Countdown to Part Time…

Spinayarn

Ooops - time for an update. Didn’t realise it had been so long since I posted. October was a fairly decent month, although I had spent all my away day pots and I started to feel a bit of a pinch. November was when I really discovered how good it is to have an emergency fund. I had a very bad tooth cavity that meant it either needed root canal work or to come out. To cut a long story short, I didn’t go with root canal, but I still had to pay over £400 total in various dental bills. The old me would have had to put it on a credit card. The new me had an emergency fund - but it was painful to see the savings come out of there! My backdated payrise then put the money back in, but that wasn’t how I’d planned to spend that.

Christmas was also an interesting one. I hadn’t thought about putting money away for Christmas until about September so at least I had some money put to one side, but not really enough. And I had planned to use payrise money for it. I ended up with £200 on my Lloyds CC. However, I have managed to clear £120 of that and the rest will be cleared after pay day and before the due date so there will be no interest.

So, generally I am still on top of things, even though there have definitely been a few rocky patches. We have a meal out planned on Sat 20th for 5 people to celebrate our daughter’s birthday. Husband and I will split the cost and it will have to come out of next months pay but I have budgeted that in. In 2023 I paid off £6231 from my debt. And that was pretty much the last 6 months. So fingers crossed for £10000 this year.

I will try to catch up with diaries over this weekend and see how everyone else is getting on. Just got time to update my figures in my signature before I head off to work.

Floss

Great to read your update, and enjoy the birthday meal.

Spinayarn

I’m off into town today to spend other people’s money 😂 I’ve done the collection for a friend’s baby gift so I get to buy it. Had a look online and have an idea of places to go. Just got to avoid the temptation of buying for myself as I really have no money left. Although maybe I’ll treat myself to lunch from the Pound bakery! 

I’ve got work to do at home today.
oh and yesterday I sold one of my daughter’s many dance costumes to another dance mum. £15 - trying to decide which pot to put it in.
Need to get petrol - my car actually takes LPG as well as unleaded, which is much cheaper. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get hold of LPG this time of year though as they hold it back for home fuel. So my fuel budge has to increase. 

joedenise

Do you have a Morrisons near you?  A lot of their forecourts have LPG.  It's where we always buy ours from.

Spinayarn

Hi @joedenise
There is only one place that sells it near us which is Asda. And apparently they are getting rid of it this year too. 😢

Blackcats

Glad that you are back. 

Looks like CC2 will soon be gone - well done!

joedenise

Spinayarn said:

Hi @joedenise
There is only one place that sells it near us which is Asda. And apparently they are getting rid of it this year 

Have you got the app which shows garages which sell lpg?  https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/united-kingdom/. You could try filling up when you are going somewhere rather than just locally.

Spinayarn

Hi @joedenise - I use the autogas website to see where there is lpg available, but I’ll check the app you’ve said as well, thank you. As far as I know, the next nearest place is about 20 miles away. That said, I can see there might be one near work with some fuel available today. I’ll go and investigate after work today. Not as cheap as Asda but still cheaper than unleaded.

Spinayarn

So good morning - it’s finally pay day and it’s a reset as far as my money goes. Dec/January did not really go to plan. I put on and left about £80 on the credit card,  took £150 out of savings, and reduced debt overpayment by £200. But it was Christmas and DD2’s birthday which did this and I didn’t really save for them. Lesson learned and Christmas and birthday pots now included in the budget.

There is extra in the pay packet due to NI reduction but that’s going straight into our household budget. We’ve been a bit tight on the food budget the last couple of months and an extra £12 a week should help with this.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Spinayarn

Nothing to report today really. I’m off work feeling ill which is rather frustrating. 

£150 sent to the high interest savings account which is looking quite healthy. 

This month I’m trying to keep track of the £200 incidentals pot as I feel like I squander this too quickly at the start of each month. I figure writing down what I’m spending it on should make me more accountable.
Yesterday -£3.00 on food at petrol station. This was an unnecessary spend. 🙄