The light is well and truly on!'

redofromstart · 2 April 2018 at 8:12PM

Its always interesting looking at other peoples meal plans, often sparks ideas off.

doingitanyway · 2 April 2018 at 9:54PM

RhiBi wrote: »

I'm not sure anyone is reading but I'll plod on anyway!!!

Bank holiday so DH is Home too. I've got some sewing I want to do as I run a Facebook page which sporadically gives me a little pocket money! The lead up to Christmas it was busy, too busy really. Working full time, and since my diagnosis I find I get tired a lot more..

I am determined to do a spending diary too. Dh is totally onboard, in fact it's me who's always been the spender! For now, I think we'll be writing it down but I do want to get to grips long term with a spreadsheet!

Food shopping I've really sorted since the new year. I tend to do a big meat order from musclefood every 6-8 weeks. Our weekly shopping is then based around the meat we have in. The musclefood is usually around £70, and our weekly shop at Aldi or Lidl is around £50. We do probably spend about £20-30 on top of this replenishing bread, milk, fruit through the week.

So where is our money going??? I have no clue, and it's not an insignificant amount we can't account for.

Occasionally I do a Tesco food order for my daughter in uni, but that's usually about £50 every 6-8 weeks.

Writing it down is really going to focus us hopefully!

I'm an impatient person by nature though so I wish I could fast forward a month and have some answers!! Of course, being school holidays, this isn't really a typical month either!!

Well, dd3 has made me a cuppa! She wants a friend to sleepover on Friday, so she's in model child mode

Hope you all have a good bank holiday xx

I wish I could sew (sigh) I have a lovely sewing machine but it is for my fantasy self so I will be selling it...:o
Keynote is for presentations. You can use Numbers and there is a budget sheet ready to use there

Looking forward to your meal plans.

RhiBi · 2 April 2018 at 10:01PM

Shows how much I need to learn about spreadsheets on the Mac!! Thanks, I will try playing!

Why not see if there are any classes local to you that could help you learn to sew? We all have to start somewhere, I'm sure you could do it xxxx

RhiBi · 3 April 2018 at 8:25AM

Morning! I'm currently drinking a cup of tea in bed and planning the day!

I've done my daily PADding of £2 to Next, that's coming down nicely, I actually look forward to the statement arriving now to see the difference between the start balance and the end! Once I've cleared this account I'm closing it! The frustrating thing is, I know I'm still paying for clothes my children have long grown out of :O if I can't buy and pay for it at the time of ordering, I'm not having it!!!

I also need to talk nicely to my sewing machine so that it does what I want it to today!!

I've weight watchers this evening, it's normally on a Monday but a day later as it was bank holiday. I've less than a stone to lose, although I've probably put in this week, but motivation is that when I'm at my goal weight I won't have to pay. After that, I have yoga class! I started around September last year in order to try and relax after what has been a traumatic time in my life. I thoroughly enjoy it and it does help. The classes are £11.50 a week which is expensive, however, in January this year I found out that as a local council employee, I can have a sports centre membership for £28.50 a month. This means any classes and sports centre facilities are free to use. I took up this offer as going to yoga alone gives me a saving, plus I have the option to use other classes and facilities too!

Spends today will probably be some crisps from weight watchers to see me through the week! All will be noted down, and I'm also going to attempt to use a spread sheet :O

RhiBi · 3 April 2018 at 3:30PM

So far today I've:

Cleaned, polished and vacuumed lounge
Planned food - sausage dinner! I thought of buying potatoes for mash, but I've plenty of new potatoes here so we'll have them instead!
Posted a cushion I sold, p&p was paid by the buyer so no cost to me there!
I've a sewing pattern to make myself a skirt so I'm going to give that a try later!
I've also got weight watchers, I will be buying some crisps for the week, but that'll just be a small spend!
Then it's yoga, and I'll be taking water with me!

So all in all, I'm pleased with how today has gone so far!

RhiBi · 3 April 2018 at 3:31PM

Reading my post, I do use the exclamation mark a lot don't I?!!

enthusiasticsaver · 3 April 2018 at 4:01PM

RhiBi wrote: »

I've done an SOA, I don't know where our money is going, but our bank balance certainly isn't looking like it should! So the first job is a spending diary! If anyone can recommend an app, that would be great!!

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 4
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 901
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2900
Benefits................................ 192.4
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3993.4

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 290.6
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 125
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 60
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 37.91
Telephone (land line)................... 35.82
Mobile phone............................ 74
TV Licence.............................. 12.67
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 50
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 350
Clothing................................ 0
Petrol/diesel........................... 150
Road tax................................ 21
Car Insurance........................... 28.56
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 35
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 41.11
Buildings insurance..................... 19.37
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 91
Other insurance......................... 28.79
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 16
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Caravan Storage......................... 40
Caravan insurance....................... 10.18
Husbands union.......................... 14
Husbands professional body.............. 21.6
Birchbox................................ 12.95
Total monthly expenses.................. 1655.56

Assets
Cash.................................... 800
House value (Gross)..................... 120000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 700
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 121500

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 27000....(290.6)....0
Total secured & HP debts...... 27000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Sainsbury's loan...............0.........219.......0 5 year loan since Feb 2015
Tesco loan.....................0.........134.5.....0 5 year loan since September2015
Car loan.......................0.........165.7.....0 5 year loan since July 2016
DH family history soc..........10........0.........0
Barclaycard....................8500......191.......0
Mbna 2.........................2700......65........0
Mbna 1.........................10800.....169.......6
Littlewoods....................400.......36.12.....0
Next...........................1370......79........0

I am not sure where the rest of the soa has gone but I have added up the monthly debt repayments and they come to £1060 each month. If you add that to your monthly outgoings of £1655 and deduct from your income you should have £1278 each month left and you obviously don't. That means some serious overspending. You have a lot of gaps in your soa so I would imagine this accounts for some of it.

