Keeping the Plates Spinning...

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1st of the month so I thought I'd report my progress.

- September felt incredibly long, I think due in no small part to us both feeling limited by our new budgets. However
- We only went £2 over budget on our groceries, which was my biggest worry.
- I was way under my fuel budget which was fantastic. However I did get one tank on work expenses so I'm keeping it the same for October. I used the leftover to pay for parking at my new Uni as I'd forgot to budget for this.
- OH got some payments from one-off jobs she did before we combined. I haven't got too tough with her as to where it's going, she's not used to having spare money so I've let her do what she wants with it. However I need to keep an eye on this as she does get random bits of cash all the time, whereas everything I get goes into the combined pot and shared out. I don't want to start feeling resentful of this extra fun money.
- I discovered my pension payments have only been coming out of core salary, not overtime and monthly bonus payments despite it's all the same paycheck. . Time to look into SIPP/ISA options for the excess.
- I finally got paid my big bonus from May, woohoo! £1k has gone into wedding pot, £500 has been ringfenced for private pension once I've decided which route I'm going to take for this. The rest is in savings to cover Jan and Feb where I anticipate being short. If things change I hope to use this as a mortgage OP.
- Car insurance renewal came through very sensibly priced so just stuck with my current company. They have paid out twice in the past two years for accidents that weren't my fault and let me keep my no claims despite the other parties being uninsured on both occasions.
- Have just switched energy supplier from small company to big six. Very nervous about this as I'm not sure how the calculations all work out. Somehow the calculator told me I'll be £200/yr better off despite my monthly payments being £1/month more? The unit prices are much cheaper so hopefully it will all work out, I guess they want to build up some credit then will re-assess monthly payments?
- Got a 50% council tax reduction for OH being full-time student until next June. That should ease some pressure in the tight months.
- I have £10 worth of I-say points still in the account. Getting a bit fed up of I-say, they keep getting me to do surveys and then telling me I'm not eligible once I've spent 15 minutes going through the survey. Not sure if it's a bug their end.

Onwards and upwards, into October which is one of my favourite months of the year!

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Oops, skipped November's entry and now into December.

Had some good news yesterday, had a chat to my boss about the possibility of raising my salary and cutting bonus payments (current pay is made up of 50% bonus payments, makes affordability calculators impossible) and he's agreed to up my salary by 40% with a matched sales target. This takes a lot of pressure off, as I know I can pay all my bills every month from salary, and my target is pretty achievable (I've been exceeding it already for the last 3 years). It's not actually a pay rise, but will level things over the course of the year.

Other MSE things:

- My phone upgrade came and I resisted the temptation to get a new iPhone. Instead switched to a SIM only contract with Virgin, and reduced my bill from £40 a month to £10 for 10GB. Quite proud of myself for this one as I love my tech. It's only a 12 month contract so I can always upgrade again next year.
- I'm having to share Christmas savings with OH this year as she hasn't been able to save anything. Means we are doing some more creative stuff like making things and hampering which is proving fun!
- After switching energy supplier I got my £212 credit from the old supplier. I am now worried that my smart meter has gone 'dumb' though so will need to keep an eye on that.
- Went over the wedding budget again and managed to knock £1k off the overall spend. I know that we are likely to go over budget the closer we get to the wedding, but at least with a lower starting point we are in a better place!
- Still managed to OP £150 of the mortgage in Nov and Dec.

Not so MSE:

- Paid the photographer's deposit for the wedding. OH was desperate to spend loads on this. I would have been happy with one for half the price we paid, but as she wanted someone who was twice the price, we compromised. I am slightly uneasy that they want the full balance in advance of actually doing the work but apparently this is normal.
- Found out that Bristol are banning diesel cars in 2021. The finance on my diesel car runs until 2022, so I'm probably going to have to pay this off early and switch to petrol. Doubly annoying as my car is going to be worth less in my area so it's going to be difficult to shift.
- Found out that OH has some debt that I wasn't aware of. I want to pay it off ASAP but I feel a bit annoyed as I said that a condition of us combining finances was that she had to pay off any debts first. It's not huge but impacts ability to save a little bit.
- T has had an abscess - £85 from the vet for 14 amoxycillin tablets and a liquid antibitotic. Ouch. It does look to be healing though.

December is going to be an expensive month with travelling and entertainment, but I'm secretly looking forward to it!

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Happy New Year everyone!:beer:

December was a difficult month, I realised that all of the financial pressure I was putting myself under was making me stressed and unhappy. Couple that with Christmas, having to pay for twice as many gifts as anticipated due to OHs lack of savings, and overall I have not been feeling very good about money this month. However my new pay structure kicks in on Feb 1st which should take some of the pressure off. I've also decided to stop putting all of my disposable income into the wedding pot, as I realised I felt like I was sacrificing my own happiness for the sake of the wedding. So it's going to be reduced to a fixed £350/month until September when OH hopefully lands a teaching job and we can up contributions.

No real Money Saving to speak of this month, the credit card has taken a hammering, luckily I got paid some extra commission which went straight on paying that off.

January is going to be back to some kind of control, so lots of meal planning and staying in! However I didn't get OH a Christmas present this year by agreement, which she has since changed her mind on and would like something in the January sales so got to try and be clever with that one!

Hopefully February's update will be a much more positive one.