Keep calm and carry on....

ElmoR

Cars, dentist and vets. They are money pits!! Least you haven't fallen into the third one

ElmoR x

South_coast

No, but it does make me wish I'd applied myself better at school seeing what everyone on here spends on vet's bills 🤣!

South_coast

Right, almost the end of February so time to check in on the goals:

South_coast said:

Money....
* Save up £4k to transfer into the LISA at the start of the new tax year - This will earn me the maximum bonus of £1k for The Future and the overall "money needed" figure - Achieved 🧚‍♀️
* Once I have the £4k ready, pile all money into the mortgage - Simples! - Underway 😀
* No clothes purchases, except for work clothes, underwear and tights - I don't have loads of clothes, but I definitely have enough and they're all in decent enough condition. The exceptions are to a) make sure I look professional and b) ensure public decency, so are sensible enough omissions! - Nothing at all this month 😀
* 1% of monthly salary to be donated to local homeless charity - Rolled over from 2020, as not yet a habit - Yep, done

2021, the year of health....
* Buy a 12-month prescription pre-payment certificate - I have been guilty of not using my inhalers at the prescribed dose to save on prescription charges in the past, so this feels sensible and grown-up. It will also save me money overall - Not been needed yet (and yes, I have been using the inhalers at the prescribed dose, they just don't seem to be running out very quickly!)
* Act promptly on health concerns - No more ignoring back/chest pain for two weeks and telling myself it's down to sleeping on a lumpy mattress (although this did at least prompt me to buy a loooovely mattress topper 🤣!) - Not had any concerns to act on this month, but I have had my Covid jab and been to the dentist - prevention is better than cure, right? 
* Continue to minimise alcohol consumption - No explanation needed here, I think! - Hmmm. I seem to have levelled off at a bottle of wine per week and maybe one or two liquer-y type things. This is an amount I'm happy with and it's all at the weekend. What I'm not so happy with is how much I notice it now that it's concentrated into just a couple of days. The impact on my poor sleep pattern 😮! It does sometimes feel whether it's worth the effort. Although I do enjoy it in the moment 🤔 Internal debate ongoing....
* Avoid all processed sugar - I'm not going to refuse birthday cake if someone has taken the time to bake it, but I'm not going to go looking for it either. The same goes for biscuits, chocolate etc - Not so good this month, BF made a cake and gave me a slice before I could decline. He also needed to make room in the freezer so defrosted a pack of mince pies and gave me one of them. Oh, and *cough* he gave me a box of Lindor (my favourite 😍!) for Valentine's. Don't worry though, I ate them in double-quick time so I could get on with the healthy eating 🤣
* Take steps to minimise processed food - A bit tricky as I'm veggie (I do eat fish, but not at home - mostly to make it easier for other people catering for me), so I can't just base meals round a piece of meat, but some of the meat-alternative products don't feel very natural so I'm trying to cut those out as much as possible. Just need to make sure I leave myself something to eat! - Again, not so good. I haven't had anything at home, but BF has fed me some sausage rolls (also out of the freezer) that he picked up reduced at Christmas. I also had a handful of crisps last night, despite not really liking them 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
* Exercise outdoors once a week and indoors once a week - I know this will sound really lame to you fit lot, but I have to start somewhere and also try and keep it achievable - Terrible! I hurt my foot (sadly not even through exercising, just being clumsy 🤦‍♀️) so haven't wanted to walk any distance or do skipping, and have just been too, er, lazy to do sit-ups and press-ups. Will have to try and catch up next month!

Why is money the easiest thing to control??? I'm giving myself a C for February. Must try harder for March!

Jessy103

You have achieved so much already, don't be so hard on yourself!

I do feel you should have done the text in red to mimic the dreaded red pen of the teacher 😂

debtfreeoneday

Bet that feels riotous!  

South_coast

Thanks ladies 😀 I love the idea of the red pen Jessy, but I'm not sure how you do colours on a phone and every time I use my laptop it sends me into a murderous rage 🤣! I might treat myself to a tablet once MF, but still thinking on that one!

Chiglepig

Just popping over to say "Hi", South-coast!

"* Buy a 12-month prescription pre-payment certificate - I have been guilty of not using my inhalers at the prescribed dose to save on prescription charges in the past, so this feels sensible and grown-up. "

Same here - I'm adding it to my to-do list.

Cornish_mum

Great news that you have had your jab, and that’s some impressive low spending! CM

South_coast

Thank you both. Yes, I've never seen asthma as a benefit before CM, but not going to complain that it bumped me up the list a little (although they're racing through them so quickly, it's starting to not really matter which group you're in anyway) 😀

South_coast

More money spent! Went to Halfords to get some oil and cash in my Confused.com rewards so I can declare it as February free money 🙄. Oil was reduced from £23 to £15.99 - normally a good thing, but annoying on this occasion as it meant I needed to get two bottles to spend my £20 voucher. Not the end of the world, as not as though I won't need it eventually (and normally I tend to buy oil when the light has come on and I've dripped the last dregs in, making it fairly urgent - cue me then in the car park pouring the oil in, and it's always blowing a gale and it's flying everywhere, so having surplus oil feels very organised 😀) Anyway, back to today, chappie puts it through the till, takes the voucher off and I pay the balance. It sounds wrong, but remember I am very bad at maths, so assume I've just worked it out wrong. Get back in the car, check the receipt and it's gone through at full price and I've just spent £26 😮! Back inside I go, show the chap the discount ticket on the shelf and he refunds me the difference. Phew! 

I'm taking the rest of the day off the free money now, as I just need a few hours of not thinking about money 🤣! So, this month's totals are (the target was £97.23):
£0.25 Lidl scratchcard win
£0.53 bank account interest
£1.38 bank account cashback
£2.00 Storewards
£4.01 TopCashBack
£4.52 Qmee
£5.00 Vypr
£10.00 Consumer Pulse
£10.00 Shop & Scan
£15.00 cashed-in Nectar points
£20.00 Confused.com rewards
£25.00 One Poll
£53.54 Prolific 

Total £151.23 😀! So what started out as a terrible month ended up pretty damn well!

March target = £91.83