Tea's 'Where has it gone' diary

[Deleted User]

Purpletea65 wrote: »

As I am joining Hypno and the rest of the gang in the housework challenge thingy, I thought that I’d better devise some sort of list so that I know where I am up to; so for today I am aiming to complete the following:

• [strike]Clean bathroom totally[/strike]
• Hoover house totally – not doing today
• [strike]Clean all glass, e.g patio doors, dining room table etc[/strike]
• [strike]Polish everywhere downstairs[/strike]
• [strike]Clean kitchen[/strike]
• [strike]Order shopping online for Friday [/strike]

Extra’s that I plan to do are:

• Drink tea – still going
• Eat biccies – not done yet
• [strike]Ring DS’s primary school regarding his school uniform for September[/strike]
• Make dinner for tonight…creamy peppercorn chicken from a jar in the cupboard

I haven’t vacuumed upstairs as I can’t be bothered, but instead I have sorted through the washing and put aside clothes that don’t need ironing and have put another load in the tumble dryer and a load in the washer. I have heard it told that there will be a few days of dryness this week, so I plan to put the sheets on the line that day.

The good thing is that I haven’t spent anything today and even though the mortgage and DH’s car payments came out of the account and we are now in the OD, this is good because normally by now we’d have been in the OD by Saturday.

Lula-Hula

Hi purpletea,

just read your thread & very interesting & inspiring it is too .

Was wondering if the flying club you go to is Fairoaks ? I live near there & am determined that when I am a Debt Freebie I shall charter my own plane from there to go on holiday :rolleyes: .

Re your OHs anti smoking equipment, could he not get it for free at the local docs ? I used the nicorette stuff for a while & have now been completely smoke free for 7 weeks, which is a relief as I was actually spending more on the nicorette gum than I was on cigarettes per week :rolleyes: .

:shhh: but I quite agree with you about homemade curry, it's just not the same but DD loves seeds of change tika masala sauce & quorn rather than chicken so fairly cheap.

Keep planning & posting, you're doing well

lula x

chevalier

my comments are in blue

Purpletea65 wrote: »

DH salary £2817.00
Child benefit £125.40 what income are you getting from ebay/car boots/ surveys etc. Are you still doing these? If you want to be debt free quicker, could you get a job in the evenings so as to not pay out more childcare?
Total £2942.40

More Than (home ins) £35.28
Royal & Sun Alliance (DH car ins) £44.76
Royal & Sun Alliance (my car ins) £35.62 – will go down to £31.11 from next month both these insurances are really expensive per month. Even going down to £31. I paid £183 for the YEAR for fully comp, with protected no claims. You can do better than this unless you have points/under 25/powerful expensive car? My deal was with Diamond. And there are some policies now where if you have more than one car insured with them you get a discount. If you look on the moneysupermarket.com or similar to do a comparison I am sure you will find cheaper. Also then actually buy it via www.quidco.com or www.topcashback.co.uk and you get money back on top of the saving you make.:D
DH eyecare plan £10.00
Water £29.42 – April to November
Insurance £114.23was this REALLY the best price you could get for them? Does your OH have a dangerous job? If this is for a lump sum if he dies, then check it will pay out if he is at work on a site (ie dangerous environment). Also he isn't self employed is he, as a lot of insurances don't cover self employed people.
Life insurances £152.67 Is this to pay off the mortgage if anything happens? If so then again check you are not over insured. On the main site there is an article about term insurance I think it is called, where the amount covered goes down with your mortgage repayments so that it is cheaper, than just having a fixed amount as the pay out.
Council Tax £143.00 – April to January you can ask for this to be put over 12 months to ease the monthly burden
Mortgage £932.15 is this repayment or interest only
DH car £185.55 – year & 1.2 left
Sky t.v & broadband £29.00 do you REALLY need this Cbeebies is available on Freeview
Gas/electric £53.00
Capital One £100.00 – this will change from next month to min amount.
Mobiles £53.72 – contract not pre-pay, DH will not swap if he won't swap to a cheaper tariff then he has to find the difference to pay for what he has. If any of this is business phone use then can he ask for his company to pay some of the tariff.
Home phone bill £22.20
Groceries & Alcohol £300.00 approx now here is where you and I are going to fall out. You mention at one point about OH and DS coming home from a wedding and that you had two bottle of wine ready, you only had a glass and OH didn't open his. Do you really mean to tell me that you drink a bottle of wine EACH at a go? So if there was an emergency who would drive? You regularly mention about doing really well cos you got wine/ alcohol at a bargain price, yet many people would say that alcohol is a LUXURY not an necessity. How much would you save a month if you didn't buy alcohol? How much healthier would you be? I would cut this out until you are debt free.
Petrol £209.00 roughly
DH Nic-Assist gum £136.00 – I know and he is trying if he doesn't like the nicorett, what about patches? He can get them on the NHS. And couldn't he get a private presciption for the nic - assist stuff. That would at least save him the vat? Or could he alternate between nic assist one go and ordinary chewing gum the next? That way one lot would last longer. This is a huge amount to be paying out. I know it is way better than smoking, but really the point of giving up is go get healthy AND pay less out surely? Also has he been back to the docs to see if there is an alternative on prescription to the nicorette, would save loads.

