DrSpendingLittle's New Home - staying accountable and responsible

DrSpendingLittle

@enthusiasticsaver I’d say I do most of the big grocery shops (usually the online orders) but we do spend more than £400 per month combined. Definitely an area to cut back on, as has always been the case with my budget!! Now the little one has transitioned away from those baby-specific snacks and things like that, I think we can make more savings. I consciously noticed the other day that it’s £2.40 for 4 bags of apple rice cakes and suddenly realised why am I buying these?! He will eat normal snacks now so I've very recently stopped buying all the toddler specific stuff and will look for low salt / sugar ‘normal’ snacks. 

DrSpendingLittle

Had a NSD yesterday. Got an online food delivery arriving later today and have semi-meal planned from that. Might need a top up fruit and veg shop as the cut off for adding to the order was 9pm last night and I forgot to add in some items! 

My reliable weekend mom jeans ripped yesterday and it’s not really a patchable location, so I will need to order a replacement pair as I live in them at weekends. 

Today might involve some small spends as we intend to get brunch at the local park, but all planned and budgeted for. 

Enjoy the sunny weather

DSL

redofromstart

I used to bulk make small child friendly chicken and veg type casseroles and then blitz them to appropriate texture and freeze in small portions. I don't remember feeding them baby snacks as such -lots of yoghurt with blitzed fruit. Budget was tight at the time so I wouldn't have had any other option. 

DrSpendingLittle

Had a low spend day yesterday - abandoned plans for park & brunch as it was too hot by the time we were ready to leave, which saved ££s. Popped out briefly in the afternoon to run a few errands and annoyingly had to spend £3 on drinks and snacks for little one as we were out longer than anticipated and forgot to bring them. 

Hoping for another low spend day as only need a few veg bits to make dinner - whatever I decide that to be. Keema, roast chicken or meatloaf! WFH so have the flexibility to pop the slow cooker on for the first two. Haven’t tried little one on meatloaf yet so might experiment with that! He eats loads, hence all the snacks @redofromstart - it’s amazing what food companies make nowadays to entice parents away from their ££s!! 

DSL

DrSpendingLittle

Quick check in whilst having a coffee break in the office. YNAB categories are largely stagnant and awaiting their pay day refresh which delightfully comes a little early this month on Friday, so I'll get to that later in the week. I'm looking forward to my first full month budgeting and channelling some of that energy and enthusiasm I had whilst paying off my debt 5 years ago. 

I picked up a few 'top up' food items for meals this week yesterday, which I had forgotten to add into the online order before the cut off time. Other than that, no further spends yesterday. 

Today's only spends have been on petrol in the car this morning - annoyingly I had £30 in my budget for this and filled up £30.01! I should have used the specific amount function on the pump but decided to risk it! I'll have to transfer the £0.01 out of the groceries budget.

I received a free pack of nappies yesterday which was delightful since I had just run out and had intended to get some more; that cost can now be pushed into July's budget. We use not-so-budget-friendly pampers (various reasons, mainly that he sleeps better in them) but I use the app to register purchases and gain points and this yields a free pack of nappy every 5-6 months. 

Hope everyone is surviving in this heat!

DSL

DrSpendingLittle

Good morning,

Plans for the day are to work from home as it’s too hot in my office and I want to use both slow cookers today to get some batch cooking done.

I also need to return a few parcels that have been sitting around the house gathering dust. I must not forget to get frozen peas and double cream whilst I am out. Other than that, I see no need for any further spends. 

I did my July budget in YNAB last night and it looks okay. I should be able to set aside £250 in personal savings and £300 in house savings. It’ll be my first budget tracking spends in quite some time, so let’s see how it goes. I’m setting aside less of my income monthly (as a %) than I did when I was paying off my debt, which is a little frustrating. But nursery costs and price inflation across all aspects of life have largely offset the increase in my salary over that time. However I might look at my old budgets and see precisely where the money is going proportionally In relation to my salary. 

Annoyingly I left a block of cheese out of the fridge all day yesterday as I forgot to put it back after preparing my lunch for work. I put it back in the fridge when I got home so we will see if it’s salvageable today. It’s annoyed me more than usual because it’s a waste of money, so I’ll take that as a positive that my mindset is shifting towards being more frugal. 

Enjoy your day,

DSL

DrSpendingLittle

Another quick check in whilst I take a break from going though my inbox.

I had a productive day yesterday - picked up a few things from M&S Food Hall (I know, not very MSE but close to nursery drop off) that we needed and I returned some parcels that had been sitting around for ages. About £56 from the returns is not accounted for in my current budget (I started the budget after the spends were made) so that is a nice little windfall and will go in one of my categories, tbc. 

I used both slow cookers yesterday to batch cook - the big one to 'roast' a chicken and the smaller one to cook a keema curry. The chicken essentially steams and can be used for whatever you want. In the past I have served a 'roast' dinner with it, but last night I decided to strip it and DF used the leg meat to cook a quick and dirty Chinese meal. We'll use the rest tonight for a chicken caesar salad and possibly a meal for the Little One too, or for our lunches today / tomorrow. Little One had the keema curry last night and I froze 5 further portions for him and one portion for a work lunch for me.

I'm WFH today as it'll still be too hot in my office. Hoping for NSD as I can't see the need to spend on anything.

My budget is looking fine for the rest of the month. I've £300 in my 'unassigned' YNAB category which is the house savings pot. I will tilly tidy whatever is left from my other monthly spends categories on the last working day and that will total my house savings for June. I've £124 sat on my credit card from one budgeted online order (I use CC for all online orders) and one supermarket spend where I annoyingly forgot to take my purse so had to use Apple Pay. I'll pay that off tomorrow once the spends have fully cleared - I don't like seeing a red account on YNAB even though the relevant YNAB category is showing green. 

