Young And Dumb

Mx_Emmin

We decided to pay for the Asda Pass, it’s £6.50 a month then you get free delivery over £40. With two people, one of us with a gluten intolerance, it’s usually been over £40. I’m not saying there aren’t potential savings to be made… but it’s usually over £40. And our preferred delivery slot is £3.75 per week. So paying for Asda Pass works out.

Part of me would have preferred not to, considering how close Asda is, but getting the shopping home is challenging for me.

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So Sherlock’s little medical adventure turned into more of an ongoing issue than I hoped, but it is starting to wind up now. More vet visits than I wanted, but I’ve been able to claim some of it back through insurance. He’s just finishing his last course of antibiotics then he’ll be done!

One of the guineas (Tofu) saw how much attention Sherlock was getting and got jealous, I think.

He got poked in the eye with a bit of hay, so he wasn’t moving about as much, and then because he wasn’t moving as much, he stood still too much (?) and hurt his foot (?!)… And then he just sort of decided food wasn’t worth it after all that so he started losing weight, but because guineas are so small, it doesn’t need to be much lost weight to be a problem…

I mean to be honest this kind of feels like natural selection at this point but instead he gets syringe fed guinea protein powder until he remembers to live lol

I do love the guinea but this is frankly ridiculous haha

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We’re having significant issues with Royal Mail, and delivery companies in general, not finding us because we’re in a new build.

The contractors did something odd with the mailboxes where half of the letterboxes are in one building, half are in the next, and it’s causing nothing but trouble.

We have not received a single piece of mail since we moved in on 5th November. We spent £70 each on mail redirection. We’ve updated our addresses at bank and govt agencies and asked for statements to verify sent out. We’re doing Christmas shopping.

Courier delivery – where they actually hand it to you – mostly gets to us. Anything posted has vanished.

I called Royal Mail, they said they couldn’t find our address on the system, I filled in an address update notification thingy on the website, they said the address was already on the system. I submitted a complaint today, but come Thursday I’m probably reporting two more parcels as lost.

The issue is, this is interfering with my housemate’s benefits, and therefore our ability to pay rent, because they aren’t receiving the letters they need. I have an Emergency fund but when I built that up my rent was much lower. I’m also struggling to apply for additional benefits after my PIP as I can’t get any proof of address.

(Also I can’t update my address with PIP as thier phone lines are Mon-Fri 9-5 and I work Mon-Fri 9-5)

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First joint budgeting session together in a few days! This will be interesting

jusferbrowsing

Oh no, nightmare situation with your post. Hopefully it gets resolved very soon. 

Mx_Emmin

So. The budget looks very different now. I think for this month its best if I just go through the categories one by one? Its not quite 100% nailed down yet but we’re getting there.

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Weekly Expenses

Groceries – We’re estimating £360 a month for this, and it seemed to work last month.

Household – Our goal is £20 a month but the last couple of months this has been higher. Things have come up like a vacuum cleaner, we bought some privacy films for the windows as we’re on the ground floor.

My Hobbies & Housemate Hobbies – £20 each per month

Takeout – £50 per month

Housemate Therapy – £200 per month

Stuff We Forgot To Budget For – £30

Medical – £10

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Pets

Guinea Toys – £7.50 per month

Guinea Misc – £8 per month

Guinea Hay – £57.20 per month

Guinea Vet Fund – Guinea Insurance is (I’m told) pretty hard to come by, as they’re often considered “exotic” for vet purposes. So forums recommend putting aside ideally £50 per guinea per month to build up for emergencies. Like the ones in the last month. Currently has £50 in.

Dog Insurance – £48.84 per month

Dog Vet Plan – £14 per month

Dog Food – £14 per month, accumulating to bulk buy food

Dog Toys & Treats – £10 per month

Dog Groom – £40 per month

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Monthly Expenses

Rent – £850 per month

Electric – we’re kind of guessing at this one until we’ve been here a bit longer, but we currently have £56.42 in the category

Water – £26.77 per month

Internet – £32 per month

Council Tax – we’re kind of guessing at this one until we’ve been here a bit longer, but we currently have £60 in the category

Fall Alarm – £19.93 monthly

Care Contribution – also a guess, but a more educated guess – £89.07 currently in the category because we will have to backpay it at some point

Gym – just has a lump sum in and letting it run down, it has £783 in and its £14.99 per month, so I have 52 months to figure out where the next lump sum comes from haha

My “Birthday of the Month” – £30 per month

Housemate “Birthday of the Month” – £10 per month, but they’re going to let theirs accumulate as they have several all in one month, whereas mine are more reliably one a month

Human Groom – £25 per month (much needed this month! Skipped last month)

Public Transport – £65 per month

My Mobile Phone – £9.99 per month (Sim Plan)

Housemate Mobile Phone – £13.40 per month

Bird & Blend Tea – £31.95 per month (£11.95 for subscription)