Total £2586.16

We should have £356.24 per month left over of which £100.00 is paid to his sister for the ‘family loan’. There is also £100 excess to come out of that this month too as I am seeing a consultant about my back and this is through DH’s work health insurance. Are you doing a spending diary to see where the other £256 is going a month. This would significantly start to pay your way out of your overdraft if you could identify what you are spending this on and manage to cut it back.



So that leaves us with £256.24 this month to last us until DH gets paid again in September.

I am ordering the shopping online and have found that it is cheaper especially when I can get a free delivery code and I buy the fruit and veg from the local market.

Even though we still go to the pub, we have now stopped the take aways as roughly £200 per month was being spent there :eek:

Well done on stopping the £200 a month on take aways! That is a great achievement. If you go over the the Old Style forum on this site, there is a whole thread somewhere about making curry cheap at home. But also there is lots of advice about cheap meals etc, to help as well.

You also need to work out a budget for car tax/mot/birthday/xmas etc as this is maybe where some of the unaccounted for money is going to.

A comment about the credit cards. Having 50k available credit is no good for your credit score. If you want to change mortgages etc, then having this much available will count against you. If they are all clear now thanks to the family loan, then I suggest that you close down 3 of them, and keep the other for emergencies. Your OH worry about the house falling down and so needing this much available credit is why you have building insurance surely......?

sorry if anything I have said is a bit harsh, but I wanted to make you really think about what is A NEED and what is A WANT

[Deleted User]

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Hi purpletea,

just read your thread & very interesting & inspiring it is too .

Thanks, I thought it made good bed time reading to be honest lol

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Was wondering if the flying club you go to is Fairoaks ? I live near there & am determined that when I am a Debt Freebie I shall charter my own plane from there to go on holiday :rolleyes: .

Nope, DH works at Biggin Hill

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Re your OHs anti smoking equipment, could he not get it for free at the local docs ? I used the nicorette stuff for a while & have now been completely smoke free for 7 weeks, which is a relief as I was actually spending more on the nicorette gum than I was on cigarettes per week :rolleyes: .

Thanks for the tip will pass on to him

Lula-Hula wrote: »

:shhh: but I quite agree with you about homemade curry, it's just not the same but DD loves seeds of change tika masala sauce & quorn rather than chicken so fairly cheap.

Am always on the look out for a good tikka mix, so may give that one a go, thanks.

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Keep planning & posting, you're doing well

lula x

Still a lot to learn but hopefully something is sinking in.

[Deleted User]

Hi Chevalier,

Thank you for your honesty; no harshness just another way of thinking things through which is always appreciated.

Turning to my income, this is non-existent – I haven’t E-bayed anything for a while now as things just weren’t selling and both myself and DH haven’t been keeping up with the surveys with the recent things that have been happening this past few months. Still keeping an open mind about the evening job and haven’t found anything suitable just yet.

My car insurance is the cheapest I can get it down to; I have had two accidents in four years and have only one years no claims. For both cars and the home/contents insurance as they are with the same company we got a discount and when I changed the home insurance we also got £25 vouchers.

With regard to the insurances they are the cheapest deals at the moment, there is a history of cancer on DH’s side of the family; DH’s father and aunt have both died from it plus DH is asthmatic. On my side my dad had Di-Polar disease and also died from a stroke.

DH works on a building site so there is a higher premium for that as well as his interest in Aviation, we have a very good FA who will not sell us something if we cannot or do not want it.

