Young And Dumb

Mx_Emmin

Last night I went on my first date in about a year, maybe a year and a half - and my first first-date in eight years

It went well but I dont think I'll see her again

Mx_Emmin

So my two DD for the Santander CC's went out this past week, paying off a total £98.40 - I'll manually send the final payment for the Argos card tomorrow and clear that balance.completely!

This month will be tight budget-wise but it wont exactly be tight money-wise, which is a new sensation for me. I'll probably need to pull extra money from some savings categories, most likely my divorce category - it's got the fourth most money in and the most wriggle room as to when the money needs to be ready by. Worst case scenario, the divorce gets puts back by a month, but I strongly doubt it's happening bang on schedule anyway.
(For the record the top three savings pots are: Emergency Fund, £1000.61, H2B ISA, £449.81, and Christmas, £125... The divorce fund has £111.12)

So I can find the money if I need to. The reason why I might be stretched for cash is my Brexit panic attack/stockpile. If the Government came to a definitive decision on Brexit either way, if it happened, or if it definitivly didn't, I could break into my stockpile. Maybe it was excessive, maybe it wasn't. We can't know until Brexit happens. However, if - as now seems likely - there's another extension, I don't want to break into my stockpile as I might need it after Brexit. I also spent approximatly 45% of my grocery category for this month on the stockpile.

My mental health has done worst things to my budget in the past, at least this will eventually be used.

In slightly lighter news, I've decided to add a takeout category to my budget after all. At this point in time I don't plan to automatically assign money to it each month, I just want to steer transactions through it to try highlight how much I spend on it in a month. Similar to my "online shopping" category. I've found the last few weeks I've taken my eyes off the road a little and I keep sneaking into McDonalds without meaning to. If I'm tracking it, I can tackle it easier, rather than let it vanish into the groceries budget.

Mx_Emmin

October debt update: Paid a total of £113.38 off this month. Entirely paid off my Argos card, will call up and cancel that in a few days :beer: :j _party_

Edit: ​​I thought to check in on my debt thermometer and I am 35% of the way to my being debt free! I created the debt thermometer in August so it doesn't take into account anything I paid off before then. My!goal for 2019 was to pay off two credit cards and get out of my overdraft: so far I have pad off one card and got out of the overdraft. Only one card remaining! I am also 33% of the way to my Emergency Savings goal.

Mx_Emmin

Start of November Update

Offical Savings Pots (kept in thier own seperate bank accounts)
Emergency Savings - £1000.61
H2B ISA - £449.81
Christmas Savings - £125.00
Pride Savings - £30.00
Total - £1605.42

Other Small Savings Funds (kept in current account)
Dad's Birthday - £50.00
YNAB - £90.00 (about to be spent)
Divorce - £111.12
Total - £251.12

Debts
Red Card - £172.61
Black Card - £900.41
Total - £1073.08

Nonetheless thanks to my Brexit stockpile gamble I'll probably be pulling money from some of those pots to grocery shop.

I've been having a Good Debt vs Bad Debt argument with myself lately. In the long run I've got my eye on being a financial advisor - and I am talking years here - and I had a chat with the financial advisor in branch about the training required. There are sponsorships available occasionally but they are few and far between so he self funded his.

Problem is, it's about £200 per module. Which, on top of everything else... so I'll wait until the New Year at the earliest to make a firm decision, see what happens with Christmas and the laptop. One option is to put it on a CC and pay it off over time. The other is to save up and pay for one module at a time, but I don't know how long that could take.

Reason it could be Good Debt: it would eventually increase my earnings.
Reason it could be Bad Debt: debt.

In the meantime, one of the sites he showed me had a reccommended reading list, which I'm working my way through.

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations on becoming debt neutral and you seem to be doing very well with budgeting. Glad to see the debts being knocked off.

I am going to share my budgeting wisdom (such as it is) with you as I did not really use YNAB mainly because there is a fee, we don't have debt but I still like to track whether we are within budget and save up for things like holidays, home improvements, new car etc. I use clear checkbook (free version). It is easy to understand, you can have as many accounts as you like and it is free. I also don't like the idea of linking my bank account which I think YNAB does but I could be wrong on that as I quickly gave up on it.

At the beginning of the month when our pensions go in our monthly budget resets and any overspends or underspends are adjusted from the previous month. I allocate our income in our current account to four monthly budgets. Food. Fuel and travel. Entertainment and eating out and monthly direct debits. An amount goes over to our personal accounts each for personal spends like clothes, shoes, hobbies etc and we have several virtual envelopes which are held in our Santander 123 account, emergency savings (now full), car/ebike Fund, Holiday fund, gifts and donations, house fund and I allocate a certain percentage of our spare disposable income to those 4 envelopes every month which are saved in either our interest bearing current account or online savers. They roll over rather than being reset so that irons out the problems of all our car expenses coming out on the same month as the money is just sitting in the envelope having been saved up all year. Every pound is accounted for as in YNAB and I can see from the app how much in each budget is left at any time. It works great and I don't need to pay for it. They even have a debt snowball although to be fair that might be in the premium version which you do have to pay for. You have so low debt though I don't think you would need that. Might be worth a look.

Mx_Emmin

Sorry, havn't forgotten about this diary - just having a bit of a writer's block...

Mx_Emmin

Ok, feeling a bit better.

I can sort of tell I've been stressed about something the last week or two but I couldn't figure out what

Havent had as many spoons as usual, stuff is more difficult to bounce back from, or just more difficult to do

But I didn't know what it is that's bothering me... until my aunt reminded me that S.A.D. exists.

