Third time's a charm!

twiggy86

I can't deny, I am incredibly stressed today. It's payday (great!) except I pretty much have no "fun" money for the month. I'm due to go away with friends this weekend, which has been booked for a year and I now don't have the capacity to be "frivolous" to have the best time. I know this is my own fault for not putting money aside monthly, but equally I didn't expect to be in a position of my OH not earning for a month. I also ended up spending £170 on my CC last month just to see us through to the end of the month e.g. petrol and food. Trying not to feel resentful of my OH as it isn't his fault but equally when I mentioned that I was stress he then gets more stressed back at me!!! Moan, moan, moan..... 

In slightly more positive news - over the weekend I did finish making a pair of socks which will be a Christmas present for my mum, finish a birthday gift and walked to my friend's to deliver a different birthday gift! (Oh and I finished a Christmas moose!) I've also nearly finished another gift and have two more lined up to make - then I get a bit of break between birthdays! Having a skill and a shedload of yarn definitely has it's perks!!! 

I'll try find my positive pants in the morning!!! 

_Dolly_Rocker_

It's such a pain when you know that you can't have anything nice that you see or a treat for the whole month.

I'm in exactly the same position with both the money and having a weekend away that has been booked since pre-pandemic.  Me and my Sister both totally forgot about it but we are away 11th February for 3 nights to a lodge in Ayr with a hot tub. It's PIF but because it self catering we need to buy in everything we need for the weekend and we're taking 3 kids between us. We're gonna aim to stick to as much of a budget as possible but we haven't saved a penny either. 

So annoying honestly. 

Wish I was good at something crafty - kinda want to try cross stitch so I can make and sell the really offensive message ones   

Only thing is I can't afford to buy a kit right now and I wouldn't consider that as a need more of a want. 

bigbeff

I'd love to see some pictures of your makes!

I know the feeling with regards to spending money. I'm on a strict budget to try and sort myself out. Nothing really planned for Feb so I'm hoping it'll be a quiet month. Keep smiling 😃

twiggy86

Thanks for 1) reading my moany post and 2) responding! 

@bigbeff if you're on instagram my alter ego on there is pinkrabbitcrochet (not sure how to post pics on here!!)

Feeling more positive today - focussing on the fact that we only have a couple more weeks to battle through before OH will be back earning and then everything will be ok again! I just think I'm stressing that this won't be the case. However, in some ways I am grateful for the boot up the rear to get my finances sorted again. Also had a good chat with OH last night, which was helpful. 

I think part of my grumpiness yesterday was looking at my spreadsheet and seeing very little difference between the starting and closing figures (£42.21 to be precise!). However, I actually "paid" £521.34 towards my debts, but then had a number of balance transfer fees of £218.50, interest and also had to resort to spending on one of the cards. So let's off-set that grumpiness with looking at the positives I achieved in January:

• Balance transfers will mean less interest moving forward (despite the initial impact of the BT fees)
• Cancelled Virgin - saving £72 a month by getting just a broadband deal (Virgin was about to increase to £92 per month but got broadband for £20 per month)
• Cancelled a direct debit saving £8 per month 
• Made 7 crochet items this month which covers a number of presents (including a hat for myself!)
• On the path to getting this all sorted! 

In February news: I have paid £360 off my other debts so far - with a couple of statements to come in yet - I'm always more comfortable when I've at least made the minimum payments off each. My parents have said not to worry about making a payment to them this month (I owe them £1,400) so that's an extra £100 towards food etc - although if OH does get back working, I will possibly pay them later in the month as I never want to take advantage of their generosity, so if I can pay it I will.

So my plan for this month is to make the most of the council tax free month and take the £167 which would normally be spent on that as my spending money. Also, a few of my friends are staying Sunday night but despite my fear of missing out, I have made the decision to come back on Sunday as was originally planned. (We're going to Butlins which means booking for 3 nights but in past years we haven't stayed the Sunday.) To be honest, I'm not that fussed about staying the third night - can't handle hangovers nowadays anyway!!!

Yep I definitely put the positive pants on this morning - plus the sun is shining!!! 

twiggy86

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted! Ooops! 

I had a great weekend away with my friends! Even better I was under budget despite having a takeaway on Sunday night - totally justified it to myself that as it was out of my budget for the weekend it was fine! Despite that I had over £40 left. I did however end up transferring my friend nearly £60 which I don't think I owe her but it's fine and she is literally scraping every penny together to buy a house on her own after a break-up last year. I wasn't counting on that so I may have to take some money from the TV fund (i.e. money set aside to pay off our TV which needs to be paid by Sept to avoid interest) and put it back once OH is back earning.

On that note: he is back working this week! Although not sure when the money will come but I know it won't be this week. However, it feels such a relief that the pressure is starting the lift. I mean I still need to continue with my new-found MSE ways, but there will be room back in the budget. 

