Time to clear the remnants of my old life

leftatthetrafficlights · 16 October 2021 at 7:54PM

Not sure how much 'squeezing' I'll be able to do next week- just ordered heating oil and the price is ridiculous!! 🙈 Admittedly, I have enough in the budget to cover it but I was hoping to put the anticipated 'leftover' cash into he debt fund - suffice to say there is no leftover cash!! 😮

savingholmes · 17 October 2021 at 12:25AM

I think a lot of people are finding heating bills problematic this year

leftatthetrafficlights · 21 October 2021 at 8:28AM

Hurrah! Pay day sorted so the remnants (£260) of the grocery and petrol budgets for the month transferred to the debt account 🙌
Much better than I expected to be honest but we've had most of our food from stores and garden and dh changing car has had a positive impact on the petrol budgets- hopefully we'll do well next month too! 😉

EssexHebridean · 21 October 2021 at 11:33AM

Inclined to agree with SH that regardless of what means you use for heating it's going to be a tricky one this winter. I re-set our electricity monitor last night with the new tariff rates and had a proper

moment when I saw what the new "baseline" cost is. Argh. Can only hope eventually things level out a bit, but I certainly can't see it being this side of the spring.

I sympathise with the car replacement too - we've had to replace both of ours in the past couple of years. My 12 year old Clio (had from brand new) gained a couple of significant issues which were going to start causing problems, and as she was going to be impractical past this month anyway because of the new London ULEZ zones we decided to cut our losses on her in early 2019. Mr EH's 16 year old Citroen C3 was rather more irritating - a bit battered and bruised, but still running REALLY well, we'd have been happy to have kept her but, again, for the ULEZ thing. Had to bite the bullet and replace back in August as time was running out. Frustrating to have to change a perfectly good car, but we have taken the opportunity to switch for something a bit larger which is probably more practical for longer journeys.

Looking forward to seeing your progress - and yes, with no interest to pay and very old debts there is definitely no benefit in not looking at F&F's as and when you can!

savingholmes · 21 October 2021 at 6:15PM

leftatthetrafficlights said:

Hurrah! Pay day sorted so the remnants (£260) of the grocery and petrol budgets for the month transferred to the debt account 🙌
Much better than I expected to be honest but we've had most of our food from stores and garden and dh changing car has had a positive impact on the petrol budgets- hopefully we'll do well next month too! 😉

Well done

leftatthetrafficlights · 28 October 2021 at 8:05AM

Another £200 to the debt account 🙌 we've had a pretty good first week this week- minimal grocery spends as most of the food has come from stores. Still got leeks, cabbage, chard and brussel sprouts in the garden along with a few lettuce leaves so will hopefully be able to keep this month's spends pretty low 😉

EssexHebridean · 28 October 2021 at 10:59AM

Good work - well done!

savingholmes · 28 October 2021 at 1:00PM

Fab payment. Great news on garden produce. Satisfying and MSE

leftatthetrafficlights · 21 November 2021 at 2:31PM

£307 added to the debt neutral fund 🙌 it's the surplus from the grocery and petrol budgets.

I've had an expensive month with garden work needing doing but I have a separate budget for that - still have some more to do next year but that money is sitting in the savings - it's going to be nice to finally finish the garden as we've been sorting the hardscaping for the past 18 months and I've got to the point where I want to start enjoying it rather than work on it 🙈😂

I'm tired at the moment- full of cold and not sleeping, I'm having a couple of days of chilling out and will hopefully be feeling normal again!!

savingholmes · 22 November 2021 at 12:36AM

That's healthy surplus. Good when you have pots for different spending. I have a cold too - so feel you on that one. Hope you feel better soon.

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Time to clear the remnants of my old life

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