Our £20,000 Life

Cinny91

Altered the meal plan to account for DH being at football this weekend. Ready to nip and do the shop, but I think I might go tomorrow to have Friday as a NSD. All optics isnt it!

Spends today -
£2.81 - aldi
90p - M cafe

Forgot to take the £5 I put to one side with me today, so will leave that to pay for next weeks singing class.

£4 to the loan, £1.01 off DHs CC.

Not much else to report!

savingmore

i hear yr frustration with dh not being on same page....can you do all the shopping for a while to keep tabs on money?

with yr registered blind neighbour, do your library not give things for free? have you checked, ours do, would be worth looking into...it’s small amounts but for a pensioner every pound counts. must be lovely for him to have you looking out for him.

Cinny91

That is meant to be the plan because DH is very talented at going in for one thing and coming out with 20, so when he went to the shops for those little teeth flossing sticks.. that happened ��

My old neighbour does, but as I reserved the book etc the charges fell on my card. I dont mind though, hes a good friend and I've gone to see him almost once a week since we moved out 2 and a half years ago

Up with the lark as DH is across the country for work today. He willingly made an extra portion of tea last night and has packed himself up for the day instead of buying something to eat on the way home :j

Had our energy switch cash back paid today so that's £25 to one side for the loan putting us as £194.35 :money: after the food shop I should be able to push us over £200 which will make £1100 saved for January. I think I might do a monthly round up on the 24th of every month to track our progress?

Anyhow, best crack on. The ironing wont do itself unfortunately!

Cinny91

House is nice and tidy so I'm having 5, which never happens :cool:

Spends -

Aldi - £31.72
Wilkinsons - £4.25
B&M - £2.00
Class - £4.00

Went a little over in aldi as I decided to get a couple frozen pizzas for if DH has a wobble at the meal plan. Also got things for a crumble on Sunday.
Spends in wilkinsons were some folders to start building up the materials I'll need come September, as well as a notepad for O to practise his letters in. B&M lipbalm for O and salt for the grinders.

Obviously not been singing yet but it's a spend that's set in stone!

Off to enjoy my peace with a brew. 40 minutes until I'm back on the way to nursery.

Savings are now at £197.63 :j

savingmore

well done on your saves. went to aldi’s today....massive verse day but we were starting out from scratch after being away for christmas and new year. two weeks worth of food budget but with lots of store cupboard bits. will need to last!

Cinny91

That's one reason our spend was so small, no store cupboard bits to buy! I do love a good stock up shop though, it makes you feel productive :money:

Payday today, savings now at £234.87 leaving £100 in the bank. Forgot this was my 4th week wage which is sometimes a bit lower, and DH put £41 fuel in his car yesterday for work. Normally put this on the CC as expenses but as his interest free period is nearly over we're trying to start cash flowing it.

Cottage pie tonight. Never know what to call it, its whichever has the beef in it 😅 is on the hob top atm. O is ready for nursery and I just need to get ready myself. We're out after nursery so I'm trying to be as prepared as possible. Entry for the place is paid for and I'm taking us drinks, and O a snack for the ride home. It's a 40 minute drive where we're headed so I'm expecting late naps that will lead to a late bedtime. O woke at 5am this morning so its going to be a long day!

I'm hoping in the 24th I'll be able to save around £50 from what's in the bank as DH gets paid on Friday. Total planned spends for next week is £12ish on afternoon activities with O. Shouldnt need any more food, fairly confident I covered all bases there, my car has enough fuel and weather permitting we'll entertain ourselves with local parks this weekend

Cinny91

Yesterday was a NSD :beer: hopefully today will be the same!

Change on the meal plan today from what I wrote out last week, burgers and fries. Will chip the potatoes this morning then theres not much to do. Will prep the crumble filling for tomorrow too, just so it's one less pan to mess and clean up!

Forgot to mention on Thursday the oven desperately needed a clean. Smoke everywhere from something burnt on the bottom clean so I spent £5.50 on Cif oven degreaser and some green scrubby pads. Oven Brite was £3.98 so technically cheaper, but the Cif will last for many more oven cleans and I'm going to add giving it a clean to my sunday job lists after we've had a roast. I'm sure you can get Cif cheaper at one of the bargain shops but it was 7:30pm so I didnt have that option, and nothing I had at home was shifting it 😓

Boiler is on the blink again so we did yesterday with electric heaters. Wasnt too bad really. Boiler shot back into life today, we thought it might be an electrical problem, so goodness knows what it is. Going to limp through until spring then budget to get it a good service and clean up.

Cinny91

Second nsd in a row, back in the groove! Today should be a NSD too

Going to be a cold one for us today so I think we'll keep our outdoor activities to the garden. As ever on a Sunday I've got ironing to do, and the roast dinner to sort but we'll have lots of free time to play outside. Saw some bulbs sprouting up yesterday which was lovely 🤩

Cinny91

Back on the right side of things with NSDs! Marked today too because I won't be spending anything.

Yesterday was a lovely day that reaffirms Sundays as my favourite day. We did try to take some things to C ex but they still weren't open 30 minutes after they were meant to be so DH says he'll try again during the week. We went through the park, and stopped to look at paint samples as we need to strip back the wallpaper in DH's office and will obviously (budget willing!) need to redecorate. Roast dinner, apple crumble for supper, bike ride as the frost was settling back in. Perfect!

Tonight it's our new Monday night staple - left over roast sandwich and soup. O declared he's having tomato soup as he does not like vegetable soup. I stopped myself from launching into the Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable debate as he is 3, doesn't care, and only just accepted that tomato soup is not carrot soup.

After a talk DH applied for a CC for his work expenses, cash flowing his expenses is a goal for after we're DF but as for now it works into the budget a little too much as the £40-odd he used for fuel last week has left us on the slimmer side of things this week. I think on Thursday I'm going to do a round up of what we've paid off debt/saved since the 24th of December (DH's last payday) and try to keep this going. Totals will be way higher as I think I've said, we used our Christmas gift money and my yearly bonus. But seeing what we've saved/paid off from my weekly wages alone has made we really optimistic for our plan being possible.

Cinny91

Working on February's budget :money:

February's top line is £3792.37 this includes what I've saved this month (£234.87) and CB. Our fixed outgoings are £2045.70, leaving us £1746.67 for everything else.

Our budget is a little funny, I think? We run from the 25th-24th of the month, I add however many Fridays fall within that time for my wages. We have, in our eyes, 2 types of outgoings. The budgeted ones, the fixed things that have to be paid fall into the £2045.70 - mortgage, debt repayments, saving for insurance, direct debits etc. Then we have our "liquid" items - food shopping, fuel, days out. These things we budget week to week, cutting according to our cloth. So I hope that makes sense!

ETA: Should add that our fixed outgoings are so high as we went top budget on our mortgage so we repay £731pm which allowed us to take on a 19 year mortgage. Regular loan repayment is £369 and this month we're starting to put that £180 to one side for insurance as well as having £249 remaining on DH's CC. So will be under that 2k mark next month.. just

We've got DH's car service next month too, and a family meal as 4 birthdays fall in the month on DH's side. Aim for February is to get our savings to £6,000. Keeps us on track and gives us a bit of wiggle room with the service. I'm hoping I can still pull a few £££ to one side. Think we'll be keeping on with the pulled in meal plan to make things work.

This month however we have saved/paid -

£105.00 - Tax
£857.78 - DH's CC
£72.86 - My CC
£900.00 - Savings
£234.87 - Weekly Savings

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£2170.51 Saved/Paid Off :T:T:T:T:T