Finishing the race

Splash21

Awesome! 🤩 

Good work on the NSD's! Solid effort! 

Might be worth reaching out to a mortgage broker on the house stuff. I've never bothered using one, but most recently I had to get vetted by one for a new house we wanted to buy. They have been super useful, worth their salt, and got us in a home we wanted. I say this.... we're just waiting for the mortgage to be approved hopefully, get the light today! 

I have a similar win this morning, budgeted this month for council tax but it doesn't leave until May so £170 up! 

Thelaughingcat

Congrats on the tax win, @Splash21!  It’s like you flipped over the right Chance card in Monopoly 😁. And good luck on your mortgage - I‘ve got every finger and toe crossed for you!

Definitely going to look into a mortgage broker - that might be the way forward.  I’m a certified insurance broker from a past life so I know how valuable an independent broker’s knowledge and contacts can be.  Thanks for the advice!

Thelaughingcat

Dear Diary

It’s been five days and I’ve only spent money once.  

But holy heck, it was hard today.  I walked past restaurants and cafes basking in the sunshine.  Beer gardens.  Beer!  Gardens!   

Plus, every shop in the land is now open.  Hell, it turns out, is having money and opportunity, and choosing not to spend.  

Might as well put a hair shirt on me and pass me the flagellum.

Ok, tad dramatic, maybe ☺️  It wasn’t that bad.  Kept my head down and just did the things I needed to do.

Refused a parcel today - bought some clothes online last week, the website fritzed as I ordered and put it through twice.  Apparently there’s nothing they could do about it (the lovely customer service person told me I was lying about their system going wrong and should own up to making two orders - like I have the time or inclination to spin stories for them!).  

Anyway, one of the parcels is on its way back to their depot, and I also went to the post office and sent one of the tops back from the parcel I accepted - £144 should be coming back to my account within the next 30 days.  

That’ll help with the credit card, which I’m paying off at the end of this month and keeping at a nil balance.   

The mortgage isn’t bad either - one hundred grand in the hole.  Once I have my slush fund, I’ll start putting £500 towards the smaller mortgage every month and see if I can clear it a bit quicker.  It’ll take around 3-4 years that way, but will be worth it.

The other option would be for my OH to pay it off, and I transfer money to him until we’re at equal equity.  Thanks to various family members leaving him modest inheritances, he might actually be in a position to clear most, if not all of it.  That would obviously be the best option to avoid paying more interest, but he’s understandably wary of sinking all of his money into a house all at once.

Either way, over the next year there’ll be some sort of a plan formed which we can build on, which is far better than the free for all that I’ve been living so far.

Spent £3.10 of my remaining £14.37 groceries budget this week, leaving me £11.27 for Wednesday’s top up shop.  This is doable, as long as there aren’t any unforeseen expenditures.

So, here it is, NSD number 4 (because, let’s face it, I’m not spending now the shops have shut ☺️).  £125 in my slush fund!  Only another 196 NSDs to go until I reach my goal (oh god!).  Here’s to hoping I have plenty left in my account every month to transfer in so I get there a bit quicker 😂

Now to make venison cheeseburgers and garlicky chicken kebabs with some homemade sweet potato fries and oodles of salad.  Get in!

DrCarrie

Great work, and very very funny read!

Thelaughingcat

Ha!  Thanks, @DrCarrie, I’m here all week (actually, looking at my debt and goals, I’ll be here all decade).

Yet another NSD!  I am crushing it!  Or maybe I’m just saving up my spending all for one day...that sounds closer to me. Still, £150 in my slush fund is not to be sniffed at.  

Before I started this, I thought this month was an absolute write off...I was actually worried I wouldn’t make it to the end of the month with money.  Now, here I am with money saved up and looking to finish the month in surplus.  Feels good.  Watch it, the boiler will break tomorrow and I’ll have to use my credit card to buy a new one 😂

Final top up shop of the week tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to.  Highly doubt there’ll be anything left to save afterwards but there’ll always be weeks like that.  My weeks run from Thursday to Wednesday, as I do my meal planning on Wednesdays.  It’s weird but it works.

In other news, I picked up the marshalling box from my friend for the ultra I’m marshalling on Saturday.  Included in said box were multiple packs of brunch bars.  I now owe him three boxes of bars.  Definitely not going to be an NSD tomorrow.

So, added to my goals is ‘stick to meal plan’.  That means a brunch bar in a day maybe, not fifteen brunch bars in 24 hours.  

See what I mean earlier about saving up all my spends for one big day?  One day I’ll learn. 

For now, I’m going to get an early night and try to sleep with all this food in me!

Thelaughingcat

So, I had £11.27 left for today’s top up shop - managed to get everything in for £9.28.  

£1.99 to transfer across to my slush fund, huzzah! 😂



Also had to replace those boxes of brunch bars I ate, so that’s £3.70 out of my £25 daily spend.  No NSD for me today. *sighs*  I’ve firmly linked eating that stuff to having to spend money though so it should keep me good for the rest of the week ☺️

Happy Hump Day, y’all!  Hope you’re having a blast 😊

booksandcoffee

Really enjoying your diary so far! I really like the idea of having an actual plan for each days 'spend' if you don't actually spend it, might pinch that...

WinterWarrior

Excellent diary and ideas. I also fancy the money a day, or possibly money per week available spends....I will address this on my shiny new diary, but won’t start until pay day (as I have nothing left..sigh). 

I also love the food posts...keep it going ex chef team, we mere mortals need fancy ideas 😁

MuffinTops

Hello Thelaughingcat.  Well done on the amounts you're putting aside each day.  I did smile with the brunch bar attack you made as I can really relate.  If I'd had the chocolate wafers in I'd have definitely matched your intake.  

I once tried the money a day thing, but I don't have that mindset.  Mine used to be £10 a day but didn't include shopping or other things your one does.  It was all about my personal budget.  I'm actually thinking now how I could tweak that original plan and make it work better for me!  Hmm!  Thank you.

I'm also learning how well a meal plan works.  It's all about being organised.  I have a friend who has a whiteboard on her kitchen wall and adds her meal plan to that every week while also drafting up a shopping list.  Far too organised for me at this point.

I hope you're getting to enjoy this beautiful sunshine...

Thelaughingcat

Hi @booksandcoffee and @WinterWarrior!  Welcome and I’m glad you’re liking it so far!

Pinch away!  I love the daily win of putting money aside, though it poses a slight issue if I want to indulge myself in something that costs over £25...does that then become a slush fund purchase?  Still not worked it out.  I might move to your idea of weekly spends, WW, or possibly create a separate fund for those purchases and save a fifth of my ‘daily savings’ into that instead.  Choices, choices!

@MuffinTops, the meal planning is awesome!  I did a five day fast earlier this year but spent the whole time thinking about food 😂  So I built a yearly meal plan, with room for manoeuvre in what we eat and a whole list of other recipes to sub in as well.  It’s a monster 20 page document.  I love it.  I then build my shopping lists from that, with a note on my phone with what we’re eating every day for the week ahead.  It really cuts down on food wastage as well.  I hope you’re enjoying the sunshine too!