Positive Balance: Focused on Budgeting

PositiveBalance · 11 March 2018 at 9:26PM

Soooo, I need to crunch numbers about my spending this past week but I have spent a long and involved afternoon cancelling my current crappy broadband and telephone line and mobile deal, on which I occasionally go over on data sending the bill skyrocketing.

I've ditched my current mobile deal of £10.49pcm. I still have a month to go so I haven't got a new pay monthly SIM (I don't want to get into any long contracts) but I look like I can get a similar number of £7.50 - £10.00pcm.

As for my broadband, I will get a similar services inc. much-needed international calls for £27pcm down from £40.99 (which is about to go up to £43pcm.) The £27 will go up to £28 in a few months, but I am good with that as it's still way cheaper.

I've needed to do this for ages so I'm glad that I have, but it just shows how ripped off I was being. Grr!

PositiveBalance · 2 April 2018 at 9:19AM

*Watches tumbleweed blow by*

It has been a while.

So, it has been a busy month (as per usual)..

Broadband/phone/mobile changeover: This has kicked in for the phone and broadband and will save me money but will cause me some cross-over expenses due to calls being calculate the month after or something like that and a small cross-over period on the mobile, which I have tried to keep as small as possible.

My new provider mucked up putting a call package on, so I've had a bit of fun with that, but it should all be resolved fairly shortly. I've also noticed that my broadband is marginally better, which is another added plus!

I have realised that I'm getting good at drawing up a budget but less good at reconciling my spends with the budget as the month progresses, particularly the food part, which is always the bit that gets the most hacking as it's an ongoing expense each week, not just something that gets paid once and then it's done with for the month.

Must. Do. Better.

I think I'm about £5.00 over on my food budget, and I'm quite a bit over on my transport budget as I took a relatively large number of trams last month. This is primarily due to me 'being on the last minute' so I need to sort that out as it's one of my biggest failings and costing me financially and in other ways. Of course, as a non-reconciler, I don't have any hard figures, so I'll have to try to get some and see what I have done right and wrong.

One thing that has changed is my mindset to budgeting: before if it had gone wrong I would have been tempted to so 'oh flook it' and thought 'well, if it's broken carrying on breaking it isn't so bad', but now I realise that it's a case of continuous improvement and so long as I'm trying to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them in order to change my way of handling money forever.

So, to the bad news: I've had £246.50 unexpected bills this month and it has wiped out all the 'extra' money I had in my budget for debt repayment. One bill was for £220 and is a one-off and the other was an annual renewal that I didn't know when would happen and, to be fair, I should have been salting a few pounds away each month to cover it, but it slipped my mind and therefore my budget. I'll add it in the annual category and then divide the amount by 12.

Debts can be another post as I'm aware that I tend to write essays not easily-readable small notes like most people, so I'll mention that it the next diary entry.

redofromstart · 5 April 2018 at 7:52AM

ha, ha I like essays best.

I also have to make numbers even. I am struggling that I evened up the savings pots, and the mortgage account but now there is an uneven amount in my current account.

Don't forget the debt update!

enthusiasticsaver · 5 April 2018 at 8:05AM

Do you use a spending app tracker to keep track of spends? That can give you an up to date figure as to how much you have spent over the month. It can go on your phone so always with you.

PositiveBalance · 12 April 2018 at 11:59PM

Sorry for disappearing...it has been quite an unbelievable few days!

redofromstart wrote: »

ha, ha I like essays best.

I also have to make numbers even. I am struggling that I evened up the savings pots, and the mortgage account but now there is an uneven amount in my current account.

Don't forget the debt update!

Are you more bothered about them being what they should be at or random pennies after the amount?

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Do you use a spending app tracker to keep track of spends? That can give you an up to date figure as to how much you have spent over the month. It can go on your phone so always with you.

I make a note of what I have spent on my phone as a note, but don't have an actual spending app. I'm trying to avoid getting sucked in to a subscription one like YNAB. Any free recommendations? I tried a few but found them a bit cumbersome.

Back to what I've been up to...

