Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

Four_Seasons

Have a lovely time with your friend and enjoy the scones xx

foxgloves

Thanks, @EH & @Four_Seasons ,Yes it was lovely seeing our friends & having a catch-up in the conservatory over coffee & warm scones. They brought various surplus household items as they are emigrating within the next 3 or 4 years & have a hugely overstocked house (one of them has hoarding tendencies). I shall add those to our own stocks today. I don't think I'll need to buy cotton wool balls for 2 years, lol!

Well m'dears, it's rolled around again.....Big Budget Day. I just need to go & uncover the greenhouse plant babies, then I shall be taking myself up to my desk to make an early start on that. 
BTW, Martin's MSE newsletter had an interesting link to how various energy providers set our monthly DDs. I looked at the Cephalopods & it seems one of the factors they use as a base-line is customers having a minimum of one month's DD credit balance on their account by the end of April. For us that would be £173.73. i know we have over £300, so I'm hoping this means that our DD isn't due to go up anytime soon. Am monitoring our energy expenditure & winter credit building closely, anyway.
Right, off to greenhouse then out with the trusty Money Book, spreadsheets & calculator.
F x

marionmgcars

Just caught up on everyone’s posts.  Thanks for your input, it is very motivating to read like minded comments.  Huge congratulations with your weight loss result Foxgloves  - I know how hard it is (and mine does not seem to be moving - due to no effort).  🤨. Off to pay my bills and do my end of month review.  Sometimes a bit over budget, but would be much more if I did not give it the attention it needs.  Have a good day everyone x

EssexHebridean

We've already had confirmation from the Cephalopods that they are not intending to increase our DD at this stage Foxgloves - we're more than a month in credit currently - in fact more than two months - so no change is fine with me, allowing for the hoped for fall in prices in a few months and the lower use at this stage in the year too. I tooo am keeping a close eye on the credit building ahead of the winter - not least as once we finally get to move we'll be expecting increased bills at that stage. Anything we get refunded as credit on the account when we move will immediately be ring-fenced ready for use when needed! 

Hope your BBD goes smoothly and all funds are where expected! 

foxgloves

Yes, I had an email from the Cephalopods today at coffee time, informing me that there is no need to increase our DD. I have to say that was as much music to my ears as the enticing sound of coffee percolating into the jug. I wish I had trust that the price drops will be passed onto customers. I will believe it when I see it. As usual, at Foxgloves Manor....preparing for the worst while secretly hoping for the best. We'll see.
F

foxgloves

@marionmgcars - Thanks for your encouragement re the weight loss. I find it much more difficult post-menopause, but combining the 'Traffic Light Diet' principles (for portion sizes & nutrition....as well as not needing to faff around counting calories) with TRE (14:10) definitely seems to have kicked it up a gear. I have a lovely top I received as a Christmas present which I will need to take in very soon. Hope I don't ruin it!
F 

