DD's accountability thread
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They usually do, but the maths might work out. Of course it might not. I'll have to see what the numbers look like. I do really like paying it up front but I should be setting aside the money monthly as well and I haven't been doing. I find it very difficult to do consistently (one of the reasons I'm in debt) because I have 'too much' disposable income, i.e. if a direct debit isn't going out each month I consider the money fair game, and I'm confident I'll be able to 'find enough' when I need it. Working on changing that mindset but we do have some big expenses coming up, and also whacking more into savings than normal, so it's slow going to begin with.
I've sent £1 on it's way to my ISA - was a little put off that Lloyds thought the Skipton sort code was for Barclays, so doing a test run. I think it's Lloyds that's wrong, as I was properly logged in to the secure Skipton site, and the sort code was mentioned in several places. So we'll see whether that £1 ends up in the right place tomorrow.
I did some juggling in YNAB and moved my PayPal and Quidco accounts into the budget. It's hard work and some how I've ended up with a negative amount in two categories in August but that hasn't carried through to September so I'm just ignoring it because I can't work it out to correct it. I believe it was fine before I started moving accounts around.
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3 hours driving - mostly stop/start traffic - to get to and from work today; it really is bad for my mental health and my physical health suffers for being stuck in a car as well. Unfortunately roadworks affect my commute to the other office too, so it's slightly longer each way, but at least traffic is moving for most of that journey. I'm going to try and get in the routine of doing a day a week at each. If it becomes normal again then I may find it more bearable. Literally the only positive I have is that I can usually listen to an entire Tim Ferriss podcast in a single journey because they're that long.
So because of that - and a run with the personal trainer which thankfully undid some of the commute-related damage to both mind and body! - I am absolutely shattered.
Just updated my budget, not that there's a huge amount going on. That £1 turned up in my ISA, so I sent £999 following after it. That's committed to the house deposit fund then! I also sent the paperwork off to the mortgage broker last night, expecting him to call tomorrow or Friday and we'll go from there.
I am waiting until I get paid to budget October, but I am sorely tempted to get ahead of myself and work things out. I also need to call in some money owed to me rather than letting it drag on. The two unknowns are car insurance (I have a vague idea of course) and income from the convention. I'm hoping the first is low and the second is high.
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It is Friday and pay day today, hurrah! I have already budgeted but this time instead of budgeting the money in September, I've budgeted it in October. It's a small thing, but it means I can meet some targets in October rather than having it glaringly orange all month.
Unfortunately £500 of my disposable income has gone in the 'car insurance' category. I need to try and make a point of setting a bit aside every month for this (and a few other things) even if it's only £25. This means no extra money for savings just yet this month, though I do anticipate more income mid-month from the convention so I'll just have to bide my time.
OH and I have set our Christmas present limits - £50 each on each other. We spend big on birthdays instead, and mine is in January. I've already bought him one thing for £12, so I will be crafty with the rest.
Looking at a fairly small food shop this weekend which is good, but as it's a using-up meal plan this week, next weekend's shop will be a big one. Got some Pets At Home vouchers through today so ordered a big bag of cat biscuits, as they seem to only stock the small size in store now. £5 off!
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Well I won the gold medal for procrastination this weekend!
I did a small food shop; we've another week of having predominantly leftovers. I'll do a big shop this coming weekend, as I'm away the weekend after. Bought a beef joint from the butchers which I roasted yesterday and it's such good quality, tasted delicious. When we move I'll either have to find a new local butchers or keep coming back to ours.
Had an impromptu trip to the White Rose Shopping Centre in Leeds; I didn't need anything and managed to keep spends to £14, but my sister needed a few bits and Mom treated herself to a lovely dress in the sale. I bought OH some violet gin liquor (he loves the Purple Rain cocktail which tastes like Parma Violets) and I got conned into buying a DVD by my sister, but the movie isn't available on NowTV/Netflix/Amazon anyway unless you pay to rent it.