I have been saving all my spare money in a separate current account with a reasonable interest rate for my savings pots and for my emergency fund, which I knew I would need to empty to pay it onto my credit card before I apply for a new one at 0% in June (application in May to give me the most time to save up as much to pay off as much as possible before the transfer as I believe the nearer I am to 60% credit utilisation, the better my chances from what I've read).

My online credit score appears to be taking a lot longer than a month to update, so I've transferred the £635.49 I've managed to save over to my card. The min payment has also gone out bringing the balance down to £3997.51 which is good as it means that I have paid off over £1000 but is still less further along that I was hoping to be due to unexpected bills this month and in January.

This brings me down to just under 80% credit utilisation so I really hope this is enough the help me get a new 0% deal next month as I'm going away for a week next month so am literally only going to be able to pay off the bare minimum next month, although hopefully my credit report will be showing at under £4000 by then as I'm going to have to apply for the new 0% card.

Or not...in a fit of curiosity, I just called my CC company and they confirm that the end date isn't until July so perhaps I have a little longer to play with than I though. Result!

*Thinks hard*

Hmm....my plan was to build my £1000 emergency fund back up once I got the card transferred. This should now mean that I have enough time to put enough money to one side to get the card down to 60% credit utilisation (£3000) by then. Given the current balance of £3997.51 minus 3 months worth of minimum payments at £111pcm this means I need to find £638.51 extra between now and then, which is realistic and reasonable if I do overtime (and I will!) even counting a fairly dead month for extra repayments next month.

And now I think about it, I should hopefully get a small end-of-year work bonus (no idea how much, or when) at some point, which would also help.

Oh I do love it when a plan comes together! :j

It's not going quickly, this debt repayment, but it is going in the right direction.

As soon as the card has been transferred, I will get my Dave Ramsay style £1000 starter emergency fund back in place and crack on putting enough money to one side to repay the card in full.

Next things next...need to change my gas/electricity to a new supplier before my current deal runs out next month.

Give me until Sunday/next week as I'm rather busy for the next few days.

Hope you all well.

PositiveBalance · 23 April 2018 at 12:45AM

Sooo tired..heading off to bed.

Had a really busy day with tremendous amounts of cleaning and cooking. The only pity is that I've barely scratched the surface! :eek:

Spends this month are just erring into 'just over budget' but I'm not sure where, exactly - I think a bit too much transport and I'm not sure where else. Probably food. (Guess who needs to reconcile her accounts more?!)

And I just found out that I am due £13.39 cashback from a cashback website. Woo hoo! Part of me desperately wants to pay it off my CC and the other part of me wants to put it to one side for the very expensive month that is coming in 7 days. What to do, what to do...

PositiveBalance · 27 May 2018 at 1:11PM

Hi guys,

Well, it has been a while!

And a very busy month it has been as well.

I went on holiday for a week this month. It was truly lovely (as was the weather!) but cost me the absolute fortune I expected it to. I still managed to pay off £88.15 off my credit card due to some panic-raiding of my terrimundi and my change pot, so I guess it could have been worse. It has still left me really tight until the end of the month, though!

This brings my CC balance down to £3818.43.

There other news: in a fit of post-holiday pique I worried about getting a new 0% so I applied for one with Santander. They have offered me £3100 zero percent for 27 months with no transfer fee (hurray!) but given my current balance and the fact that I can only transfer a maximum of 95% of that credit limit (£2945) and I am highly unlikely to be able to pay off all of the difference between now and then I applied for another: MBNA have offered me £2000 at 0% for 12 months and with a 3% balance transfer fee. This is all 'subject to some additional checks' which makes me wibble a bit and I have 60 days to make the transfer, so I trying to pay off as much as I can between now and then to minimise how much the 3% will cost me at the time of transfer. (My existing deal runs out mid July so I have 2 pay packets between now and then.)

I'm still waiting for the cards to arrive. The Santander one is apparently on the way but I'm still waiting to hear back from MBNA.

So...onto this month's calculations. As part of my pre-holiday panic I raided some pots including the house insurance fund which is due in September so I now have to fill that pot back at a much higher rate between now and September to stop me ending up with a massive bill in September (but I'm so tempted just to pay it all off the CC and stockpile cash from my July and August pay packets to pay that. Would that be so bad? £125ish a month should be doable once I have more capital paid off the card and save myself the 3% fee.)

