Keeping on the Straight and Narrow...

DancingInTheRain

Happy Monday

Well I've had a poor start to the £70 challenge, £24.78 spent already :eek:

Hubby not working at his usual base today so has had to spend £5.10 on parking (unclaimable ) then £19.68 spent in Lidl - needed formula for DS2 (£6.99) and loo rolls then picked up some YS fish and meat.

Stuck to my account tidy rule so 22p sent across to CC1 leaving me a nice & neat £45 to see me though the next 6 days.....

In other news CB was paid today and, as requested, has gone in to the account I'm going to use for debt payments instead of the bills account so I've set up monthly SO's to go to CC1 (£60 on the 1st) CC2 (£60 on the 7th) and Family Loan (£50 on the 1st) CB is £137.60 and monthly debt payments are £170 so have also set up a SO from the bills account to the 'debt' account of £32.40 (on the 1st) to cover the shortfall. Hopefully this makes sense!

If this plan works then there'll be one month a year where I'll have 2 CB payments (paid 4 weekly) so hopefully that extra payment can be thrown straight at the debt too.

The weather is miserable here, thunderstorms due later and the air is really heavy. DS1 at nursery all day today so time to get on with some chores.

DancingInTheRain

Ironing, hoovering, washing done and bathroom cleaned. Thank goodness DS2 had a long nap! Mind you, he'd need it after being on the go since 5.15!!!

Just withdrawn 49p payable from TCB so that's been sent off to CC1:o

At least all these extra little payments are going towards something constructive instead of being absorbed into our usual spends and frittered on goodness know what (wine probably )

sashybo

Hi Dancing, just popping my head round the door after your visit to my diary. :hello:

You've been very organised with the OP's to the CC's. I need to get back into more regular OP's towards our higher interest loan as want to cut the term down. I feel like we are frittering away money on rubbish all the time that probably should be going towards the debt.

I think I should probably do a grocery spending diary as well but am too scared to do it atm. :whistle:

You mentioned a few posts back about the "we're tired" "we work hard & deserve it" mentality towards things like takeaways. We are very guilty of this, especially recently & it's hard not to fall into this when both working (at paid job or child duties!). I'm trying to meal plan again as it really helps with cost & cuts the temptation but still struggling.

DancingInTheRain

Hi Sashybo thanks for popping in

I totally understand where you're coming from but be kind to yourself, especially at the moment - you're already a superhero growing another human without any other challenges :D

As others have observed on their diaries, the debt free journey takes many twists and turns. The journey may take a little longer than expected at times but I'm sure you'll reach your destination xx

DancingInTheRain

So another disaster spending day today - took hubby to a scheduled hospital appointment (ongoing chronic knee pain), hospital is a 90 minute round trip, appointment ran 90 minutes late so due to poor planning we succumbed to the extortionate hospital caf! :mad:

Between this and parking costs we spent £11.86 :mad: lesson learned for future appointments but in the meantime the £70 challenge looks like it may fail miserably with only £33.14 remaining (can't bring myself to round my account down at the moment :o )

Don't think I've mentioned on my diary previously but we recently changed energy providers following an alert from MSE energy club. The switch went live today so had to switch £99 from the annual bills pot to cover the first payment but according to my calculations we should get a refund from our previous supplier so will pay that back to the annual bills pot when we receive it. Our regular direct debt will be £99 instead of £125, we really need to work hard at reducing usage. I was definitely guilty of having the heating on unnecessarily when DS2 was first born and the tumble dryer was used non-stop when I was super fatigued, this is definitely much more under control along with a few other things since I got my mojo back a couple of months ago

Still not reached cash out levels anywhere - come on universe, I need some 'free' money!!!

DancingInTheRain

Morning all, didn’t manage to post yesterday. Spent most of the day outside enjoying the weather, remembered to take drinks and snacks again so no spending there but I did have to spend £6 on some waterproof bibs for DS2 as he’s teething again so dribbling constantly & I don’t know how he does it but has managed to rip the waterproof backing on most of the bibs we have!!

So £27.14 remaining until the end of the month...