Investing – £25 per month

My Social Spend – £30 per month

Housemate Social Spend – £30 per month

Date Night – £40

Charity/Artists – No regular goal

RPG Night – a goal of £15 per month, but my current campaign is virtual, so not often funded

My Clothes – £20 per month

Jase Clothes – £20 per month

Spotify – £9.99 per month

iCloud – £0.79 per month

Youtube – £19.99 per month

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Yearly Expenses

My Mini Goals – Whiskey Decanter (Travel Rucksack will have to be a 2023 goal, unfortunately) £90

Work Night Out – usually accumulate at £5 per month, currently has £25 in because Christmas do

Domain Names – £3 per month

Easter Eggs – £6.67 per month / £40 by Easter

Bird & Blend Christmas In July – £40 by July

NHS Prescription Certificate – Just bought it this month so currently at zero, its £108.10 annually

Sims – Currently at zero, but I bought some packs recently

My Tattoo – Currently at zero, casualty of the move

Housemates Tattoo – Currently at zero, casualty of the move

Microsoft Office – Currently at £55

Fitbit/Garmin – £130 by Feb 24 (rough estimate of when I might need a new one) currently at £16.26

New Year Whiskey – Fully funded at £100! Will be purchasing in the next few weeks

My Glasses – £70, basically a mini Emergency fund for my eyes

Housemate Glasses – £10 per month, currently at £20

Finance Diploma – £15 per month, currently at £108

TV Subscription – £2.23 per month

Next Phone – Currently paying off my current phone for the next 5-9 months (I have 9 months to pay it off before I start earning interest, I hope to pay it off in 5)

My Next Laptop – £30 per month, currently at £30, seeing as I bought this laptop all of 3 weeks ago haha

Housemate Tech Replacement – £40 per month, currently at £80

Next Pride – £120 Goal, currently had £26.67

SoA Membership – £12.16 per month/£117 annually

YNAB – £90 by March, currently has £60 in, currency fluctuation are tricky so tend to overbudget this

My Christmas Misc – Spending target £120 by Christmas, had £104.11 remaining but I refuse to do anything Christmassy before 1st Dec (other than present shopping)

My Christmas Family – Spending target £210 by Christmas, £46.02 remaining

My Christmas Friends – Spending target £60 by Christmas, £60 remaining… most of my friends don’t do friend Christmas presents, it more likely to be social events

Housemate Christmas – I just checked the target vs spent and I think we’ll need to rebudget this one next year haha, they underestimated a little, but they’ve covered it

Kettle – £5 per month, currently has £10 – they need a special kettle thats easier to pour from, and the current one is a little battered

Amazon Prime – £39.50 by July, currently had £13.60 in

Gender Appointments – £20 per month, currently has £40 in, need £160 by June

My Therapy – building back up to £200 as an emergency fund for my mental health, currently at £188.58

H2B ISA – £200 per month, currently at £3,615.13

Next Move – Currently at £386.34, goal of £40 per month

Emergency Savings – £25 per month, currently at £3592.70, been much appreciated this past month!

BB – £25 per month, currently at £225

Bureaucracy Bullpoop – There were some shenagians iwth beenfits nto calculating in time and we may have to pay this back – £138

Next Months Income – currently empty because we just budgeted

Canal Boat – £500

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I was hoping to write more on our first full month budgeting together, but my brain is STRUGGLING right now. I need to figure out how/what I’m going to share about account balances at some point soon as well.

Sarahwithlove

have you done a benefit calculator to check you are both getting everything you are entitled to now you get PIP? I recommend entitled to if you haven't. 

Mx_Emmin

Been a minute since I posted. Christmas time gets busy fast! The thing that made me remember to post on here is that I…. found £1,600 that I had forgotten about. Well, for a given value of forgotten, it was on my banking app, but I didn’t enter it into the budget. Also my housemate had the deposit from their previous flat back at last, which was £760.

So we’ve had a brief spending spell, getting some last bits. We’re switching out the temporary wardrobe for a wooden one as the temporary one has already collapsed once and needed taping back together. The temporary wardrobe has some drawers/shelves in so we’re getting a chest of drawers as well, and replacing mine because the drawers are broken.

I bought a travel rucksack that I didn’t think I’d be able to afford to replace this year, some laptop blue light filters, and some temporary stick on privacy film for windows. We’re on the ground floor, and it’s less of an issue in winter when the blinds are mostly closed, but we’re right on the street and would like to open curtains when there’s more light in the day. We’ve put some up on the living room and bedroom, but we’re going to put some on the guinea room over the new year.

Speaking of guineas, over the new year we’re temporarily moving them into the living room over the New Year. We’ve had a mould problem since we moved in (thought a new build would be better) and there’s some above the guinea cage, but we can’t use chemicals because of the guineas, but we don’t want to let them breathe in mould either. So when I’m visiting family and taking the dog with me, we’re going to put the guineas in the living room, blast the mould, put up privacy films, let it air out, then put them back in 2023.