foxgloves

Afternoon Campers!
Well, that's my Big Budget Day completed for another month. I always tackle it exactly the same way - I reconcile the previous month, mark all receipts & DDs/bills, etc, off our statements, before extracting the figures needed to ensure I have an absolutely accurate current account balance with which to head the new month's budget. All done with no nasty surprises. I wasn't able to pay as much as usual to the Savings Pots - I paid the Holiday Pot, as I have a strict payment plan in place to ensure we can meet out commitment to 2023's & 2024's holidays as well as the two cattery stays without recourse to dipping into our general savings, or heaven forfend, using credit. I also paid the Car Maintenance Pot. We are no longer in a monthly service plan for our current car, we ended it with our previous car, & I am just a bit unsure quite how much a year's maintenance will cost us. Our current agreed maximum holding for the Car Maintenance Pot is £800, & it currently stand at £690. We kind of based it on not needing MOTs yet, an annual service (maybe 2 depending on mileage as Mr F has a 52-mile round trip daily work commute) plus a couple of new tyres a year. Anyway, it feels sensible to top it up. I also paid our monthly £100 into the Car Fund, which isn't maintenance, but is what we calculated we need to paying into savings in order to avoid needing car finance next time.  
A bigger expense than usual was Mr F's credit card. He wouldn't hand over his statement because it contained payments for my birthday presents, so I just paid off the balance in full. This actually offsets the lower savings pots payments because I'd normally have transferred a sum of money from the Presents Pot, but left that in situe & just budgeted it all as "Credit Card 1 - May Budget'. 
The usual big filing session followed & my desk is now looking very tidy with just a little note left to remind me to pay the Grimsby Fish Box (budgeted for) off my credit card when it arrives. Doubtless by tomorrow morning, this neat little note will be every bit as slarmed in muddy pawprints as all the other pending paperwork I leave out!
Mr F has got into quite the habit of stopping by Waitbl00m on his way past on route from work on a Thursday night, so he's gone off with the shopping bags, list & his loyalty vouchers for the week. Another chilly day here. I'd intended to do a bit of planting & weeding this afternoon, but I am currently waiting in for a parcel to be delivered & I might just treat myself to an afternoon of leisure instead, I'll see,
Oh, & following all the ID verification stuff/letter, etc, I had to send to HMRC at the end of March at the same time as sorting out buy-back of those missing state pension years, I attempted to sign into my Government Gateway account today. Nope! Still doesn't work, same message, that my details don't match their records. I know there is a mistake n the info they hold on me - the advisor I spoke to told me this was the case, but wouldn't divulge exactly what it was. The correction/verification process is supposed to take 6 weeks, but I think it will take longer as I bet all the oodles of folk looking to beat the new summer deadline for paying their voluntary NICs have thrown up a lot more cases of errors in records. Ah well, I will try again in a couple of weeks & again at the end of May. If still locked out due to this discrepancy, I will write again & request they act on the letter I was told to send. 
Right, defo time for some lunch,
Has anyone among our number actually spotted any sun yet today? 
Love F x
P.S The delivery (which I assumed would be some or other addition to the Man Cave collections) was actually a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Mr F, Soot & Ash. What a lovely surprise!

Makingabobor2

Interesting about having to be at least a month in credit with the Tentacled ones. We are about a month and half in credit at moment. But we are still on our 2yr  fixed tariff until August. So not sure what will happen then. I think there maybe a slight increase even if we are still in credit. Our current KWH rate & Standing charge is still very low, compared to the current average. 

EssexHebridean

Assuming that the prices continue to behave as the likes of Cornwall Insights currently believe they will, then prices WILL fall, as the default cap price will fall - the mechanism for what happens with this is very clearly laid out, and if I remember rightly, we're over half way to the next deadline for the new cap, and so far things are looking nicely on target. In fact, having just looked at Cornwall Insights own website the up to date prediction is actually for a slightly lower price than their January figures said from July - details are here if anyone wants a nosy: https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/cornwall-insight-release-price-cap-predictions-for-july-and-october-2023/ - the July figure is looking reasonably safe to rely on - with the October one slightly les so at this stage I believe as obviously it's early days for that one.  It certainly appears to be safe to assume that the EPG will become a thing of the past from July - although of course it will still be "in the wings" to step back in should it be needed due to an escalation in Ukraine, or something else that has a significant impact to drive prices back up sharply later in the year. 

Definitely no sun to be seen here today I'm afraid - but it is I think at least a little warmer which is something. 

Car maintenance - we obviously have two cars not one, plus a foldy bike which also gets its servicing etc paid from the same pot - and we have recently dropped our budgeted amount into the car account back a wee bit  from its previous £165 as with both cars now being newer, and mine doing substantially less mileage than it used to, we were actually stashing away far more than we needed to. Currently we stand at just over £700 in ours - that is with MrEH's car being due a service soon. Mine has not long been MoT'd, his will be due in August, and both are due for insurance and breakdown cover renewals in August too - but there will be another 3 months of contributions hitting the account by that stage. I'm hopeful that we are judging it just about right, so long as nothing unexpected and expensive raises its head... 

foxgloves

Thanks for the link re Cornwall Insights, @EssexHebridean. I will have a look at that. Re Car Maintenance.- Yes, all we can do is go on best guess taking into account age of vehicle, annual milage, etc. We only have 1 car, as I sold mine when I took VR (part of our planned lifestyle change). We bought it new in January last year, so it is still really a newbie in terms of potential problems cropping up. The only unknown for us is that it's a hybrid (a 'mild hybrid', not a plug-in) & we had heard the servicing may be slightly more expensive on these. No evidence as yet to back this up though so I intend to keep our agreed max holding for that pot at £800 & just monitor it for a while. If I can put the remaining £110 in next month, then it will be full (making 4 out of 10 full savings pots), meaning I could concentrate on boosting the others in sort of snowballing fashion.
F
P.S Cold here, no sun & now pouring with rain.