Knowing that's it probably that helps, and after my next payday I'll buy a light box.

In regards to the financial advisor training, our in branch F.A. grabbed me again and said he realised that's because he's already graduated he can buy up to date study texts for £40, so I can buy the text off him, and then I can just buy the exam when I'm ready, instead of needing to purchase the whole thing as a package in one go. This brings my total costs from "at least £300, maybe more, in one go" down to "no more than £200, in installments" which is much easier to deal with.

Part of why I was debating was my worry that I'd spend £300, open the first book, and be like "Oh. I hate this." But £40 is an easier gamble for that.

Mx_Emmin

I've been running some numbers on my New Year budget and it doesnt look as good as I hoped... the snowballing of debt mostly cancelled out by adding new things to save up for. **rolls eyes** I'll probably be decreasing a few categories if I want to finish off my debt by the end of 2020. Itll slow down some of my long term savings goal but some saving is better than no saving.

I could really do with my family being generous with the Christmas money this year! But that feels unlikely as none of us are in the best position financially. Even £150 would give me breathing room until March which is bonus month at work... which I know sounds like forecasting but I have set up my budget as if I wasn't going to get any money at Christmas or in March, just in case. It would just be easier if I did get it.

Edit: Other things I forgot to say!

In January I'll make a new budget sheet on YNAB. I'm waiting until January partly because of the neatness of starting one on 01/01/20 and partly to give me a little more practice w the goals to make sure I understand the software. My subscription went out this weekend so I'm signed up for a year.

I'm also thinking late December/early January I'll close some of my savings accounts and consolidate the funds, trust YNAB to track how much is in each savings pot. (Well, YNAB and a spreadsheet... but that's more about my desire to make pretty graphs and seeing the lines rise. I'm no longer budgeting on a spreadsheet, I just make a note of my savings progress on there.) I'm talking about accounts like the annual Pride savings, or Christnas funds. Small ones that never go over £200.

Mx_Emmin

I'm debating whether to go jump into the Dave Ramsey method in the New Year.

I was sort of accidentally doing it anyway, in that I hadnt heard of him until after I finished his step 1 (build £1000 Emergency fund)

Now I'm essentially trying to so his steps 2 (pay off debts) and 3 (build 3 to 6 month Emergency fund) simultaneously and my money feels... stretched. Like I cant fully dedicate my attention to any one goal.

So maybe I should focus a little, stop building the Energency fund until I pay off CC debt.

Mx_Emmin

I'm playing around with figures for next year lately, mostly because I have essentially no money until I get paid on Monday. There is literally £0 in my groceries budget right now, next time I buy food I have to pick what category I'm taking it from. Last time I went shopping I took it from the YNAB category, as I'd budgeted £90 for the subscription to protect me from currency mishaps and it only cost me £65.80. That being said, I still have over £270 in my account, and it's a nice sensation to see that much in there this close to payday.

Luckily I get paid on Monday so I'm not concerned. I'm actually kinda happy with how little I'm spending on food this week - scarity is a great motivator. That being said, I am craving fresh fruit right now, which is rarely a good sign. :think: :think: Frozen fruit and veg doesn't always cut it.

On paper, next year is looking kind of disappointing. I thought it would look better. It might because I haven't budgeted in any Christmas gift money yet (because I don't know if I'm getting any/how much). I thought there would be more wriggle room, but the work training and the family gift for Dad's birthday is wiping out any money freed up by the debt snowball.

I'm leaning towards reducing how much I'm building my Emergency Fund by to almost zero (my brain wont let me do actually zero, yet) and focusing more on the debt to get it paid off quicker. Only putting £25pm into the E.F. and putting £100pm onto the CC. If I did that I could hypothetically get it paid off by September...

I'll probably have to reduce how much I put towards the Divorce each month by about £10, but £1000 by February 2021 was completly arbitary anyway. Once I've paid off the CC I'll figure out if it's still doable or if I wait a little longer.

I mentioned to my colleagues that I'm thinking of closing my accounts and they looked at me like I'm growing an extra head. One of the accounts I'm closing has a 2.5% interest rate on it (you can only put £200pm in there, and it resets after a year, or I'd keep my Emergency fund in there). I was only putting £15pm into there for Christmas anyway. My current account gets 1.5% interest and I'm valuing simplicity over the few pennies of interest I'd be getting from that account. Maybe once I can utilise it properly...
I currently have 3 current accounts, 4 savings accounts and 2 credit cards
Hopefully in January I'll have 2 current accounts, 2 savings accounts, and 1 credit card

That'll be my Santander account, where my salary gets paid into, my Barclays account, which I'm onnly keeping open because I cling to the idea that's it's a good idea to have at least one account at a different bank, I currently use it as my social spends account, my Emergency savings fund, my H2B ISA, which I'm obviously not closing anytime soon... and the remaining CC. Maybe in 2021 I'll move my Emergency Savings into my Barclays and use it for that?

I've decided that when I get paid I'm goign to make bbq beef wraps. They're so tasty. I made very nice caramilised onions for some hotdogs last night: I added the last dregs of a bottle of Jack Daniels to the onions. Yum. Between now and payday I'm unfortunatly left to smartprice gruel to get by... ok, "gruel" might be overstating it but it's definitely a little thin on the ground. Lots of smartprice. I was even good and didn't upgrade my free coffee with coconut milk or syrup! As I said, I do literally have a box of food in the basement, so I won't starve, but this is definitely a learning experience about what happens when we panic buy for the apocalype. :rotfl: