Friday 2 July 2010

Ok, so here's a bit of planning for the coming month. A couple of these figures have changed since last month so I have updated them. They've only changed by around £10 or so but I want to record them.


Mortgage + buildings and contents insurance £632.70
Council Tax £129.00
Credit card 1 ~£165.00
Credit card 2 £ 23.27
Loan £189.08
Charity £ 18.00
Savings £ 5.00
National Insurance Contributions 2 £ 13.00
Interest payments on current accounts £22
Float of £10 in each current account £20
Sponsorship charity payments £10
Birthdays and anniversaries £50

Total £1277.05

Here are the foreseeable odds and ends that I need to cover by the end of the month which should be included above.

Current account 1 interest ~ £20 on 19th
Travel expenses for new job unknown
Sponsorship for family fund-raising efforts ~ £10 for Katy
My sister's birthday ~£15 first week in July
Anniversary present and card ~ £25.00


Now to income - the crucial part
Received:
Client PA - Deposit of £127.50 paid
Client SFS - £155 Paid up front
Billed:
Client NN - billed £100
Client AB - outstanding invoices $200 past due - chased
Client CS - billed £117.00
Client MC - billed £1150.00
Work in progress:
Client PA - £127.50
Client MG - £200.00
Salary - ~£1000 (should be around £1300 but on emergency tax code)

Of all of this, I know that the items highlighted in blue are ones I definitely will have before the end of the month.

Thursday 1 July 2010

June end of month spending total

Well, it's time to assess last month.

The good news is we survived. We didn't default. We're moving step by step further away from hell.

Not so positive - I didn't manage to get anything towards my emergency fund.

So here's the figures.


Food
£76.88

Household
£3.10

Petrol
£152.04

Non-car travel
£17.35

Cats + hedgehogs + chickens
£49.73

Birthdays etc
£5.50 (cards for Father's Day and BIL birthday)
£1.50 (mum's card)
£20 (mum's pressie)


Takeaways, treats and entertainment
£10.00 - KFC (see this mornings post)
£7.60 - beer and snacks, Le Mans gathering at BIL

House renovations + garden
£49.00

Car maintenance
73.28

I'm shocked at the food totals. How on earth did we manage less than £20 a week for food?? I wasn't in a position to do meal plans so I thought we'd send more. There were nights were scraping through on the bare minimum of food, which usually involved eggs in some form, but we managed.

So what are the totals paid off the debts last month?

Current account overdrafts:

1 -£1,674.83 DOWN BY £12.47
2 +167.63 (not included in debt total)

Credit cards:

1 £6819.32; APR 17.9% UP BY £1.57 had to put a £10 charity donation on the card.
2 £1034.33; APR 11.9% DOWN BY £4.46.

Loan:
£4308.99 DOWN BY £153.72
end date 15th July 2012
APR 9.51% pa


Creditors:
£100 consultants fee outstanding since November 2009

Total debt: -£13,937.47 DOWN £169.08

Saturday 26 June 2010

Daily update + bill update 26th June

I've been so busy and tired I haven't blogged for the last few days. I seem to have hit a nice vein of freelance work at the moment. Unfortunately, it has also coincided with me starting work. Tres knackered.

I thought I'd do a stats update for this month as I'm sitting here working out my bill money for the end of the month. Hubby will once more have to lend me money but not so much this time thankfully.

Mortgage + buildings and contents insurance £631.77
Council Tax £125.00
Credit card 1 ~£165.00
Credit card 2 £ 11.75
Loan £189.08
Charity £ 18.00
Savings £ 5.00
National Insurance Contributions 2 £ 10.40 do not know if still paying due to new job
Interest payments on current accounts £22
Float of £10 in each current account £20
Sponsorship charity payments £10
Birthdays and anniversaries £50

Total £1258

I have £146.52 in current account 1 and need to transfer £300 from current account 2. This gives me £446.52/1258, so I am short £811.48 assuming the cheque from project 1 clears.

However, that does not take into account I have an overdraft facility which I use every month. Currently, I am not in my overdraft on Current Account 2, so I have a £200 facility to use there. As tempted as I am to say that now I'm out of it I should stay out of it, I am only on step 1 of Dave Ramsey's plan and need to accumulate an emergency account first, so I am going to continue using that account as normal.

That gives me £646.52/1258 and I am short £611.48.

Instead of asking for the full amount from hubby, I am going to take into account that my loan, which makes up £190 of that outstanding amount, is due on 15th July so technically I could wait another 10 days to see what money comes in and I might be able to pay that myself. If not, hubby will have had another two wage packets then and can give me it.

So, for now I need £421.48 from hubby. Call it £425.

This is the first time I have budgeted for forthcoming expenses in this way, which has made it all look a lot worse. I have yet to receive the £30 for the rock I sold on ebay, which is annoying me now as this could have been used to cover birthdays.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Update 23/6

It's been a long old day.

