Road To Financial Recovery

FootyFanDan

Ah, another day down. I’m ready for that long stretch of annual leave i have coming up. I was planning on doing a few extra hours tonight but just really not feeling up to it tonight so i will see what tomorrow brings. For now the plan is to read for a little while and try sleep.

FootyFanDan

My out of office is finally well and truly on 🥳..that has felt like a long time. I ended up in 4 hours worth of teams meetings yesterday which pretty much wrecked any plans I had. I am really not sure how clients / companies expect productive staff when we just spend so much time in pointless meetings.

The girls went out today on a planned day out, so I actually did some work and wanted to make sure I tied up all the loose ends that I never got done. I have got more done today than I have for ages, my emails are now all cleared and any that can wait until I return have been flagged. Also managed to do my handover, I would have felt crap had I not done this and it now means I can fully switch off knowing that I did everything I could to make it smooth.

Tomorrow we are driving to Scotland and spending the night there, my partner's sister had a baby earlier this week so we are planning on a visit tomorrow and potentially exploring another part of Scotland on Monday but that might mean trying to book accommodation later so we shall see.

Finance wise everything is ticking along pretty well at the moment, we have got enough in the petrol / food pot to cover us until payday which should be Friday given the Bank holiday coming up. I am hoping over my time off just to try and have some proper rest and my laptop and phone are now off.

Dakota_Rose

Have a fantastic holiday! I’m glad you are feeling ready to switch off and enjoy some family time.

FootyFanDan

Thank you @Dakota_Rose, It’s definitely needed so will be good to just relax…allthough I dunno if decluttering is classed as relaxing 🤣

FootyFanDan

Mid way point of my first week off and it’s been lovely just taking a step back and having some chill time. We had a lovely few days in Scotland and the hotel stay was just nice to have a bit of family time.

Today, I’ve done what should be the last food shop of this month and there shouldn’t be anymore unexpected expenses. I’ve booked to take daughter to trampoline park tomorrow as promised I’d go with her before holidays were over. Transfer Tuesday did happen but only a small send to the car pot. I think we need a bit of a reset money wise as I’ve been looking over our finances and there’s just some money that just seems to fritter away. I will look at it properly on payday.

I also managed to get to tip to get some of the living room clutter gone, the living room is slowly becoming a place we can relax

FootyFanDan

So today will be early payday thanks to Monzo, I will sort out the pots and stuff later. I am going to have a nice brew before getting ready to go trampolining…surely 40 yr olds shouldn't be doing this, I sense this is a choice I will regret 🤣.

Later I think I am going to try sort through some clothes, a lot of what I have now doesn't fit and is now just taking up room. I really really wanna re-organise the bedroom but might leave that for another day.

Sun_Addict

Could you allow yourself a buffer pot to cover any unexpected frittering then move it to savings if you don't spend it? Good idea to take a close look at where it's going, it's hard to keep a tight rein on some things when you've got children.

Trampolining at 40 - what could possibly go wrong 🤣

FootyFanDan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116963#Comment_82116963

Trampoline adventure wasn't too bad…I will see if I need to retract that statement when I can't move in the morning 🤣.

We've done really well to start putting some savings away, also putting money into investing and stuff but I am thinking am I pushing us too much at once. The last month has been pretty expensive and I will put that down to the summer holidays and more days out than normal and put it as a one off month. I am just conscious that our income comes in through the month and what our monthly amount remaining should be vs what it is in reality is not matching. Ideally I want us to be able to leave that income that comes in through the month until my payday and then give us one payday. I think that way we know what we are working with, I like the idea of the buffer pot though as I think a lot of what disappears is the coffee's out or the top up shop for treats. So if we took that £100 and was like okay that is there if needed

I am thankful that we are in the lucky position (which I am aware many aren't) of not having to manage every penny, but in the same I want to make sure we are utilising this in the best way.

FootyFanDan

All the payday shuffling around as been done. I have not put anything into savings just yet and might not do this until later in the month. My challenge for September is to make sure that we don't need to touch the income that drips in through the month. I want to have it so we only have one payday, and I have tried to do this numerous times but always failed due to me being frivolous or worrying we won't have enough to see us through the month. If I can just do this one month, then it will just become normal. So that is my challenge to see if I can do this month, then when I get paid in September all the rest of income can be released giving us the one payday.

This is driven by a bit of a look over the numbers, my main spreadsheet gives me what we should bring in each month and what we should be able to fund. However that has definitely not been happening, and it has left me a little deflated looking at what we actually have spare and how we are wasting it or not doing the best we can with it. In fairness we have put in a fair amount to start savings and investing but this is a bit of reset.

I have moved all the funds into the pots that will be needed for petrol and groceries through the month and once that is gone it is gone. The petrol will be totally fine as I have put in a buffer, food is something we haven't properly planned for a while now but I want to start, both to benefit the wallet and waist :D.

I am hopefully that by time my September pay comes in (without wanting to wish the month away) that I can just do one shuffle a month and make the finances a little easier. We are pretty dialled in with the fixed expenses but I would like to have a set amount we put away for savings across the month.

FootyFanDan

The monthly outgoings for stuff that could be annual are something I need to look at and deicde whether I get much benefit from paying them in one go per year or whether as they are pretty low anyways I just keep going with the monthly stuff. I do need to potentially review the breakdown cover as I am pretty certain I can be getting it for less than I currently am.

I also need to look at my personal subscriptions as looking at my spreadsheet these are slowly mounting up too. I pay for cloud storage and spotify and a gaming sub that I have realised I could potentially use my amazon prime sub to cover - Amazon music and photos are covered in this so this is something I need to look at. This would only save me like £25 per month but that is a decent amount over the year.