misstara's debt diary 2020

misstara

Utterly horrible day again weather-wise but shift at work was a good one.  Pretty tired though as volunteered myself for kitchen duties so cooked a roast for 20 people and then came home to do the same for me and OH.  

More spends today - £7 on cosy socks for me (money from clothing fund) and £7.89 on a few bits we forgot yesterday.

PA money finally cleared so £8.32 sent to the holiday fund plus another £2.01 from cashback.  

I've got a sore scratchy feeling throat this evening so hopefully not coming down with something.

Sarahwithlove

Uhoh that's how my recent brush with the dreaded c-19 started. Hope it doesn't turn into anything too much for you. 

misstara

Thankfully not covid Sarahwithlove but a really bad cold, even now I still don't feel 100% and OH ended up with a chest infection so it's been a pretty miserable week for both of us.  I'm off on annual leave this week though (other than an overtime shift at the weekend) so that will give me a chance to properly recover.

Money wise, things don't look good as I've mostly just been grabbing things from our local corner shop so with 2 weeks left of the month to go, there is £42.23 left in the grocery which clearly is not going to last especially when the weekly milk direct debit will come out of that.  We have decided to keep the milk delivery going though as it's really handy not to have to nip to the shop for milk (and inevitably buy other items) and the recycling bin definitely has to go out less.

Plan for tomorrow is to go through the freezer, make a meal plan and then do a hopefully low cost supermarket shop.  Also need to do a tidy up of the flat and catch up on laundry.

misstara

£7.58 cashed out from PA so will send that to the holiday fund.  Also forgot to say in my previous post, today has been a NSD - the first one of this month  

misstara

So yesterday was not a low cost shop but hopefully will last us a while - £52.74 spent.

The weather has been horrible today so we've just had a day inside.  Decided to sort out the bedroom which has been bugging me for a while, just so messy and stuff dumped everywhere.  Took a good few hours but 2 black bags of rubbish chucked out plus the car boot and back seat is now filled with stuff to take to the charity shop/tip.  It now looks so much better and importantly is less of a trip hazard for OH.  Next plan is to sort out the living room.

I got a message from LISA provider saying that I had £1300 to add to it before the end of the financial year to maximise the bonus, should be doable as I usually try to put in £200/£300 a month.

I've agreed to cover a shift tomorrow due to staff struggling to get in with the weather and potentially have agreed to another one on Saturday.  Thankfully I now feel much better and the overtime pay will be very welcome

Boodedoo

Good to hear you are feeling better.
Have been thinking about you today, not too bad down here (Western Scotland not too far north of Glasgow) but looks like your part of Scotland is taking a real hammering.
Oddly we had a conversation over dinner the other night about the spare bedroom in our first house (c1975!). We kept on shoving stuff in there till it got to the stage we could hardly get into the room. Finally sorted it all out prior to the arrival of daughter no 1 in 1979 :-)
Since then I have been 'accused'  :-) of being obsessive about not holding onto junk and making sure that what we do keep is in 'tidy storage'  :-)
Rooting for you to maximise the bonus on the Lisa :-)

misstara

Thanks Boodedoo.  Yeah the weather has been pretty wild up here, glad to hear you haven't been too badly affected.  Didn't sleep too well last night due to the weather, the rain has stopped for now but it's still incredibly windy.  Very much regretting agreeing to the shift later today as I can't be bothered leaving the house but can't back out of it now.

Went through my finances this morning, have underspent on the petrol and social budgets so far this month so have around £90 left to do us until payday which is the 30th.  I do have a lunch out planned with my friend next week and will probably need to put some petrol in the car but hoping to get to payday without dipping into savings.

It's my sister's birthday next week so had a chat with her last night to get some present ideas.  Got £60 in the presents fund which will more than cover it.

Got my pay slip this morning so away to have a little look at a budget for next month.

misstara

Shift today was a really good one and even better, I'm not needed for tomorrow so just my original Sunday overtime shift over the weekend now.  It's also been a NSD.

misstara

Spends for today were £34 on a birthday present for my sister (money from present fund), £5 on some baking trays (money from home fund) and £13.60 on food shopping.  Despite doing a big shop on Thursday, we needed eggs, bread, fruit and veg.

Managed to do quite a few surveys on PA so just waiting for the money to become available to cash out.  I've been putting the money into the holiday fund but it's currently sitting at over £1100 with no real plans of a holiday at the moment so I might divert the money elsewhere, just not sure where yet.

misstara

So my shift for today was cancelled but actually quite glad as woke up feeling not great again today.  Have felt better as the day goes on but clearly the cold is lingering on and on.

Didn't do much other than go for a long walk by myself, catch up with family on the phone and hang out with OH but it has been a NSD which is always good.

£5.29 cashed out from PA which I decided to send to the holiday fund.  After having a think about it, I will continue to send money to that fund from surveys and cashback but not fund it from my pay at the moment.  I usually pop £100/£200 in the holiday fund when I get paid but this month, I'll put that money towards Christmas bits and bobs.  I save money towards Christmas through the whole year but it will be nice to have a bit extra.

My car insurance and MOT are due next month, there's just over £1000 in that fund so hopefully that will cover both and then I'll build that pot back up.  After that, I want to build more of an emergency fund, it's currently sitting at just over £1000 as well but that really wouldn't go far if I ended up not being able to work for some reason.  I also should start putting money away to fund a new car at some point as my car is now 12 years old and won't last forever unfortunately.