I was out the door again with hubby at 5:30am taking half of the fridge with me to avoid buying any food. Amazingly, we were told we could go home to watch the football as long as we made the time up, so I was gone by 2:30pm and hubby picked me up. But I'm still up and have just finished a leaflet for a freelance client.

So far I've managed to avoid spending any more on fares so far this week. However, we did splash out today and spent £2.70 on 8 small bottles of french beer to watch the football and the tennis this afternoon. It was lovely to have a treat, but tonight we had ANOTHER pizza as I was writing. I still haven't been shopping or done a meal plan so tomorrow's dinner is a mystery, but I am fearful for my dietary diversity. I console myself that on the nutrients front today I had tomato and sweetcorn in my pasta, a banana and two glasses of apple juice plus a multivitamin and a fizzy vitamin C.

But in a moment I'm going to enjoy something completely free - sleep!

Tuesday 22 June 2010

First day over - 22/6

Well, I survived my first day back at work.

I drove in with hubby at 5:30am, us having a matey cup of tea in the car together, and sat in the car park from 6am until hubby was ready to go on his rounds at 8:30am. I took a flask of tea with me, a sandwich, some biscuits and fruit so I didn't spend any money on food from the local shops.

Just for once, as I was starting at 10am, hubby drove out in our car to his area which he normally doesn't do. There's normally a work's van so he doesn't incur wear and tear on the car, but today I was to be his companion so he opted for the car. I spent 40 minutes walking around with him so I got a little exercise and then he broke from work and dropped me off at the office.

Lunch was bought for me, I finished off some other bits of food I had left over and then a text message from hubby at 3:30pm to tell me he would be in the area at my finishing time of 5pm meant I managed to spend no money at all today!

Yay!

We did a little shopping in the supermarket on the way home for some essentials such as milk and a couple of things for lunch for the week but also ...naughty, naughty...pizza. Hubby wanted to cook tonight so I could had a lovely relaxing bath this evening and read a magazine (bought as part of a subscription for me at Christmas) but he was also tired so he bought a cheap ready prepared one!

Shortly I will go in the kitchen and cook some pasta for my lunch tomorrow so I can aim for one more NSD!

Reflections on work

It's very, very early and I'm sitting here trying to get my head round the fact I'm going back to work again. Part of me is disappointed, but part of me is very proud. I'm getting my act together and doing what's best for my family, for me and hubby. I'm injecting a nice solid £16k into my annual pre-tax income and that is nothing to be sniffed at.

I can't help thinking though that part of reason why I've had to go back to work is a scarcity mentality on my part. I've realised I've been charging less than I should have been and that has created a snowball effect and attracted clients with less money to me, so now I have to run faster on the wheel just to keep up with where I used to be. Instead I should have knocked back the low paid work and let my writing speak for itself. In fact, really this job has been taken because of a scarcity mentality on my part. Should I have held out for a full-time contract in London that would have paid me more? Yes I think I should have. I took this because I was worried I wouldn't have any money, and the low annual pay could come back and bite me in the butt. The jobs in London would have given me an annual salary of up to £47k. Mind you that is paying me for my six years science training. This job is £27k pro-rata and really doesn't use much of my science background at all, so maybe it will work out in the end.

Anyway shortly I'll go in the kitchen, get lunch our lunches together, and start to get ready to head out the door by 5:30am. I will be without my laptop for three hours while I sit in the car at hubby's work so it will give me some time to reflect on what I'm doing and why.

Monday 21 June 2010

Update 21/6

It's been a weird day.

I've just lost a client, but am not upset. The fact I'm not upset surprises me, but thinking about it I feel a sense of relief. He made me feel uncomfortable. Not every encounter, but enough that my red flag radar would go off a couple of times a month. Last year he went very over the top about a contract offer I had from abroad, talking over me and dismissing me what I was saying. Apparently I am so like him I wouldn't like it and wouldn't go (I am nothing like him). I found that insulting. He was pleased when it fell through and I really didn't like that.

Anyway, this time he was very passive-aggressive and didn't want to pay extra for extra work. Just not possible when you are a freelancer - you can't not charge for writing. I guess that eventually familiarity breeds contempt. Just to show how passive-aggressive he is, he didn't bother to send me notice that he didn't need my services any more - just kept quiet until I contacted him about the week's column then gave notice. I pointed out the value of what I provide hasn't changed just what he can afford and left it at that.

I intend to charge him for the last three columns though, which for a while I felt guilty about as he had provided me with a reference for this part-time job. Then I realised this was silly. He agreed to do the reference before this matter had sprung up and had given me testimonials before. I had to think how I was going to get around this, so in the end I decided to ask the Office Manager over there to withdraw that reference and ask a standby contact that I had provided last week. In all conscious I can't accept a reference from someone who is no longer happy working with me. At the same time that I wrote this email to the Office Manager, I was copied in on an email from my standby reference. He had been asked last week to do a reference and provided one of the most glowing testimonials I've ever seen.

