Keeping on the Straight and Narrow...

savingholmes

Great progress

I get caught out talking about MSE stuff offline too. People don't get it

sashybo

😂 Dancing, I love rounding balances to zero, the odd pennies make me twitchy! DH just sighs when he sees an odd amount on a balance like £1.69 and says "Will I just pay that odd amount off for you, so it's nice and even?!" 😂 

You did really well with your free money in April, I might start counting mine as it's interesting to see it add up.

DancingInTheRain

It's been an eye opener seeing how much the free money has added up, a nice side effect is it makes me feel better that my efforts are giving us a bit of a buffer in the family finances too.

A quiet start to May, the usual DD's have gone out so the CC is now in the 6k's and the mortgage ends in a zero Need to wait until the middle of the month for DH's student loan account to update before sending a small overpayment to round that account down too.

Have set up a monthly SO to pay off the Easter 2023 holiday in equal payments between now and January when the balance is due.

Also found a good deal on a tablet for DS2's birthday in August. We've had this in mind as a gift for a while as he'll be starting reception in September where he'll be getting access to home learning apps paid by school plus it will keep him off DS1's tablet  It's the newer version of DS1's and got it for £75 instead of £105, a bit indulgent for a 4 year old but given the education benefits we've seen first hand with DS1 we feel it's a good investment for him.

May free money has gotten off to a good start, currently at £41.35 - Made up from transferring £8.90 for some groceries Mum picked up for us but wouldn't take any money for them , Transferred £15 from the clothing pot after using a £15 gift voucher to buy a dress that was on sale for the upcoming wedding night we're attending and then £17.45 cashed out from TCB.

DH has the car for work all week so plenty of walking/exercise for me and the boys this week, definitely finding this a bit easier so my fitness levels must be improving. Continuing to be mindful of energy usage and pegging out washing as much as possible, also batch cooking other items when using the oven and then stocking up the small freezer we bought. It doesn't seem to be costing us too much to run this but whatever it costs is, I'm sure is keeping our grocery costs down a bit as they were down again last month (although we were away for 5 days which will also have had an effect). I'll take the small wins where I can though!

Hope everyone else is well x

savingholmes

Great start on the free money. 

The tablet sounds like a bargain - as you say - giving DS skills for the future regardless.

Glad the exercise is going easier.

Have a fun weekend.

DancingInTheRain

Hi all. I've been feeling a bit out of sorts the last few days so not posted as didn't feel like I've had anything positive to contribute. My lovely neighbour who had been poorly passed away, he'll be a big miss. On top of this I think it's been a bigger adjustment than we anticipated with DH working longer days due to being office based and then the increase in diesel costs (DH has an 80 mile round trip) meaning our budget needs reigned in again so it's been an unsettling couple of weeks. I have continued to keep up with diaries and some of the things you guys are achieving have helped me find my MSE mojo again so have taken a bit of action over the weekend.

I started by setting up Hyperjar accounts for the boys, DS1 gets his own card, DS2 too young for now but my card will essentially be used for his jar. Set up a standing order for £1 per week each and will add any extras they get from family along with any thing extra we give them for day trips, holidays, etc. The boys know this money is for them to buy themselves little treats like sweets or small toys and will also help DH and I keep costs down in this area as we're both guilty of indulging the boys and these little amounts soon add up.

Have used a referral code from @benbenandme to set up a Cha$e account, I plan to use this as our general spends account to earn the cashback for a year as this will be a better value reward than the Te$co CC we'd been using like a debit card by immediately paying off any transactions. Also opened the attached 1.5% savings account and will use this to hold all our savings moving forward. Will be transferring the £600 we had built up in PB's this year in to here too.

Also cancelled Netfl!x so will save £10.99 per month there, going to review our other DD's to see if there are any other savings to be made.

Our mortgage advisor took an age to get the paperwork to us but this has all been sorted and returned so that's another financial frog sorted and at least we know how we stand with that for the next 5 years. Just our energy costs to be confirmed once our fix ends next month. With the credit we've accrued it's looking like the payments will be around £190 per month.

DH should be doing more hybrid working moving forward so only 2 or 3 days in the office rather than the full 5 so hopefully diesel costs should come down too. 

Hope everyone else is okay, onwards and upwards! X

*ETA Free money now at £240.37 thanks receiving £150 energy rebate from our LA and some payouts from Prolific, good to end on a positive

savingholmes

It's natural to get daunted as things change and with the barrage of negative news. Hopefully if your DH can work a more hybrid approach it will help. Lovely to have free £. I like the sound of your new accounts too.

DancingInTheRain

Thanks SH.

I think the new accounts will suit us really well at this stage of family life and they seem really straight forward to use too. We've set up a Hyperjar app on DS1's tablet and its making him feel very grown up to have his own account and card

We're having a very lazy PJ day today,  including grazing on food rather than having meals, I think we've all been ready for a quiet day after the last couple of weeks. This means I have had time to review all our DD's and am happy we're getting the best value for money on everything, I have made a note of when some deals end that I'd missed so was worthwhile checking for that at least.

DH and I had 3 CC's between us that haven't been used in ages, they were opened for 0% shuffles. We've closed 1 each today and DH has 1 more to cancel hopefully tomorrow.

DancingInTheRain

3 posts in 1 day! Just realised that interest is applied to DH's student loan around the 15th so logged in and checked the amount and then promptly sent £5.04 to round the account down to end in zero.

HAD to do this straight away as that payment means our "What We Owe The World" figure now stands at a very neat and tidy £56,000   

savingholmes

Gotta love a neat figure. It does prove that little and often is a good way of reducing debt

sashybo

The Hyperjar accounts sound like a good idea, something I will need to look into for the kids soon. DS is starting to become more aware of money but doesn't really understand that we don't have money for everything he wants!

Well done on the lovely round figure. 👏