The universe heard my cry for ‘free’ money - I snapped a couple of my mums shopping receipts which took me over the payout threshold on Receipt Hog (finally!!!) so have requested £5 there, not sure how long this will take as is my first cash out from this company.

Also had another sale on eBay so made £6.03 after fees & postage.

Cashed out £5.58 from Prolific Academic

Also had a sort out of the wardrobes and took a load of old clothes to a cash for clothes place and got £11.00

So that’s enabled me to send £22.61 to CC1 :j I’m not going to lie, the temptation to just keep hold of that money was strong, especially the way I’m spending money this week, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it as I’d have had to admit it on here :rotfl: so thank you diary world for keeping me on the straight & narrow

Wishing you all a lovely Thursday x

DancingInTheRain

So I have failed in my £70 challenge The warm weather got the better of us and this evening we packed the kids in the car, headed to the beach and promptly spent £7.40 on a chippy tea. The extra drive put my petrol into super low reserves so spent £15.02 topping it up then, as it was a supermarket petrol station, hubby went in the store for 'a couple of bits' and managed to spend £30.73

This is £26.01 over budget

We're going to put £13 in each from our personal spends so all is not lost, just a bit gutted that I haven't managed to stick to what should have be a manageable task. Think I need to have a savings pot for random heatwaves, the heat seems to make us want to spend more

So total grocery spends for June now £374.20
Total fuel spend £165.07 (£110.04 DH/£55.02 ME)

DancingInTheRain

As it's hubby's payday today I'm taking the opportunity to reflect back on month 1 and will reset the budget as of today rather than the first of the month. This will fit in well with my pay schedule which starts again next month as I'll get paid on the 27th.

Debt Totals 01/06/19 £13,636 now £13,217. Total reduction £419

Standard Debt Payments £170, total extra payments £249 :T

Extra payments made up from -
TCB £8.65, Ebay £31.63, Prolific £20.77, Betting Win £25, Cashing in small change £10, PPI £110.63, Cash for Clothes £11, Account Tidying £31.32

£9,999 01/01/20 Goal -
As of 01/06/19 I needed to pay £3,637 by 31/12/19. This is now at £3,218

Really pleased with these figures, had some unexpected/one off wins which helped massively too.

Also managed 11 NSD's

Total grocery costs £374.20
Total fuel costs £165.07

I'd expect fuel to be more next month as husband has been working from local sites this month but will be back at his usual office most of next month which will increase his mileage. I'm also back at work which will increase my fuel usage too.

Food costs worked out as £13.36 per day so a little goal for next month is to reduce this daily average.

We don't have too many plans or birthdays in July so just need to try to settle back in to wok and remain focused on the debt reduction opportunities.

I've actually just agreed to doing 2 shifts at work next week which I'll be paid for as KIT days, it's an opportunity for me to find my feet again and helps out at work as my office is short staffed next week, the days I'm doing are usually a little quieter so hopefully I won't be thrown in at the deep end too quickly

Come on July, let's do this! :j:j

sashybo

Well done on your extra payments to the debt! :j:T It's amazing how it can all add up.

Good idea on the KIT days too, I used all 10 of mine last time after my SMP ended and worked 1 day a week for 10 weeks. Hoping to do the same this time as it meant I was never totally without income.

I never got on with receipt hog, found it took sooo long to get enough points to cash out, I much prefer shoppix.

Do you use vypr? It's an app you can download & you answer short questions called steers about food. You get points for doing it & when you get to 10,000 (easier than it sounds) you can cash out for £5. You do need to check it regularly throughout the day as it doesn't tell you when steers come through but I've made £25 since March.

DancingInTheRain

Thanks Sashybo

I probably should’ve done a few more KIT days from a financial point of view but time has just gone so quickly with DS2 I honestly only feel like I’ve been off a couple of months instead of a year, it’s scary!

I agree Receipt Hog is horrendously slow, it’s taken 5 months to reach this payout :cool: I think I’ve had 3 payouts from Shoppix in the same time! However, I just update both apps at the same time so doesn’t feel like I’m wasting too much time on either of them.

Not heard of vypr but I’ll have a look, thank you x