The alternative hive - making plan B work

Queen_of_the_Hive

In the end it wasn't a cheap day. Spent over £300 on train tickets and hotel for next week. CC melted! On the positive have made some loose plans to catch up with another family in the city to head to the pub to enjoy a bit of the World Cup next week. So looking forward to it!

Have made a little progress in June monthly savings target £7.32 / £102.70 = 7% progress so far with £3.75 pending.

Had a lovely walk on the beach, it was warm enough that we didn't need our woolie hats. Took the kite, lots of big kiddie fun until kite fell into the sea! Luckily we didn't get too wet hauling it in. Had to wash said kite in a bucket at home to wash off the sand (there was so much!!) and its now on the washing line to drip dry. Hoping that it doesn't fly off overnight, it would amuse the neighbours. Didn't do the birthday cake but had giggles and blew bubbles. Sure heavenly friend would appreciate the middle age madness. OH bought dinner at the pub to celebrate. Defrosted food will be enjoyed tomorrow.

beanielou

Glad you enjoyed your day.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Friday!

My dad called me last night, as I've said before we have a strained relationship but trying again. So he called and we had a 20 min chat that was still akward (for me!) but was fluid. We briefly spoke about finances and pensions. He was self employed for most of his adult life, he had put money into financial products but he's spent it all (travelling and nice things) and is now having the reality of just living on the state pension and finding it a real struggle. He even said he didn't realise how tough it is to manage on a small budget. There is not a lot of sympathy for various reasons but it really struck me the value of making each penny work, having a pension plan & investments and budgeting skills. In the past couple of years i've been spooked by the worry of my partner being seriously ill and I think for the first time I thought, i'll be ok if I keep on doing the things I am doing. Dad did say at the glorious age of 74 he's going for a job interview today in the field he's worked in for his working life and will be going back to work for 2 days a week. I do wish him well but so greatful for knowing my path is brighter.

Todays plans:

• Volunteering tasks from home.
• Surveys as and when they come in.
• Life admin for holiday let.
• Exercise
• Bit of cleaning.

Queen_of_the_Hive

A little update from me.

The day didn't quite go as planned. Myself and OH went out for a 2hr bike ride around our local area as the weather was pretty perfect for it. Now feeling quite sleepy but glad for the exercise and fresh air!

We came home, had lunch and then was time to focus on computer work and action a couple of banking related tasks. I was really hoping to qualify for this years NW bonus scheme but sadly doesn't look like I qualified related to the min number of outgoing payments. Its too late for this year but have correct that by setting up monthly standing orders of a happy £1 each into two of my saving pots with another bank as well as setting up mobile banking on my phone. At the same time I needed to re-activate Mo!za account on my phone ready for next trip the city.

Todays plans:

• Volunteering tasks from home - ✔️
• Surveys as and when they come in - ongoing 😁
• Life admin for holiday let - NOT YET STARTED ❌
• Exercise - Bike ride ✔️
• Bit of cleaning - kitchen tidied up. ✔️

So actually a more productive day than I thought!

Pot is upto to £11.51 / £102.70 so sitting at 11% progress.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Saturday Morning,

Well i've discovered a brand I didn't know I needed but now need! Its a wearable sleeping bag. Absolutely love these kind of things for winter for my cold living room. My feet get really ice cold and the feet zip on and off. Totally tempted but its £102 eek!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Sunday!

Saturday was a mixed bag of a bit of work to get ahead for this coming week and bit more work on my volunteering tasks. I do some transcription for a history project. Its all exciting but can be quite dry. The latest batch of work, i've been sat on for a little bit and the guilt was bothering me. I do enjoy putting on a podcast and doing a bit of transcription, its quite relaxing but am easily distracted so that can be a bit of a battle.

Saturday afternoon, not that exciting but I was pleased to have finally found a local reycling centre for our growing stash of cat food pouches. It turns out there is a bin at our local C**P. The C**P is conveniently a few doors down the street from Al*i. So we used the opportunity to do a decent top up shop of £69.05. This was paid on cashcard rather than credit card and will keep us going well into the following week as we are back in the city on the weekend. Last night myself and OH had a lovely evening with our line dancing buddies. There was a charity social on. It only cost us £10 for the two of us and we could bring our own drinks. I did take wine but really the room was really hot so we preferred water.

Today its been a bit of a motivational start to Sunday. There is a couples financial podcast I like to listen to for motivation. Its based in America but the same principles apply. Today's couple were in dire straits, head in the sand, she was committed to change but the bloke wasn't sharing the mental load of their finances. This is totally relatable and an ongoing battle at home. Anyway some key phrases were mentioned and i'll have to add it in later for the correct phrase but it was something like;

"Debt repayments doesn't have to be clean, doesn't have to be perfect".

And then I thought, i'm guilty of this one. I have been trying hard with the cc debt, it is working at a snails pace but I could improve my sucess rate by balance transferring a portion of the debt of the most expensive card onto the M**A card and take this as a lower interest rate for 30 months. I'd been looking to do this later in the year when in my head I'd have a bigger amount to be able to shift and more pretty numbers in my idea of perfect. But really it just needed to happen now. So i've shifted £2818 to a lower rate for 30 months. I'm now going to carry on putting the same amount into the debt but will need to re-think how to utilise the same amount of money into the debt for the best pay offs. I realise i've been slowly moving into the snowball method of sorts.

For this coming week:

• Draw up a meal plan for this coming weekend. These weekends can easily blow all our good budget works on food (not even eating in restaurants) and I've worked really hard on each trip to be frugal and equally having some mini luxuries. Things like Too Good to Go app for the odd sweet treat as an example. I'm taking our electric pan and mini fridge so we can make up basic pasta type meals for part of the time. It is a faff carrying all the extra stuff but just view this as essential to being able to afford future trips.

• Packing for next weeked

• Order Lebara sim - i'm now out of contract on my sim only provider and its now costing me £25 p/m. Lebara much more price point happy but as I do need data for remote work I am nervous about switching away from what I know.

• Sat 13th is monthly financial review. Need to set aside some time for this.

• Continue with surveys as and when they are available.

• Focus time on admin for OH holiday rental.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Mini rant - do ignore me! But the diary is honestly my outlet at the moment.

Its DS2 birthday tomorrow, he had his party yesterday and today just doesnt want to speak to me :(. Need to pull my big girlie pants up and get on with it but its the sh**e side of parenting and being far away just adds to the crap. No need to comment. Just needed to vent.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello,

A quick diary update, ended up speaking to DS2 this evening. He was very taken with his little gift that was delivered to him and his personalised card and we cleared the air.

I can see the balance transfers showing up on the two credit cards so good progress here. Also was paid out for a couple of pending surveys so now sitting with £14.46 / £102.70 - 14% progress. Its slowly creeping up in the right direction. I think it'll be a struggle this month tbh. Might have to look at some other ways to bump it up.

I'm also due a refund on outward flights for a special trip in December. For various reasons we have taken opportunity to get a refund and not go on a trip. We would rather focus on other trips and debt repayments instead.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Happy Thursday,

Very quick diary update as my train is in half an hour!

Well frustrating on the cc debt repayment front - have really tried and this month have hit a snag. When i've done the balance transfer I seem to have got my figures slightly wrong and its taking me above my total debt compared to last month sadly by £27.94. I'm chucking so much at the debt I just can't keep adding this month. So taking the hit, but will be interested to see how my debt journey goes now with the changes i've implemented.

Surveys pot is growing slowly and steadily. Now upto £18.36 / £102.70 = 17% progress.

Works has introduced a shareshave scheme under new owners and thinking i'll take part. Awaiting further details.

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Saturday Morning!

As written in last diary entry I thought I was going to be over on my CC this month but I'd ended up under by £97.49 all thanks to the flights refund which came in!! The monthly interest wasnt as bad as I thought it could be so was all in all pretty chuffed so now thats 4 months of consistent CC debt reduction from the peak in Feb and it does feel good. I haven't made any major dent in the debt yet but my target to be under £19999.99 by the end of the year is edging closer.

This weekend I have set myself a spending budget of £100 in cash on Mon*o and have £54.54 left. The weather is good today and we are heading to Ally Pally. Lunch is going to be a picnic items and for dinner going to make something simple in our hotel room using our electric pan. Poached eggs, rice and salad something like that. I would love to take the easy route and get a takeaway but am really concerned about stretching the small budget in July and Aug. I might take some money from "long term savings" to help. In the past i'd have put this on cc but not this year 🙂. This time last year I remember feeling really sunken with the weight of worry over budgets, affording the trips to the city and the debt. Changing my hours was fabulous but it only touched to sides before I had to return back to PT. This year though although my income is less I do feel a bit more in control and life is generally calmer. I've had to drop expectations of a holiday as such and we will embrace the more simple things but honestly I do feel more refreshed about it. Debt reduction will be the same goal, anything counts as long as it is a reduction from the previous month so I already anticipate it might be token amounts over the summer.

Gosh… lots of woffle. But I do like to get the above down as a form of motivation to carry on and persevere.

Had a bit of a mare of it on Thursday morning, took the train to the city as normal but second train, connecting at Doncaster, well I really did get on the wrong end of the carriage. My seats were the other end of the carriage, the trolley lady was in full service and I had my suitcase, coolbag and large rucksack on my back so really was that T**t in the way. Took an age to get passed the trolly lady and to my seat. Of course couldn't find anywhere for my suitcase on the normal rack and had the embarrasment of having to lift the suitcase up to the headracks. I'm quite short and the suitcase was heavy so it was no mean fete (no one volunteered to help either). After attempt number 2 it made it to the top….phew!! When coming off the train i'd discovered a little storage room on the train for the extra suitcases right on the correct carriage door. If only I knew!! Oh well, live and learn.

We've got stuck in to the football, my two love football and I don't mind it. We enjoyed the first 8pm game on Thursday night and arranged to meet friends in the pub with last night. It was lovely but DS2 fell asleep! Bless him!

Have a good day everyone.