for a walk on Sunday. It was cold but I wrapped up warm and I'm so glad I forced myself out as I felt so much better for it. Not much to report on the finances. Most of my bills come out at the beginning of the month, so they're mostly done now, but DD payments for credit cards come out throughout the month, so at the moment I'm just keeping track of them and hoping I can get another big chunk paid off at the end of the month. Hopefully I'll be able to get the Next account under £2k by the end of this month, but realistically if I can get it into the lower half of £2k I'll be happy.

I have my meal plan sorted for the week. I'm trying to lose a bit of weight too, so have brought a tuna salad to work for my lunch today & lots of fruit. I've got lunches planned for the rest of the week too so hopefully won't spend any money at all. Then I'll just order my groceries again at the end of the week ready for next week. I need to get next week's meal plan done first though so I don't buy anything I don't need.

My to do list today is simple - get through the day without eating any chocolate or sweets!

GTBT123

I've been doing all my budgets for the month and realised that we have to pay the final payment for a holiday that we have had booked for over a year We can't cancel it because we'd lose all the money we have paid towards it so far. The good thing is once we've paid for it there is no further money to pay because the package we have booked includes flights, accommodation, transfers and food (it's not all inclusive, but the place we're going do a food plan that you prepay for).

Anyway this means that the £1000 I would have paid towards extra debt repayments has to be used to pay for the holiday. On the positive side, at least this is not being paid for on my credit card like I probably would have done before I had my lightbulb moment.

In more positive news, everything else is budgeted for and standard minimum debt repayments are covered. I'll definitely have to get my butt in gear to put a few things on ebay, try & raise a bit of extra money to go towards the debts this month. Something is better than nothing at all.

I've been really good with sticking to my meal plan this week and haven't fallen into my old routine of running into the supermarket on my way home from work. I've now got my next week's grocery order coming tonight, which covers our breakfasts, lunch & dinner for the whole week. I just need to come up with a few more ideas for meals because otherwise I'm going to start getting bored of the same meals all the time & will slip back into my old habits.

The weather is so horrible here today. The rain hasn't stopped all morning and it's really windy as well, which I hate. I hope we get some decent weather over the weekend so I can try & get out for a walk. I haven't got much else planned for the weekend so will definitely sort out more ebay items and I'm going to look for some good healthy, cheap recipes to add a few more meal ideas to my meal plans.

GTBT123

This month is flying by! I'm thankful that it will be payday next week. I've stuck to my budgets for everything so the debts will be reducing, but it feels like I've not made a lot of progress at all.

I really need to sort out my grocery shopping. I have been sticking to a meal plan and within budget at the moment but it still seems high. To be honest I was sort of hoping I would have some budget left at the end of every month, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm going to do a few brand swaps and see how that goes. I can't shop in Aldi or Lidl because there isn't one close to where I live & unfortunately don't have the time to shop during the week because I do the school run every morning, then rush to work, then when I finish work I have to get home to our daughter, so no spare time in between.

I'm going to sort it out though, food seems to be our biggest expense apart from our mortgage, which really bugs me.

I've also been pretty useless with ebaying. I haven't put anything else on there since my sale back when I started this diary. I have sorted a few bits to go on there, but they're just sitting in my spare bedroom taking up space. I will get them on there on Thursday because the ebay sale I made a few months ago was to cover 3 months of Netflix, so it will be the 3rd month in March. That means I need to at least get April Netflix money raised. That's a small and achievable target, so I've got to just get it done.

It looks like I might be owed some wages from work too, which is great. Basically it's a newish company and for the first few months they were just paying us a lump sum every month while they were sorting out an accountant and HMRC etc. That's all done now and they've issued my October and November payslip so far, which is showing a higher total amount than what I actually received. I'll wait for them to issue December and January then I can see where I stand with it. I knew there was a bit of a shortfall so have been waiting for them to get everything sorted out.

My plan this week is just to try & sort out a grocery list then swap some things out to see where I can save money.

Working_Mum

GTBT123 wrote: »

I really need to sort out my grocery shopping. I have been sticking to a meal plan and within budget at the moment but it still seems high. To be honest I was sort of hoping I would have some budget left at the end of every month, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm going to do a few brand swaps and see how that goes. I can't shop in Aldi or Lidl because there isn't one close to where I live & unfortunately don't have the time to shop during the week because I do the school run every morning, then rush to work, then when I finish work I have to get home to our daughter, so no spare time in between.

I'm going to sort it out though, food seems to be our biggest expense apart from our mortgage, which really bugs me.

My plan this week is just to try & sort out a grocery list then swap some things out to see where I can save money.

Have you checked out the "Old Style" Forum on here?? There is so much guidance, knowledge and inspiration to get your food shopping under control and to reduce waste (and save money!)

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33

Keep going, you will get there!!

GTBT123

Thank you, I have had a little look at it, but I need to sit down & spend an hour or two just finding tips & getting it under control.

GTBT123

I haven't had chance to tot up the totals after February payments. I know it wasn't a huge payment because of other things I had to pay for. I'm determined to get this down, but already it feels like a hard slog. Ah well, I got myself here so I'll get myself out of it.

Food budget - I'm keeping a close eye on this now in March. I'm trying to eat healthy so buying a lot of meat & veg, but also cutting down on the amount of treats we usually buy. I've been bringing lunch to work with me every day for the last 2 weeks and really enjoying getting it ready now that I've made it part of my routine each evening. I'm going to do some baking this weekend which will be a nice sweet treat for my work lunch. I already have lots of baking ingredients in my kitchen so no extra cost to me for this.

I'm going to try & get the balances shortly. I keep forgetting the login details to one of my cards so every month I go through the hassle of resetting it all, then forgetting it the following month.

pidge04

Fantastic about the Next balance coming down!

Well done!

GTBT123

I've not even bothered checking my figures properly this month after February payments. I know they have come down because I paid over the minimum on all accounts, but because I had the holiday payment to make I know that the decrease won't be massive. I am just trying to tell myself that it's still going in the right direction, which is the main thing. Small steps are just as important as the big steps.

I switched our gas & electric supplier recently and was pleased when I logged in to our old supplier for my final bill and noticed it was in credit. That has now gone into my bank account which is great. I'm going to use that as an payment on the Next account. I'm going to pay it today so that I can't spend it on anything else. This month should be a good month for making extra payments based on the budgets so far. All bills have been paid, money has been allocated to budgets for groceries, fuel etc and I still have around £900 to allocate, which is a nice big chunk towards the debt payments.

I've got another quiet weekend planned. I always have my grocery shopping delivered on the weekend, so that's ordered now and meals are planned for the weekend and next week. Lunches are easy because I've been sticking to salad. I find dinner the hardest to plan because sometimes the meal on the plan ends up being the last thing you want to eat after a long, hard day at work. I'm getting better at it though because I keep telling myself it's all for a good reason. We did treat ourselves to a takeaway last weekend though, but it was budgeted for and I actually enjoyed it a lot more this time because it was a real treat, rather than just something we did every Friday.

I did put some stuff on ebay last week but unfortunately they didn't sell.

My plans over the next week are:

Put a few things on ebay again and actually sell them.
Order a new bank card - mine is broken, which is probably a good thing!
Have a mini spring clean on my quiet weekend.