Overhauling for the second (and last) time

overhauler

End of week update, had a lovely weekend with family and friends

My savings spaces are currently:

Bills £69.13
Food £167.21
Petrol £79.99
Personal spends £14.54
Emergency Fund £254.07

with 3 more weeks of food shops, as it’s a five week month, I am not sure the food pot will survive so I may need to add some extra to it but all other spaces are in a good place for this point in the month 

I still have around £75 of child benefit to go in and will get some board from son when he gets paid although I don’t think it will be much as he hasn’t had many hours at work over the past month 

it is nice to see every  th ing account for and the money in the EF growing as previously I might have been extremely low on money by this point and wondering what bills I can get out of paying until the next payday 

overhauler

A week and a half since my last update, the house fell to the terrible cold/flu going around and everyone has been home from work and school at some point 

I let my money tracking slide during this time so haven’t been as thorough as I wanted to be

i am still learning and finding what fits for me, I’ve decided to drop my NSD challenge tracking, I will continue to aim for nsd’s as often as possible but won’t keep track as it’s just an extra thing at the moment when I am already juggling a lot 

I’ve simplified my money tracking, rather than writing down everything I buy I will just keep track of money going out of pots so I can see how much I spend in each category overall, if I have a category that I overspend on I can then decide whether to track it more closely or whether the budget needs amending

As it stands at the minute, my saving spaces are:

bills - £15.93 - this is correct for what is left to go out 

food - £73.23 - this is short, I had originally allocated £327 a month but this does not account for a 5 week month such as this one, moving forwards I will allocated based on amount of week. It also means I will need to add to it, my son is paid this week so will be paying me some board although he hasn’t had many shifts so don’t think it will be much. I have a further £25 child benefit to come which can be added 

petrol - £79.99 - I have around a quarter of a tank at present, I’m not sure how much petrol I will need between now and payday in 2 weeks but think I will have some left in this space as don’t think I will need the full amount 

personal spends - £3.67 - still in budget 

Emergency fund - £182.72 - have spent around £70 from this so far this month, pretty much all on the house as we continue with home improvements 

I am still hoping to make an overpayment of £19.79 at the end of the month to debt to make it 3 steps on my 100 step to debt free challenge. I think this will be achievable 

I have been thinking about things missing from my budget currently, i would like to add in some additional saving spaces to cover things not currently budgeted for including car maintenance, health such as dentist/glasses, gifts for birthdays and Christmas, holidays, diy/house

my plan is to start these pots from January so by that time I would like to have a good understanding of my budget so I know what should be allocated to each one, I also want to have my emergency fund/savings be more stable with a set amount going in each month rather than transferring everything into it but then taking back out as needed 

overhauler

Checking in more regularly for accountability 

nsd yesterday as didn’t leave the house

Son has sent his board across and I have added that to my food shopping saving space, it is still short on what I think I need to see us through the month but I will add the weekly child benefit money to it when that comes through next Tuesday and if still a little short can probably transfer some from the petrol pot rather than EF

overhauler

End of weekend check in

its been a spendy weekend as we have hit the renovations hard but all coming from allocated pots 

As it stands this evening my pots are:

Bills £15.93 - for remaining monthly bills 

Food £50 - will add this weeks child benefit and that should hopefully cover the final weeks food shopping

Petrol £0 - car is fully topped up and as I’m working remote should easily last until after next payday 

Personal Spends £0 - all spent up 

Debts £0 - all debts paid for month

100 step challenge £0 - I’m wondering if I should add to this if I have chance at the end of the month to round up to 3 full steps but will wait and see how everything is looking the day before payday

emergency fund £85.33 - we shouldn’t need anything else renovation wise this month I don’t think 

I hadn’t budgeted for a family members birthday this month as it’s not until November but just found out we are meeting to celebrate it before payday so I will need to cover this from my EF, a shame as I hadn’t budgeted for it but can’t be helped and I am recognising that if this had happened previously I would have had to turn down attending as wouldn’t have had the money so it’s really positive that I can actually still go and shows my new budgeting method is working 

9 days until payday and things are going strong 🙂

overhauler

Payday tomorrow so end of month summary

all my savings spaces ended at £0 except the emergency fund - this is exactly as it should be given I allocated the right amount of money to cover debts and bills

positives:
- all bills were paid on time
- all debt repayments were made on time 
- ended month with £17 to add to the emergency fund taking it to £19 total

looking back I really do feel I have come so far in a short space of time, in August I was choosing which bills I should let bounce and pay when I got paid and 2 months later I am ending the month with every bill accounted for, some renovations done on the house and some money added to the emergency fund. I am really happy with the way things are heading 

I am still very much aware that Christmas is looming and I haven’t budgeted for it this year but also feel I have room to accommodate it

i am receiving back pay on my wages from the government pay rise tomorrow which is an extra £500 after deductions 

I have added up what needs to go into each saving space for the month, I have a birthday to factor in, I really want a haircut so going to book that this week and I am going to transfer my eldest £50 as he has not had many hours work wise.