Yesterday I baked another batch of cupcakes to use up some eggs (still got two left!) and then we put price tags on one batch of ponies. It wasn't as painful as I thought it'd be, so I'm confident that we'll get through them all in plenty of time. I'm up to £300 in pre-sales/reservations - a great start! :cool:
Today I am working from home, so in my lunch break I'm hoping to see about getting my boots re-soled, and I need to post something to a friend. I've got a short list of chores to get done as well but I save so much time on the commute when I'm working from home that I don't mind.
Oh durr, my big news! Thanks to a contribution from OH's parents, the lifetime ISA is now maxxed out for the year with £4001.25 - the £1.25 being from last year. :rotfl: Just got to wait for the £1k bonus to hit - shouldn't be any later than the 5th November. :beer: The plan is that OH will open a HTB ISA after the convention, and I'll put the max of £1200 in there for the first month, then we'll try to get it to £1600 so we can get the bonus on completion, but if things move faster, there's no penalty for early withdrawal on that.
I can't believe we're actually managing to do this!0 -
Just stopping by to say a big well done on the ISA0
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Thanks efes shareholder, it's all starting to feel pretty real now. Got the call with the mortgage broker this evening so lets see how that goes.
I've been using nYNAB for the full trial now, and I do prefer it to the old version. I particularly like the goals; it's great seeing a lot of green in my budget to say goals are met. And the undo button is very helpful. I like the fact that I can access it anywhere via a web browser, though you do get the option to adjust your budget in the mobile app which wasn't possible in YNAB4.
I'm not too keen on the way it handles upcoming transactions; if I budget £50 for say physio, and I know my appointment next week is going to cost £25 so I enter that in the account, the £25 isn't deducted from the budgeted amount until the day of the transaction. If you dive into your budget you can see it's coming, but I'd rather know I only have £25 for the month in that category.
Much like YNAB4, it's difficult to forward budget. In fact you can't allocate income until the transaction day. This is a good thing because it's stopping me 'borrowing' from next month and breaking that habit. Only budget - and spend - what you've actually got.
My 'age of money' figure (which I still don't totally get) is now 31 days - I think that's good?! Apparently it's the average age of your last ten cash (i.e. non-credit) transactions. It works on the basis of first in, first out - so oldest money first. I understand that, but I still don't understand how it arrived at 31 days. :rotfl:0 -
So the application for a Decision In Principle is a work in progress. They want to know how much our student loans are, which has me frustrated because so many people tell you 'not to worry about them' and that 'they don't count because it's an unavoidable debt' so you just grumble about the repayments getting taken and otherwise ignore them. BUT my student loan was over £15k in April - and I've paid about £1k since though the balance won't update until next year. OH's is probably higher, I'm waiting for him to get home so we can check. I am worried that these will impact our affordability, despite already confirming the current repayment figures. So I guess I'm more worried than frustrated.
I won £4.50 on the Euro Millions last night (we only play if it's over £80m, and then only a lucky dip so you don't get trapped playing your numbers weekly in case they come up) so cashed that in earlier. I just added it to the cash fund in my purse. I'm always happy when I can pay for little spends with existing cash rather than taking money out of my account.
The quote for getting the carpet dyed where it's bleached came back; £500. :eek: Unfortunately it's a very big room so we might be looking at a similar amount to replace it. I'm hoping the landlord will say it doesn't matter, but it would bother me so.. Will have to let this one develop for a while.
I haven't gotten much done from my to-do list yet this week. I realised yesterday that I feel really overwhelmed with the amount of things that 'need' doing. For all I think I'll focus on one thing I don't, then I end up procrastinating, then I beat myself up, and it becomes a vicious cycle. OH is quite good if I ask - but I often feel like asking is a big part of the work; that emotional labour thing. There are 4 things on my to-do list for today but I also have personal training so I'm going to aim to do just one tonight.0 -
With YNAB, I enter the transaction when it is confirmed, then mark it as cleared when the payment goes through. Otherwise I lose track completely!0
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GlendaSugarbean wrote: »With YNAB, I enter the transaction when it is confirmed, then mark it as cleared when the payment goes through. Otherwise I lose track completely!
