This time I'm sticking to it!

rdone

Ooo also, NW CC only has £392.17 left on it which is less than the DD  so have cancelled DD and set up a one off payment for the full amount.

Then £4342.78 on Sains to tackle.  Dividing that by 11 it'll mean £394.80 a month.  Can't decide whether to put it down to this and have the extra £155.20 a month towards the renovations or to pay the £550 we're currently paying towards CC and paying it off by October.  It'll be the same in the end and I know DH will say do it over 12 as it won't make a difference.  But paying it off in October instead of December is much more appealing.

Might wait and see what our spending is like this month, if we can save enough then we won't need the extra money.

joedenise

@rdone - we have a CC we use for everything to get the points and pay off each month but so we don't have the problem you've had this month anything we spend comes off that months budget - so anything spent on groceries this month comes off this month's grocery money; anything spent of eating out/takeaways comes out of the eating out budget etc.  This way the money is already there to pay it off.  I use YNAB so that makes it easy for me to do it this way.  Hope that makes sense!

rdone

Thanks @joedenise, it makes perfect sense and we used to do the same.  We got really good at it too but with moving house and Christmas we've become lazy with it and stopped.  Thanks for reminding me, must get back there!

We also used to pay of the CC daily so that we never had a bill at the end of the month and could only spend what we had available to spend.  Hopefully a couple months of catch up and we'll be there.

Currently eating some biscuits, we don't usually have any in the house so it feels like a right treat.  Not sure my belly will thank me when running later though!

DH has confirmed pizza for tea so going to make the dough before I run.

rdone

All change on the food front.  I have an insta account for our dog and she's been sent a load of vegan human and dog food as a gift to try out for meat free Monday's.  I'm vegan anyway so it's a win win win situation!  Although need to think up something yummy now to post.

So that was lunch today (there's loads of it).  And then my mum phoned and invited us there for tea, so the pizza will stay for another day as I've made the dough.

Still on a NSD, pretty confident we'll make it at this point.

Going to clean the downstairs of our house now and then zoom a friend for wine about 5, I know we're not in lockdown anymore but it's easier than driving!

rdone

Been to the shop and spent £20.19 on beer (for DH), waffles, baked beans (for my breakfast tomorrow before 10 mile run) and carrots for the dog.  Went in for those 4 things and only purchased those 4 things, feels like a huge win!

Problem of the day though is that we've ran out of oil.  We don't have mains gas where we live so our heating and hot water is from oil which is in a tank in the garden (I think I might have mentioned this before, apologies!).  So I've just spent £358.63 on that - the joy!  No idea when they'll deliver it either, going to have to ring them Monday and ask.  We have some electric heaters and my parents only live a mile away for showers but it's such a pain.  Roll on moving to an LPG boiler instead!

So yes, a rather expensive day but the oil needs to be bought.

WinterWarrior

We also have heating oil…and it’s so much more expensive now, even though I only ever order 500litres at a time. I’m hoping we’ll last until payday. Our gauge has broken so every so often MrWW has to shine a light inside the filler hole to see where we’re at 😖
I have started a sinking fund / pot for it, but I’m not there yet. 

Well done on the shop.

rdone

We are in much the same position @WinterWarrior and have a large stick resting next to the tank to gauge levels.  The game of oil lottery is not a fun one!

Yesterday we went to meet a new dog that we're going to adopt, she's 10 and came in as a stray, she's absolutely beautiful and we're very excited to pick her up next Saturday!  I can't wait to be proud dog mumma of two.  We already have the majority of things we need, it'll just be the case of the adoption fee, another food bowl (purchased yesterday for £6.99 - went into homesen and only bought this, I was SO PROUD), a collar and a name tag.  Everything else we have, so we're good.  We did have a McD's on our way home which was £13.80 but resisted coffee in cafe n.

Today DH has spent £5.94 on some blades for his hack saw.  He's currently making a coffee table out of some pallets and glass that have been donated to us.  So buying these is much cheaper than buying a coffee table!  And more fun.

I've just checked our spending CC and it's balance is currently -£173.77 after all the returns I have made after Christmas so that is rather fun.

We're quite low on some essentials so I'm just trying to work out what we need to buy and what can we use alternatives for instead - example: DH loves cheerios for breakfast and we've ran out, there's a box of weetabix that he's ignored for a couple months so I'm refusing to buy breakfast until they are eaten.  He's not impressed but I'm not paying when there is perfectly edible food here.

I have a run at lunch and will be going to my parents to shower (is that money saving as I won't be using water here? haha), and I'm thinking jacket potatoes, beans and cheese all from stores for lunch.  For tea we are partaking in meat free monday (as we do every week) so need to think up something to make with the food we've been gifted.

Hope you all have a lovely week!

rdone

Went to the shop and got bread and wraps - and only these two!  I did try and work out what we had instead but we don't even have enough flour to make some flat bread so there was no option. £2.39.

DH rang and booked swimming for Wednesday morning and paid £4.25.  After he paid he then asked if there were any membership deals on for January and it's £10 for this month and next month.  Why he did not ask this before he paid the £4.25 and saved that money instead I do not know.  Considering how intelligent he is (he has a very complicated and important job) I do not get how he functions.  I could talk about this all day - like how earlier I asked him to ring the oil company to find out when we'd have it delivered and he asked me for the phone number.  I told him to google it.  An hour later he asked me if I had managed to google the number for him yet.  I ended up emailing them.  This is not the place for these rants though!

rdone

DD for Sains came out so that's another £97.71 gone forever.  Just the minimum DD amount at the mo until next month.  Happy days.  Does anyone else love updating their total in their signature?

WinterWarrior

I do! I love updating my signature (but it took me much longer that it should have to work out how to do it in the first place 😬)