Road To Financial Recovery

FootyFanDan

Happy midweek. 
The site visit wasn't too bad, and made back early afternoon. This meant I was able to work from home for a few hours, before heading off to the football. The remainder of the week will be office based, luckily I have managed to avoid having to do any out of hours catch up.

@alt80
yeah the plan is to go through everything, a lot of my stuff still fits but there is plenty to donate. 

FootyFanDan

Another week over, how is it nearly November! Where is time going. I have been feeling a little under weather since Thursday, and worked from home Friday. It amazes me how much more I seem to get done when I am at home and not in the office. It must have been a 24 hour thing, as I am feeling fine now, maybe just needed a more laid back day. The office is pretty chaotic at minute and sometimes difficult to just get stuff done.

This weekend has been a pretty low-key, not really done much but also no real spending. There is no real spends to come up before payday on Wednesday, and the budget has held up pretty well. We should have enough groceries to last until next shopping day but I will need to top petrol up a little tomorrow.

I have spent today updating spreadsheet and YNAB ensuring it is all correct and ready for the new month. Over the next few months I am hoping to start been able to allocate some funds to try pay some of the car stuff in full (Car Insurance + Car Tax) these are both due end of March. I hope by putting something away for both of these I can be in a decent position to pay these in full. My spreadsheet seems to suggest this will be possible but sticking to the plan is the hard bit.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend, and hope the week ahead is good.

LadyWithAPlan

You seem v organised and you are working wonders on that cc debt pay off!
I am also a fairly new YNABer (just coming up to a year) and it really has highlighted my spending/saving  priorities - just wish I had started using it years ago (have always been a budgeter but the seeing mid month the money being spent . and knowing I have to drain down annual expense pots to pay for unexpected /unplanned purchases.. is a game changer
I have a 'things I forgot to buget for' category I fund every month

FootyFanDan

Thanks @LadyWithAPlan  I don't always feel organised at times haha. I must admit though the last 6-7 months since I started really focusing on the budget again I am finding it better. The CC debt was getting out of hand and were built up through a lack of preparation for stuff that would eventually creep up.

My main goals this next few months will be to put myself in a position to have some funds for Car Repairs and also Car insurance, even if I can have some put away it will benefit me. Car tax I am not so worried about as there is flexibility within my budget to cover this from salary as a one of payment. This year I got a massive car repair bill that I was totally not prepared for and it sidetracked me as I didn't have anywhere close to the cost and I needed it for work, as the trains were expensive and never reliable. This left me to put it on CC, which thankfully is now under control. We did pretty well with putting away for xmas this year though and most of this is pretty much already covered so I love the idea of putting it away through the year its such a better way

I love YNAB it took me a while to get used to it, but now its such a useful tool to me, although I love a good spreadsheet 🤣

FootyFanDan

Happy Wednesday...happy payday . I never thought I would look forward to payday just so I can update YNAB and figures, normally it was because I was in overdraft and just wanting to get it cleared!. I have managed to forget the overdraft is even there or needed which can only be a positive. I have had a quick look at last month spends and there's nothing too drastic in here although my 'Stuff I forgot' took an hammering, a lot of things that we didn't really anticipate - this is normally stuff like school trips/play zone and afterschool clubs and odd things - but this accounted for £126.50 of spends. I think some of this really could be better planned for but isn't the end of the world. 

Food / Groceries - £430.95 - I must have miscalculated this!! 🤣 Although I will take it. All the budget matches and checked all transactions/bank so it's definitely right. 

Petrol - £137.43 (lower than usual for some reason, although not been as much trips out and a few work from home - some of this will be back in expenses too)

Eating Out - £47.83 - Another low one this month, we did admittedly socialise a lot more in August & September than this month. This accounts for one family take-away and a coffee / breakfast date with missus. This has been a huge hit over the last few months so a quiet month was much needed! November should be pretty low key too, although expect this to be out weighed by December.

House Stuff - £523  We needed new wardrobes for over a year, so these were purchased. To cover this there was a lot of clearing our pots out and these need to be topped back up, but I sat and worked out if this was do-able and it should be (providing I can avoid disaster with car until service / MOT). Whilst I was reluctant to clear the pots to do this, we have desperately need them for so long and now we have them it is so much better. 

Overall a pretty decent month financially, and managed to go into the new pay cycle with £16 left
There is some spends coming up that we need to account for somewhere and I need to take a look at that over next few days. I need to go through my spreadsheet and YNAB later to get this refreshed. 

All pots have to be updated refreshed to cover our new goals and pretty much starting from scratch, although Xmas is pretty much done with this year, with only a few odd bits to get as we started funding this a while ago.