good news for him, he has a new job, it’s still only part time but more hours than his previous, much closer to home and £4p/h more so he should hopefully start to earn a bit more. The ideal is that he needs to find full time employment since he is no longer in education but it’s a step in the right direction for him 

looking forward to the month ahead, I’ve decided this month to immediately transfer £50 to my EF rather than keeping it in my miscellaneous pot and seeing what I have left at the end of the month, given my extra pay I feel this is achievable and that I should hopefully not need to use it later in the month but will keep updating for accountability 

overhauler

Oops, busy week with half term and I haven’t updated 

just a quick one for this evening 

I shuffled money to relevant pots after payday and have made all my debt repayments 

I moved £50 straight to the EF, which I have moved to a different bank account to the one I use for bills/spending so it’s out of the way

I have the correct amount of money in my bill space 
money in petrol/food pots, £50 in my personal spends and my miscellaneous pot currently has £399.45

looking good for the month and hoping everything goes as well as last month 

I will update my signature too with up to date debts when I get a minute 

overhauler

Signature updated with latest payments 

2 extra steps to debt freedom 

Everything is ticking along as it should be but this week I am feeling very annoyed at myself for missing out on opportunities due to the debt. 

I’m trying to see the bigger picture, the debt accumulated whilst I was training for a career to get me out of a low wage retail job. I couldn’t have predicted the way the world would change when I started the training early 2020

i do think that although most of the debt was unavoidable, I could have been much wiser with my money and avoided being in the situation I am now (at least to the extent I am)

my wage has more than doubled since leaving retail just over a year ago and should raise again by a decent amount over the next couple of years 

I think I am going to get Christmas out of the way and then really trim back my outgoings wherever I can and try to throw everything at the debt 

I am going to try and really simplify everything, I give the kids way too much spending money and treats, we have pretty much every streaming service, all have gym subscriptions we don’t use enough to warrant them, holidays abroad every year and I think I need to find a balance between enjoying life and having a lean year and really improving my finances 

Problem is everyone else in the house wants all that stuff, I would happily get rid of prime and flip between Disney/Netflix but everyone else always wants to watch different things so I am going to have to have a conversation about what stays and what goes, everything does get used which is why I find it tough. I will have a think about it and maybe call a family meeting once I’ve made a decision so we can all talk it through 

overhauler

Forgot to pop on and do my end of week roundup yesterday

things I’ve noticed this week is that I don’t think the food budget is big enough so I’m going to up it by an extra £80 a month, no point having it set too low and running out early. This will give me £100 per week which I feel is more than enough and should mean I’m not worrying about that last food shop each week 

I’ve done a bit of a shuffle to account for that so as it stands my saving spaces currently:

Bills: £56.31 to cover rest of bills for the month 

Food shop: £200 should now be enough with around 2 weeks until payday

petrol: £79.98 again should be enough but this month is the start of a new job so I’m in office much more so will see how this goes, I really can’t imagine needing to add more 

Personal spends: £0 spent all this going out for birthday meal with family at weekend but don’t have anything I need now until payday as far as I’m aware 

miscellaneous: £301.11 again doing good, not much planned to come out of this and still around £50 in child benefit to add through the month. This pot will mainly go towards funding Christmas which I had not budgeted for this year 

EF: £69 I added £50 to this as soon as I got paid this month which is what I think I will do going forwards as less likely to spend it then 

overhauler

Another end of week round up;

pots are a little all over the place as I started Christmas shopping and one of the gifts I bought included buying tickets, family members are also coming so I’ve bought all the tickets and waiting for family to send me their share 

bills wise - everything accounted for with just a couple still left to go out this month 

food shop - delivery came this morning with 1 left to do before payday with £100 left in pot 

Petrol - £79.98 left, I went to the office 4 days this week and it only used half a tank which was good to see, I have been running the kids around this weekend and went to the gym yesterday and will go again today. I am also working away for an event this Friday which I will drive to and will take more petrol but I may still end the month with some left over in this pot 

Miscellaneous - this is uncertain but will probably have around £80 left in it once I receive the money I’m owed 

EF - £69 - I am happy that this won’t be needed and I may be able to keep adding £50 a month without needing to dip into it for Christmas 

I’ve wrote most of my Christmas list for buying now and I’m happy it’s affordable out of the wages I will get before Christmas 

I’ve gone through my debts, I have 10 - all are interest free so I’ve opted to push these a little further than my agreed repayments and go for the snowball method. Lowest debt has a balance of £98.36, repayment is set at £12 per month but I’ve set myself the target of having this one cleared by the end of the year which I feel I can hit 

I am very aware that it’s taken me until the age of 40 to have a LBM and start to really get my finances in order, it’s going to take me a while to get to a good place and I would like to own my own home at some point in the future so really want to push through this debt as quick as possible so I can repair my credit score and get a mortgage so that’s my motivation 

overhauler

Been reading a lot of diaries today as motivation, decided to make a payment to debt 1 so it was a whole number so £8.36 payment made, £90 outstanding 

I have also decide, for any accounts that are still active I will close them once they are cleared. 

Debt 1 is my Next credit account, available credit is set to £300 but the plan is to clear all debts and close them. 

Once I’m back at 0 and all the previous debt accounts are closed I will then look at how I can repair my credit score which is not in a good place right now 

feeling very positive about everything today

will update my signature to reflect the small payment