What, the curtains?

DancingUnicorn · 25 August 2018 at 1:12PM

beanielou In all honesty, I get my hair cut once a year (if that, it's been nearly 15 months since last time) and it's £15 or less so that'll just come out of the grocery budget or savings if and when I decide it needs doing

So far, I've not had to spend anything! But I'm not counting up my NSD's until September, as a teacher it makes sense to me to start a year then. I do need to fill the car up, but I've got a 10p off per litre ticket and I'll earn CC points so that feels very MSE :money:

I also need a new ironing board and I'm going new-job-clothes-shopping on Tuesday so my savings will take a little bit of a hit but at least I did a little overtime over this summer so that's helped towards the costs

I'll report back when I know what the damage has been!

Hoping to get back into meal planning and exercise next week. I'm a terribly fussy eater so I'm going to spend a bit of time getting some quick and easy recipes together that work well as leftovers :A

I also need to do a tax self-assessment. It's been a palava of them saying I owe £90 but it saying on the online account that I've paid the right amount so I can't pay it. Bit nervous as I have no idea what I'm supposed to do and I don't want to end up in trouble for unpaid tax (even if my account does say I don't owe anything! :mad: )

I think that's about it for now. Thanks for reading :beer:

LexieLou · 25 August 2018 at 2:30PM

Hello,

Just popping along to say Hi:beer:

LL xx

lindez · 25 August 2018 at 8:02PM

Hi Dancingwithunicorns,
just found your diary you are doing so well. x

DancingUnicorn · 2 September 2018 at 10:49AM

Hi all!

So, my "official year" started yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn't kick it off with a NSD, though I did buy much needed birthday cards in a 3 for £3 offer so I think that was pretty reasonable. I spent £60 on my new laminator and ironing board, which I don't think was too bad. Though work clothes shopping was not so good

I spent £130 all-in-all on trainers, 2 pairs of trousers, 3 tops and lunch while there. Eek!

I've signed up to do my tax self-assessment online. Apparently it takes a week for them to send the letter with the details I need to login with, so I'll look forward to that one arriving. :rotfl:

Paid my water and council tax today which has left very little in the savings (the water goes in there until paid quarterly) but I get my first wages at the end of this month so it'll start going up again soon

I'm considering going self-managed with my DMP. I'm hoping to up my payments to £150/month after payday. My lowest debt is £286 and I'm wanting to use the snowball method to get them all paid off ASAP. Ideally, I could offer £100 distributed between each debt, then pay the £50 as an extra payment. If I paid £50 towards this debt to begin with, alongside the extra it could be paid off in 3 months and I could move that payment towards my next debt. This would mean that if I did have a bad month (for whatever reason) I would have an extra £50 to put aside.
Also, looking at my snowball calculator, this would get my debt to below £9,000 by this time next year!

I'm not sure I've done all this right (I'm really tired and my mind is preocupied with back to work things) but I'm going to keep revisiting this and make a decision as to going self-managed.

I think I've waffled enough for today. Enjoy the end of the summer holidays everyone!

Red_Athena · 2 September 2018 at 12:07PM

Work clothes are expensive, but you seem to have got a lot for your money there, well done

DancingUnicorn · 4 September 2018 at 7:08PM

Another £14 spent on work trousers, but I think I'm about there for clothes (could do with some new shoes but they might just wait until payday!)

Today, however, was a NSD so that makes 2 NSD's for September so far (out of 4 that gives me 50% which is on target!) :beer:

I don't have any plans to spend (or even go near shops!) until the weekend now and I'm babysitting so it's unlikley I'll have a NSW (no spend weekend) but one can try. If I can stick to no spending in the week and small spends on weekends even that would be fabulous. I just love potting all my leftover money. I also hate breaking into large notes so try hard to withdraw £20's so that I'm even less likely to spend :A

Meal planning has been going okay - I just need to keep up with it and be careful with meats and salad as I have a tendency to get lazy and they go out of date. Another goal I should have is to try to waste less food!

Strange rattling noise coming from my car the last two days which does NOT fill me with joy. Hopefully get it to my friend over the weekend and he can have a look. Fingers crossed it's nothing expensive as I haven't got an emergency fund yet

TTFN!

DancingUnicorn · 5 September 2018 at 7:18PM

Another NSD in the bag! I was so tempted to pop to the sandwich shop at lunchtime today when I realised I hadn't remembered my sandwiches, but I cobbled together some biscuits and an apple and rolled with it.

Meal planning - not going so well! I forgot to get the mince out of the freezer for spag bol, but I think I have un-frozen ingredients for carbonara so that may be a good alternative.

I got some good and bad news financially:
Bad - I forgot to cancel my old car insurance and they've taken the £300 out of my account

Luckily the OH has offered to lend me this money until the refund comes back, otherwise I'd be up the creek without a paddle when my rent comes out!
Good - I got a letter from the dreaded H debt. Fully expecting bad news I only glanced at it, then realised it was them apologising for the way they dealt with my debts back in 2016 and crediting my account with £300! Yes, this doesn't mean £300 in my pocket, but it does mean my largest debt has been reduced by £300 which is amazing.

Stick to the plan, and good things will happen!