Keep calm and carry on....

South_coast

They are at least sensible restrictions though, they will make sure it keeps looking lovely forever!

I could be reaching 0% sooner than I thought 😮 Payday today and I'd set up all the necessary transfers when I got my wage slip yesterday. Logged on this morning to check the correct amount of money was left in the bank but none of them had gone. Cancelled the ones that were showing as pending and started making them manually instead, but still the numbers didn't add up. Then saw that some had gone anyway despite not having been shown as pending (ie so I couldn't cancel it). Upshot is, credit card is now £167.10 in credit, so I've had to move the same amount from the petrol pot into the current account to cover the direct debits and will just need to remember not to transfer money to the credit card when I buy petrol (should be easy to remember, as that pot now only has £9 in it 🤣!) Hopefully I cancelled the transfer to the mortgage in good time (think it's fine, as it was on the list as pending and therefore got cancelled), as there are definitely not the funds or overdraft to make that payment twice! What a b*gger's muddle!

Note to self: Don't check bank balance before 5.30am 🤦‍♀️

(P.S. In my defence, I assumed it would all go through at midnight 🤷‍♀️?)

QueenJess

I get confused about my salary. I can see it in pending late the night before, but it doesn't go through after midnight. I assumed it must be 9am, but actually I checked before then and it was there. I'm no wiser as to when it actually arrives... Maybe 8am?

debtfreeoneday

Good job you could cancel it. 

ruby_eskimo

My salary turns up when it wants to and the DD / SO's go out when they want to so I moved all the dates of my payments so that they mostly go out on the 1st by which time I know my salary will definitely be there.  

South_coast

Well by the time I'd got out of the shower I'd had a text and email to tell me I had insufficient funds to cover payments due out 🤦‍♀️ Cue me looking up how to call the bank and finding out they don't open the phone lines until 8.00am - by which time I was due to be at work. Frantic hour-long drive to work, sit in the car for a bit trying to get through the menus, very annoying interlude where I had to record myself saying "With Santander my voice is my password" multiple times for posterity/security (despite pressing # to try and bypass having to do so), realise I could be on hold for a while so go into the office, then when phone is answered dash into a different room with the door closed so colleagues don't overhear me talking to the bank about having insufficient funds on payday 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️!

Anyway, upshot is I had cancelled the payment, but lady at the bank says it can take a while to send the texts/emails and it might be that it tried to take the payments before the salary had become available (balance was £0.00 in readiness for payday). Apparently even though it lands in the bank at about 10.00pm the night before, it's not available in my balance until quite a few hours later. Odd though that it's never happened before, as I've set up transfers out on payday plenty of times previously?

Upshot #2: I'm not MF just yet 🤣!

killerpeaty

Sounds like a very stressful day. Especially being on the phone to a bank at work. Yuck. I'm probably being thick and can't read, but did you get any charges because of it?

I don't really know about how money goes in and out of banks, I leave 800 in my bills account to wait for payday because I'm paranoid. But not paranoid enough to cover all of my bills, just some.

South_coast

No, no charges fortunately! Interestingly the lady at the bank said they wouldn't let me go that overdrawn regardless, so I guess that was good to know. If it had come to it and I was going to be forced into making a double OP then I would have taken the money out of the EF to cover it, but hilariously the thing my brain was stewing on in the car to work was that that would mean I had repaid the mortgage and more and that it would have meant more faffing to get my credit balance back!

Since I got in the pickle with money last year (see previous comments about why I switched to paying the TV licence monthly) I budget for the current account to go down to £0.00 every month. I like being able to see exactly what is still to come out and what's in the pots as available for spending. In fact, I get narked about bills that come out late in the month and make my balance untidy 🤣 Removing the mortgage (29th) will help with this! After that, I might switch the electric (27th or 28th, can't remember exactly) to the 1st, then it's just the phone bill to hang on for (19th-ish) 😀

South_coast

Right, I'm awake ridiculously early (4.30am, no idea why 🤷‍♀️), so let's do the April free money round-up. This month's target was £91.32.

£0.31 bank account cashback
£2.00 Storewards
£2.15 Qmee
£10.00 i-Say
£10.00 Consumer Pulse
£15.00 cashed-in Nectar points
£16.19 bank account interest
£23.00 Grand National winnings 🐎
£30.00 Shop & Scan
£31.69 Prolific

Total = £140.34

Wow! It feels like it's been really easy this month as well! Obviously the interest and winnings took little to no effort, Shop & Scan being high was due to having their quarterly food diary fall within the month, and Consumer Pulse takes a couple of minutes a week. I'm missing survey invites left, right and centre at the moment though, so May might be slightly more challenging.

May's target: £85.20. It's coming down nicely 😀

South_coast

Right, let's also review progress against 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 bought this month (nothing needed after last month 🤣!)
* 1% of monthly salary to be donated to local homeless charity - Rolled over from 2020, as not yet a habit - Updating this has just reminded me, so 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 - Yep, done
* 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 🤣!) - None to act on this month 😀
* Continue to minimise alcohol consumption - No explanation needed here, I think! - Gah, knew my good report would come unstuck somewhere 🤦‍♀️! So I'd levelled off at about a bottle of wine per week, plus maybe one or two liquery things, which I was reasonably happy about but it tended to be mostly concentrated into a Friday night. I let myself down earlier in the month by buying a bottle of port midweek, which of course I then proceeded to drink midweek. Then last Friday night, BF decided he wanted to drink his way through the drinks cabinet one bottle at a time and would I like to join him? I remember toffee vodka, another type of vodka, amaretto, cointreau, then rather a lot of sherry (on top of the 3/4 of a bottle of red wine I'd already had)....then the next thing I know it's morning and I feel sick as a dog. I had to get BF to take me home as I couldn't drive, then spent the rest of the day laying on my sofa feeling sorry for myself. NOT the best use of half of my weekly days off! Still, at least I got a good 4.9 mile walk out of it the next day, going back to his. Although sadly hungover-and-pathetic-me had badly underestimated the amount of stuff I needed to bring back with me. I'd remembered things like my work coat and shoes - forgotten things like my laptop, handbag (there's a lot in there 🤣) and a 2l bottle of water. Must have weighed about 10kg, so my back and shoulders were in agony by the time I arrived. Still, on the upside, I've not touched a drop since (I know it's only been a week, but that does include a Friday night, so....)
* 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 - I had two hot cross buns. A bit of ketchup early in the month, but ditched that once I realised it had sugar in it. And it turns out it's in light mayonnaise too, who knew 🤷‍♀️? I can't live in a world without mayonnaise, so I'm just going to have to get over that one I think! Also had a slice of birthday cake, but did decline another slice when there was another birthday and I wasn't going to be there when it was brought out
* 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! - A couple of midweek pizzas have snuck in (thanks to going food shopping after work - what have I said about this before 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️?) And a colleague bought me a bag of Monster Munch - a grab bag, no less! I think that's it actually, so not tooooo bad
* 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 - I'm catching up on walks, but have now got behind on the indoor stuff again 🤦‍♀️! Hoping to pull some back over this weekend while I've got an extra day off

Phew, sorry about all that. Feels like a monthly therapy session 🤣! Er, rating.... B- I think 🤔

remote_control

That's an amazing report, mainly on the food front to me!