New Pots

Emergency Fund
Car Insurance (Annual Payment) Due March 31st 2025
Car Tax (Annual Payment) Due 1st February 2025
Xmas
Car Repairs (Service/MOT) Due 8th February 2025
House Stuff

EDIT: Also added a theatre and holiday pot. We LOVE the theatre but it's soooooo expensive. The little one is performing with her drama group in the west end next year so this needs budgeting for. We went to London a few years ago to see Wicked and all loved it but we got this on a deal so ended up being wallet friendly. We want to take little one to see Matilda whilst its showing up our way next year but again its pretty expensive. I need to really find the balance on being able to spend on the things we like doing and saving. We are in a better position financially but letting go and spending isn't as easy as it once was 

LadyWithAPlan

Great focus and isnt it wonderful to easily see and compare what you spent and where.

Some of the theatres do lottery tickets - so you can get them cheaper. Also worth reading this on mse for more ways to save. I also love the theatre so always looking for a deal on them
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-theatre-tickets/

FootyFanDan

Yes, it has been really useful for me. Admittedly when I first started using YNAB it was more of a tracking tool as I wasn't using it as I should have been. However since I really focused and started using it correctly and made sure I am keeping it accurate and basing spending from it the difference is huge.

If someone would have told old me that I would be saving for these through the year I would think they were insane. The higher salary helps, but if I am being honest with myself the salary hasn't ever been the issue, I have and the total lack of wanting to be prepared and just wanted to keep spending. 

FootyFanDan

Happy Friday
Happy November
All Direct Debits have left the account and everything all updated in YNAB. There isn't much out of the ordinary planned this weekend, football tomorrow and then off to see Bro & SIL new house so hopefully a pretty low spend weekend. I need to order / collect groceries at some point. A crazy week at work is near its end so hoping for a pretty low key admin and headphones in day 🤣. I do need to look at possibility of getting eyes tested, lately I have been getting a lot of headaches, but I think it is due to the lights been so bright in office combined with looking at laptop screen too much. The office is usually pretty empty on Fridays so eventually lights will go off and I can work in darkness haha.

Have a great Friday and weekend ahead.

FootyFanDan

Another while since last update.
It's been a pretty hectic, chaotic month so far in both work and family life. I have managed to be able to make an extra payment on the CC so that's a positive. All my YNAB is up to date today, although must admit it went unchecked for most of the month. It has just felt like such a disorganised and mentally draining month.

This month - particularly the last few weeks have been a testing time at work, some tough lessons and its made to push myself to not have to rely on others as this just brings trouble!. Ah just such frustration at times.

Eating out spends have been higher than normal to be honest but nothing I am too worried over, I think we just need to start budgeting these. We went and had a gluten free chippy tea last week as a treat for little one and this is going to become a regular thing we do. So I think we are going to plan a regular family meal eating out and then put some aside to have a chippy treat without it affecting other parts of budget.

This week I have felt myself getting back into feeling pretty rubbish in general - which seems to happen when my sleep and eating are out of sync. This weekend we had a planned busy weekend (spendy too) but it was one both myself and the little one to be honest needed to just re-charge and forget a awful two weeks. We had planned to go see Wicked in the cinema and we went on Saturday to watch it which we all LOVED!! and then we went and had tea out which was a really nice night (if a little spendy)
Today the little one had a drama club thing which she had to dress up for which she really enjoyed. 

I am on 3 day weeks now until xmas - I had some annual leave to use so I have now booked off Mondays and Fridays til New Year. This will mean I don't have to worry about going back to chaos after a few weeks off and it divides up my week. I am planning to hopefully get quite a bit done round the house on days off

We have managed to be able to find a real balance of putting savings away, enjoying our selves and paying off debt. I am comfortable with the rate the debt is being paid at and there is also no additional debt been added to. We have booked a trip to Warner Studios for early next year and then we have also booked to go to America for our next big holiday but that is in October 2026 so gives us plenty of time to save up. We aren't planned to go abroad next year and we could potentially go to the coast and stay in my mum's caravan for a break away.

hope everyone is doing good.

FootyFanDan

Finally payday 🥳. We have managed to reach payday without hitting the overdraft which has been a theme over the last few months, so I am glad we have broken that cycle. We haven't got to payday with as much in the bank spare as usual, but we did do a few family things at the weekend which soaked up those remaining funds.

I have updated my spends from the last week or so into YNAB and got everything all updated ready for the new month. There is a new category for the big holiday in 2026 and the things linked to this - travel insurance, attraction tix and spends. I have chosen a Direct Debit option to pay balance every month, last time I never did this and found myself scrambling around near the holiday and I certainly don't want to do that again.

I am now off work til Tuesday, although a troublesome project is a storm waiting to happen, so will potentially need to keep an eye on this to try push this over the line. I have really enjoyed the 3 day week though. I need to work through the budget and amend anything that needs to be amended.