There is nothing in the car maintenance pot but if the car is only worth £700 I would imagine you have to pay out a lot in maintenance for that. There is nothing in presents, haircuts, clothing and very little in entertainment for 4 children. That is unrealistic too and I would think you do spend on those things. £30 a month on a holiday for a family of 6 to go to USA is totally inaccurate. I think the groceries are probably also underestimated. Add your daughters uni food into that. Working out your weekly groceries shop from your posts below it looks like your groceries are closer to £600 per month than £350. The soa should read what you actually pay monthly not what you would like to pay. Otherwise it is not reflecting your true outgoings. I would suggest you have another go at the soa making it more accurate.

Using a spending app tracker is a good start. Having a look through your last 3 months bank statements is another good idea. Also find out the interest rates as on the monthly amounts you are paying to some of those debts I would think the debt is rising as the payments wont cover the monthly interest. Tackle Littlewoods and Next first as they are usually very expensive.

On the plus side you have the start of an emergency fund but you should be saving some every month from your monthly budget. Your mortgage is relatively low so that is also good. Based on the monthly repayments and length of time outstanding on your loans though I reckon the balances are around £15k+ which gives you a total debt figure of around £38k. As you say though the loans are reducing so it is the credit cards you need to start having an impact on.

blue_eyed_girl123 · 3 April 2018 at 9:27PM

As a quick question, why are mobile phones £74 and TV package broadband £80, these might be small savings you can make. Also, packing out some meat dishes with lentils or chickpeas etc, by swapping out half the meat you can get twice as many meals for less money

.

RhiBi · 3 April 2018 at 10:13PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I am not sure where the rest of the soa has gone but I have added up the monthly debt repayments and they come to £1060 each month. If you add that to your monthly outgoings of £1655 and deduct from your income you should have £1278 each month left and you obviously don't. That means some serious overspending. You have a lot of gaps in your soa so I would imagine this accounts for some of it.

There is nothing in the car maintenance pot but if the car is only worth £700 I would imagine you have to pay out a lot in maintenance for that. There is nothing in presents, haircuts, clothing and very little in entertainment for 4 children. That is unrealistic too and I would think you do spend on those things. £30 a month on a holiday for a family of 6 to go to USA is totally inaccurate. I think the groceries are probably also underestimated. Add your daughters uni food into that. Working out your weekly groceries shop from your posts below it looks like your groceries are closer to £600 per month than £350. The soa should read what you actually pay monthly not what you would like to pay. Otherwise it is not reflecting your true outgoings. I would suggest you have another go at the soa making it more accurate.

Using a spending app tracker is a good start. Having a look through your last 3 months bank statements is another good idea. Also find out the interest rates as on the monthly amounts you are paying to some of those debts I would think the debt is rising as the payments wont cover the monthly interest. Tackle Littlewoods and Next first as they are usually very expensive.

On the plus side you have the start of an emergency fund but you should be saving some every month from your monthly budget. Your mortgage is relatively low so that is also good. Based on the monthly repayments and length of time outstanding on your loans though I reckon the balances are around £15k+ which gives you a total debt figure of around £38k. As you say though the loans are reducing so it is the credit cards you need to start having an impact on.

Thanks for your reply. There are errors, you're right, the car is worth approximately £7000, not £700!! The figures I put in are mainly our direct debits which is why there's nothing for Christmas etc as we have always tended to wing it - badly I hasten to add

. I'll correct the errors, but should I add what we should save etc rather than what we're actually doing?

Two of the credit cards are currently on 0% (barclaycard and mbna 2) and the other mbna is 6% for life of balance.

Went to weight watchers and lost 1.5lb, less than a stone to my goal weight and it'll be free! £6.35 spent on crisps and snacks for the week. I've also been to yoga! I go with my friend, she'd asked me to make a cushion for her and I took it with me tonight, so she paid me £22, that is cash in my purse so I intend to only use that for bread, milk etc through the week so won't need to use my card until I do my food shop on Saturday!

Bank balance checked and all looks ok. Dh gets paid on 28th month (or slightly earlier if 28thfalls on a weekend. I get paid on 15th (or thereabouts). In some ways it's great, as it's only ever 2 weeks to a payday, in others it's worse as I have often thought that I can spend money as it's not long until one of us gets paid. That is changing as of now!

Re:mobile phones, £74 is for 5 phones! Mine, husbands and 3 daughter's. The eldest daughter pays her own. The amount in the phone category is for phone and broadband. It also includes 'free' calls to USA as my mother is out there. The £50 is a sky package which unfortunately we're currently tied into.

RhiBi · 4 April 2018 at 10:11AM

Morning!

Boiled eggs for breakfast today, good for the diet and we already had them in the house.

Today's mission is to locate an insurance policy! Going through our statements, we presumed E&L insurance was one of our pet insurance policies, however, looking at our statements, it's not. It could be caravan insurance, but we've got that as £10 a month. It's a legitimate policy, we're sure, but do we need it anymore is the question!

The main meal today is chicken (from musclefood stash in freezer), already out and defrosting. That'll be cooked with peppers, red onion, peri peri sauce and served with rice and salad. All ingredients are already bought so no cost there. Spends will be milk - 2 for £2 at a local shop.

I do have a funeral to go to this afternoon, a work colleagues dad, which is sad though.

Only other things I want to do if a little more on the skirt I'm making, update spending budget and some more cleaning.

I also need to get into eBay selling of children's clothes, I just find it so painful!!!!

The light is well and truly on!'

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