2020: Becoming a Saver, Not a Spender

[Deleted User]

Thanks @DancingInTheRain

The journey to retrieve my orphaned bag wasn't too bad, traffic was fine, just a long old trip.

Got home and stretched my knee a bit after having sat with it in one place for so long, then cracked on with the shred. I should eat dinner now but there really is not much in that I fancy eating! I don't even want to walk over to the co-op, because there's literally nothing that I can think of that I want I'll just have a protein shake and see how I feel in a bit, it may just be because I'm hot & bothered.

Won't get round to painting the planters today, but will have a lot more time tomorrow evening to get them done, so no worries there.

I will be very surprised if I do anything more than shower and watch TV for the rest of the night now, that's what happens when you have to waste 2 hours of your night driving, I guess

savingholmes

Well done for sorting our your wages. What a pain about your bag - but at least you have it now. Hope that you are now in a better place with your relationship.

[Deleted User]

Yes it was a pain but a mistake I'll never make again, for definite. I must have just been more focused on making sure the kids had picked up all of their stuff! Things are also much smoother at home atm

savingholmes said:

Well done for sorting our your wages. What a pain about your bag - but at least you have it now. Hope that you are now in a better place with your relationship.

Still in love with tinkering with YNAB at the moment, I wanted the flashing circles at the top to go away so set myself a "goal" for saving up for the next year of YNAB, and created a pot in Monzo and moved the money over. It all seems to balance so looks like I did it fine  

OH it's at home and blitzing the house so it will be interesting trying to find the new "homes" he has given items I managed to keep myself awake last night and still semi-conscious when OH got in from work, this was one of the things causing a few grumbles that I'm normally asleep or about to be when he gets in, so trying to keep myself a bit (but not too) busy until he gets in so we can have a quick chat about our days etc.

I did have a nice long catch up with my Dad whilst driving last night, and made some rough plans to go and visit him as our little foursome in the summer at some point as he has not met OH's kids. It was also a good way to pass the time whilst I was on the roads I knew and didn't need to look at my Sat Nav/Phone for.

Ordered some antibacterial handwashes for work today from Supedrug as we are almost all out and it's potentially (though I'm not buying into the mass hysteria) the wrong time to not have much to hand, and ordered 2 for home as well as they were half price, plus I had some points to use. For 4 bottles and next day collection from the shop, I think I paid just over £3  

FootyFanDan

Hey,

Glad to hear things seem to have settled at home, its such a difficult thing managing two workloads and everything life brings as well as trying to fit in time for couple stuff. 

I am still also tinkering with YNAB - its complicated though at the minute. I need to do a full re-think of how to do stuff in YNAB as some of the one of purchase aren't every month and when i delete it from the following month it deletes it from budget completely and knocks everything out of sync hahaha.

[Deleted User]

FootyFanDan said:

Hey,

Glad to hear things seem to have settled at home, its such a difficult thing managing two workloads and everything life brings as well as trying to fit in time for couple stuff. 

I am still also tinkering with YNAB - its complicated though at the minute. I need to do a full re-think of how to do stuff in YNAB as some of the one of purchase aren't every month and when i delete it from the following month it deletes it from budget completely and knocks everything out of sync hahaha.

Agreed, life definitely gets in the way sometimes!

Could you just leave the category as zero on the months you don't need it? That's the only workaround I can think of lol  

FootyFanDan

Yeah, i think I am going to leave it as one of payments and then actually find a space for it on my new all sparkly spreadsheet to track these.  

savingholmes

Glad the journey wasn't for nothing and things are calming down. I tried YNAB - I liked that I could see it on my phone but felt frustrated as I had to keep manually uploading my csv file from the bank. I also had too many accounts and I need to forecast - I can't cope with not knowing the forecast info clearly so retreated to spreadsheets.

cathybird

I bought YNAB at one point but have never used it - couldn't quite get my head round it at the time though there are many who swear by it. I use a money management app that allows me to track all my expenses and I find that great. I'd be interested to know how you find YNAB though, SSDD23 - maybe I will take to using it at some point.

Sarahwithlove

If I don't have that expense that month then I just leave it as zero. If its something that I pay for say once a year I save up each month for it. If its something like haircut which I do every 8 weeks I save it over the two months so that I budget it each month. I find its working well so far. 

[Deleted User]

I always used to use spreadsheets but they never kept me as honest, I don't know why

savingholmes said:

Glad the journey wasn't for nothing and things are calming down. I tried YNAB - I liked that I could see it on my phone but felt frustrated as I had to keep manually uploading my csv file from the bank. I also had too many accounts and I need to forecast - I can't cope with not knowing the forecast info clearly so retreated to spreadsheets.

I love it @cathybird it took some time realising/coming to terms with how many transactions I could accidentally make, but that actually helps identify frivolous spending

cathybird said:

I bought YNAB at one point but have never used it - couldn't quite get my head round it at the time though there are many who swear by it. I use a money management app that allows me to track all my expenses and I find that great. I'd be interested to know how you find YNAB though, SSDD23 - maybe I will take to using it at some point.

Agreed, I have my pots set up for this reason  Sarahwithlove said:

If I don't have that expense that month then I just leave it as zero. If its something that I pay for say once a year I save up each month for it. If its something like haircut which I do every 8 weeks I save it over the two months so that I budget it each month. I find its working well so far. 

Phew....that's enough attempted multi-quoting for one post