Teetering on the brink

joedenise

@Cherryfudge - I just put the grocery, eating out and fuel money into a Holiday category and spend from that.  Seems to work quite well for me.

@EatingBeans - I think the best way to sort out your spreadsheet is to get print outs of all your accounts and work on each one systematically.  Hopefully that should solve the problems.

Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff

If her gate has caused damage to your wall regardless of the condition of your wall, is there not grounds for an insurance claim from your household insurance perhaps they would claim from her insurer? I know "nada' about this subject so my ideas could be completely wrong but who knows it might even cover the cost of repairing your entire wall. Perhaps your insurer would send someone out and who knows sometimes charm offensive works in these situations and the assessor might be entirely on your side especially if it's a claim against the neighbours insurer. Get the assessor inside for a coffee and stuff them with your dd's tasty muffins and hypnotise the assessor. Ok I'm getting a bit carried away here but thought I'd throw it in because you never know!

Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff

I get your dilemma  and I am less proficient with spreadsheets so have ended up buying a ready created spreadsheet which helps me so much! Anyhow that aside in my experience so far, now that I am a few months in on my debt free journey regardless, it's the mere fact that proper monthly budgeting is the norm which I feel is the absolute fundamental importance. Like you what I am realising is each month I am achieving more savings as I have taken big steps to cut costs and it's quite liberating. I have 3 x loans of which 2 are on high interest and no 3 is zero interest as this to a friend. 
I am using the avalanche method and as it happens it's with Monzo, which is actually the lowest loan but by coincidence the highest interest. I have to say the Monzo app is fluffing brilliant it details everything and it actually motivates me to keep overpaying because each time I make a payment, it recalculates everything and to see the balance going down and a visual of the interest saved, is a dopamine hit! I try to pay something almost every day.

Anyway I am going off topic but like you I am constantly having to re budget as I find ways to cut outgoings, admittedly this causes me confusion as I fiddle with my spreadsheet. My saving grace is my little hard covered note book, it's my little motivator not only do I write figures down but I write little motivating notes but this helps me with my finances as in a way it's a backup. Probably as you are more proficient with spreadsheets do you rely less on writing things down? I even draw  little bubbles in it with stuff written inside and arrows leading onto other bubbles so it gives me a visual representation of my finances. 
I appreciate everyone has their own method but I find my little black book crucial whilst I input stuff on the spreadsheet at least if I accidentally delete something it's backed up on paper!! haha

Cherryfudge

FWIW, I base my finances round a cheap page a day diary - for each spend there's a category, amount spent and the shop in which it was spent (that's an aide memoire in case I want to double check anything).

The advantage of the spending diary is that I can add footnotes: '£X from account 1234 to account 5678' so I can track what seemed like good ideas at the time. If there's a special event like a day out or holiday, that's at the top of the page so I don't later wonder why I suddenly had a travel expense or entertaining cost. I also allow myself mistakes - oops, that was on the wrong page, cross out and rewrite.

When I'm awake enough I can then enter things onto the spreadsheet, but I've neglected this recently as I need to rethink some categories. No one needs as many as my spreadsheet has developed!

It's about finding what works for each of us and reassessing from time to time.

P.S. I like @Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff's idea of adding motivational bits and pieces! There are a few diaries around where people have shared pictures of charts and spreadsheets full of colour and the occasional illustration. It wouldn't work for everyone but appeals to me.  

Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff

Cherryfudge said:

FWIW, I base my finances round a cheap page a day diary - for each spend there's a category, amount spent and the shop in which it was spent (that's an aide memoire in case I want to double check anything).

The advantage of the spending diary is that I can add footnotes: '£X from account 1234 to account 5678' so I can track what seemed like good ideas at the time. If there's a special event like a day out or holiday, that's at the top of the page so I don't later wonder why I suddenly had a travel expense or entertaining cost. I also allow myself mistakes - oops, that was on the wrong page, cross out and rewrite.

When I'm awake enough I can then enter things onto the spreadsheet, but I've neglected this recently as I need to rethink some categories. No one needs as many as my spreadsheet has developed!

It's about finding what works for each of us and reassessing from time to time.

I agree it's about what works for each of us and we all process numbers in different ways but as long as we get to the correct number that's what matters. I used to clash with an ex over numbers because I had a method to calculating things which wasn't aligned with them but I used to be firm as my brain wanted to work it out my way haha

SuzeQStan

EatingBeans said:

I I decided to take a break and decided to visit my brother.

 I hadn’t spoken to him since before Christmas so I filled him in on some of the great deals I had come across in my quest for debt clearing. Even though we are in very different financial positions I never feel like he looks down on me for it which is nice. That said, I’m not sure if he secretly took pity on me this time as once I started talking about all the free food I’ve been getting from Olio, he did then buy me an Indian for dinner.

Bonus - you got a free Indian from your lovely DB 👍🏻

I’ve got people in my life who don’t understand my ol!o obsession either - they ask me - ‘are you ok? Do you need anything?’ 🙄

They dont grasp it’s about preventing food waste - the fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt either of course.  

EatingBeans

Thanks for all your lovely comments!

@Cherryfudge You are absolutely right, that bit of wall that is attached to the neighbours gate will indeed need to come down first. And that gave me an idea! Rather than ask for the neighbour to repair the wall (she is a lovely old lady who I get on well with and I have many reasons why I don’t want to risk upsetting her), I might just explain that I am removing that part of the wall for now due to safety reasons and she will need to find another way to secure her gate. That way, she will either have to get someone to fix the wall herself or I can just remove that section and not pay for any repair just now. For some reason I hadn’t considered just removing that section until your comment. Yes, it may look a bit unsightly but I am expecting it to be quite costly to fix as there is an old railing that goes along the top of the wall which would have to be taken out too, then the wall along the front would also need doing too and all needing to then have a new rail or more bricks added to avoid people entering the garden. It’s all a bit awkward because of where I live but actually just removing that section might be an option! 🤞

Spreadsheet fixing is a job for today. I had planned more gardening but I’ve woken up with a super sore throat and feel like I have caught a bug. Not the time to be pushing myself and potentially making the TN worse. Time for preparing as best I can for the week to try to avoid having to take any time off work. 

Sunshine_girl2

I avoid spreadsheets like the plague simply because I can’t create them . I am sure you will get yours sorted eventually. 

Really enjoying your diary, you are blessed with 2 lovely DDs . 

Cherryfudge

Good solution to the wall problem.

We've just had some virus and DH's version started with the sore throat. Rest was essential, also fluids and paracetamol. I believe in fighting it before it gets a hold, so antibacterial throat sweets too. I hope you feel better soon.

EatingBeans

I finally have a spreadsheet that balances to all my bank accounts again! 🎉 Crikey, it has taken a long time but totally worth it as I am beginning to feel better already (apart from the sore throat). At least I am back to feeling confident about what I can and cannot spent. Such a relief. 

Along the journey I realised that work has not being charging me for parking. This is odd and something I need to look into as the fine for not paying is about £75. I have had this happen before and it was due to their system not reading my number plate but I’m also conscious that I’ve had a few bank cards expire lately and don’t want that to be the reason else I may get fined! 

I also realised that I have still been charged for Ink, despite switching to Pay as you go. It seems to be because the printer isn’t connected to the internet so I checked the settings and realised I hadn’t updated the wifi details. Sadly, after many attempts with the very long password, and trying the button on the box, it still failed to connect. It kindly printed out an error sheet to tell me how to possibly resolve it but it lost me at MAC filtering. Another question for my brother bless him.