Lesson learned on annual pot supplying, methinks. (Yeah, right...see below! :rotfl:)

Right, so here is this month's budget. I'm gutted cos I've earned a lot this month (by my standards) but due to a hefty expense of new glasses and a guestimate budget of £150 I'm not getting to pay a lot extra off the CC. It's a bi-annual expense. I think I might need a new pot. *Cries*

I've also created a few extra pots for cat jabs (due January) and my mobile insurance which is only £40.00/yr and due in August. Once the mobile insurance is paid I will divide the £40.00/yr by 12 and put that away in a pot each month with the rest of my annual bills.

Income: £1507.74
Mortgage: £267.06
Council tax: £87.52
Water: £27.90
Gas & electricity: £50.00
Food: £200.00
Broadband/landline: £37.17
Mobile: £8.50
Transport: £73.00
CC minimum payment: £111.00
Union subs: £8.96
Exercise class: £26.00
Clothes: £50.00
Holidays: £50.00
Presents: £50.00
Fun: £50.00
Prescription: £8.80
Cat flea treatment: £4.00
Work lottery: £10.00
Charity: £5.00
House insurance pot: £83.33
Mobile insurance pot: £20.00
New glasses: £150.00
Work milk kitty: £5.00
Cat jabs pot: £4.60
Total bills: £1387.84
DIFFERENCE: £119.90

My CC min payment is £87.89 but I upped my min payment to £111 as that is what it was at a while ago plus a pound and it was easier to keep it at that (I changed it last month and had a heart attack as I accidentally paid less than the min payment but accidentally cleared it due to making an additional payment on top. That would have truly screwed up my credit rating and made getting a new card very difficult indeed. Never again!)

If I take this min payment and the £119.90 difference between what I earned and what I have budgeted my CC balance should be £3587.53. This is £642.53 more than the 95% I am allowed to transfer over to the Santander CC. There's no way I will be able to pay this off next month on my wages.

So here's some crazy thinking...would I be mad to take the money from the house insurance pot this and next month (£166.66 in total for both months) and pay that off the CC? I'll also have next month's CC min payment (£111) to go with it (total £277.66 for the two) which would leave a £364.87 difference between what I can transfer to Santander and what will remain on the existing CC. (I could probably shave the clothes fund for this month as well as I already made some much-needed purchases before going on holiday which would bring the difference down to £314.87.)

I could also – temporarily – hang fire, but that won't feed my instant gratification monkey, so I'm not sure that's an option!

I could be being paranoid, but the fact that I have heard nothing more from MBNA and the 'extra checks are making me a bit wibbly in the tummy region. I'm not sure why, but they are.

In other things...should also have £26.99 partial refund on a joint present and £51.26 coming from my old broadband/phone provider, but I'm still waiting to get that and it has been ongoing for a while now. *Insert eye rolling smiley*

That could potentially take it down to £236.62 but if they both come down, I'd be likely to leave the clothes pot money alone as I would be highly likely to be able to pay that entire amount off with my overtime next month.

What to do, what to do...

Advice on a post(card), please!

PositiveBalance · 27 May 2018 at 1:20PM

[STRIKE]1) Chase broadband/landline refund[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]2) Speak to current broadband/landline provider to get access to online account[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE] 3) See what new provider bill is more expensive than it should be[/STRIKE]
4) Cat insurance
[STRIKE] 5) See about present refund[/STRIKE]
6) My insurances
7) Airline complaint
8) Mortgage broker complaint (speak to 3rd party first)
9) Bank complaint
10) The rest of life!

PositiveBalance · 27 May 2018 at 2:31PM

Blimey, things have changed in the last hour or so since I posted.

I'll be back with explanations soon!

enthusiasticsaver · 27 May 2018 at 9:06PM

I personally would rather just balance transfer to one credit card rather than two so would tighten my belt for the two months to get the balance down to the £2945 even if it means no new clothes and raiding the insurance pot. You could pay minimums to try and rake together insurance money in September or last resort stick it on the Santander card providing there was room. That balance should be repayable within the 27 months so no more balance transferring.

Positive Balance: Focused on Budgeting

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