Speaking of small furry creatures, keeping them warm has been a challenge this last little bit. For the guineas we bought these microwaveable pods. For the dog, since he seems to enjoy stealing our electric blankets so much, we bought him this animal electric heating pad. We also bought a couple of room thermometers to keep an eye on things. I found room in the Christmas budget to get him another puzzle as well.

We also picked up a board game for Christmas. We saw it on TikTok. It looks fun!

Also my Grandma gave me my Christmas money early so I bought myself some new headphones – one for my laptop and one for walking about. I used to have in-ear headphones and when I was running/jogging they were great, but outside of that if I wear them too long my ears start to hurt, so I bought over-ear ones.

Ooh! Also I got my New Year Whiskey and a Whiskey Decanter.

This sounds like a lot of spending, but – firstly, some of that is Christmas, some of that I was saving up all year, secondly, it was all budgeted for, some of it (like the wardrobe and chest of drawers) happened sooner than expectedly – but also yes it was a lot of spending.

Still, after all of that, we still have £1,761.49 remaining. We’re now putting it to one side until the New Year but roughly our plans are thus: £1,000 I want to save. I don’t have much thought as to which category it gets saved in, Emergency Fund, Next Move, idk, but I just want it in a “not spend” category. £300 we have set aside to collect some books that I stored with a relative, and they’ve offered us a sofa as well, so we need to hire a person and a van to collect for us. £350 we have also assigned to replace some furniture in the Guinea room and turned it into a little more of an office space, so we can do zoom calls in there (like D&D)(or therapy)(or… work, I guess).

I feel like it sounds like I’ve just spent the last three(?) week just constantly spending money, and it hasn’t felt like that haha. Maybe that’s just December for you.

Mx_Emmin

Sarahwithlove said:

have you done a benefit calculator to check you are both getting everything you are entitled to now you get PIP? I recommend entitled to if you haven't. 

I do need to do this, but anything means-tested I don't qualify for because I work full time.

I did get £10 Christmas bonus from PIP though! That's like... 2 potatoes, right?

Mx_Emmin

Sorry for the gap in posting, Christmas has been a lot haha

My POTS has been getting a bit worse, I’ve been falling down more, and I use all my energy being coherent at work. By the evening when its time to write blog posts, I’m struggling to string words together.

Which doesn’t bode well for one of my resolutions – I want restart on my novel that I gave up writing a few years back.

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Life rattles on with budgeting stuff. The benefits issues for my housemate aren’t 100% sorted, but their flat deposit refund came through so we’re alright so far. Council tax billed us twice then refunded us once. Postal is now arriving and the mould is less of an issue.

I’m starting to use my travel card, which will be slightly useful for weekends, and for when I’m switching between tram and bus, but is less useful for work. I think I’ll save about £10 a month? Well every little helps I guess.

We found a cheaper hay place for the guineas, adn they like the hay, so that’ll help too. Though in that case any help may be offset by the fact that it sells ethically friendly eggs haha. We’re generally vegan but

The mini goals I’ve set for myself for the end of the year are an electric blanket and some work dr martens – I know I said that before, but then my old work started supplying shoes as uniform, but this work doesn’t.

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There will be a better breakdown on here at some point – this is mostly just to say, I haven’t forgotten about this.

Mx_Emmin

Sorry for the slow down in updates, one of my 2023 goals is to have another stab at this novel I’ve been trying to write for about 15 years.

My housemate is still having issues with their benefits. They haven’t been paid properly since about November, and we’re doing okay for now but this is *not* the year to be pulling this !!!!!!. Our Networth is still creeping up over time, but only barely. Certainly not in line with Inflation.

We/They are going to be getting in contact with Welfare Rights later next week to try get that resolved.

My Current Account Balance is ticking lower than I’d like. It’s maybe more of an issue of arrangement on my part: I have enough money, but I put some of it into higher interest rate accounts. But maybe I put too much?

Also I’ve realised that my/our Emergency Fund is no longer adequate. It was 3 months expenses before moving – but its not anymore with a combined household. So that needs boosting at some point, but we can’t right now.

I’m still facing delays in getting my pension set up – its set up now so the bare minimum is coming out of my paycheck but I wanted to set it up for 9%, and I feel like I can’t until my housemate’s benefits are sorted. I started working there in October and its still not where I want it to be.

We have a list of things that we need to tackle when the benefits are sorted – from bookshelves, to new clothes, to cable tidys, to setting up a Dog Vet category for small vet visits like check ups.

In happier news, Sims has made several announcements in the last fortnight. The Infant update comes out on March 14th. The family/generations based pack comes out on March 16th. My annual leave for my birthday starts on March 17th. Just saying.

Most of our categories are just ticking over this month. We dont really have a lot of wriggle room for experimentation right now.

daintydaisy

Hope everything is going well with your novel. 

Just checking in to see how you’re doing as it’s been a while since you last posted. ♡