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.
Showing posts with label Daily update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daily update. Show all posts
Saturday, 26 June 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Update 16/6
Right, the plan for today is to earn money.
The last two days I've spent arranging things by phone and email and I've earnt barely any money. I need to put my head down and power through some work so I can get billing asap. I may not get the money this month, but will have it there for next month's bills.
Today is a No Spend Day (NSD). Hopefully that should be pretty easy to achieve. At some point over the next few days I'm going to start undertaking some challenges such as a Grocery Challenge, Clothing Challenge and a Utilities Challenge.
Grocery Challenge
At the moment we are spending about £100 a month in food and household items, and that has to continue so for June the Grocery Challenge is to stick to £100.
I used to keep a tally of cat food in with our grocery budget, but realised that we have no real control over this so have removed it. It adds up to about £35 a month to feed them. Two of them eat tinned Kitekat and the third is a senior now and has developed a sensitivity to normal tinned food so we've had to switch her to senior pouches. If we can get this on offers, fine. If not, we don't skimp and try and save money.
We cannot alter the brand they eat to save money, as previous attempts have resulted in uneaten food lying down for days and complaints from neighbours that they are stealing food from them. What we have done is found a cheaper brand they will eat and stopped feeding them ad lib as they were putting on too much weight.
Clothing Challenge
This actually won't be so hard as I don't spend much money on clothing. Martin bought me an shift dress for interviews a few months ago and I intend to team that with items and use that for my new job. I have enough clothing in my wardrobe to mix and match if necessary and my mother keeps giving me bagfulls of stuff every now and then when she has a clear out.
So the challenge is to not spend any money on clothes this month.
The only thing we really need is new socks for hubby, but I sat down last and darned all the holes in his socks to try and keep them going a bit longer. I also have holes in my Levi jeans, which are on the inside leg seam of the thighs so i need to look into patching that, and a hole in the elbow of one of my jumpers so somehting has to be done about that.
Thank God for old books about sewing. I have a 1935 copy of The Art of Needlecraft by Polkinghorne and that has a great section of darning and repairing clothes.
Utilities Challenge
Our last gas bill was shocking. Part of that was the usual winter heating bill, but part of it is my range so I have to find ways to cut down the amount of gas used for cooking. I used to read the meters about a year ago but got out of the habit. I know in the winter we use about 10kwh a day. When we had the range out of action for three months one winter that dropped to 3.5kwh a day, yet the electric bill only rose by £25 over this period. part of that is because I used electrically-efficient gadgets to cook with - the slow cooker and the microwave.
The challenge for the next seven days is to a) read my electric and gas meters every day to get an idea of how much we use and b) have two 'gas-free' cooking days. I'm also going to look at switching our gas account to someone cheaper.
As for water, we are already in credit with the water company to the tune of about £27. I'm very frugal with water in the garden and use water butts a lot. Also we tend to have a quick shower every other day and have a bath only about once a week. My washing machine is new and very efficient, plus I have a dishwasher that helps me cut down the amount of water I use. I would like to look at using rainwater to flush our toilets with, as I really object to using drinking water to flush them. A lot of people don't understand that - they think there is a separate supply for drinking water, but in reality it all comes in from the street through one pipe.
The last two days I've spent arranging things by phone and email and I've earnt barely any money. I need to put my head down and power through some work so I can get billing asap. I may not get the money this month, but will have it there for next month's bills.
Today is a No Spend Day (NSD). Hopefully that should be pretty easy to achieve. At some point over the next few days I'm going to start undertaking some challenges such as a Grocery Challenge, Clothing Challenge and a Utilities Challenge.
Grocery Challenge
At the moment we are spending about £100 a month in food and household items, and that has to continue so for June the Grocery Challenge is to stick to £100.
I used to keep a tally of cat food in with our grocery budget, but realised that we have no real control over this so have removed it. It adds up to about £35 a month to feed them. Two of them eat tinned Kitekat and the third is a senior now and has developed a sensitivity to normal tinned food so we've had to switch her to senior pouches. If we can get this on offers, fine. If not, we don't skimp and try and save money.
We cannot alter the brand they eat to save money, as previous attempts have resulted in uneaten food lying down for days and complaints from neighbours that they are stealing food from them. What we have done is found a cheaper brand they will eat and stopped feeding them ad lib as they were putting on too much weight.
Clothing Challenge
This actually won't be so hard as I don't spend much money on clothing. Martin bought me an shift dress for interviews a few months ago and I intend to team that with items and use that for my new job. I have enough clothing in my wardrobe to mix and match if necessary and my mother keeps giving me bagfulls of stuff every now and then when she has a clear out.
So the challenge is to not spend any money on clothes this month.
The only thing we really need is new socks for hubby, but I sat down last and darned all the holes in his socks to try and keep them going a bit longer. I also have holes in my Levi jeans, which are on the inside leg seam of the thighs so i need to look into patching that, and a hole in the elbow of one of my jumpers so somehting has to be done about that.
Thank God for old books about sewing. I have a 1935 copy of The Art of Needlecraft by Polkinghorne and that has a great section of darning and repairing clothes.
Utilities Challenge
Our last gas bill was shocking. Part of that was the usual winter heating bill, but part of it is my range so I have to find ways to cut down the amount of gas used for cooking. I used to read the meters about a year ago but got out of the habit. I know in the winter we use about 10kwh a day. When we had the range out of action for three months one winter that dropped to 3.5kwh a day, yet the electric bill only rose by £25 over this period. part of that is because I used electrically-efficient gadgets to cook with - the slow cooker and the microwave.
The challenge for the next seven days is to a) read my electric and gas meters every day to get an idea of how much we use and b) have two 'gas-free' cooking days. I'm also going to look at switching our gas account to someone cheaper.
As for water, we are already in credit with the water company to the tune of about £27. I'm very frugal with water in the garden and use water butts a lot. Also we tend to have a quick shower every other day and have a bath only about once a week. My washing machine is new and very efficient, plus I have a dishwasher that helps me cut down the amount of water I use. I would like to look at using rainwater to flush our toilets with, as I really object to using drinking water to flush them. A lot of people don't understand that - they think there is a separate supply for drinking water, but in reality it all comes in from the street through one pipe.
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