I do the same - but I put the date it's happening (then it might still take a few days to clear from there) rather than the date I become aware of it, if that makes sense? TBH if I was budgeting more effectively, which I'm trying to do, it would be less of an issue.
We have our agreement in principle and have viewings booked on 6 properties this weekend. I was quite dismayed yesterday when I rang 2 estate agents about 8 properties, only to find out that I couldn't book viewings on 6 of them. Those were the ones in Manchester, where I'd spent hours going through our must haves/nice to haves/won't touches, crime stats, rights of way etc. We're viewing one tomorrow, but there's only one photo which is external so it could be a total miss as there are so many unknowns. Like the mystery house on that Escape to the Country or whatever it's called. :rotfl:
I have taken a different approach to the Nottingham properties, and am now on the books of 11 estate agents. I've let them send me the properties they have available meeting our criteria, so at least the list of 100 on RightMove was narrowed down to the 30 or so that were actually available. We shortlisted it down to 15 - and have viewings on 5 of these on Sunday - so I'm going to prioritise 'spreadsheeting' these 5, and will worry about the other 10 (plus any new ones) later.
I also need to get on the books of estate agents in Manchester in a similar way, plus there's Zoopla and On The Market which we haven't looked at yet.
All this means that a) the flat is a tip and b) my progress on getting ready for the convention is painfully slow. I've promised myself that after the viewings this weekend, I'll focus on convention prep/housework because we won't be able to do any more viewings until the 20th anyway.
It has all gone a bit mad 0 -
So we ended up seeing 4 houses this weekend, one on Saturday and three yesterday.
The one from Saturday was a no-go and I am still a bit annoyed with the estate agents. It is on the market with one - external - photo in the listing. However the street is nice, and I found an old listing which showed rooms that needed updating from the 70s. It has planning permission for an extension so there'd be work to do but we can live with dated for a while. Turns out the vendors had started doing some work to it already; holes in the ceilings, gaps in floorboards, plaster ripped off walls and exposed wiring. We wouldn't be able to live in it.
Yesterday, the first viewing was cancelled as it was sold STC. The second house (House 1) is lovely - more on that later - and the vendor didn't answer the door for the next viewing. No idea what happened there. The next house was really nice downstairs and they'd done a fantastic job of designing the kitchen etc, but upstairs it was just too small for us, and we couldn't figure out a way to make it work. The last house (House 2) is also lovely.
I think we're choosing between two lifestyles as much as anything. This is where things get complicated:
House 1
Semi-rural location (outskirts of a village)
Doesn't need anything doing
Scope to convert the integrated garage at a later date
Our corner sofa won't fit - it's got the L at the 'wrong' side
15mins from the office (a bit more in rush hour), 1hr+ to the city on public transport
Potentially complex chain
House 2
Nice family-friendly estate
Needs a bit of work in the garden
We'd probably put a conservatory or extension on at some point
Nearer 30 mins from the office - but 30 mins to the city by tram
Close to my sisters
No chain
If House 2 were in the location of House 1 I don't think we'd hesitate. We love the location of House 1 even though it could be a little isolating, the house is in a small development and I do drive so we can get out and about. OH is planning to learn, it's just a case of when. I feel as though living there would be quite calming and a slower pace than we have now - we live on the edge of a small town centre right next to a main road and the queuing traffic really stresses me out.
House 1 would give us more of our current lifestyle; ability to just 'pop to the shops' or walk out somewhere for tea on a whim. Less reliance on a car. And if we do decide to have children (it's 'definitely not right now' but we aren't in the forever-no camp) then I think it might be better suited for that. I guess this feels like the sensible option.
Of course an alternative is to wait and see what else comes up near House 1. Big decision!0
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