DD's accountability thread

DD265 · 18 June 2018 at 3:05PM

Oh yes there's always something! Luckily I can claim mine back; before introducing the cash plan, we could claim our eye tests on expenses. I ordered the glasses last night for £92 including lenses, which gets me the frames I liked best. I will put off shopping for polarised sunglasses until I see how this online thing works out, but also I will have to contribute towards the cost of those so I can't afford them yet. Buying sunglasses is worse than glasses because I have to go for bigger frames, and I like small ones. :rotfl:

Sold another item on FB for £20 which has already been collected. That's £131 so far. :T Still got some more horse related stuff to list which I'm hoping to do tonight. Then I have a bit of wedding stuff to finish off, and some random clothes which I may end up donating instead - I'd like to get all of that done this week then tidy the spare bedroom ready for the family visit.

Next week I'll start preparing the collection I am selling at the convention in October. I need to clean some/all of the items and make sure they'll present well, plus I need to get some up to date price checks. I can do that by asking on an online forum, so chances are some of the items might sell before October on the back of that. I did thin out the collection a lot 3.5 years ago, but it still feels like a big undertaking.

I wish it were pay day this week; I want to order my new passport! I can leave it a week without panicking, at least. I could take money out of savings for it, but my concern with doing that is I am still robbing Peter to pay Paul, it just happens that I'm Peter in this scenario as well as myself. :rotfl: I've done it for the glasses, but I know I'm going to get reimbursed for those, as opposed to having to deduct it from my salary next pay day.

beanielou · 18 June 2018 at 5:09PM

Will be very interested to hear how the glasses go.

DD265 · 25 June 2018 at 8:47PM

Turns out that in practise my glasses have more of an impact than I thought; I can't read the temperature on the thermostat now when I'm sat at my desk (I'm slightly long sighted) and had to take my glasses off to see how warm it was. :rotfl:

They arrived today from InternetSpecs.co.uk. I sent off an old pair to get the papillary distance measured so it probably took a couple of days longer than it might've otherwise, but I'd say a week is good going and about what I'd expect from a high street opticians. I'd already tried the frames in person so I knew they'd fit etc. The lenses seem good enough, I think they're Kodak which is at least a brand I recognise!

In other MSE news.. we did our last food shop of the month at the weekend and still have a bit of money left in the household budget without me subbing the account at all this month so I'm pleased with that. Apart from that, it's been a quiet one which is good I guess.

I still have some thank you cards to write, my name change to sort with Skipton (the guy on live chat lied about a photo of my passport being OK and they want the real thing...), and some horse stuff left to sell. I'll get there :cool:

DD265 · 25 June 2018 at 9:29PM

Blatent double post coming right up; I've just been thinking about targets for next month.

My emergency fund is at £370.78 - I'd love to make this up to £500. I pay in £50 a month anyway plus the Lloyds Save The Change so I'm looking at <£80 on top; should be doable! I actually have £90-odd sat in my PayPal account right now, but I like to get it to £100 before I withdraw so I need another online sale to hit that.

The MBNA card is at £1996.10 - ideally I'd like to round this down to £1800 but I can settle for it being under £2k and that might be August's target so I don't overstretch myself because I also need to get my passport sorted. I set my direct debits up for £100 a month, so I like to see the round numbers!

The Barclaycard is up at £3225.60 - I want to get this down to £3k, so that's £125.60 extra to find. If I can do it, £2900 would be fab but I think that's pushing it. Personally I find that breaking the next 'number' is a great motivator. :cool:

I have a 'play' budget in YNAB which I call basic salary. I have all the categories from my actual budget in there (I've duplicated the original file so I get all the data set up for me, but I only tend to mess about with it every few months) and then I know that this is the minimum I'll have coming in and this is how the month might look. I find it very hard to undo/unpick something you've done in YNAB, so I try and be extremely careful when I make changes. This way, I'm not risking or confusing my actual budget but I can have a good play around with scenarios.

Based on what I've just worked out, over payments to the Barclaycard and savings (beyond direct debits/standing orders) are most likely going to have to come from selling stuff but it feels achievable. As well as needing to renew my passport (which is cheaper than I thought), I've got the dentist and can't claim that back as blew the cash plan on two white (ergo private) fillings, plus waxing and hair cut all in the same month as I've a works event to go to. We also have a slightly bigger food budget next month (and no cat litter/biscuits to buy) which is good as it's a 5 weekend month.

I do find that YNAB isn't the best for letting you plan way ahead and I understand why, but sometimes it's useful to get a heads up.

DD265 · 28 June 2018 at 6:15PM

I've seen on the MSE email a £33 off code for Glasses Direct. I would still benefit from polarised sunglasses and as I have £63 left on my healthcare cashplan, going for the £49 frames plus the polarised lenses with UV protection, I'm looking at being out of pocket by about £10-15 which is not bad for a £100+ pair of glasses! I've ordered the two pairs I like on a home trial and am hoping they'll arrive by Saturday so I can use the code. If not, I'll just place my order on Saturday anyway but withhold my prescription so they can't process it although they have a good returns policy anyway.

I'm just updating the my budget for the end of the month as it's pay day tomorrow. I have a whopping £11.28 left in my account so I'm going to transfer that into savings tomorrow. Managed to finish the month with £26.57 left in the food/household budget which I'm really pleased about as normally I'm moving money around or subbing the account. There was definitely a bit of unnecessary spending, but I'm starting to plan our meals taking cost into account rather than just going 'we haven't had that for a while'. I know a beef joint is more expensive than a chicken or gammon, so in those weeks when we want beef, I won't be buying lamb chops as well!

