Learning to walk before I run

Cheery_Daff

You're so good with cashback. I have it filed in my head under "too complicated" which I realise is utterly ridiculous. Didn't occur to me to do supermarket vouchers, will investigate, thank you 😊

Urgh to mortgage monster. And fingers crossed for well paid new job!

edinburgher

Thanks @Cheery_Daff - TCB has paid me £2,600 so far - well worth investigating

Cheery_Daff

Very impressive! I have just followed your advice - experimenting with a £100 supermarket card, which should get me £4.50 in total, also paying with AMEX for additional cashback - except the pay now button won't press... will keep trying...

Cheery_Daff

Right, all done 😊 Clearly I've used it before as apparently I've had £86 from them over the years - mostly for matched betting signups 😂

Not entirely sure why I had it down as too hard - I think I was thinking of looking for stuff elsewhere, checking cashback, clearing cookies, looking again. I guess most money saving activities are a list of tedious admin - and I'm actually pretty good and persistent with tedious admin... 😂

Thanks for the nudge! Definitely your good deed for today 😊

edinburgher

We have had our first bit of financial good luck in ages - got the broker to check our rate before completion and we can move onto a lower rate that will save £100/mth 👍 It's still £430 more than now but it's progress 🤞

Baileys_Babe

That is a great saving per month.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, that's fantastic news!! 

beanielou

Great news 😊

LadyWithAPlan

edinburgher said:

Be aware there's a £2 cashback if you spend £5 via TCB today. I got the usual supermarket voucher.

YNAB is showing us as c. -£100 for October with generous budgets for all that can be trimmed a little. Last month before the mortgage monster appears

Can I ask about this cashback please? I can see my offer  in TCB but do you then buy a supermarket voucher/gift card  clicking through TCB through for £5 minimum? 
EDIT : I have just bought a  Waitr*se gift card one for the minimum £10 but I guess I will see if it works  

YNAB - I have not used it (I use spreadsheets and old fashioned paper for my budget)
I have an idea that  YNAB  might be a bit too fiddly  for Self employed so irregular income .. but not really spent any real time on it - you sound like an expert

Cheery_Daff

I'm a long-time YNAB user too, although not self employed. I reckon it would be great for an irregular income though, because you only ever budget with the money that you actually have to hand right now, not what you're owed or more get in the future. 

So you would set up all your pots, allocate what you have in the bank right now, filling up the pots for October now, for example. Then any money that came in throughout October, you use to allocate to spending in November, and so on. 

You allocate necessary things first (rent etc), and other stuff as extra cash comes in.

I'd say it would be even more use for irregular incomes than regular ones (but have never actually used it for that myself so best check!)