Start of my journey

Scott-Weiland · 6 July 2018 at 10:12AM

Re PA it will taper off around July time this time of year is very busy as a lot of the research is done by universities and students completing dissertations.

Good luck on your journey.

If you enjoy doing surveys well maybe try these four sites they are all very reliable and pay quite well.

Opinium Research, surveys are 25p to 75p normally payout is at 25pounds

Opinionoutpost.co.uk, surveys are 5 points to 25points normally and at 50points you can draw down in cash via paypal £2.50

Power of opinions

And YouGov.

JonW1984 · 6 July 2018 at 8:05PM

Ah excellent thanks will do

JonW1984 · 9 July 2018 at 2:52PM

Monday update following a busy weekend.

Managed to repair my wall. In the end I had to remove about 15 bricks that were loose and then rake out all the crumbling mortar before rebuilding it. Ideally the whole wall needs taking down but I think I did enough to keep it safe for at least a few more years.

On the down side I realised that whilst I have plenty of bags of concrete in the garage I have no sand and cement so had to spend £9 at B&Q. Not too bothered though because it was needed.

Saturday was a BBQ with family and playing out in the garden, spent the remaining £9.65 of my "social" budget on frozen pizza and a few cans from Aldi. Sunday we ended up in the pub and spent £7.65 on 1 pint of beer, 1 lime and soda and a small apple juice

. Feeling a bit down that I've spent around £40 over the last few days on drinks and food that could have been better avoided.

I didn't get chance to do a big shop and am worried that I will end up using the Spar etc over the next few days so priority is to stock up at Aldi ASAP. OH working for next few nights so I won't have to spend anything. Panelbase continues to grow and currently at £31.16 although my overspend this weekend will use that up.

Looking forward to payday now, can't wait to see if I can achieve this month's budget. I'll then review what I've spent and rejig the figures, I think my budget this month has been a little ambitious but wanted to see if I could do it.

JonW1984 · 12 July 2018 at 10:56AM

Checking in, can't believe it's Thursday already. Sooo since Monday I have managed to avoid spending a single penny! (well sort of - see below). Thank goodness for mums, as OH was working my mum has invited DD and me up for dinner every night.

Will need to do a big shop tomorrow but the good news is that it's only 6 days til payday and I have a total of £42.59 available to spend (albeit I will need to put about £10 of petrol in the car). Feels like a fortune although I'm only too aware that it could evaporate in an instant if I'm not careful.

On the plus side I had an unexpected work trip so have a £10 expense claim coming my way.

My proudest win however is DD's new sleeping bag.

I'm going to take her camping for the first time soon and she needed a sleeping bag. I had budgeted on about £30 being spent next month for this but I received a £20.00 Amazon voucher for signing up to their Mastercard (don't worry I will close it as soon as it arrives!). As a result her sleeping bag cost me the grand sum of £8.60 which I am delighted about.

Just need to decide which camp site we're going to now and hopefully if it goes well we can have a few cheap weekends away.

Feel like I'm getting a little obsessed with my budget spreadsheet. I need to focus on one day at time but I keep finding myself dreaming 12 months into the future.

No spend days have also gone nicely hand in hand with alcohol-free days and rowing. I think the skills to manage money are exactly the same as managing diet and exercise and when I was training last night I felt like I could have gone far faster than I have in months. Onwards and upwards!

JonW1984 · 15 July 2018 at 7:58AM

Payday is so near... but feels so far

Did a big shop yesterday which included a big pork shoulder for pulled pork today. Hopefully will make a couple of meals out of that plus some for lunch.

Just cashed in my surveys for this month, have made a total of £38.41. Also had a £20 Amazon voucher so well pleased that I've generated an extra £58.41 this month. Will try and beat it next month.

Just need to avoid spending anything for the next 2 days. Final budget is on course to have paid £820.19 off this month which is about 5% of the total. Pleased with that and the whole month has made me feel far happier and focused.

OH working yesterday so DD and I blitzed downstairs. Moved all the furniture and gave everywhere a good hoover, must have hoovered up enough hair to make a new dog, yuck!

JonW1984 · 18 July 2018 at 9:51AM

So time for my first monthly summary. Love totting up and analysing the figures...

