Countdown to Part Time…

Blackcats

Well done on the money saved from the premium bank account - it's really motivating to see the difference in debt repayment times.  

Your emergency fund is growing well.  

I'd love to try making a crochet bag - do you have a pattern? 

We enjoy our Friday night fakeaway and film nights.  We often find £1 DVDs in the charity shop, watch them and then take them back.  We are enjoying re-watching some older films - this week we watched Good Will Hunting with a home made curry, rice and our first attempt at air fryer onion bhajis which turned out well.

Spinayarn

 

I'd love to try making a crochet bag - do you have a pattern? 

Thanks!!  I've sent you a message with a link to the pattern I'm planning on making.

Spinayarn

So I meant to say last night about the Too Good to Go bag we got from our local co-op. £4.00 for this lot:

Pack of 4 Warburtons tea cakes
A half loaf of co-op wholemeal bread
Box of eggs
Beef kebabs (for BBQ) - cooked for my lunch today and tomorrow
Pork kebabs (for BBQ) - popped in the freezer
Cheese and tomato pizza - DD had for her lunch today
Big pot of fresh chicken and veg soup - in freezer for hubby to have for lunch later this week
2x Cadburys pot of joy
Bag of new potatoes
Bag of prepped veg
I think that was it, although it's possible I've forgotten other bits,

Been at work today, overtime tonight. Although I took food to work, I did succumb to the snack bar and spent about £2.75 there on chocolate and pop. Oops!
Requested £5.22 transfer from Prolific tonight - to go into the EF when it arrives.

Found out I am going to lose a couple of days work next month so just as well I'm doing the overtime currently. I lent the daughter £20 over the weekend - I must make sure she pays me back. I am still hoping to have a little money left in my account before pay day that will go into the EF, plus I've been squirrelling a little in there each day just to see it growing. In fact, I'm going to transfer another £1 into there right now.

Spinayarn

NSD today. OH and I had a chat about the food spending each month - it really is noticeable how food prices have shot up. 
£5.22 arrived from Prolific today and £3.47 has gone into the EF to round that up to the next £10, meaning I can colour in my next square.
Work today and overtime this evening. Probably about 10 more days of this overtime. Batch cooked some food tonight meaning I have 3 lunches sorted for work so no spending extras. 
Checked my CCs - and one that I had paid off has now got £4.12 added interest, plus a subscription that I have still takes payment from there. I will cancel the subscription as soon as I've finished the 12 month contract. So I'm curious now to see what other interest will get added to the other card I paid off.
Pay day on Thursday. 

Spinayarn

Feeling pretty happy with how things have gone this month. It's pay day tomorrow and I still have money left in my account and nothing has gone on credit cards.

I'm not planning on moving all my pay into different accounts and pots straight away as I want to keep money in my account for as much as the month as possible to avoid overdraft interest. So, although I am planning on paying off my M&S credit card, I will wait until the due date before paying it. And the money that's going to go over to Monzo for savings accounts won't get moved until the end of the pay month. That way I should only pay a minimum amount of interest. I will use my trusty spreadsheet to keep track of all my spending to make sure I don't touch the money assigned for other uses. If I find I am getting tempted to overspend, I will move things, but this will be a good test of my determination.

Sent £1.75 over to the emergency fund and I've done quite a lot on Prolific recently. Think I've got about £12 in total (some of it waiting to be approved) waiting to be transferred. I think I'll wait for it to hit £10 approved before transferring.

Spinayarn

So today felt good. I still had £32 in my account when my pay went in so I transferred that to the Emergency Fund this morning. I also decided to transfer my £120 “incidentals” money to my monzo account so I can track my spending from that more easily.
This afternoon I got a message saying my Monzo savings account interest rate was now 3.7%. My Lloyds account is 0.9% so I’ve transferred £40 into my Monzo one. This is my new Christmas savings pot.
Had an unexpected direct debit go out for a magazine subscription. I need to decide whether to keep the subscription or not. 

Managed a little bit of overtime today and then we went out for dinner. I had budgeted £25 for my share of the bill and it turned out to be £30. We used £75 worth of Tesco vouchers to pay for most of the food then we had drinks to pay on top. We were celebrating daughter finishing A-level exams so this included a bottle of Prosecco.
Been a nice day and feeling more in control.

Spinayarn

Well, I am a bit rubbish when pay day comes. Always start spending... I had McDonalds breakfast and Subway for dinner yesterday - £15 that I didn't really need to spend. But it came out of my "incidentals" pot so I guess it's ok. 
I really want to start a new craft project but I am going to go shopping in my yarn stash and repress the urge to buy.
Working quite a bit of overtime today. I can do a couple of hours at a time and take breaks inbetween.

I went food shopping this morning. Husband and I made a list and we both took guesses as to how much it would cost. He guessed £57 and I guessed £55. It was actually £47 so that was ok. I went to Aldi - he always goes to Morrisons. I got everything on the list and resisted the urge to buy anything that wasn't on the list. We will need another small shop mid week to buy bread, more salad and maybe fruit.

Eldest daughter is coming home from uni today so our food bill is likely to go up. But, we have quite full freezers so we need to try to use some things from there. I also have a Too Good to Go bag to collect from Morrisons this evening so we'll see what we can make from that as well.

Spinayarn

Had to spend some money today. One daughter was competing in her last ever dance comp and eldest daughter came to watch. So I had double entry fee to pay, plus drinks in Costa for 3 of us. Also spent about £6 on snacks. £25 in total. I do feel like I’m burning through my incidentals money. But I did take my laptop and managed to do some of my overtime work in the breaks. 

I shouldn’t complain though: I spent a lovely day with both my girls. We did take some sandwiches and had a picnic on a bench and that will be the last time I will see my daughter perform so I really should just enjoy the xperience and memories made and not worry about the bit of money spent.

I’m thinking about not going to Slimming World any more. I’m paying £6 every week and not getting anywhere with it at the moment. It feels like a waste of time and money.

Spinayarn

Couple of big payments went out to my car loan and one other loan today. The big 2 loans I have are both loans created to consolidate credit cards, store cards and god knows what else. I never learned and just started spending again every time. This time HAS to be different.
I have a colouring sheet for paying towards my debt - on mine, I colour in one section for every £30 paid off. It's going to take a long time to colour it all in! I also enjoyed ticking off the payments in the debt payoff app.
More overtime tonight. I think my work will be extended for at least another week - in theory it should have finished this week but I think there will be more available probably until the end of the following week. Good for my bank balance, but I am getting quite tired from it. But I really want to get that £1000 EF and then maybe I can start paying lump sums towards my debt. Plus I am thinking about the 3 weekends away I have booked in the autumn and how awesome it will be to have nothing put on my credit cards from these trips.

Spent £2.19 at McDonalds on my way home tonight.

Spinayarn

Dammit. Another magazine subscription has gone out of my account today. Really annoyed with myself as I really don’t want this magazine anymore. I have now managed to cancel that subscription but it’s £32.99 out of my account that I wasn’t expecting on top of another £30 a couple of days ago.