My last diary take two, but this will be it

SueP19

I used to get real fed up of surveys lol I never seemed the right person and they would reject me 

Choccygirl123

Anyone else feel blugh it's Tuesday? Not quite to hump day and already running on empty this week. The goods news is that the family are all on the mend at last.

Nothing much to update today - very low spend only £6.20 for hubby's parking today. Dinner will be a stock cupboard and fridge pasta bake.

Adding to the 1p challenge

I've checked and the £40 trade in for my phone has hit my account today. That's another few squares crossed off 220, 469,470,471,472,473,474,475 & 476. Just having a quick double check my balances and I think i'm a few pence out. I have £30 in cash from FB sales and £149.69 = £179.69. However my colouring sheet had only £179.41 so i've justed coloured 28p to get it to balance.

Mega chuffed i've made nearly £180 in 17days of 2023. Would love to keep it up, but know I'll run out of steam. Planning on trying to list at least 5more items on ebay tomorrow. Found the secret to getting a few sales, is to keep listing new items as it's a number games.

Food prep, meal planning and food shop tomorrow. Need to keep budget lower this week as we've spent £114.65. Will try and claw the extra £14.65 back this week so my budget is £85.25

Choccygirl123

Hubby has changed his hours today, so we can go for brekkie together and he can help me with the weekly shop. Going to spoons to keep it cheap and cheerful for brekkie budgeted £15. Spend will come out of our misc budget I've already printed my shopping list and filed in the meal prep.

My favourite butcher has a special offer on their beautiful pies and steak mince with free p&p if you spend £50. I've placed an order for delivery next week total of £53.23 saving £15. It's messed with my budget completely this week, but I'll allocate the spend over this week £13.23 this week and £20 the next 2 weeks. Means my freezer will be completely stocked up. The pies are a family favourite and will be 6-12 meals each depending if we have 1or 2 each meal. 

With this order, it means this week's budget is £72.02 after last week's over spend. I've been through freezer and planned around meat and bits in stock. Going shopping with hubby is always a challenge as he drops junk in the trolley. This week means - shep pie with cabbage , steak veg savoury rice, burgers salad & sweet pot fries, Saturday treat? Roast pork &trimmings, fish fingers boiled spuds veg, sweet&sour chicken. 

Choccygirl123

Lovely bright sky, but the wind chill is terrible. It's so cold I've lit the fire already. Busy morning popped to town and have done my food shop. Made Shep pie for dinner later as need to nip the eldest to the docs at 5. Not sure how long we'll be, but hubby just has to stick in the oven and boil the cabbage.

Misc Spending

£14.50 Weatherspoons brekkie x 2

£2.00 on some coasters in charity shop

Food Spending & budget

£55.94 actual spend (£61.94 without voucher) in Asda - I did cash in a £6 voucher on the rewards app, so i've counted that as extra income so moved it to Xmas Challenge and coloured in the 200 & 400 sqaure.

We're well under our weekly budget of £72.02 this week and still have £10.08 for any top up bread milk etc we need in the week.

Roadkill

Couldn't believe i found 2 x 10p coins on the way back to the car. Have put that 20p put in the tin for the Xmas challenge and coloured the 20p square.

Finally feeling like our spending it back under control of months of just spending without thinking. The small changes seem to be making the biggets difference. Hoping there may be some of the budgets left at the end of the month to send another overpayment to my loan.

Choccygirl123

Bank accounts checked, direct debits starting to fly out. NSD day and nothing else to update.

Choccygirl123

Checked all my banking and now both our loan repayments have cleared the accounts this month, we're finally under 8k, but only just and it was thanks to the extra £50 overpayment I sent this month.

mine £3696.30 -

hubby's £4301.94

grand total £7998.24.

It's slow progress at the minute due to car insrances, birthdays and other bills etc but I'm hoping by March we can start attacking my loan properly with a min of £250 over payment a month.

No spending planned for food budget today, but some parking for hubby out the misc budget. He's got an appointment in town and there's never any free parking spaces within a 2miles radius. Hopefully it's under £5 and it should be our only spend today.

The misc budget is doing well so far this month with only 2 brekkies, some parking, the nhs presc card and my charity shop coasters. I budget £300 month/ £75 a week and we've spent £80.95 so we still have £219.05. This weekend will be very low spend. Our friend is having a party for a big birthday, so will buy a really nice bottle of booze card and gift card £40 budget. Last week we spent £64.45 so have a surplus of £10.55. Hoping to add to that each week by at least the same amount so can send an extra loan repayment. We were due to book a hotel to stay over for friend's birthday, but cheapest £80 so decided against it. I don't want blow a week's misc budget just on the hotel, then add drinks and gift and it'd be £200/£230 gone. Hubby happy as long as he doesn't have to drive.

I've got a lazy weekend planned maybe trip to cinema using our vouchers and the excitment of my tax return. Should be due some sort of refund and we've decided rather than stick it in our EF we're sending to my loan. I've no clue how much i'll get back but i'd be over the moon what ever it is as it's going to my loan.

Sarahwithlove

Good news about the tax return, anything is better than nothing. You are doing so well with making extra money wish I had your motivation 

Choccygirl123

Sarahwithlove said:

Good news about the tax return, anything is better than nothing. You are doing so well with making extra money wish I had your motivation 

Thanks Sarah, I always find the first 1/4 of the year really motivating when you've just had Christmas. I'm hoping it lasts as have so much junk to declutter and sell. I find it overwhelming if all toegther, so I sort 1/2 items at a time and get them listed for sale, or on free cycle. Baby steps seem easier to cope with rather than gutting a whole room.

Choccygirl123

Bit of a spendy day,

Food budget

Asda spending rounded up to £20 on chase app.

Food budget was blown as got a teenagers meal deal £10, three tubes of toothpaste, fireflighters and a ready made lasange for me. Will take the overspend from the reamining two weeks food shop bugets. Remaining budgets now £74 per week.

Misc - all in budget. £169 left until pay day on 12th feb

£3 -  friend's birthfday card and gift bag

£34.95 - posh bottle of gin

£9.50 - teenagers bought snacks and drinks for the cinema for us all and I said I'd pay it back

Extra income

Made another sale on FB and lady collected the item this afternoon. £5 more into the challenge pot.....getting close to cracking the £200 mark. Have coloured 399 & 101.

Choccygirl123

SueP19 said:

I used to get real fed up of surveys lol I never seemed the right person and they would reject me 

That's annoying, I don't know how they profile people. I think i'm at the midlife age where they're interested. There's not been many of PA and to be honest I got fed up with the other sites. I do check every day at least once when I get a few minutes, but not had anything for ages. It's annoying as I've going £3.70 sat waiting to be cash out, but the min is £5