The Last Leg; 6 years later, debt free in 2021

greensalad

Didn't get finished budgeting until late last night so here's an update this morning. Set everything aside as usual including:

£384.54 for paying off my CC when statement comes on the 8th (3 more payments to go until it's cleared!)
£283.60 paid off OH's Santander CC (signature updated!)
£557.09 set aside for much-postponed dream USA holiday
£148.44 set aside for Italy holiday next autumn
£113.39 set aside in Car Maintenance pot
£31.60 in the annual payments pot
£473 put away for the tax bill (in NS&I Premium Bonds)
£87 added to the Christmas pot. Waiting until BF is over so I can order my MIL and SIL presents. Everything left after that is beers/supermarket jobbies.

Grocery money, takeaway money, household spends set aside for the month.

Pocket money divvied out with a little extra for buying Christmas presents for each other (I should have considered this in the big christmas budget but I forgot). I've already spent mine! But I've got a lot of pressies. Only thing left is a few snacks for the stocking from the supermarket.

Lean month, slow progress. Normally I aim to set aside over £1,000 for savings per month but unfortunately with Christmas and not getting paid the extra I thought I would I've only made it to £473. Hopefully I can boost it up a little.

greensalad

Have recalculated all my percentages in my signature!
Updated house savings fund by just a few quid of interest, gained 0.2% haha.
Added savings for tax bill, now 26.3% of the way there, so over a quarter of the way!
Santander CC is almost at a quarter of the way done, with 23.4% paid off.

Not sure what is happening with my smart watch. I was due to have already finished it in October, but with corona I went on a short payment holiday. I didn't get charged for it this month... combing through YNAB and I think I must've made a mistake? I think it's actually paid off! I thought I had 2 payments left. I'm going to keep quiet about it... if it's a mistake their end then if they do ask for it back it's only £40 which I'll be able to pay up easily so just going to remain silent...

greensalad

First shift of Black Friday done! All went fine, nice bit of extra cash.

Managed to completely screw up grocery shopping and meal planning this week. We always book our next slot a week in advance but we don't like to pick our dinner plan until a few days before. So we submit a dummy order (Ocado won't let you book a slot unless you have £40 in your trolley) and then we edit it 2 days or so before.

Wellll we forgot. Luckily we use the "instant shop" which just adds a bunch of favourites to the trolley. We used to add a massive leg of lamb because it was over £40 but thank god we don't do that anymore... because once it's locked in it can't be changed!

So what we've ended up with is Ocado's algorithm of our favourite items totally £70. Ugh. More expensive than our normal shop and not even complete meals!!

It could be worse. Everything on the list is things we do eat regularly. We've got enough to make some wacky edible meals over the next few days but will need to buy a handful of additional bits here and there. 

Oh and we've got 8 litres of coke coming... we're still working through the bumper box of cans we bought way back. It "favourited" us 2 different types of 2 litre coke and then added 2 of each hence 8 litres.

Must not forget in future!!

Sarahwithlove

Lesson learnt. Maybe next time when you book your slot set a reminder on your phone to change it. I'd remove the Coke from your favourites for a while 🙈🤣

Kakiste

Annoying but could be worse. I remember reading on mumsnet a few years back that someone used to add 2 bottles of champagne and checkout to reserve her slot and then go back a few days before to add the actual list (and remove the champagne) She then forgot and ended up with £60 of champagne and no food.  

greensalad

Kakiste said:

Annoying but could be worse. I remember reading on mumsnet a few years back that someone used to add 2 bottles of champagne and checkout to reserve her slot and then go back a few days before to add the actual list (and remove the champagne) She then forgot and ended up with £60 of champagne and no food.  

I'd much rather have two bottles of champagne than a giant leg of lamb! At least we stopped doing that!

greensalad

Finally got paid for the web job I started in the summer! 

£250 instantly added to the savings pot for tax bill. We're 30% of the way there now! And still on schedule to have set it all aside by January with no dipping into other pots.

Signature updated.

greensalad

Small windfall (though it's not arrived yet). OH just cashed out his handful of shares from the company he worked for until 2018. He gets dividend cheques for the odd penny but we always forget to cash them. Finally got another one and decided to look into the paperwork etc and he's sent off to have the shares sold. Worth £250. Not a lot but not expected either! He forgot he had them.

greensalad

So I've been a bit naughty but...

Basically I think I've decided that for December I'd like to give us a bit of a treat and break away from the budget just a tiny bit. I get paid early this month, so I'm sort of treating that early payday as a bit of a bonus. It'll also me quite a bumper paycheque. 

The amount we're saving means that spending a little bit more doesn't hugely put us back... it puts us back a matter of weeks in terms of our goals (and still hitting that hard deadline of 31st Jan for the tax bill) so it doesn't have a huge effect, but I've just been feeling a bit down about the whole of Christmas and COVID etc and so we had a chat yesterday and decided we're going to let ourselves be a it free for this month only. Not talking spending silly amounts... just occasional here and there. The key will be to make sure we get back on it completely in January. Which I think by the fact we're having a conversation about it means we're firmly not "off the wagon" just... stretching our legs.

Yesterday we went out to a big garden centre to browse the Christmas decorations. Didn't see anything we liked in the decorations area but I bought a lovely baby Winnie the Pooh comforter toy for my friend's baby. Not in budget, but I just wanted to get something because buying things for babies is fun!

Then we went to the food court thing and they have a huge American section. My OH grew up in Canada so a lot of the things there are his childhood favourite treats (they basically have mostly the same stuff) so he bought a bundle of stuff and I bought an American Betty Crocker cake mix and some of my favourite US sweets (SweetTarts). Of course none of that stuff was cheap as its all imported! 

I did get some on-budget Christmas presents though! (Nice little painted boxes in their floristry supplies section that will be perfect for making my produce hampers. £5 each, so not too bad).

It was just nice to be able to buy things without having budgeted for them and not feel dragged down that stuff was too expensive. We spent £50, which for £15 of Christmas gifts, bits to make a wreath, and some speculative stuff wasn't too bad. 

We also got haircuts yesterday. I normally cut my own but again it was nice to have something a bit fancier done. We only have the lady who comes to our home, so for the two of us it was £45. 

I'm not going crazy with spending but it's been nice to give us a little holiday.

greensalad

Just paid my credit card bill... it's down to £769.08! I can't believe it's under £1k when it was over £8k earlier this year. 

Only two payments left!!

I get paid early this month too so I should be able to make an extra payment.