Trying to Save

I'm paying close attention to every penny spent this month. I finally got round to using the A4 notebook that dh bought for us years ago. There's more space than in the other notebook that I was using. In this notebook I've added an envelope to put our receipts in. It should help to keep me on track.

I am really hoping to spend less than 100 on food shopping this pay. I'm not sure how realistic this but our cupboards are pretty stocked, except for missing a few items such as tinned chopped tomatoes which I use a lot. I did just spend 21.83 at the butchers on Saturday but I am going to freeze some of the meat.

Last night we all had leftovers for dinner - except for J, that is. Also, SG has been fussy lately and only really eating spaghetti, ignoring potatoes. Last night she had noodles and loved it. I will need to buy more of them in. Tomorrow we will need to buy some items for the cupboards, but I've made sure to write a list of what I need for the meals that I'm making this week.

SG's birthday is in over a week and I haven't got her present in yet. I did see a dolls house online for 26.67 so I will have to order it. My cousin keeps texting asking what we're doing for SG's birthday. I've told her twice already we're having it a home but she keeps asking. She has booked a party for her almost three year old next month. I am really surprised about this because she is expecting #4 and I would have thought splurging on parties would have been the last thing on her mind, especially since she has gotten rid of a lot of her baby stuff. I offered her the moses basket that she had given us but she didn't want it.

So, here's total spending so far:

Shopping:
6/3: Asda 4.37
7/3: Butchers 21.83

Baby:
6/3: Asda 8.49

96.00 Beginning balance
+10.00 Four-weekly deposit
+2.00 Weekly deposit

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108.00 New Balance

Today is payday. This morning I paid minimum payment to both credit cards and made a payment to my catalogue.

Next on the list is transferring money to MIL and then that debt will be gone. I'm happy to have less debt, I just wish it was mine.

Tomorrow my automatic transfers will hit the emergency fund and I will finally hit triple digits after two failed attempts last year (money withdrawn not long after reaching triple digits). I just hope it stays there for a while.

J is away for his morning nap so I got SG to help me bake a chocolate fudge cake with ingredients that we had on hand. I will buy in more flour and sugar and we will do lots of baking this month. More specifically, SG's birthday cake.

I'm back at work at the end of the month. I got my dates mixed up, I thought it was the beginning of April. I know that I'm lucky to have gotten nine months maternity leave in the first place. I need to get in touch with work to sort out my hours.

So dh still owes 190 to his mum. If he doesn't get it paid off of her credit card this month, interest will be charged. I looked at the budget and by paying minimum to my credit card and minimal spending elsewhere we can make the payment. I am crazy for paying less to my debt, I know.

ETA: Dh wanted to put it on his credit card.

I posted the other day about how I got a bonus from work. Well it has been added to the cash flow since I realised that I had overspent. I think part of this is due to me asking Dh to buy shopping with my card. He sometimes buys extra. I give him my card a lot to use and I've not been tracking it. It's my own fault really.

From March's pay I still want to get a mattress for SG's room. We also need to get her dolls house. Originally I wanted to have gotten her dolls house ages ago but that fell through.

So I will withdraw cash this pay for the following categories:

1. Shopping/groceries: 140
2. Baby/nappies/formula: 70
3. Gas and electric: 50 (utilities)
4. Bus ticket: 73.20

Those are my normal budgeted amounts. However, I think I can spend less on shopping and baby stuff to be able to cash flow birthday stuff and the mattress.

I think it can be done.

My weekly deposit of 2.00 was added to the emergency fund yesterday.

94.00 Beginning balance
+2.00 Weekly deposit

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96.00 New Balance

As usual, my snowflakes were from survey rewards. I actually did better than last month.

5.00 Paypal (Swagbucks)
12.50 Opinion Outpost
9.00 My Survey

Total: 26.50

I have been allocating my snowflakes 70/30. 70% goes towards cc#2 while the other 30% helps to slowly build my emergency fund.

I got a bonus from work today: 81.37. I wasn't expecting one and it's the smallest amount I've ever gotten. As much as I REALLY want to put it towards debt, I desperately need to buy a new mattress for SG's bed. If I wasn't putting any extra towards debt I would feel bad but I am putting extra and I'm using snowflakes too.

Speaking of snowflakes, I have enough SBs to claim 10GBP Paypal cash. However, I'm wondering whether to keep on going and aim for 25GBP PP reward. It'll probably take me most of March if I do. I need over 2000 more swagbucks and I seem to be averaging over 100 just now.

93.25 Beginning Balance
+0.75 survey rewards

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94.00 New Balance

256.00 to go to reach my goal of 350 by December 2015.

I had enough points from Opinion Outpost to redeeem a 2.50 paypal reward. The funds are now in my bank. I will be dividing this 70/30 between cc#2 and my emergency fund.

I told dh this morning that I have been putting my survey rewards towards credit card - I never mentioned savings though. I suggested he could do the same but he wasn't interested.

I think that will be the last of my snowflakes for this month.

This morning I had arranged for us to meet my mum in the local town. She's been desperate to pay for me to get my hair cut, she said she would pay for it for my birthday. It's been a few weeks since my birthday so I reasoned I had better sort it out soon.