Then, within 10 minutes of getting his email, I get a call from a lovely gentleman in London who wants me to write a sales letter. Cost? Just shy of the same amount I was getting from the ex-client. The universe works in weird ways. I really do feel good about things at the moment.

Meal plan
I haven't been shopping for food yet this week so the meal plan is bit up in the air. Tonight I can throw together an omelette and chips I think and I will make up some dough tonight for pizza tomorrow night. After that though, I'll have to sort a meal plan and some shopping.

I've had a NSD so far

Sunday 20 June 2010

Update 20/6

Well the day started well and continued - that's a rarity!

Naughty cuddles, pancakes for breakfast and on my daily walk I found a whole bag of books, two of them published decades ago about the air war of the WWII which hubby was dead excited about me finding. So now I have a lovely lot of books to read during the mornings if hubby gives me a lift in.

We went to visit my parents for Father's Day and zoomed by the tip on the way. I managed to find a brand new double sheet, all clean and starched, plus a leather handbag that needed only a quick skim over with leather polish to bring it up good as new. Then my mother gave me a nearly new bra and some lovely facial refreshing mist and a few minutes later my father dug up a huge bunch of lemon balm from his border. Apparently the stuff grows like wildfire there. I have plans for a herb bed in the garden so this will really help me get it started.

Yet again I forgot to put something in the slow cooker before we went out, but I'm determined to not cook it on the stove so I will be throwing everything for the curry into the slow cooker and whacking it up on high for 90 minutes to see how that does. So we haven't had a NGD, but we have had a very low GD.

To stretch the food pennies a bit further, I cut down the bolted rocket and stripped off the lower third of each stalk's leaves with the intention of making a spicy rocket pesto. There should be a good two portions once whizzed in the food processor with oil. I've never done it before so I hope it is nice and not too spicy.

Saturday 19 June 2010

June's mid month spending update

In a previous post I set myself a Grocery Challenge of £100 a month for June. I actually did this without checking the existing receipts. Come to think of it, we haven't checked our spending in any category. So, with my fingers crossed, here's the totals of our spending so far this month.

Food
£33.13

Household
£3.10

Petrol
£77.04

Non-car travel
£17.35

Cats + hedgehogs + chickens
£19.30

Birthdays etc
£5.50 (cards for Father's Day and BIL birthday)

Takeaways, treats and entertainment
£10.00 - KFC (see this mornings post)
£7.60 - beer and snacks, Le Mans gathering at BIL

Renovations + garden work
£31.62

I'm really chuffed with the food budget. It makes me feel a little better about the KFC last night.

Finally managed to get some meter readings done and its provided food for thought. Since Thursday we've used twelve units of electricity. We've used no gas.

Hmmm...actually we must have used gas because I had a shower yesterday and the hot water has to be heated by the boiler. I think perhaps that the last unit on the electric meter - which isn't used for the meter reading as it measure 1/10th of a unit - must have been near zero and the shower didn't use enough gas to use a full unit. I washed the dishes using the dishwasher, which I assumed took water from the boiler, but it may just have a thermostat that heats the water. Hubby and I rarely run the hot tap long when washing so the water we use is barely hot and the boiler hasn't been running that long.

If I'm honest, I'm really pleased. I might try and go for a NGD again tomorrow and do a curry in the slow cooker. Mind you, I'm thinking about pancakes tomorrow morning which will be done on the stove top. I'll see how I feel in the morning. After dinner at my parents-in-law, hubby now has some leftovers tucked away for lunch on Monday and there's some leftover saladings for the chickens which they will love.

And finally, frugal find of the day someone was giving away free tomato plants at the end of their drive. I took six and hubby is going back tomorrow with half a dozen eggs for them to say thank you. The chickens will be delighted - they do love their tomatoes on a hot summer's day and it seems to refresh them. And they look very cute with tomato seeds all over their beaks.

Update 19/6

It's Saturday morning and I have so much to do I'm not quite sure where to start.

The food budget went slightly wonky last night. I had planned to make us a curry and went out for a 40 minutes walk at 6:30pm before starting it. Then I got back in, lay on the bed and fell asleep. The next thing I know it's 8:15pm and hubby is waking me up to tell me he's going to KFC. He was so hungry I couldn't persuade him otherwise.

So that's £10 spent that didn't have to be because of my lack of planning. I could have put the curry on in the slow cooker earlier that day or put the curry on that evening, turned it down low and gone for my walk so it would be ready when I got back. The only golden lining is it ended up being a NGD for us and a NSD for me, plus we have an invite to a Father's Day buffet for tonight so I don't have to cook. That makes it another NGD today and, as I'm in today, another NSD. I will do the curry tomorrow.

Lesson learned.

I have some writing to do for a project today I have to begin roughing out a post with my budget and current grocery spending to date.