It's the final countdown...£10k to go

t2rry

Also reminding myself that at the start of this diary my debt free date was estimated to be March/April, which means March payday to me.... even without my due payrise, this will be February/March instead, so I can't be disappointed with that.

t2rry

Helloooooo!  Finally can see the home straight on this year long month...! 

I have finally listed a bunch of stuff on that well known selling site, mostly kids clothes so nothing fancy but definitely worth selling.  Some received bids almost immediately, so with a couple of days left to run 13/18 will definitely sell.  That's at least £30 netted. Not loads, but I'm sure it'll rise yet and again is £30 I didn't have before, still working from the 'every little helps' viewpoint.

There are some very practical home improvements I'd like to make....a small investment to help organise things now we're all home all the time, but I'm trying to keep myself on the idea that I'll spend that when I've saved it....so I would like to sell the things I have that I don't want or need, and use that money to buy anything new, so I'm not taking out of the banked funds or intended banked funds. I'm not sure if I will manage this or whether at some point any day now I'll think 'sod it' and buy the things anyway.  It's about £100 I want to spend and it's essentially on storage for the stuff accumulating in piles around the house for the kids.  It's stuff they are obviously using more now they're home all the time, and to be honest I'm not sure I have anywhere to keep it tidy and out of sight even if it did seem worth it, so I'd like to get a couple of bits just to be able to chuck it all in at the end of the day but is also easy enough for them to get out for themselves.  Keeping on top of the house, or the inability to do so, is probably the thing I am finding the hardest about all of this, it has always been something that gets me down and now more than ever it's just so difficult.  

I'm still looking at being able to save around £1,900 of our income at the end of the week, so maybe I'm right to forgive myself £100 of it.  

I always have these battles with myself over spending...on one hand it's not frivolous spending, on the other it's not strictly necessary.  I'm not sure where I should fall in Martin's money mantras, I guess - skint or not skint!!! 

t2rry

just to add to that (as I usually do) - all we've spent this month aside from standard direct debit bills, food and petrol, is:
£24 on warm kids clothes
£7 car parking (necessary for hospital appointments)
£15 on home learning materials (this was an impulse buy born out of panic!)
£10 to my lottery account
That is it,  total £56.

Food and petrol were both pretty much spot on budget, too.  That's a very frugal month for us and hasn't felt too difficult.  

Sarahwithlove

That's great well done. I need one of those kind of months

t2rry

For some reason, we always seem to have a pretty good January. Maybe having done enough spending at Xmas to last us through, maybe the idea of just wanting to get through January as soon as possible or maybe it’s simply that there’s always so much food and so many new toys for the kids to get through, we just never think about much else! 

To be fair that’s probably quite an extreme one even for us but I guess no lunches, no hot drinks on the move etc...

ceremony

Those hot drinks really mount up! At least they did for me back when I actually left the house. I feel rich these days not wasting money  
That IS an impressive figure for the month though. Nice work!

t2rry

My favourite day of the month!! and on a friday too, how nice!  

SO:

I've moved £1,400 into the banked funds from salaries and I have another £500 set aside to pay down the CC when the bill arrives.  This leaves me £1,500 short of being debt neutral, which means that's coming next month!!!!!!! Awoohoo!!!  It still blows my mind a little bit that we can be saving £2,000 in a single month (next month it's budgeted to be £2,500!!) , it wasn't that long ago that £500 was a good month.

That said, I've made the budget pretty tight for February because it's a 'short' month.  I expect I might need to steal £100 from the banked funds, but I wanted to move it now so that it's already set aside because I hate moving money out of that pot and it gives me a real incentive to find a way to manage without!!!!  

I'm still debating the home storage stuff in my own head so I'll just have to see how that goes!

My bunch of bay-to-the-e items finish today, up to £45ish today so that's brilliant and still time left yet!  I definitely have other bits I can put on, so I might do that this evening.  It's also given me a bit of insight into which brands get more interest second hand, as there's a clear difference in the interest on those from one high street store over another, even though they're pretty similarly priced when new.  I think I'll be bearing that in mind when I buy them new clothes in the future!

I'm still waiting on the final bill from old gas/electricity supplier but I've put another £100 aside for that in hope that gets somewhere close. Obviously if it comes in less than that then that would be brilliant, but again we'll see, I'm not particularly hopeful, it always seems extortionate when I switch!  I will try to get more obsessive about checking the new guys have real meter readings moving forwards, hopefully they'll get the smart meter working again so I don't have to.

Anyway, happy Friday, happy the very nearly end of January!

t2rry

My selling items all finished.  I sold 16/18 and the app tells me I have netted £99.42, but that's totally cheeky and misleading because that includes postage and doesn't knock off the the 2 sets of fees you also have to pay!

I've worked out (not 100% certain as I'm waiting on payment for 4 items still, which means they also still need posting) that I *should* be in profit from it all by £62.24.  Not a bad few hours work!

I found another pile of things to go and have relisted the 2 that didn't sell just to see if they might...  I won't get anywhere near the same again because I don't have that many things left and they're lesser quality than the first bunch, but still worth it I think, plus it's decluttering at the same time which I'm always a fan of!

t2rry

I am having a really bad day.  Not because of anything in particular, just feeling the pressure of life and the juggle of work/home school/childcare/everything else.  I have a headache because of it and I just want to go and curl up on my bed and have a good cry.  But I can't because I have to work and home school and childcare and everything else.  I'm so tired.  I'm so so tired.  I also know it will pass, this is just my typing it out so I can file it away for the day.  Because it's not like I can go and talk to anyone about it (I have spoken to DH, he's good).  But what I would give for the ability to go and do something/see my mum, just have a change of scenery to feel refreshed.  It will pass.

Sarahwithlove

Do you have any annual leave you could take? I know it's not ideal time to do so because your limited with what you can do but some times we just need a day where we won't have to juggle quite so much