Life's a climb. But the view is great.

Morning. Last day of work before I am officially on holiday! Hurrah! Lots to do of course but at least no major pieces of work to get through. I do enjoy working from home though. I definitely save loads on clothes, travel and meals. I also like the peace and quiet.

So a finance roundup then:

* A few bills still have to go out, i.e gas and electric, insurance etc.

* All CC's have been paid so far except for 1. That DD does not go out until next week.

* My expenses were paid in today and I updated the budget. I decided to be realistic and allocate most of the money to the grocery and vacation budgets because lets face it, I am going to spend on holiday and I would much rather know I am spending money I allocated than keep rejigging the budget. So I have £155 for the vacation and £100 for groceries. I don't aim to spend all of the grocery money as we will need bits when we get back but the freezers have food so we should be OK.

So I was excitedly (yes I am being serious LOL) waiting for my Barclays card statement which arrived today and for the first time realised that any payments I make does not get shared among my various balance transfers. I have 7! all with varying 0% dates depending on when I made the transfer. In my head I assumed I would pay one big amount and then BC would take the minimum payment off each balance but this is not the case. I had inserted each balance transfer with the corresponding promotional offer into my snowball thinking I would be watching them each go down as my payment was allocated. Silly I know. BC is assigning all of my payment to the balance whose promotional rate ends first. Makes sense I suppose. Just goes to show how ignorant I am. I should have known this and I would have if I paid more attention to my statements!

The pet sitter comes around today. to meet kitty and pick up the keys, discuss expectations etc. Different one to last year. We are using the same company but they are independent contractors connected to the company. Always a bit nervous, last year was our first time using a pet sitter. It went well and kitty was happy. So we thought we would give it another go this year. While I like the security of a cattery I hate the thought of my cat being cooped up in a cage. I know some of them let them out but my kitty is an indoor cat and does not mix with other cats so I would prefer this to continue. At least this way she can roam around the house freely - her own territory. The sitter will come in twice per day to make sure she is OK and send us pictures. Still makes me nervous though having someone in my house.

Anyway, not much else to report. Happy Thursday!

Hi Paw, thanks for stopping by. Regarding the BC payments I don't think so because the balances are all so different. At my worst I kept making more debt and then shifted it to the BC. But I was doing it every 2 to 3 months and the offers were getting shorter and shorter so I will be having a few promotions ending before I have had time to pay them off. And there are no more offers around. Another consequence of my extreme stupidity.

Now MBNA are doing the exact opposite. I got my new statement yesterday and I can clearly see that they had deducted my payment from the large balance ending in 2020 but nothing for the £299 balance ending in Feb 2018. That makes no sense. I am going to phone them next week as I want to make sure I finish the balance whose promotion ends the soonest. It appears they go in order of which balance transfer was done first. I did the 2020 one first and then transferred a second smaller balance at a shorter period. I have learned one should not do balance transfers too close to each other.

So a worrying time for me. I just hope that when I finish my loan payment at the end of the month and that money goes into the snowball further BT's will become available as I have a massive amount accruing interest with HSBC.

Currently on holiday in Cornwall. Cottage is lovely. Spacious and clean. Very quiet which is great. We spent most of the day on the beach though it wasn't that hot. Minimal spend of £3.50 for ice cream for DD. We didn't lunch out but came back for an early dinner. OH is a great MS so of course made sure we found a free parking space.

I found a local tesco and used £43 of my grocery allowance for a some food as I want to cook as much as possible to avoid eating out. Even if we do eat out it will be KFC not a restaurant, no more than £15.

We brought the roku stick so DD and OH happy bunnies. It means we can all watch the shows we enjoy while relaxing in peaceful surroundings and enjoy a cheap film night.

Tomorrow off to the beach again if weather permits. Kitty is doing well. Cat sitter has been very good sending pictures.

I will check in again. Really want to keep money saving on my mind as I don't want to blow the budget. Bye for now

Hello, so I am back from a week in Cornwall. It was a relaxing break although the weather was horrible on a couple of days so we stayed in. On the bright side we probably saved some money. We visited Lands End which I enjoyed mostly for the gorgeous views from the cliffs. We had a couple of days at the beach - Porthminster and Portreath is wonderful.

Speaking of money - I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I stayed within budget. I had £60 for groceries and snacks which I spent over the week. We never really ate out during the week we were there. I also had £170 for other expenses. Of this I only spent £126. This was for west suit hire, body board, ice creams (extortionate!) etc

And now for the bad news...don't ask me how but I completely miscalculated the pet sitter fees. Somehow I only budgeted for 1 visit per day but I requested 2, so the fee was in fact £150! So the left over money from the vacation went to this and I also had to rejig a few other amounts in YNAB to make up the difference. I feel like an idiot because I had been saving up for months and the penny never dropped I had the wrong amount. I only counted days, not visits! Oh well - no major harm done, but annoying all the same. The pet sitter was great, he sent several photos at each visit and even included a video or two. We felt very reassured by him.

I am feeling a little down today though - looking at next month's budget and I realise while the bills will be paid there is very little left to add to the emergency fund which is at £694 (aiming for £1000) or funding my other "true expenses" eg vet bills, birthdays, clothes for DD etc. I also realise that some of my 0% promotional is coming to an end before I have paid them off and that will start interest charges. I did an MSE eligibility check not because I want to move money as I need to wait a while, having only just recently had a new car loan agreed but because it gives me an indication of where I stand according to others. And I was shocked...for the first time, the two top cards for me were the Aqua / Marble cards which of course have massive interest rates. But more importantly, it really hit home just what a mess I am in, if that's all I am good for. I feel like such a failure.

Right now there is nothing more I can do on the bill front but wait for pay day. Tomorrow will be a spendy day as I need to get DD' school shoes at Clarkes. I prefer to get a good quality shoe given that DD is in them for 8 hours - the last pair we bought lasted 2 years! So fingers crossed we can find something she likes and which is in my £40 budget. This is fortunately the last year for school shoes as she goes into Year 11.

Anyway that's it for me...Sorry for moaning...hope to be more upbeat in my next post