Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

Suffolk_lass · 7 January 2018 at 9:38PM

Have you looked into being a member of one of the other National Trust International Members that give you reciprocal membership for a lower cost? I have been looking at this page https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/overseas-organisations and there is a list of other organisations at the bottom.

mumof3.12kindebt · 9 January 2018 at 2:32PM

love reading your diary. Well done on the debt payments.

Happy New Year to you all x

XSpender · 9 January 2018 at 6:08PM

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Have you looked into being a member of one of the other National Trust International Members that give you reciprocal membership for a lower cost? I have been looking at this page https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/overseas-organisations and there is a list of other organisations at the bottom.

Thanks for the link, I will check it out. We should really consider whether we continue with membership as we don't use it often but at £40 to visit our favourite site we only need to go 3 times per year to make a saving.

mumof3.12kindebt wrote: »

love reading your diary. Well done on the debt payments.

Happy New Year to you all x

Thanks mumof3 and Happy New Year to you too!

I have spoken to the bank and they have rectified the allocation of my big payment to the Lloyds card so it is now all on 0% :T

Had a good meeting at work and have had some great feedback today which has eased the pain of the project restructure we will go through in a couple of months. No risk to my job (in fact it is more secure than before) just a change to my current project (the joys of consultancy work) but I am looking at it as a positive and it has made me think about career progression when I have been stagnating (coasting:o) for a while and the confidence to ask for a pay rise which I have Bob Hope and Nee Hope of getting (another joy of consultancy work) but shy bairns get nowt

The water drinking is going OK but I do feel I am eating more, I think this is because a cup of warm water isn't as satisfying or comforting as a cup of tea. DH who likes a drink and his coffee feels like a new man! He is actually eating less :mad:

Not much debt busting happening as I am £65 over budgeted on YNAB. I am going to ask DH if we can add back in £30 each of our personal spends to cover it. I have £12.18 of account interest and TCB that I want to pay to the CC as well but since the account is short this might not happen. I am loathe to raid all the pots to cover the over budget or dip into the EF so it will have to come from somewhere.

I seem to have not put my debit card back in my purse and since DH lost his before Christmas and still hasn't rung up for a replacement we may be forced into a frugal fast!:rotfl:

XSpender · 10 January 2018 at 9:38AM

Today I am going back on SW, I feel flabby and only just fit in my clothes

DS has been invited to a sleep over at a friends house on Saturday night (his first one ever :eek:) so DH and I are going to go to see Star Wars. We will use our personal spends for this as there isn't enough left in the very small January entertainment pot.

DH woke me up at about 5am and I am feeling tired this morning

Luckily I am working from home.

I will be back later to post my 2018 and January goals - better late than never!

XSpender · 11 January 2018 at 11:03AM

It was DS turn to wake me up at 4.30am this morning!

I still haven't managed to list my goals but may get around to it today.

I have scraped a bit out of some of the pots that had extra bits left over from December, have a small DD that wont go out until after DH is paid again so haven't budgeted for it until and have eliminated the 'over budget' amount I couldn't resist OPing the TCB and interest to the target card either. At least the overspending that has left us short was the unbudgeted for DDs to the CCs when I had already made overpayments and not mindless spending on nowt.

We have 2 free cinema tickets for Vue left and a cineword gift card for £20 so our trip to see Star Wars on Saturday will be free

I will take bottled water (since we cant drink anything else) and some on plan snacks. Went back on SW yesterday and ate well except for blowing my sys out of the water on GF lemon meringue pie

Starting afresh today with a more substantial lunch to avoid the 3pm slump.

I am about £10 ahead of where I should be on this months super small food budget so I need to do a very careful meal plan and shopping list for Aldi. I'm aiming for £60 for the week which is doable as we wont be buying beer and I have bottled water left from last week and used this week's work meal allowance for some basics.

XSpender · 15 January 2018 at 11:41AM

Couldn't resist doing a quick balance update as the last DD has come out for this month:

