Facing reality

Parkyp

Your day with friend and children sounds lovely. Glad to hear you now covid free. 

I recently read a great book (recommended by someone on here) where the crawdads sing. I just saw that it is coming out in the cinema so I’ll be looking to go see that. 

Hope you enjoy the cinema and dinner oh and I love a pic n mix to 😋

Sarahwithlove

Parkyp said:

Your day with friend and children sounds lovely. Glad to hear you now covid free. 

I recently read a great book (recommended by someone on here) where the crawdads sing. I just saw that it is coming out in the cinema so I’ll be looking to go see that. 

Hope you enjoy the cinema and dinner oh and I love a pic n mix to 😋

mark55man said:

glad you hear you are out of it, relatively unscathed.  It took me a few weeks to get over the tired but it will go

Thanks I'm just trying not to do too much and get lots of rest. Still have a bit of a chesty cough but that seems to be getting better as well.

Really enjoyed my cinema and dinner out but think that's going to have to be it for me now until end of month. Gone over budget but i do have about £100 a month that's unbudgeted for any unexpected or extras ao have had to dip into that. Have £80 left of it to last me until end of the month. Hopefully get away with a small food shop just fresh stuff at weekend but otherwise don't have much planned between now and payday so hoping can keep spending low. Whatever is left over will go in my saver which is being used for any CC overpayments as its still on 0% until March 23

CreditCardJunkie

Hi Sarah, sorry to hear you haven't been well! Glad your on the road to recovery. Keep up the good work!

Sarahwithlove

CreditCardJunkie said:

Hi Sarah, sorry to hear you haven't been well! Glad your on the road to recovery. Keep up the good work!

Thank you I'm still tiring easily and have a cough that won't go. Who knew cough medicine was so expensive. Our local t3sco didn't have any of their own so had to go to chemist, £10!!. Will try @sda later in the week when start to get low. Down to my last £20 which I took from my cashback/round up account as don't like leaving my account at £0 as you can't get overdraft with ch@se. Will move it back if don't need anything before payday on Friday. Did a shop over weekend so hoping I can make what I have already last. Get an extra £30 this month from paycheck thanks to NI threshold increasing. I have just absorbed it into my funds as everything in supermarket and restaurants etc just keeps going up in price. Got a shock when went to lid! And discovered my milk has gone from 89p to £1.05 😱 that's when I started noticing everything else has gone up too! I knew it had in other big supermarkets but hadn't noticed until this week that same again for lid!

New budget means £85 per month to CC to clear before end of 0% period. Just need to stop spending on it.
£500p/m to sinking/emergency fund.
£3.04 unallocated funds along with any cashback and rounding up money which will be used to overpay on mortgage. 

Sarahwithlove

Last working day of the month for me and I'm so pleased. Covid has really knocked the stuffing out of me. Think I've been trying to do too much too soon so have dropped out of my 1m step challenge. I was in bed by 7pm last night I just had no energy. Got myself some more cough medicine another £5 and a chippy tea £5.40 as had no energy to cook. Got £10 cash still and about £3.27 left in my account. Id forgotten that my friend owed me some money so that paid for yesterday. Hopefully today will be another NSD and tomorrow is payday.

Tomorrow is my Friday off, currently not much planned, move some money over to my spends account. Then maybe do some kind of food shop. Need to make a menu plan really based on what I already have and do some cleaning. Might get some petrol when go do food shop as expect the prices will go back up again. Got just under half a tank at the moment. Hoping to keep weekend relatively simple and chill out just have to stop myself boredom shopping! I need to have more NSD this month as realised I pop to supermarket way too no much and always buy more than just what I went in for. This week where money has been tight I've been asking myself do I really need it or can it wait until payday? I think I'm going to aim to cut shopping down to twice a week purely for fresh fruit purposes more than anything.
I've been through my plans for the month and estimated how much will need spending money wise and it's not leaving me much leeway for other spending. So on my best behaviour this month. 

Sarahwithlove

So after last week telling me she thinks she will be here another year. My lodger today announced that after 6 months of dating that her and her bf are going to look to buy somewhere together. Realistically it's going to be 3+ months before she moves out but does mean I need to knuckle down with the job searching and reign in my spending even more. If I can't find something better paid then may have to get a 2nd job which I'd rather avoid. Before everything got so expensive I probably could have managed as would have about £250 a month to go towards sinking funds but now nothing seems to be stretching as far as it used to do. 

foxgloves

The price rises are really starting to be noticeable now, aren't they, @Sarahwithlove? I mentioned on another diary that the skyr I used to buy for £1 is now £2.20!  And an extra £1.50 on our favoured type of cat litter. Rises are noticeable on so many essentials. Gone are the days when we could pop to the cheaper supermarkets & find tins of pulses for 28p & sometimes lower if they were on offer. Even our local market greengrocer is selling 5 of things for £3 which were 5 for £2 last year, & his prices are generally good. Even as a committed longstanding meal planner, I'm putting more effort in at the planning stage.
I agree with you about extra supermarket visits being a problem. Back in the Spendy Era, I did endless top-up shops. Now I hate them! Pop in for a pack of rolls, spend £15 or £20! We do one shop a week & only pop in again if the item is absolutely essential. It's doable with planning. 
Anyway, just dropped by to commiserate about price rises.
F

sunshine_raincloud

That's a shame about your lodger moving out! At least you have a few months to plan your next steps. Do you think you might try to find someone else to move in? Also definitely feeling the squeeze here with regards to prices of everything. Even looking a few months back money was going a lot further. Hope you get a plan together or find a better paying job soon!

Sarahwithlove

foxgloves said:

The price rises are really starting to be noticeable now, aren't they, @Sarahwithlove? I mentioned on another diary that the skyr I used to buy for £1 is now £2.20!  And an extra £1.50 on our favoured type of cat litter. Rises are noticeable on so many essentials. Gone are the days when we could pop to the cheaper supermarkets & find tins of pulses for 28p & sometimes lower if they were on offer. Even our local market greengrocer is selling 5 of things for £3 which were 5 for £2 last year, & his prices are generally good. Even as a committed longstanding meal planner, I'm putting more effort in at the planning stage.
I agree with you about extra supermarket visits being a problem. Back in the Spendy Era, I did endless top-up shops. Now I hate them! Pop in for a pack of rolls, spend £15 or £20! We do one shop a week & only pop in again if the item is absolutely essential. It's doable with planning. 
Anyway, just dropped by to commiserate about price rises.
F

It really is quite noticeable now isn't it. Even in the cheap shops my lactose free milk has gone up 26p i might have to go back to soya.

I think planning meals is what I need to do better so that I can go in with a proper list and keep shopping trips down. Also need to stop drinking so much fizzy drink. One bottle when go shopping and that's it. 

Sarahwithlove

sunshine_raincloud said:

That's a shame about your lodger moving out! At least you have a few months to plan your next steps. Do you think you might try to find someone else to move in? Also definitely feeling the squeeze here with regards to prices of everything. Even looking a few months back money was going a lot further. Hope you get a plan together or find a better paying job soon!

Yes i think at least 3 but possibly nearer 6 have to wait and see really. I'm working on 3 months. Hopefully by then I would have £3k saved up and then with my new budget I worked out I could save £200 a month instead of £500 and pay off credit card before then. Not sure if will get anyone else in tbh. Id like to go back to living on my own and if I'm sensible I could do it. Just means making some sacrifices on the extras I have now.