misstara's debt diary 2020

misstara

Spends for yesterday were £15.85 on brunch out with a friend before work.  Day off today so just catching up with various house/garden bits.  Will need to pop to the supermarket at some point as need some cleaning products and cereal.

Completed some PA surveys this morning so just need to wait until the money is available to cash out and then will transfer it to the holiday fund.  Also cashed out a massive 25p from t0pcashback

Got an email from Tesc0 to say I had vouchers due to expire soon, checked and I have £11 worth of vouchers so need to decide whether to use them as is or exchange them.

I need to go through YNAB today as it says I have more available money than I actually do.  I've been really good at logging all my spends this month so think I must have inputted something wrong somewhere.

misstara

YNAB is all sorted out and I spent £18.40 at the supermarket yesterday.  Have also added £1.71 cashback from chase account and £7.16 from PA to the holiday fund.

Hoping I get my payslip today or tomorrow so I can make a start on next month's budget.

misstara

Went out for coffee and cake with a friend after work so £5.45 spent.  Haven't seen her for a while so lovely to catch up.

Got my payslip now so I'll do a budget for next month in the next few days.

misstara

Haven't posted for ages again.  At the end of July, we spent a week at my parents which was lovely but busy as my brother and wife were also there with the kids and my sister now lives in the same village as my parents.  It was quite exhausting as we aren't used to spending a lot of time with young children but so nice to see everyone.  Unfortunately I picked up some sort of bug while there so have felt pretty rubbish since.  Have managed work but very little else.  I do feel better now but still really tired.  It has also been a particularly hard going and draining week at work which hasn't helped.

Anyway day off today so plan is to get on top of the laundry as the basket is overflowing, hopefully it will stay dry so that I can get it all dried outside.  I also need to do a meal plan for the week and probably do a small shop.  And the house is a tip so a bit of cleaning too.  I might also do a tiny bit of work - as well as my usual job role, I am also an assessor for workplace qualifications.  I'm supposed to have a day a week dedicated to this but in reality, I very rarely manage to do this.  I've currently got one candidate but have another one starting in a few weeks time so I really need to do some planning.  I think if I can spend 30 minutes/an hour doing this today, I'll feel a bit more on top of things and when I'm back at work tomorrow, I'll try to identify a day I can work from home to properly do the work I need to do.  I've found that it's definitely better to do the assessor work from home as I end up getting pulled into other things at work but it's sometimes difficult to find a day where I don't have other commitments that I need to be in work for.

Money wise - £134.81 has been paid off the credit card taking the balance to £1140.30, plan is get it under £1000 when I next get paid.  LISA is currently £6960.37 and earning 60p interest daily   Holiday fund is currently £419.55, we had been thinking that we would go away for a weekend (European city break) to celebrate our 20 year anniversary but having looked at prices, we've decided to go camping (haven't decided whether to go somewhere in Scotland or maybe the Lake District again) and save up more to go away next year as it's a big birthday year for both of us (40 for me, 50 for OH).  Emergency and car funds are both over £1000 so all looking good there.

Day to day spending is not looking so good, have really overspend the food budget due to being ill and just grabbing easy food from the supermarket each day.  We have £102.34 to last us until the end of the month so need to make a real effort to properly meal plan and stick to it.

misstara

Productive day so far - OH hoovered the house while I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen.  It started raining so I've only done 1 load of washing, prioritised washing my scrubs so I have something to wear to work tomorrow.  Meal plan is done for the week using mostly stuff from the cupboards and freezer.  

Tonight - steak and ale pie
Tomorrow - sweet chilli chicken thighs
Monday - cheese and onion omelette
Tuesday - salmon fillets
Wednesday - meeting friend for tea
Thursday - pork chops
Friday - chicken fajitas

Not the most exciting meal plan but at least don't have to buy much additional food.  Need to get some rice to go with the salmon, wraps for the fajitas, yoghurt for breakfast and some more veg as only have peas, carrots and onions at the moment.  Have a heap of ys bread, english muffins, flat breads and pittas in the freezer so they will be for lunches, there is eggs, ham, tuna, sardines or cheese for fillings/toppings.  Will wait until we actually need anything before going shopping.

Ordered coffee beans today, 1kg for £28.  That should last me 3 months.  

I've also done a few surveys on PA which total £2.92, still got a little bit to go until I can next cash out.  Have cashed out 74p from t0pcashback.

misstara

Spends for yesterday were £8 on a pair of wellies from a car boot sale that I'd gone to through work.  J0ules ones with the tags still on so got a right bargain

£1.14 added to the holiday fund through cashback from the chase account.  Did some PA surveys so just waiting for the money to be available to cash out and then I'll add that to the holiday fund as well.

Not much else to report - did a wee bit of planning for the assessor role in Saturday and have identified a day next week I can work from home to get more done plus potentially an afternoon this week.

dawnybabes

The last few bags of coffee beans I’ve bought have been from Tk Maxx - they are normally a really good price. 

Boodedoo

Catching up

..

Yes, fun sized people are wonderful but very tiring when  you aren't used to them- our grandsons wear me out soon as look at them! I think I used up all my energy on the previous generation but I love the bones of the grandsons

Sorry you had a bug, hope you are ok now

Laughing at 

OH hoovered the house

bit late now after  50 +years but I sometimes wish I'd gone for the model that did hoovering . . .  :-)

All your money stuff seems to be ticking along very nicely :-) and do keep on making inroads into the time management for the work stuff, its usually do-able if you take a step back and realise that everything will still function if you aren't available every second of the working day.

misstara

Thanks for your comments dawnybabes and Boodedoo.  I never really go into town so am very rarely near Tk maxx but will remember to have a look next time I'm in.

Day off today so have sorted the budget for this month - did very little overtime compared to usual in July so my pay was less than normal but managed to add £300 to the flat deposit fund and £200 to the holiday fund.  I've also paid £41 to the credit card and the usual £100 direct debit will come off in a few days time which will take it to under £1000

My lovely dad gave us a gift of £1000 so we put £500 in the flat deposit fund, £300 in the holiday fund and £100 each to spend on whatever we choose.  OH spent most of his on new trainers and I've stashed mine away although I could also do with new work trainers fairly soon so may spend it on that.  Despite the increase in the holiday fund, we decided to stick with our plan of going camping and had a couple of nights away last week which was lovely.

This week, we've started getting a milk delivery from a local dairy.  It's obviously more expensive than buying from the shop but we both like the idea of using less plastic as it comes in glass bottles which you rinse out and they collect them when they deliver.  We've agreed to trial it for a month and see how it goes.  I also want to investigate a new zero waste shop that has opened near my work.

beanielou

Great milestone for the CC & how lovely to get a monetary gift.