I spoke to my mum on the way there. She hadn't left yet but I thought she would let me know when she was in the town. I tried phoning her a few times while we searched for a hairdressers. As it turns out, there are a lot of hairdressers and barbers in town, not all of them are open on a Monday though. We finally found one just as it started to snow. They had had a cancellation so they squeezed me in. I forgot how nice it is to have someone wash your hair etc. I had no signal in the hairdressers so I couldn't get in touch with my mum.

Afterwards, we went to a family friendly pub for something to eat. I spent 12.16 on a large Scottish breakfast for dh, a kids breakfast, pancakes and maple syrup for me and two mochas and a juice. Gave J a jar of baby food. Never again.

My mum never showed up despite my phone calls. It wasn't until later in Aldi that she phoned to say that she was at home. She had gotten the bus but had forgot to grab her phone. She waited ages for us then went home. We arranged for her to come over next week.

When we came home, I transferred the money from getting my haircut, from my mum's bank to mine. I also put money into her savings. She's close to triple digits now.

I'm in for the rest of the day now. Stay warm everyone.

Creditcardfree's post the other day about retirement got me thinking.

I've been contributing 2% of my pay towards a pension since I was 20. I wouldn't have considered it normally at the time, but my manager, who was about five years older, told me he was contributing so I should do it. When I signed up, I told dh who followed a few months later. My employer matches my contribution.

In the last year or so I see that it's now compulsory - I might be wrong - to join your workplace pension. I'm sure the HMRC had a lot of adverts out about it.

I'm by no means expecting a great pension considering my little savings. I don't know what age I will retire. I know one way to increase your pension is to use your ISA savings where you are allowed to save 15k per tax year (Apr-Apr). I am a long way off from this. I need to get rid of debt first and get myself sorted out.

I just wanted to put this out there because I was thinking about it.

It's Saturday, so my regular automatic deposit of 2.00 to the emergency fund hit.

91.25 Beginning balance
+2.00 Weekly deposit

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93.25 New Balance

CC#2 updated today. Unfortunately, I didn't have any snowflakes to throw at it. I've updated my sidebar to reflect my new balances.

cc#1: 770.09
cc#2: 4156.56

Total: 4926.65

It's under 5k now but still a lot to go. Dh sent me a Debt Free link on FB the other day. I think I'm doing okay without outside help (other than SA I mean). I clicked on it but that was it.

I haven't planned our meals properly in a while. I thought I'd better make more of an effort. This is what we will be having over the next few days:

- steak burgers, wedges and veg
- chicken stir fry
- fish pie with veg/fish cakes for everyone
- macaroni
- leftovers

One of my friends, whose baby is one month younger than J, got in touch with me yesterday to say that she had been in touch with work - we work in the same place - about returning after her maternity leave. Although her baby is younger, I had more holidays to take due to being on sick leave and not using them so I'm due back a few weeks after her. Dh needs to find out if he can change days then I'll get in touch. I also need to fill out my holiday (vacation) forms for the year. I know a lot of people will have done that months ago.

I need to get in the right mind frame for returning to work. I really don't have any interest in how they're doing, if the sales are good etc. I need to sort my attitude. I've been away too long (Dec 2013 was when I first went off sick and I haven't done a full proper week since then)

I went shopping this morning. Spent 23.xx at the butcher's and 5.69 in Co-op.

We spent the rest of the day trying to declutter and organize our livingroom. Tomorrow is SG's room. We have a lot to get rid of.

My bank still isn't letting me transfer to the credit card. I tried this morning, despite the fact that I haven't found any more snowflakes. What a pain.

I took 16.80 out of savings and sent it to cc#2. This money wasn't meant to be there in the first place, it's all snowflakes meant for credit card two, so I don't feel bad taking it out. This is unusual for me. Usually when I withdraw money from savings I'm unhappy but I know this money didn't belong there. My bank is still having problems, so I paid it through dh's bank.

I was so excited yesterday that I had another snowflake that I updated here. I then forgot to transfer to savings. I just checked now and realised that they didn't match. Oops. It's sorted now though.

It's Saturday so my weekly deposit of 2.00 was added to the emergency fund. I set this up after paying off a Buy Now Pay Later item from the catalogue. It used to only be 1/wk, I increased it to 2 just before Christmas.

89.25
+2.00 weekly deposit

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91.25 New Balance

258.75 to go. I have 26% of my target amount in my emergency fund now. Ten months to go.

I just received 6.00 my survey rewards. 30% went to the EF.

87.45
+1.80

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89.25 New balance

260.75 to go.

Months ago, snafu suggested tracking upcoming expenses and what was needed, what was the plan etc. I've got an idea in my head but I haven't written anything down. This is roughly some of our upcoming expenses:

March: Mother's Day, SG's third birthday
Plan: minimal spending on Mother's Day, buy flowers/chocolates and a card unless I think of a better idea. Actually I have a photo frame from xmas that I haven't printed a picture for yet so I may just use that.

SG's birthday: buy dolls house. Make cake, with her help. Buy card and wrapping paper - check stash first to see if I have anything appropriate. Less than 50GBP hopefully.


