My accountability Diary for £42k!!!!

KellyAS

Today was quite productive, I got quotes for the other 2 vehicles so we are looking at £212 for the van with £35 back through top cashback and £279 for the car with £31.90 back through top cashback as well.

I have taken a bunch of photos of bits to list on eBay and started creating the listings. I have saved each one and will make them live when they will end at a better time to get maximum exposure. I think that is Sunday evenings but need to double check.

I had some blueberries going out of date in the fridge so made them into blueberry muffins today, ate one, gave one to my mum, hubby has taken one to work and I put the rest in the freezer to keep. The recipe said you can freeze them so hope they will be ok!

Also made a yummy chicken paella tonight, makes 4 portions and Mini me 1 won't eat it so we used 2 portions and froze the other 2 for hubby's lunches/work dinners.

Hubby (that word is starting to annoy me so I'm going to change his name to Mr K!) managed to just put £20 fuel in the car then £10.88 in the van so I need to transfer those amounts to the credit card on Friday.

His friend came round earlier to pick up some number plates Mr K had got for him and told him about some network marketing thing his girlfriend is doing selling some type of natural energy drink stuff. I'm not a great fan of network marketing but Mr K thinks it will be a great thing for him to sell to everyone at work (as they do lots of different shifts including night work) and rely on the regular red bull/coffee etc. He's got some free samples to try and if they work it looks like we might be signing up for that to give it a go, need to get this girl around first to explain how it all works though as the website was quite confusing! Also there is no set up fees this month so it won't cost us anything. Bonus!

Spending today was a grand total of £1.50 from the dog account to get him a couple of stuffed hooves to munch on. Yum! Eurghhhh!

Oh a bonus, Mr K has managed to get some free oil for the car for when he services it next week saving us £60 so it will only cost around £45 for the parts. And I have requested a refund from the doggy day care of the sessions we have paid for but not used (payment is one month in advance) as he will not be going back after the eye incident. Expecting around £88 back into his account so that will be kept in there to put towards his neutering next year which will be around £150-£200.

Tomorrow we have Mini me 1's swimming lesson and I think we may spend the rest of the day indoors if it's wet, if it's nice we can walk down the road to feed the ducks some of the stale bread I have saved.

KellyAS

OK, so the network marketing thing is not going to happen, yay! lol! He tried the drinks and wasn't impressed, and I'm glad because network marketing isn't for me I'm afraid. I know loads of people who do it and do very well from it but I prefer to sell my own stuff not someone else's. The extra cash would've been nice though.

There is a possibility of Mr K getting 5 days overtime in a couple of weeks so that'd be an extra £1000-£1300 depending on how many hours each day which would be great. Just waiting for confirmation. It would mean I have to check out schools for Mini me 1 on my own as it's the same week as all the open days but never mind. I could drag my ex primary teacher best mate along to help me!

Mr K's new Barclaycard arrived today so he has have transferred £2100 to MBNA to cover the balances and I have just realised we may have done this too soon! AAAAARRRRR! We should have waited until the day after the balances started accruing interest to ensure they were cleared by the transfer. Now that money will go to the highest balance which has another 4 months to run on it's 0% deal. So annoyed with myself. The plan was to transfer £2100 to MBNA to prevent that accruing interest and the Amazon balance (if I can't pay it this month) to the new Barclaycard then transfer the Tesco balance to MBNA as I have a new 0% deal with them. That would then pause all our interest until next year when hopefully I'll have more paid off and more room to move the balances about.

Looks like I may have to wait for the transfer to go through then put it back onto the MBNA card then transfer it again if I can do that! Yes it will incur more BT fees but will be less than the interest. Hmmmm, not feeling so smug now. Actually very annoyed with myself.

Oh I managed to get a baby bathseat from someone local for £5 online, used it tonight and it's a hit. whoop. Should be able to resell for the same price in a couple of months, double whoop!

Payday tomorrow yay!

KellyAS

Quick update, Mr K's total pay on Friday was £2933.55. Transfer done of £600 to food & fuel account (should have been £550 but I forgot I'd changed the amount) will try to keep food budget to £250 though. Also paid for classic car insurance today £154.65 so final amount after all allocated spending this month should be £545.69.

£40 paid from annuals account for one MOT. Why are they getting so expensive?!

Will transfer money to cover last weeks fuel to credit card on Monday.

Fingers crossed both Mini me's realise the clocks go back tonight and let me have some sleep! I doubt it though.

KellyAS

So it's been a few days since I last posted. I feel like every month when I have plans to put any spare cash towards our debts something happens to ruin it.

Yesterday I was driving back from walking the dog and a large white van came around the corner on a narrow road over my side of the white lines and smashed the drivers side wing mirror off our van. By the time I'd got to a safe place to turn around and try to find them they had disappeared and the whole mirror was smashed all over the floor so no chance of salvaging anything. Gonna be around £100 to fix it, it's not something that can be left unfortunately as it doesn't have a rear window therefore no rear view mirror so the wing mirrors are all you have to see what's behind. Mr K is not happy.