Lloyds Loan #1……………….£10,203.82….£275.11…..3.9% APR…….40 payments left
Lloyds Loan #2……………….£14,261.45….£265.98…..3.9% APR…….59 payments left
Lloyds CC……………………….£3072.30….….£31.46…….0.0% APR…….until March 2019
Virgin (Me) Part 1…………..£677.42……..£22.15………0.0% APR…….until March 2018
Virgin (Me) Part 2…………..£1038.00……..£0.00….…….0.0% APR…….until Sept 2018
[STRIKE]Virgin (DH) Part 1……………£0……….£108.76…..0.0% APR…….until March 2018[/STRIKE]
Virgin (DH) Part 2……………£5959.20……..£0.00………0.0% APR…….until July 2018
Virgin (DH) Part 3……………£4372.97……..£0.00………0.0% APR…….until Sept 2018
MBNA…………………………….£8286.75……..£83.71…….0.0% APR….…until Sept 2019
Person 1…………………………£1275.79……..£0.00……….0.0% APR……………………………
Person 2…………………………£1362.18..…..£0.00……….0.0% APR……………………………*
Hitachi…………………………...£1439.31……..£47.97……...0.0% APR…….BNPL payments start May 2018

TOTAL £53,315.15 @ 16.12 TOTAL NOW £51,950.28

£1364.72 paid off since I added up the big black hole

This doesn't include the wallpaper refund or the work expenses that are still to come off.

We are going to use the Arg0s card to purchase a bed for the guest room as my Dad is coming to visit in Feb (lives abroad, haven't seen him for several years). I have found a bed frame and mattress for £350 which I can get on 12 months 0% BNPL delivered next week. We will also need bedding and some kind of bedside tables and lamps, from ikea probably. The windows are non standard size so the cheap, thin curtains I have had up there since we moved in will have to do. This is the room with the en-suite which my dad will need.

The room could really do with a lick of paint and I have a couple of litres of our bedroom paint left over that might just be enough. We haven't done anything with this room since we moved in, except buy a bed, which is now in DS room.

I have been invited to join another marketing panel which looks like a decent earner but cant log on so need to call them this week to get registered.

I did my first exercise in weeks on Saturday and am still feeling the effects today. I am going to the gym with DH on Wednesday so I hope I can move properly by then.

Food spending has been low this month, lower than I can remember it being in a long time. We had a full freezer at the end of December as I had stocked up using a Mr T voucher and we haven't been buying booze, very much milk or crisps this month and it has made a huge difference to the bill even buying lots more fruit and some bottled water.

XSpender · 15 January 2018 at 5:35PM

Today is a freebie kinda day

DMIL microwave broke and she has given us the glass plate out of it as ours is chipped and it fits! She has also done a big pile of ironing for us as she was bored :A

The doggle got a belated Christmas present of a big pack of dental chews also from DMIL which will last him a good couple of weeks. I'm not sure if these are the ones the make him puke though:eek:

DH complained to the cinema on Saturday that they had not turned all the lights off during our visit and they have, after arguing on the book of face that he was wrong, agreed that they did leave them on and have offered us 2 free posh seats for a film of our choice

We now have 6 free cinema tickets albeit at 3 different cinemas!

My good deed for the day has been lending a dress to a friend for an event she has to attend in just the right (and very specific) colour.

XSpender · 16 January 2018 at 10:35AM

I must have glutened myself somehow as I have had a bad stomach the last couple of days. I don't know how as I have cooked from scratch and not eaten out anywhere at the weekend

Nothing to update on YNAB and everything balances

I am working on Feb budget as I want to get the bits for the guest room from cashflow and the amount in the 'home' savings pot (currently £50). We will go for a meal with DD and DSM when they visit and a meal for DH birthday the following week which I need to budget for as we only put £25/mnth in the family fun pot. We haven't spent this months yet so that's a start at least. DH had his birthday present joint with his Christmas present so will only be getting cards. There is money in the birthdays pot to pay for the cards and to contribute to DH birthday meal.

These extra expenses mean that I will not overpay the debt in Feb unless DH gets some bonus (none expected) and will use my expenses reimbursement to fund the guest room bits. I have already paid off the actual money sent on expenses last month.

The wallpaper credit still hasn't appeared so I will chase this on Friday.

Jobs for today:

1) Put away clean laundry and ironing
2) Buy dog food
3) Submit meter readings
4) Make 4 appointments for work
5) Prepare appraisal paperwork (always a thrilling task, not)
6) Start project research
7) Dishwasher
8) Strip beds
9) Spend 30 minutes sorting all the carp dumped in the guest room

XSpender · 16 January 2018 at 10:58AM

I have just checked the Virgin statement and the balance I am focussing on is 0% until May 2018 not March as I had previously thought. I still want to aim to clear this by the end of March but it will depend if DH gets a bonus in Feb. It will be cleared by the end of May either way.

apple_muncher · 16 January 2018 at 1:52PM

It's nice to discover a bit of breathing space!

Spend Nowt, Buy Nowt, Owe Nowt

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