I have sold a couple of items from my collection too, the one I'm intending to get rid of at the convention in October. As a result of me asking about prices in an online community, somebody has been in touch to buy. We've agreed prices, I just need to dig them out and calculate the shipping costs as they're off to the US so I'm going to try and do that later.

Gemsy81 · 28 June 2018 at 8:02PM

DD265 - you sound like you're doing great, and well done on the groceries....I absolutely failed on my groceries budget, so I am ready for being ridiculously tight next month!!

I'm quite like you in that at the moment, I am having to look for extra ways to overpay. Its ok now, but I have to keep this up, I'm going to have to come up with some fresh ideas for when I have sold everything!

DD265 · 29 June 2018 at 9:56PM

Yes I don't know what I'll do when I run out of things to sell.. Either let the momentum slow down or I'll maybe have to take on extra work or that's the point when I might stop the personal training. Will cross that bridge when I get there, it's a way off!

So one less expense in July - the dentist has cancelled my appointment (again) and I've to call for one in 3 months by which time they might have replaced my dentist but will probably have a backlog so I'll be lucky to get an appointment this year. I do have the hygienist coming up and no issues so I'm irritated rather than worried. I was tempted to look for a different one, but I might leave it until we move given that's hopefully going to be within a year.

I put July's cat food order in earlier, which I get through Zooplus. I always go through Quidco for cashback, and they had an extra £2.50 bonus which I activated so hopefully I'll get that too. Then we had some loyalty points expiring on Zooplus so I got the boys a couple of windowsill mats for free; got to be less hassle than the blanket we use!

I got paid and have updated my budget so I feel confident that I can cover everything off even if there's a little less leeway than I might like. I've taken £66.93 out of my PayPal account and put it into savings; this means that on Monday when my standing order goes in, I'll have £500 in there. :beer: My other target for July is to get £225.60 paid off the Barclaycard which will take it down to £3000.00 - I've got £100 set aside for my direct debit so I just need to find the balance from sales. I'll probably aim for £96.10 off the MBNA card too, so that'd then be £1900. Nice round numbers :rotfl:

mark55man · 29 June 2018 at 10:33PM

well played - I love round numbers too.

I just got my Virgin CC down to a nice round number £0000. But not boasting too much as I let my sainsbury's 0% purchase CC take some (7K) of flak so more of a sideways but downwards shuffle for 2 years more at 0% at no BT Fee. 2 years should see it dead and buried. that will leave whats left of the car loan by then and the mortgage

DD265 · 30 June 2018 at 11:36PM

I did similar in May as my interest free period was up in June - so although the credit card balances are higher than I would like (that being £0), they are at least interest free. I got a letter from Barclaycard today saying they're going to up my credit limit in August which is good as it means that the card is no longer going to be near enough maxxed out.

We've had to have a pest controller in; there is a moth infestation in the apartment buildings and we got got too. The landlord has paid for it so there was no cost, but we spent the day moving things around so he could treat the carpets. We haven't yet put it all back; that'll be a job for tomorrow! I took the opportunity to take a couple of things to the tip and a load to the charity shop too. I've already clocked some other items which I was hanging on to with the intention of selling them but I may donate them just to get rid; or as a lot of it's clothing, do one of those cash for clothes things.

My trial glasses didn't arrive today despite being despatched yesterday, so I've put the order in for both pairs and will cancel one next week. I used PayPal's Pay After Delivery, which means I have two weeks before payment is due so in theory I won't end up paying for more than one pair at all. I went through Quidco too, so in addition to the £33 discount I'll hopefully get 4% cashback as well. :cool:

DD265 · 2 July 2018 at 6:28PM

Sold a couple of horse rugs today, so withdrew £100 from PayPal and have paid it off the Barclaycard. My direct debit is still to go out, but that will put it at £3025.60 - so close! I thought about just paying the £25.60 today, and decided to hold off just because if I get caught short I'll either have to dip into my £500 savings or use a credit card and I don't want to have to do either.

I've bagged up some books for the charity shop, but I'm going to check the prices first for selling them online. I doubt any of them are worth much (no first editions of Harry Potter here!) but they might add up.

The rest of any income came in today, including OH's contribution to our joint account so I've been able to finalise the budget for the month. I put a bit more onto our Sainsbury's card (5% discount) and the Tesco card (4% discount) - we used the Tesco card for our weekly shop yesterday and OH paid the balance out of his account - it was only £17something in total. I'm away Thursday & Friday nights for a works event so fewer meals to plan! Pasta is a key feature however; the butchers do some really nice Italian sausages which are pork, tomato and a herb blend, which are gorgeous in a homemade pasta sauce. Bit different to the bacon we usually go for and it ends up making a very cheap meal.

I have a mountain of washing to get through, it's up to my waist! Just haven't been able to get to the washing machine this weekend, or had any space to put the clothes horse up. Mom kindly took several loads (things like towels and dressing gowns) and is doing them for us rather than me taking them to the launderette. The problem we have isn't so much the washing as the drying as we've no garden, but I'm going to get OH to help me put the bedroom furniture back tonight and then I can hopefully fill the clothes horse tomorrow.

I really enjoy the start of a month because it feels like progress, but the rest of it gets really dull. :rotfl:

DD's accountability thread

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