As of 18 June my overdraft was £3,522.51 and my loan was £12,666.78 (£16,189.29 in total).

Today, my overdraft is £2,952.13 and my loan is £12,432.21 (£15,384.34 in total).

Total paid off between 18 June and 18 July is £804.95 (£570.38 of which was from my overdraft).

I'm going to concentrate on clearing the overdraft first so looking at the £570.38 paid off this month that amounts to 16% of my total overdraft which is awesome. :j

My target for today was £2,917.00 so I'm £35.00 over budget but I'm pleased with that, as my food and social budget combined was £200.00 for the month which was pretty lean.

Total spends this month were:-

Food £136.62
Petrol £84.25
Alcohol (pub) £61.53
Alcohol (off licence) £38.54
Presents £14.18
Home repairs £10.58

Total additional income from surveys was £38.00 (of which I redeemed £29.67) plus a £20.00 Amazon voucher.

I think it's obvious where the room for improvement next month is!! We went to the pub 5 times in the last month and I can't believe how much it cost in total. Feel a bit gutted that £100.07 has gone on alcohol

Need to sort that out.

The last month has also been very cheap for entertainment for DD. Have factored in a bit more next month as she'll be on summer hols. I'll also need some new tyres at some point soon plus there are a couple of birthdas coming up.

I was charged £41.00 of overdraft interest this month and I'm in two minds whether to try and find a credit card with a 0% cash transfer offer. I'm conscious though that the cash transfer fee (assuming it's about 2.5%) would be £75.00 so there seems little point in doing it.

I'm still feeling a bit daunted by the amount to go but at this rate the overdraft could well be gone (or at least well under control) by the end of the year.

JonW1984 · 22 July 2018 at 10:37PM

One month since starting this diary!

OH on nights this weekend so had a good cheap outdoors weekend with DD. Went to a local National Trust estate and went for a long walk along the river. She loved searching for different insects and counting how many different types of seeds she could find on the different trees. Hopefully if the weather behaves we'll go camping next weekend.

After shopping and then lunch we went swimming. OH pays for our family gym membership, it's expensive but we all go frequently and the facilities are fantastic. Quite often when we go late on a weekend afternoon we have the smaller pool to ourselves.

Quite chuffed with my food prepping and shopping of late, today's big Aldi shop was £19.50 including a 1kg pack of chicken. They do some great sweet chili sausages that I've de-skinning and turning into meatballs. The leftovers are then incorporated into a tapas style dinner together with a 35p pack of cous cous, some home-made chicken nuggets and sliced chorizo baked with a sticky balsamic vineger glaze.

Off to bed shortly, DD had me up at 5:46am and we didn't stop all day!

JonW1984 · 24 July 2018 at 2:07PM

5 clear days since payday, 24 clear days to go...

Had my first no spend day since payday yesterday. Not done too badly but every day there seems to have been something that needed to be paid for. Managed to stay off alcohol and have trained most evenings, it's far too hot though and I've been a sweaty mess every time.

Hopefully going camping this weekend, something nice to focus on to get through the week.

JonW1984 · 2 August 2018 at 7:47AM

Nearly at the half way point between paydays. Feels like debt busting isn't going so well this month as I've already spent my month's budget for social

also didn't make it camping due to the weather.

My target for this month's overdraft was to be no worse than -£2419 but it looks like it'll be more like -£2500. I know that's still a big improvement on where I was last month so this is just me moaning as I wanted to hit my target!

Still, if I can get to -£2500 then I should be within striking distance of getting under £2000 next month which would be awesome.

JonW1984 · 7 August 2018 at 11:01AM

Checking in to stay accountable...

Had an expensive weekend, day at the horse races on Saturday. Had a few bets and came out £1 down overall so wasn't bad. Have overspent on a few other things though and I'd put off checking my bank for a few days. That's a major problem for me and in the past I've often been afraid to check it and then just buried my head in the sand.

I checked it this morning though and updated my spreadsheet and it wasn't quite as bad as I feared. Importantly I've updated the figures and going to keep on it for the rest of the month. Still (roughly) on course to save around £500 this month

Start of my journey

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free