April: my mum's birthday, back to work, cousin's boy's birthday
Plan: find out what she wants, possibly take her out for lunch or make a cake for her and invite her over here for lunch. Hmm.

Work: plan packed lunches, buy tea bags to store in locker.

Cousin's son: outfit, 10 max.

May: pay deposit for upcoming cake smash and family photo shoot in 40

June: J's first birthday, cake smash and photo shoot.
Plan/spending: 80 for rest of photo shoot/cake smash, less than 10 for cake ingredients. Make snacks if we have any guests over.

I think that's all for the first half of the year.

85.95 Beginning Balance
+1.50 survey rewards

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87.45 New balance

262.55 to go to reach my goal of 350.

84.45 Beginning Balance
+1.50 survey rewards (opinion outpost)

--------------------------------
85.95 New Balance

This morning I checked my email to find that my bank had replied to my message. They basically said that they know that they're having technical problems which they are trying to fix.

I had a look through my pile of shredding and found an old credit card statement. I was going to phone and pay with my card but that wasn't an option. The options were: go into the branch (5 working days to process - payment due in a couple of days), pay using online banking with a different bank (not working) or pay with a Bank of Scotland current account. Well, I switched banks five years ago but dh has a current account with BoS so I decided to pay via his bank.

I transferred the money to dh then I logged on after confirming his details with him. I had to set up a new payment recipient, which then had to be confirmed via a phone call once I clicked Confirm. They gave me an authorisation code too. I told dh to wait by his phone. It was an automated call. He confirmed the number then my payment went through. It takes two hours to reach the account this way. The only thing is I didn't pay the 5.60 extra, I just paid 130 (minimum was 75). I will probably hold off applying snowflakes to cc#2 until I get this sorted properly. I really don't want to but I'd rather do it through my own account and dh doesn't know that I'm doing this. (He knows I'm putting extra towards debt though)

ETA: I don't want the 5.60 to "melt" in everyday spending. Should I just transfer it to savings until my bank is up and running again? I was going to send it back to paypal but that seems more complicated.

My bank is still having technical problems. I've messaged them to complain because I still haven't made a payment to CC#2. I will look out a paper statement and phone them to hopefully make a payment. It's getting close to the due date so I need to get this sorted.

I've had a lazy day today, well I've done minimal tasks. My mum came over this morning to have a birthday lunch with us. She also gave me money to get a takeaway tonight even though I told her we'd got one the other day. My mum also wants to pay for me to get my haircut so I told her I would arrange it for next week. She got me the presents that I asked for, plus a box of chocolates and a top.

I forgot that SBs give you 50 SBs on your birthday. That was a nice surprise. I'm about 300 + away from being able to redeem another 5GBP Paypal. Of course, I'm hoping my bank has sorted out its problems by then.

Ive had a lazy day today. We never went anywhere. It would have been a no spend day if i hadnt ordered a takeaway. I decided it would be better to get it today before i go shopping when there's plenty of space in the fridge for leftovers, which there is.

I redeemed one hundred points from opinion outpost today. That's 5GBP. My bank is still having technical problems so i havent requested a transfer from PP to my bank account.

72.45 Beginning Balance
+10.00 Four-weekly deposit
+ 2.00 Weekly deposit

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84.45 New Balance

It's payday. I woke up an hour before the kids hoping to get all the bills paid and get some stuff done. I've managed to get a lot done, except pay credit card #2 because my bank is having technical problems. I went to view my credit card statement and make a payment using my card but there wasn't an option for it. I also wanted to make an extra payment of 5.60 which is from the survey rewards. It'll have to wait for now; I've tried at least three times.

I signed on to a few survey websites but I didn't qualify for any surveys.

I cancelled the graze box that I get every two weeks. I'd agreed to their new sharing package which is on special offer at 10GBP. Plus I also had my usual box which is 3.89. I was thinking about it today: do I really want to spend 13.89 on healthy snacks from them when I can just go to Aldi and buy their big packs of fruit and nut mix, and salted nuts etc. In the end, I decided that it was best to cancel it. I've cancelled it before but then they've sent me a special offer email and I've signed up again.

I signed on to What's The Cost today after I had paid cc#1. I usually do this on payday. I can't manage to pay 160 towards cc#2 each month like I wanted to so it's looking like it won't be paid off until early 2019. Of course, I will do my best to get it gone before then.

70.05 Beginning Balance
+2.40 Paypal rewards

----------------------

72.45 New Balance

277.55 to go.

Swagbucks emailed me to let me know that my PP cash had been deposited. I just need to request a transfer to my bank account. It only took two days!

Remember that I ordered SG's present from Amazon? It never showed up. It was due to be here on 2/2. Yesterday I got in touch with the supplier. They can't send me a replacement item because it's out of stock. So now we need to go shopping for a dolls house. DH wants us to find a really good deal though after this one fell through: it was only 3.49 and included 18 pieces of furniture. They've refunded me.

I also still haven't got the wardrobe that I ordered. I've messaged Wowcher but haven't had a reply yet. I would say that I'm not having a good week but that PP cash is a sign of a good week to me