It's time to begin.....

Kakiste

My plan is to build it up by adding £400 (allocated to family debt repayment pot) at the beginning of each month. I always put £200 into my EF fund but then have had to dip into it frequently in the latter half of last year. (dentist, car etc) My plan is now to hold the £200 in my EF but then if the month passes without having to use it then to move £100 across to bonds the day before payday. That way on good months I'll put putting £500 in and slowly start to build up a decent EF fund one £100 at a time. 

Kakiste

Had a white good repair bloke come out yesterday to confirm the oven is indeed broken and needs replacing. So hopefully someone will have moved on that today. 
I'm doing bbq pulled pork in the slow cooker for fakeaway night tonight- doing it in buns with cheese, watercress and beetroot. I set it off this morning at 8am so it'll have been cooked for 10 hours when we eat it later. Nom

Kakiste

So I had a brand new oven delivered yesterday which was very exciting. Unfortunately the promised electrician then failed to show up when I'd been told he would so I currently have a mahoosive oven sitting in my kitchen and blocking me from opening half of the cupboard without shifting it back and forward. Hopefully the engineer will turn up today instead. 

Kakiste

Oven now fitted.

Kakiste

So i'm making poutine for dinner to celebrate having an oven again. 
Just done the week's shopping (£22.)
We're having;
Sat- poutine
Sun - roast turkey dinner (got a load of parsnips, turkey breast slices, yorkshires and potatoes from food group last week- think its the last of the christmas food from supermarkets) 
Mon- jackfruit chilli (made this earlier going to be frozen until Monday and then go in the slow cooker) 
Tues- Macaroni cheese
Wed- Fakeaway night (fried chicken, chips, cornbread and sweetcorn this week)
Thurs- Fish, veg rice and salad
Fri- Beef quesadilla

Kakiste

It's silly how much you change once you put your mind to paying off debt. Thanks to the payrise I'm now paying between £770 and £970 a month off my debt depending on whether i need to use my rolling £200 EF each month.
 I am genuinely excited for next Monday so I can update my signature!

Sarahwithlove

That's a great overpayment amount each month! 

Kakiste

Just had a message to say that all staff in our school are getting an extra £150 in our paycheque on Monday to thank us for all the extra work we did during the Covid outbreak at our school 3 weeks ago.

Kakiste

I've decided I'm going to use my bonus payment from work as my half of buying a new mattress. Our one is got even worse and collapsed completely on my side which means I wake up with my neck frozen fairly frequently from having slept awkwardly on the edge all night. 

I'm going to put all of the council tax payment (£193) that I don't need to pay this month into my utilities account to give it a bit of a boost. I'm determined not to get into arrears with this company as the last one took me the best part of a year to pay off- I've set my DD at £40 a month more than my contract says I have to pay and I'm going to keep paying that through the spring and summer when we don't use the heating at all to build up a reserve for next winter

Kakiste

So signature is updated.   I've paid £770 off my debts this morning and put £200 in my rolling EF fund. If I get to the 28th without having dipped into it, it will also be added to my premium bonds family repayment pot to bring me to £970 repayments for the month. I'm going to do my very best not to touch it. 

I've divvied up the remaining into my groceries, child and fuel pots. I've still got £200 left. Hoping to convince my husband to give me half the cost of the mattress then I'll still have £100. Out of the child pot i've spent £40 on two big ebay bundles of clothes for her as she's had another massive growth spurt and was showing 2 inches of both ankle and forearm on every clothing item, she had an own clothes day at school last Friday and it was a tad embarrassing to have to send her in like that (In the end I got her to wear a pair of knee length socks under her leggings so the 2 inches of ankle weren't quite as obvious!) so the fact that she has a bunch of 'new' clothes that fit her makes me feel better and I've still got £20 left in case she needs anything else.