I also had £30 appear in TCB as confirmed from my car insurance back in September! It's not payable yet but it will be nice when it is! I did get a payout of £6.51 so far this month though - so I used that towards the CC spend from last month. I've also finally had a plumber out which came to less than I had set aside (had no idea how much it would be!) so I now have £240 as the start of an emergency fund. I very briefly debated using it to pay off the CC spends from last month but decided against it, so I'll leave it where it is.

In other money news I did the working from home tax claim thingy! I couldn't quite work out if I will get a payment for the past year or just an adjustment to my tax code moving forward. But in any event I'm sure it was worth doing given how much extra energy cost there is associated with working from home. 

So no big news, just little bits and bobs keeping me ticking over! 

shell16

@twiggy86
The working from home tax adjustment is on your tax code so you cam earn a little more before tax

bigbeff

It is so nice to have a bit of a weekend away isn't it - and good work for sticking to the budget! That is the hard bit! Glad you got to blow off a bit of steam, and good to hear your other half is back to work

twiggy86

Thank you both!

I've been looking at my bank accounts wondering how I'm so low so early in the month. I forget I've actually budgeted for future things this month (like car insurance etc) so that would be why! Clearly shows how out of the mindset of budgeting I've been in the last two years!! 

All minimum CC payments for the month have been made. Would still like to pay parents this month but I can't even consider doing that until my OH has started earning again. I also just checked the goals I'd set - thinking they were goals to reach by the end of February, but actually I'd said by the end of March! So that makes me feel less of a failure as no chance can I reach them this month! I've put them below to help me keep track of what I've said - shows how important it is to keep myself on these boards! Obviously since I set those goals, I ended up having to resort to spending on the Barclays CC, but I still plan to have that cleared by end of March! 

twiggy86 said:

The goals

I have a goal to have the total debt figure under £10k by the end of the year.

However to keep me motivated I want to set myself some goals to achieve by the end of March. 

• Clear Barclays CC - obviously the above post says that it's already at zero, but there will be interest added on my next statement which I will need to pay off to truly clear this card
• Pay off Next (currently £178.82)
• Pay £531.44 off MBNA - this is the amount which is currently on 0% but will end in March and revert to 18% ish. Whilst I have other debt incurring interest currently, I'm not sure if I will have any balance transfers available to me at that stage, so I would rather try and clear it now
• Save £400 towards the TV - I have 8 paydays to save £1,662 so I need to put aside £200 each month to avoid having to find a big payment in September

twiggy86

Good morning any frugal friends who stumble across my ramblings! 

I have had a very relaxed, fairly frugal weekend. I'm still feeling positive although it looks like OH won't be paid until the end of next week (we did think it would be this Friday but job is taking longer than expected). However, it means I've decided to do some re-jigging. I've decided to use the £200 I had set aside for TV repayments to pay off what I spent on my CC last month, as the delay in OH's income means I will likely have to resort to using the CC again this month. The TV doesn't need to be paid until September and I don't want to risk incurring unnecessary interest. I had intended to clear the balance but on Saturday I bought something and accidentally used the CC instead of my debit card - instantly paid it off but neither the spend nor the payment are showing, so I don't want to now pay more than the balance (make any sense?!) So I paid off £100 and I'll give it a couple of days and pay off the rest. Whilst at this shop I did find two 1ps on the ground which I snaffled! 

One of my friend's unfortunately lost her nan at the weekend, so I did chip in with some friends to have some flowers delivered to her. So that cost £10 as flowers and delivery were £40 which we split between 4 of us. I was also very honoured that she asked me to make her 3 robins as she is making a memory box for her 3 daughters and a robin was her nan's favourite bird. She has offered to pay but I won't be accepting anything, as I'm honestly so touched that she wants me to help cherish her nan's memory.

I also popped to my parents yesterday and came away with some homemade potato salad (the best in the WORLD!), some cake and some chutney. I did trade some tomato ketchup which I'd bought and was absolutely awful as although I won't use it, I hate throwing things away! 

I also offered to arrange our annual girls trip to Butlins for next year. A totally selfish reason for doing do though - I can use my Tesco points! I currently have enough to save myself £60 (i.e. by using £20 worth of points to get £60) but if I can hold out booking for a little bit longer I may be able to use another £5 worth of points to save myself another £15! It will mean I have to call to book, rather than online but it seems worth that slight bit of extra effort! 

I've also become treasurer of the netball team I've just joined! So I've added a spreadsheet for that this morning! Good job I'm being more organised with money at the moment as if I'd taken on that job previously it would have all been so muddled in my accounts/ brain! 

Right that's enough waffle for now! 

twiggy86

A couple of quick updates... 

I received a letter from HMRC saying I'm owed a refund of £62.50 for last tax year I did the work from home thingy. So I've been online and claimed that which should be paid within 5 working days. I think I've decided that it can go off my Next account when it appears! 

I had a balance transfer offer for 3.9% for 36 months with no fee. So I've moved money from one CC which had an interest at 4.9% - so won't be a huge saving, but every little helps! It also means that I have reduced the number of CCs that have balances on them as I was able to move the whole amount. 

Don't think I have anything else to report so I won't waffle on!