Why is spending money so easy......

Snwps

Checked some other savings/non cash credits:

Nectar - £20.41
Tesco Clubcard - £30.50 (some of these expire end Feb so need to spend)
Boots - £20.60
Amazon - £39.95
Game - £0.99

Have a few birthdays coming up so these will come in handy.

Snwps

Typical! My timing didnt work out as planned.

I've been waiting for the CC balance transfers to go through. I've had the emails to confirm both were successfull but the credits wern't showing on the old cards yet. The one card had a DD due by 4th. Been checking all day no update. So I bit the bullet this afternoon and paid the £120 DD so that I wouldnt incur charges. Just logged on and the balance transfers AND the payment I made today are now showing as pending with todays date. Anyway I'm going to leave the credit there for a week until the next statement runs (around the 10th) and final lot of interest added, then I'll have to call them to get a refund for the difference. Should be about £50. I can then put this to the CC1 overpayment.

2 days to DH 2nd job payday. I have no idea how much this will be and if the tax office will have had time to sort this months tax code before the payroll run date. I dont think it will so another month of incorrect tax. Either way, looking forward to making a big chunk of debt payments. Could be in the £22k's by end of the week, fingers crossed.

Snwps

Hate days where theres no change - nothing to report today so catching up on diaries and MSE forum

Snwps

DH been paid today from job # 2 so paid straight to debts. Balance at 31/01/21 was £24,183.83, todays balance is £22,994.23 so paid £1,189.60. 

Since start 25/05/19 £37,493.25 -  Total paid £14,499.02 - 38.67%

£670.17 left to pay in DD's for rest of the month so all going well should reach the 40% paid off by end of the month.

Snwps

Well it feels like such a long month, for the shortest month of the year!

Sunday and Monday were NSD. Today though I had to take the car to the garage to replace the battery, its only costin £30 so all good. Friday and Saturday could have been better but had take away on Friday and had to pop to supermarket on Sunday to buy food for Sunday roast. 

I've done a quick tally of spends and at the moment for this month:
Groceries £301.59 - Well under budget - have last delivery coming tomorrow est £60-£70 spend
Fuel £77.20 - Well under budget - we've started using the smaller more economical car for most journeys and its showing 
Takeaways £192.28 - Oops this is over budget by £32.28 for the month so no more for us this month
Misc £131.16 - Most of this went to pay the tax bill to HMRC, rest is for couple of Amazon orders and vegetable seeds to start sowing - I wanted to split this from normal spending to keep track of unplanned spends as this is where I feel were leaking money

Payday is Friday, cant come quick enough!

Snwps

Forgot to mention, finally heard back from HMRC regarding DH underpayment of Tax. They've altered his tax code so were paying about £40 per week back to clear the underpayment from April. Gutted, but knew this was going to be the case. I have asked for further information from HMRC as I want to find out why they changed his details mid year after everything was correct for 8 months. I cant see the outcome changing though. Anyhow this is going to mean I need to rejig the budget and possibly pay a little less in overpayments, about £150-160 per month to cover this. Which will in turn extend the DFD a few months.

Snwps

Wow budgeting is hard, constantly changing, its really hard to find a balance! Its like just when you thought you had it spot on, something comes up. I've had a really good month staying inside budget and think I found a routine that works.

So following on from my last post, I've adjusted the figures on YNAB and the Debt Planner Payoff App. DFD now extended to May 2022. However, this budget is more realistic and not pulled too tight. Plus I'm putting £300 per month into Monzo pots to cover EF, Xmas, Car, etc. I could bring the DFD forward my 2 months by not saving this £300 but I want to get into good habits. Plus when the annual bills renew and are paid in full from the Monzo pots it will free up some cash as I wont be paying monthly DD's as well. 

Just heard car isnt being done today, waiting on a part so will be collecting it tomorrow.

Snwps

End of month round up:

31/01/2021.    27/02/2021
Loan 1 £1,016.19 -- £725.85
CC1 £1,560.00 -- £1175.00
CC2 £2,030.00 -- £1900.00
CC3 £3,589.03 -- £3643.76
CC4 £6,600.00 -- £6470.00
CC5 £4,440.00 -- £4305.00
CC6 £3,475.41 -- £3475.41
HMRC £500.00 -- £480.00
Cat £302.99 -- £282.99
TOTAL @ 27/02/2021 £22,458.01 - £15,035.24 Paid since 25/05/2019 (40.10%)

Snwps

Still plodding along.....

The 0% is ending on CC1 1st April and the current balance is £1,175.00. The interest then goes to 21.9%. I should be able to pay off more by end of this month and get the balance down to £700. Not ideal as I really hoped to get this cleared before the 0% ends. I considered doing a balance transfer onto another card but by the time I pay the fee I may as well just get it paid in April and pay the interest for the 1 month only. So I'm holding off. Anyhow, It should be paid in full by 5th April as it will be paid from DH pay from job #2. 

All going well once we get CC1 cleared we have enough time on the other credit cards to clear the balances before the 0% ends.

Good news though on Loan 1 - There are just 5 payments left to clear this debt. Last DD to come out 31st July then thats gone. 

It seems to be taking ages to hit this 20k mark. 

Snwps

I've just reviewed my spending for Feb on YNAB and we spent a whopping £221.58 on take aways and £283.74 on misc spends (inc paying the Tax Bill to HMRC and buying stuff on Amazon). That amount spent on take aways is shocking. Its always where I fall down when budgeting. These are the areas I'm focusing on this month, try and get it down. 

The food spends of £399.83 is just within out £400 budget and fuel £77.20 is well below budget.