Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

I don't have the spoons to type up everything at the moment, but here is a forecast budgetary screenshot from my excel spreadsheet, working on my pay from end of Feb when I have the new job. £148.46 is currently un-allocated, although I have almost certainly forgotten something or other off this - so if anyone has suggestions I am open to them! 

Sky contract ends in March I believe so that may be edited. And we decided on two subscriptions each (his is Playstation/Spotify and mine are Youtube and illumicrate). I use Spotify occasionally and he uses Youtube occasionally so it sort of balances. Youtube premium has allowed me to get rid of my audible subscription and saved me a fortune in small household repairs!

SuzeQStan

Thanks Fox -

One big suggestion- any available remaining income to go to emergency fund- you need one for sure the recent van repairs highlight this. It’s the thing that stuck out the most to me as I remember your emergency fund from the house sale. 

couple thoughts - is your water metered? If so recommend to check for any loo leaks as we reduced our water direct debit by £10 a month after buying a £6 diaphragm on @bay & watching utuba vid. As you say it’s amazing resource esp for free 😊👍🏻

Glad you are getting out of your sky contact soon - why not consider stream flitting? We swap ours every few months and it keeps things fresh. Ok so we aren’t going to set the world on fire with our freeview supplemented with a single streaming service swapped every couple months (@ppletv, d1sn@y, pr1m@, n@tfl1x, we’ve had those and more on rotation over the last few years)  know OH and kids like their sports etc but £100 is HUGE!  And other sports packages are available 😉 

Ps new kitchen is beautiful 😍

 Promise im not having a go at all - just have everything crossed that OH can start bringing in some kind of wage soon as I do worry about the total financial weight on your shoulders. You deserve that support Fox xx

stymied

You need a presents pot and something to cover school trips etc. for your LO 😊

Can you move the most essential expenses e.g. council tax to a separate account on pay day so they definitely don’t bounce?

Great to see vaping costs have stayed gone.

Lovely kitchen, very jealous x

blue_eyed_girl123

I don't know if you've looked at the V1rg1n Medi@ packages at all? I currently pay £83 per month for Sk.y & BeeTee Sports channels, high speed broadband, and Netflix. There are also currently packages with an unlimited SIM so that might bring your phone costs down. 

Also, have you looked at packaged bank accounts? Some of them come with breakdown cover (assuming that's your R@C cost above) and phone insurance etc, with some offering free Disn@y+ etc so might be worth looking at to reduce those costs - I think the accounts can also cover everyone in the household, even if just in your name but you would need to double check each one as I'm not 100% sure. Hope this is helpful 😊

dawnybabes

Do you get Clubcard vouchers ? You could at one point swop them for Disney channel 

cocalls

Interesting budget but if you keep it like that you're going to be reaching for the cc's again. You have nothing for anything extra (dentist, haircuts, nothing for the house?) Your entertainment (ie sky, Spotify etc) and subscriptions are way too high for such a small income.

foxandflowers

@SuzeQStan Hey Suze
Emergency fund is excellent idea - my current plan is to round up anything left at the end of the month and dump it into an "Safety Net" fund (at 4.60% interest) and leave it there for the next time things go pear shaped).
Water is not metered thankfully. I have a slow leak from one of the cold taps in the garage and it is driving me bananas, so it is on the list to be fixed so I can set my utility area up properly. Having examined it - Sky is currently £107. Eek!! Time to see what they will offer me I think - or what I can cancel realistically.  New kitchen is nearly beautiful - I am desperate to paint it but its going to be such a hassle that I am scared to start! Haha. Don't worry I am taking comments in the spirit they are intended in, and I am so grateful you keep coming back to me and giving me advice xx

@stymied presents pot is going to come from the savings/investments pot I think when the time rolls around, and I am also trying to save some of the cash I am making via selling things on Marketplace in a pot for presents too. School trips will come from General spends - the £20 in there is for those random things that crop up and can't really be budgeted for on a month to month basis. Really really excellent idea about moving the money to a separate pot - I have just set one up on my Monzo to do this Thank you. 

@blue_eyed_girl123 Thank you for the advice - we can't get Virgin Media at my current address annoyingly, but it is good to know in case of haggling. We have RAC for my husband as a person rather than per vehicle, because the van is more likely to blow up on us, but we have also come unstuck with cars before! So this way, we are sort of covered. But I will ring and see if I can get that cost lowered too. My credit is too bad to get accepted for anything other than a basic bank account (which annoys me no end because I can't get free money from switching!) Thank you for your helpful advice. 

@dawnybabes I save all my clubcard vouchers that I get throughout the year for the Christmas Shop. But we are going to make better use of Lidl, and we get our fuel from our local garage, so they probably won't be very high this year. 

@cocalls Hi. I don't actually have any credit cards - they are all with Stepchange and defaulted. I am just sort of scraping by each month and hoping for a rich relative I've never met to die and leave me their incredible fortune... just kidding (mostly). General should cover emergency dentist if needed - and I cut our hair/shave my husband's head - and the house is a scary moneypit I don't even want to think about! I do agree that the costs are high, but I also know that if I cut everything back to the bone, I will inevitably spend way more than I should because I am miserable. And then end up in a worse position than if I have a book box to look forward to, and Youtube to entertain myself and the kids with. So having two subscriptions each was sort of our compromise on that, and as soon as I have negotiated with Sky that should be less anyway. Realistically, the food budget could probably be cut pretty dramatically too, but I'm working on that at the moment. 

kayannie

Just a thought - are you anywhere near a L!DL? I only shop once every 7-10 days as our nearest shops are about 12 miles away, but I can usually get a £1.50 fruit & veg box from L!DL. Some boxes are better than others & sometimes there are none left at all, depending on time of day. The one I had on Jan 2nd was brilliant, about 12 different items & all in good condition. Yesterday's wasn't as good as that, but I had a bag of kale, parsley, 12 apples, 3 avocados, oranges & something else I can't remember. Well worth £1.50. KA

foxandflowers

@kayannie I love Lidl. We used to use it pretty much exclusively but I have fallen off the wagon. Husband is going to meet me there this evening  

kayannie

foxandflowers said:

@kayannie I love Lidl. We used to use it pretty much exclusively but I have fallen off the wagon. Husband is going to meet me there this evening  

It might be a bit late to find a box at that time of day, but worth a shot. If you ask a helpful assistant they might be able to tell you the best time to go - I usually find mid morning best, but my daughter went one evening & got lucky. The boxes are near the tills, in my local store they're on the bag packing benches. A bit daft when you've already paid for your shopping! I usually look as soon as I go in, pick up a box & pay for it, then take it back to the car before returning to do my shop. Good luck! KA