The Three C's - Coffee, Clothes & Credit Cards

joedenise

Sarahwithlove said:

joedenise said:

You're welcome to my referral code:

https://share.octopus.energy/sand-may-584

Thank you I have signed up so £50 will be coming your way once all sorted 👍 

Thank you.  I've messaged you.

Sarahwithlove

Busy day for me. Went to make lunch and discovered my ham had gone off. Didn't smell good either which was annoying. Had to get lunch on the way to the office (£8.75) and then my cost@ with my giftcard. Popped to A!Di on way home for some lunch bits and treated myself to some Salmon. I realised I had forgot to take the chicken out for dinner tonight. Was very yummy I have to say. 

Payday tomorrow, so budget starts over again. I shouldn't have any spends tomorrow or Saturday. Probably do food shop for next week on Sunday, should only need a few things such as milk and fruit. 

Going to start looking at surveys again over the weekend and sort out what clothes I want to put on vinted. I have a massive bag of envelope bags to use to send it all which is handy. Good job I kept them haha. 

Sarahwithlove

Busy couple of days, didn't have a good day spend wise yesterday. I need to be better with emotional spending. I had a stressful day at work and brought myself some chocolate, sweets and fizz. Then ended up ordering a takeaway as felt rubbish that I had blown my healthy eating. So annoying. I have budgeted myself £30 a week on personal spends and blew most of it in one day. 

Takeaway £16.34
Junk food £5.84 

I also did a mini tesco shop that included cold and flu stuff and cough medicine. That came to £15.50 and then sent my s-i-l £5 towards ingredients for Stew she made for us all. I had it tonight and got enough for 2 more meals. Its so good, was my mums recipe. This will come out my food budget 

I did 7.25 hours overtime today so that should get me some extra pennies Next month. But we were too efficient and now don't have enough work for next weekend haha! 

Plans for tomorrow are to pop to tesco, get some flowers to take to my mums grave and some dumplings to go with my stew. I'll also probably get myself a Costa using my giftcard. 

Busy week for me next week, football on Tuesday, usually go for food first but may have to give it a miss this time. Friday is my day off so going to have my nails done and Nandos. Sadly that will most likely use all most of my allowance for the week again. Saturday is football and again would usually go for food beforehand but will have to see what's left of my weekly spends after Friday. 

Definitely need some NSDs this week. 

floorspeed_2

On one side it's great you have a nice time doing football, nandos etc but at least you did the overtime to technically cover the splurge spending.

I have daily savings going out of my account which always makes me think twice on a treat spend. My partner has a treat savings account so if she wants to redeem it she can. Normally I am the one enforcing it to cover a wine purchase normally 😅

Overtime tomorrow for me to pay for my adli shop 😎

Keep tightening the belt Sarah but keep it loose if you're putting the work in. You deserve it.

CreditCardJunkie

You've got this Sarah!

Well done for getting a fix at 4%...we fixed at 5.5 for 2 years! 

Take snacks with you to work to avoid using the vending machine. I've started taking a picnic and flask of tea anytime we're out for a couple of hours and I can't believe how much money we're saving. Normally if we are out and about we'd eat out or grab something on the go but the price to eat out has got so crazy! 

Sarahwithlove

floorspeed_2 said:

On one side it's great you have a nice time doing football, nandos etc but at least you did the overtime to technically cover the splurge spending.

I have daily savings going out of my account which always makes me think twice on a treat spend. My partner has a treat savings account so if she wants to redeem it she can. Normally I am the one enforcing it to cover a wine purchase normally 😅

Overtime tomorrow for me to pay for my adli shop 😎

Keep tightening the belt Sarah but keep it loose if you're putting the work in. You deserve it.

Thanks writing it all down has made me realise how easy it is to go over budget and why I built up a credit card debt so easily. 

I've set up an account with plum and save the change so will be interesting to see how that goes this month. 

Sarahwithlove

CreditCardJunkie said:

You've got this Sarah!

Well done for getting a fix at 4%...we fixed at 5.5 for 2 years! 

Take snacks with you to work to avoid using the vending machine. I've started taking a picnic and flask of tea anytime we're out for a couple of hours and I can't believe how much money we're saving. Normally if we are out and about we'd eat out or grab something on the go but the price to eat out has got so crazy! 

Its 4. Something but can't remember exactly but I did it as soon as my provider released their options. Luckily it was before the most recent increases. I did wonder whether doing it 6 months in advance was risky but as it didn't look like inflation was going down at time it was worth it. Only a 2 year fix though as I think I will be ready to move by then. 

I do take a packed lunch including snacks usually but maybe not the right kind. I might have to look at sorting our cupboard at work when we have our few days in office together so I can leave some snacks in there. 

Everything seems to have gone up crazy amounts except wages! 

Sarahwithlove

I'm really not going great with these NSDs and my personal allowance. I can see why not the credit card debt has crept up on me. I've definitely been living beyond my means. 

I sat down and did some sorting tonight. I now have a grocery, personal spends, miscellaneous and petrol spends on my spreadsheet. I'm keeping track of when, what and how much including what I'm left with for the month. I think food will be easiest to stick to this month as my freezer is full and I'm up together on most household items. 

I spent another £5.45 today at the spar on rubbish again. Slept so bad last night by time 4pm came I needed my sugar fix. I definitely need to reign this in. I wish I knew plan for tomorrow, I may just have dinner at home and then go in to football a bit later to avoid the extras. 

I've been looking at extra money I'm likely to get between now and the end of the year and think will be approx £1k in total. But I also have some big expenses such as car insurance, service, mot and tax. Think that will wipe it out but I can keep my savings then and next year focus on paying off the cards. 

I need to sit down and work out my dates on them as I don't want to be paying any interest. But the good news is that I could clear both with my savings if needed. Just wouldn't leave much for future big expenses. 

I've logged back into prolific and one poll to start doing surveys again, been keeping my receipts for the apps and need to remember to add my new bank card to airtime rewards. Other than more overtime if offered it's going to be selling unused stuff and clothes that don't fit to help. I'm gonna try get to £500 before the end of December. A big challenge for myself. 

PennysIntoPounds

It's good to have a challenge and three months I think is an ideal amount of time to incorporate ups and downs of life. To get £500 by end of December is less than £200 a month, so let's generously call that £70 a week, and that's a tenner a day- if you have stuff to sell and ways you've already recognised you can resist spending or get cheaper treat alternatives in advance, then that seems do-able if you're earning and know there's an end point for this challenge in sight. Have you factored in what you'll need to spend for Christmas?

Sarahwithlove

PennysIntoPounds said:

It's good to have a challenge and three months I think is an ideal amount of time to incorporate ups and downs of life. To get £500 by end of December is less than £200 a month, so let's generously call that £70 a week, and that's a tenner a day- if you have stuff to sell and ways you've already recognised you can resist spending or get cheaper treat alternatives in advance, then that seems do-able if you're earning and know there's an end point for this challenge in sight. Have you factored in what you'll need to spend for Christmas?

When you say £10 a day it doesn't seem quite so bad with extras I have to sell. I'm also hoping that they Will offer overtime again in November once the systems have changed. 

Ideally I would use my sinking fund for Christmas but I'm trying not to touch it. So my aim is to use the money from overtime this month. I don't have many people to buy for 6 I think and most of them are token gifts. I may even discuss with my brother about not doing gifts and just give my nephew money like usual. He's 13 now and never wants anything so I'll give him a smelly set, sweets and then cash. I think I could do it easily for £150 all in and this months overtime covers that. I need to look in my gift draw as I know I have some bits I brought in January sales and then make a plan. Its slowly creeping up on us isn't it?