I've just remembered that I'm due a £21.64 refund from my energy supplier soon, so that will go into one of my categories, tbc.

I'll finalise my July budget over the weekend and post my intentions.

Hope its cooler for all today.

DSL   

DrSpendingLittle

Happy payday to the end of the monthers!

My July budget is done and all categories are now green in YNAB thanks to my salary hitting my bank account. 

Had a NSD yesterday. Still on track to save £300 into house savings on top of the £250 that’s gone into my personal savings, which I’m pleased about.  

Not sure on spending plans for today as it depends on what we do for dinner, which might be a takeaway (budgeted) or something easy from the store cupboard / freezer. However I’ve only got £69 in my frequent spends pots to last until Tuesday - all bills are paid and cupboards / freezer reasonably full - so plans will have to be MSE friendly. 

I do however have £165 in my non-monthly / yearly spends pots. These will build up as I progress my budgeting. If iI were doing scorched earth debt slaying like I used to, I wouldn’t build these categories and just throw all spare ££s at the debt. However tempting that is - and it is! - I won’t be doing it as I want to develop good money habits for the long term that are less extreme. I also have a really strong aversion to using any savings I have, so want to avoid that. 

Happy budgeting!

DSL

DrSpendingLittle

I've opened a Ch4se Savings Account this morning to take advantage of the 5.1% interest rate. This is where I will be putting my monthly house savings. To start me off, I have just added monies sat in another savings account, which was only paying 2.73% interest. It was all rather scary as the Fraud Team called me to investigate the transfer and when they did finally release the funds, it took a nail biting 10 mins to appear in the new Ch4se account, having already disappeared from the existing savings account!! The relief when it arrived was palpable. 

As part of setting up the Ch4se Savings Account, I had to open a current account (no overdraft offered so no credit check needed). I pondered on whether to have that as my spends account (and keep my existing current account as my bills account) or indeed whether to switch my existing current account entirely. However, I wondered whether that would appear too financially erratic to a mortgage company, so I paused for thought. I have pondered having a separate spending account for a while now as I think it would be good to see a 'real' available balance rather than a full balance which includes yearly / monthly savings pots. The interest rate on my existing current account is better than the Cha4se account too. I might experiment this month with transferring over my YNAB monthly spends amount - about £800 - and seeing how that goes. I'll wait until the card arrives in the next few days and then decide then.

DF and I STILL need to open a joint account but we are struggling as they say you can do it online through the app as existing customers, but we've tried at least 10 times and it crashes / times out / doesn't let us proceed to the next step. So annoying. So we've just abandoned for now. We too far away from a local branch, so can't do it that way either. I'm also not 100% sure how we would divide up what goes in and out of the joint account as we do have joint bills and joint monthly expenses but we also have personal spends. The issue really is that I am the saver and he is the spender (it used to be the opposite!) and I worry that he will keep accidentally using the joint account for his personal spends, or spend indiscriminately on groceries etc and continuously mess up my YNAB budget. I perhaps need to relinquish some control and just trust him haha! but I'm so used to having full control over my finances, especially after paying off all my debt, that I am loathed to let it go! We might park it all until we buy a house, then our budget really will need controlling due to the bigger mortgage. He knows that already though, as we nearly did buy a house with a much bigger mortgage in 2019, so I know he can do it / would be happy for me to lead the way in budgeting etc. 

DSL

MFWannabe

DrSpendingLittle said:

I've opened a Ch4se Savings Account this morning to take advantage of the 5.1% interest rate. This is where I will be putting my monthly house savings. To start me off, I have just added monies sat in another savings account, which was only paying 2.73% interest. It was all rather scary as the Fraud Team called me to investigate the transfer and when they did finally release the funds, it took a nail biting 10 mins to appear in the new Ch4se account, having already disappeared from the existing savings account!! The relief when it arrived was palpable. 

As part of setting up the Ch4se Savings Account, I had to open a current account (no overdraft offered so no credit check needed). I pondered on whether to have that as my spends account (and keep my existing current account as my bills account) or indeed whether to switch my existing current account entirely. However, I wondered whether that would appear too financially erratic to a mortgage company, so I paused for thought. I have pondered having a separate spending account for a while now as I think it would be good to see a 'real' available balance rather than a full balance which includes yearly / monthly savings pots. The interest rate on my existing current account is better than the Cha4se account too. I might experiment this month with transferring over my YNAB monthly spends amount - about £800 - and seeing how that goes. I'll wait until the card arrives in the next few days and then decide then.

DF and I STILL need to open a joint account but we are struggling as they say you can do it online through the app as existing customers, but we've tried at least 10 times and it crashes / times out / doesn't let us proceed to the next step. So annoying. So we've just abandoned for now. We too far away from a local branch, so can't do it that way either. I'm also not 100% sure how we would divide up what goes in and out of the joint account as we do have joint bills and joint monthly expenses but we also have personal spends. The issue really is that I am the saver and he is the spender (it used to be the opposite!) and I worry that he will keep accidentally using the joint account for his personal spends, or spend indiscriminately on groceries etc and continuously mess up my YNAB budget. I perhaps need to relinquish some control and just trust him haha! but I'm so used to having full control over my finances, especially after paying off all my debt, that I am loathed to let it go! We might park it all until we buy a house, then our budget really will need controlling due to the bigger mortgage. He knows that already though, as we nearly did buy a house with a much bigger mortgage in 2019, so I know he can do it / would be happy for me to lead the way in budgeting etc. 

DSL

Why do you feel you need to set up a joint account? If you don’t feel entirely comfortable about it I wouldn’t do it 🤷‍♀️ 
You can always open one later after buying a house for bills to come out of