We also have a decreasing mortgage insurance which I think is lumped in with the life insurances and I believe changes each year when they review it.

Council tax – Our’s won’t do it over 12 months when you pay by DD, this is something that I looked into shortly after I took over the finances.

Mortgage is a repayment mortgage, we will probably look to re-mortgage again next year when this deal runs out.

Mobiles – DH has a work phone which is paid for by them, DH still has his personal phone which is rarely used and the rest is mine. I just need to be a bit more conscious when I text not to over do it.

Grocery/Alcohol budget – I know that this need improving. We don’t always drink a full bottle of wine each but some days we come pretty close. I know it is luxury but not totally prepared to give it up just yet. I agree with you about the potential of an emergency and health issues and we never used to be this bad, I have lapsed lately with the cutting down on it because of all the stress that has been going on but am going to make a concerted effort to try again.

I haven’t thought about the car taxes/MOT’s/Birthdays, etc and I have an account for Christmas which get ploughed with money at the beginning of the year and gradually reduces as and when I buy things, leaving us with enough money left for the food come December.

We have another account which I am trying to build up to use as an emergency fund and any extra money gets put in there when I can.

Do I need another one for the other things? If so, what would be an acceptable amount to put aside each month??

We will get on top of things slowly and all help is appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Just a brief update before I wander off in to the kitchen to put the kettle on and wash up.

I have just altered my order with Asda and saved about £5 there, which I was only buying for the sake of it.

However, I nipped to Tesco's with DD once I'd dropped Ds off at pre-school and got some milk and yogurts and choc bars for DH lunches and kids treats.

I have also sorted the change out in my purse and put £1 coin in my terramundi and some shrapnel in the demi-john.

Will update later if I get chance.

[Deleted User]

Morning all <<yawn!!>>

Very tired today as didn’t sleep very well last night.

Didn’t get chance to update yesterday as the afternoon got rather hectic, the kids and I spent an hour or so at the park with DS’s friends from pre-school and I had my appointment with the consultant.

The news with my hip is that I have to have an MRI scan on Friday as the consultant believes that I have a slipped disk with in turn is causing sciatica. I then have to have a follow up appointment next Tuesday evening with the consultant to find out what he plans to do next….oh well at least it’s being paid for by someone else so that’s one less worry.

Anyway on to today.

The kids and I are meeting a friend for playtime at the park, if it stays dry that is otherwise it will be the local soft play centre.

I have defrosted a nice leg of lamb that I am going to cut up and make hot pot with for dinner tonight…DH can then take some for lunch tomorrow.

DH gave me two £2 coins last night which went into the terramundi and today he left some change for the demi-john and also gave the kids some change for their money boxes.

[Deleted User]

Just checked the bank online and have discovered that my car insurance is cheaper than I thought. They took out £30.47 as opposed to the £31.11 I thought that they were going to take.

Okay I know it's not much but it's better than nothing.

Lula-Hula

Purpletea65 wrote: »

Just checked the bank online and have discovered that my car insurance is cheaper than I thought. They took out £30.47 as opposed to the £31.11 I thought that they were going to take.

Okay I know it's not much but it's better than nothing.

Hi, every penny counts when you're a DFW & my granny reckons that if you take care of the pennies , then the pounds will take care of themselves Which is where I've gone wrong all my life, never had any time for money that doesnt fold until I became a DFW :rolleyes: .

I'll be off air for the next week but do hope all goes well with your scan & follow up appointment

take care
lula x

[Deleted User]

Morning All,

My hip is fairly sore this morning not too sure what I over did to make it ache like it is, I’m a bit apprehensive about tomorrow; I’m not too sure about being in a tube with magnets….DS’s best friends (he’s only four!) mum is taking DS into school for me I only have to drop him off.

Anyway on to today:

Once I have dropped DS off at pre-school I am going to the next town to the local market for the veg and fruit. We are going to drop in on a friend of mine too as him and his wife has bought DD a present and a card for her birthday tomorrow.

Whilst I am there I need to buy some toothpaste from the cheap shop, they sell Colgate Total for £1 and it’s the decent size tubes too not the tiddley ones. I also need to get some more baby wash and baby bubble bath from Boots.

Oh and DH has been doing the surveys again, I just need to get my backside in gear and get some done.

Will update later when I get back.