Time to Knuckle Down

lostmyusername

Oof, a bit of a change since my last post. Holiday didn't go ahead for obvious reasons. Still trying to wrangle a refund from my insurance or various providers, but basically that money's down the drain.

Opened a cashback account for my bills, moving them over slowly. Should get me around £15 per month for absolutely no work, hooray! 

Employer pension is now looking truly shocking at £3,000. SIPP is under £100 now. Can't access this money so essentially would just have to cut my losses if things really go down. Oh well.

Feeling nervous about the economy but to be honest, feel completely helpless as well. 

Chrystal

Hope you are OK?  

lostmyusername

Chrystal said:

Hope you are OK?  

Hi Chrystal, thanks for popping in. Yes, doing okay, mental health taking a bit of a hit with everything going on - but then whose isn't? 

I've been off work for the last 2 weeks (planned unpaid break between jobs) but haven't been able to do anything, so I've been feeling as useful as a chocolate teapot. I wish I'd not taken the break but by the time we realised the gravity of the situation, it was too late for me to rearrange everything dates wise. Mostly been sitting at home twiddling my thumbs and thinking about all the money I'm not earning.

To be honest, both boyfriend and I have family in the extremely vulnerable category so I'm more concerned about them. Luckily neither of them live in London so we've just had to stay away from them instead. They both have people close to them who can help them out. 

After a lot of worry about my future, given that I had been between jobs in the last 2 weeks, I was given the all-clear from my new job to WFH so that's a massive relief. I was worried that I would be out of a job. Unfortunately boyfriend is a key worker who can't WFH so I've been worrying about him commuting into central London.

Money worries are floating around because I won't be paid a proper full salary until the end of May. I'll be getting smaller amounts this month and next. We can survive on boyfriend's salary alone luckily, but it's still a bit of a weight on my mind.

We recently moved and it's been a bit stressful living without proper storage or furniture. All our stuff was everywhere. I used the last 2 weeks to unpack and organise things as best we could, but I'd love to get some storage organisation for our cupboards. Right now, I'm just shutting the door and shutting my eyes to it. 

Just got to get through the next few weeks. Hope everyone else is ok. 

lostmyusername

Payday is today. Unfortunately only paid £220 this month and no idea how much I'll get next month. But I had £600-ish left in my account unspent and am waiting for a £1k refund for my annual travelcard.

BF has been paid a large bonus this month, taking his salary up to £1.9k after tax, but I don't want his entire bonus to just be swallowed up in bills, since he's worked so incredibly, incredibly hard. Really proud of him for getting the bonus and it would be nice for him to be able to treat himself a little. He's put £1.5k in the joint acc and I'd like him to be able to keep the rest, although he'll sit on it until nearer the end of April in case anything crops up.

After all bills are paid and everything is done and dusted, we have £1.5k left for the month so I've popped £500 in the EF, £5 in marriage fund, £20 in Christmas fund. The rest is floating about until it's properly allocated, which I think I'll do tomorrow. Most likely another £500 will go in the EF. Also need to think about paying a chunk off the 0% card, but I think that'll wait until the EF is looking a bit healthier and everything settles with new job/new flat.

Starting to get into the swing of things with new job now, but still nervous about it. I will breathe a sigh of relief once my probation period is up - 6 months! 

lostmyusername

The week is whizzing by. I haven't got much work to do right now, so making the most of the spare time. Trying to keep on top of the housework - I could absolutely not be a housewife or SAHM. It seems that every day, I turn around and all the same housework needs doing again. Same today, same tomorrow. It's not a life for me.

I confess. We've been spending on the 0% card rather than spending our cash in these troubling times. The 0% card now has a balance of £1,900. Once my income stabilises (around the end of May) we should be able to pay this off pretty quickly, but for now it stays.

EF stands at £1k. Paid £700 to family repayment pot, so I now "owe" £31,300.

My mum owes me £750 so we'll sort that out once I can go to visit her.

Trying to make the most of this free time by doing plenty of surveys, although there doesn't seem to be that many at the moment. 

lostmyusername

A spend to report: £25 on a cast iron frying pan with a lifetime guarantee. Since moving into the new place, we've had one medium sized saucepan to cook with, and that's it! My parents bought us a set of pans that they saw on offer, and we were planning to go down to pick it up, but my mum is in the extremely vulnerable category and we live in the area of London that's been hit the hardest, so we decided not to go until everything blew over. We've been making do so far, but with me working from home and cooking more often, it's just been a ridiculous hassle. So I think it's worth it. 

First mortgage payment has gone out, £300.18. Only taken £248 off the capital, but it's a start! Only £105,352 left to go....

lostmyusername

I was wrong...£105,458.48 left on my mortgage. Well, I just made a small payment of £13.48 so £105,445.00 to go...

Cashed out £5.84 on prolific, £3.50 pending. I'm putting it in a separate pot of "extra earnings". Need to decide what to do with the extra earnings. 

Finally sorted out my oyster refund, £1,015 coming back my way, hooray. I'll keep this money aside for when we're back to normal and I have to buy a new travel card.

I tried 20 cogs but I'm not sure it works for me. I did all the offers but a lot of them haven't registered. Seems a bit dodgy, hmm. Shame because I have more than £40 of earnings on there but if the cogs don't light up, I won't ever be able to cash out.