KellyAS

How it looks so far:

Income:
Wages £2648.85 (plus 12 hours overtime, around £300 I think) £2933.55
Maternity £594.72 £594.72
Child benefit £137.60 £137.60
eBay sale £5.00
Total: £3381.17 £3670.87

Outgoings:
All bills £1176.96 £805.10
Debts £468.69 (plus the fuel cost from today, approx £40 I guess) £153.61
Dog £125
Annuals account £100
Fuel £300 (hope to be lower but not more) £100.01
Food £250 (hope to be lower but not more) £81.91
Cars £50 (2 MOT's due in next 2 months) £40
Medical £13 £0.79
Clothing £20
House £50
Emergency fund £50
Gifts savings £100
Entertainment £30
Eating out £30 (hope not to use this but will budget for it just in case then pay it to a card if it's left at the end of the month) £15.80
Business costs £86 (includes stall fee of £35 for Christmas fair, hope to make around £300 from it) £71.99
Childcare £25
Cash £10 (if needed, if not will go towards debt)
Total: £2824.65 £1269.21

Lemon_Tree

Hi, I'm a returning forumite and also have 2 young children and a hubby who's not so great with money. We're about to start an extension eek. I'm going to subscribe and hopefully help lend some moral support whilst turning my own finances around. Glad you've suspended the savings for your little ones, it's a hard decision but the best for them in the long run

KellyAS

Thanks Lemon Tree, I'll have a look for your diary in a bit and try and lend some moral support too. The extension was a very stressful time for us, not least because I was heavily pregnant and ended up giving birth 3 weeks early when we had no kitchen or downstairs bathroom and were basically living in 1 room downstairs! Good luck to you.

So Mr K is doing overtime this week which I'm hoping will bring in an extra £1k after tax next month. Not sure what balance that will go towards yet, will have to see if any are accruing interest at that time, if not I will put it in savings to make me a little extra then pay it off the next balance before the 0% period ends.

Just checking the Barclaycard transfer went through ok earlier and it did. Was going to transfer the Amazon card balance over too but I should be able to pay most of that off this month and the interest will be less than the BT fee so going to leave that one as it is. Next months overtime should clear anything leftover. Whilst looking though I found that I have a new 0% BT offer on the Amazon card so once that is paid off I will transfer the balances on the MBNA card that will start accruing interest this month and next so that will give me 12 months interest free for those balances and buy me a bit more time there.

Sold 3 things on eBay and made a grand total of.....£9.74! PayPal fees are ridiculous! Still need to pay eBay fees from that too, not sure if it's worth it sometimes. Oh well, it's £9 odd that I didn't have before and has cleared a few bits from my house.

Income:
Wages £2648.85 (plus 12 hours overtime, around £300 I think) £2933.55
Maternity £594.72 £594.72
Child benefit £137.60 £137.60
eBay sale £5.00 £9.74
Total: £3381.17 £3675.61

Outgoings:
All bills £1176.96 £1228.05
Debts £468.69 (plus the fuel cost from today, approx £40 I guess)£378.61
Dog £125 £125
Annuals account £100 £100
Fuel £300 (hope to be lower but not more) £139.29
Food £250 (hope to be lower but not more) £201.03
Cars £50 (2 MOT's due in next 2 months) £88 Needed an extra part for the car service
Medical £13 £0.79
Clothing £20
House £50
Emergency fund £50
Gifts savings £100 £100
Entertainment £30
Eating out £30 (hope not to use this but will budget for it just in case then pay it to a card if it's left at the end of the month) £23.10
Business costs £86 (includes stall fee of £35 for Christmas fair, hope to make around £300 from it) £71.99
Childcare £25 (had to write a cheque today for £60 for this term)
Cash £10 (if needed, if not will go towards debt)
Car insurance £154.65
Total: £2824.65 £2610.51

Overspent in a couple of areas but I think I'm doing ok, need to keep food budget under control although I have just restocked the freezer so hoping it will be ok for the next couple of weeks.

Still need to replace the van wing mirror but waiting until I know how much we have left before I do so. We have a make shift mirror at the mo which doesn't look great but is functional, Mr K is not happy about it, he hates our vehicles looking scrappy, but we have more important things to cover at the mo so he'll just have to deal with it for now!

Need to get a tablecloth tomorrow to stop our lovely expensive dining table being ruined by children's grubby mits! And try for the third time to get a bone from the butchers for the dog. Everytime I ask they are waiting for a delivery! Third time lucky I hope.

db2016

hi, great diary and ill be following!

can i ask what make model of classic van you have? as i'm also in that "world" and may have some suggestions on it

Lemon_Tree

Well done for the eBay sales, I tend to try Facebook market place first as I can be arised with ebay

KellyAS

Hi db2016, it's a Ford Anglia Van. I've suggested Mr K signs it up for TV use but not sure if he's done anything about it yet.

Thanks Lemon Tree, I think I'm going to give Facebook a go too, although from previous experience I get a lot of timewasters who don't bother to turn up! I just hate selling things really!