Austerity in October - *blows the budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

In here please.....

Pinch punch, first of the month.

£3.39 on cat biscuits. I must find a cheaper supplier.

£5 petrol again

£10.70 on bus fare and a late lunch. I had a meeting with my solicitor, as my STBXH is being a pain about money lately .

Evening all. I've not posted for a while so here goes -
Fri- £28 odd in asda
Sat -NSD
Sun - £3.65 on coffee and cake
Today - £1 into softplay and then £17 odd in Tesco but that did include a Christmas present for DS at £6.

I thought I'd save some money by making his Halloween costume but I reckon it's going to work out more expensive than a shop bought one! He's going to be a mummy but I hadn't anticipated how much bandage I'd actually need.

Morning! £15 for DS' football holiday camp yesterday. Thankfully today and tomorrow he's with friends so no spend there (other than pocket money).

Am trying to get my head down to clear my work desk so that I can focus on writing my cv! Argh.

Morning all - just two more days to get through, come on - we're nearly there

Yesterday was quite spendy:
£18 on a check up at the dentist. Very pleased with this as I fully expected to need at least one filling but I don't (woo)
£5.00 DS1 wears black plimsolls nearly all the time which is great because they don't cost much to buy however they need replacing more frequently than trainers or shoes so yesterday he managed to blag two new pairs out of me.
£4.99 then he asked me if he could have some new trainers which he needed for PE. I told him it would be the end of January before I could afford to fork out for anything like that. He then said he would buy them from his birthday money..... and I could pay him back!!! Daftly I agreed to it. He has the gift of the gab that boy. I paid on my card (£44.99) and when we got home he gave me £40 cash, so I'm paying him back at £10 a month (less the £4.99 he didn't give me today)
£9.49 on three pints of coke and a pint of lager at the pub
£25.79 on five meals at the pub, and a plate of profiteroles for DS2 (we paid for SIL too). I've taken all of the above out of the family money budget
£3.09 on some Nytol as DH is having trouble sleeping

Grocery budget; £27.20 remaining
Petrol budget: £40.92 remaining
Everything else; £61.46 remaining

Had a letter from Natwest about the loan. They are not going to take my first payment on/around 24th November as I was expecting (i.e a month after the payment went in), they are going to take it on 1st December which means it will not come out of my next wage, it will come out of the one the month after (woo) so I have an extra £168 next month to play with which is much welcome as I haven't bought any presents yet.

Submitted my meter readings for gas and electricity and worked out how much we had spent. It's worked out at roughly £120 for October. I still owed them £67 and this month's payment is £140 so I will just have covered this month's use, and knocked around £27 off what I owe them. I haven't attempted to use any less fuel either; the heating has gone back on a timer, I'm using my tumble drier, the electri fan heater has been on most nights etc etc

Well my chickens in the slow cooker & I just need to post Dh's parcel which he will pay me back for & buy some smart price stuffing & yorkie puds.

Today has been v spendy! About £10 on more bandage and thread!!! This costume was a bad idea. £7 on softplay and lunch for me and DS. £40 on petrol and £54 on return train fare to see my family in December. I need to get some face paints tomorrow but that should be it for a few days.

£33.60, on travel and lunch for a planned day out. Also paid my leccy bill of £28.37 on my debit card.

Farkin 'ell - is it still October? This must have been the longest month ever.

Yesterday's spends were quite minimal; £3.50 for DS2's playscheme, and £2.20 on lunch for him. £3.80 on dessert from the supermarket. I'd told the family when we went for our meal that I couldn't stretch to a dessert each and instead I agreed to buy a nice item from the supermarket to have at a later date, so I bought a chocolate cheesecake (reduced by 70p) and some eclairs.

Budget:
Petrol: £40.92
Groceries: £23.40
Everything else: £55.76

Even though we're away, have been keeping an eye on the thread to help keep on track! I gave us a fairly generous budget for the week and any underspend will go into the Christmas budget. We've done packed lunches every day so far and eaten in. Day trips have had fuel/car parking costs only except Alnwick Castle/ Gardens which was our splash out for the week.

Well done on being so organised Northender - hope you are having a nice trip.

Oh was that you, northender, asking about visiting Alnwick, in a recent thread in Chat? Hope you're having a fab time in Northumberland. I love it there!

Oh FFS. Bloody EDF were supposed to lower my direct debit from £166 a month to £140 a month (I do have an outstanding balance of £67) however the utter numpties have taken £166 again. I know that I still owe them money and therefore I've knocked another £46 off what I owe them, but that's not the bloody point is it? I've budgeted for £140 not £166 knobheads. AND I can't even ring them to complain because my house phone isn't charged up because I some numpty unplugged it to plug the hoover in two days ago

£3.53 on a few bits from Tesco, and £9.30 on posting off eBay parcels, but that's been paid for (just for once, I calculated the postage correctly).

Claret, I'm back with EDF, but paying cash on receipt of bill this time around, after having problems with them stuffing up past direct debits and taking as much as they pleased .

CremeEggThief - but don't you end up paying more that way with not getting any direct debit discount?

Today's spends £3.50 on holiday club, £3 for his lunch, £3.38 on spam, bread and summat else from corner shop, then I noticed they had a good offer on washing powder and lenor so went back and spent £3.58 later.

Well my month ends here as DH's wage has gone into the bank today and I will get paid tomorrow. I'll start a new thread tomorrow though.

I have carried forward £112.85 into November which I am really pleased about given that it has been an expensive month for birthdays and paying money out for school trips, school books, and a holiday club.

Normally I would be using the end-of-October wage to pay the road tax, but I was able to do that out of my September wage. Okay, I did get a £52 refund, and £90 leftover from the loan so I possibly would have ended the month overdrawn but lets not dwell on that. Hopefully November will work out slightly cheaper....

Grocery total was £333.82/£350.

Petrol total was £309.08 / £350 (£83 refunded by DH's work)
Everything else total was £349.58 / £405.34

So, aim for October wage is to make sure I have enough left at the end of November to pay for the MOT in cash (and pray that DH's bonus is going to be paid, as promised, at the end of November - gulp).

£3.29 lunch but I'm putting it through to be claimed back

£20 petrol

£5 amazon voucher came this morning from my nielsen account app on my phone.

£1 on joining The Sun online, it's a months trial but you get a £10 morrisons voucher & 3 free Calvin Klein lip glosses. I've just got to remember to cancel it before the months up.

I've applied for dh & I to have John Lewis reward cards for the monthly free tea and cake vouchers.

That's a pain Claret

I know what you mean about the costume being more expensive home made picnmix, it's ridiculous isn't it? I've spent, in actual money, about 12 pounds. Also used a gift card to buy clothes that can be used for the costume and then get washed for general use. Two devils here.

Also spent about 75 ish pounds on groceries this week so far. 3 pounds on parking yesterday and 2 on the roads. DDs have 2 days off school after today. DH spent about 18 pounds, I think, on antihistamine, Ibuprofen and paracetemol. I lent DD2 13 quid for wool and crochet needles, she's paid me back already.

Have told DDs that Christmas is going to be a lean affair this year, they'll survive.

Oops, I wanted to Review.

Will need some veg and fruit.

Good luck with the money sitch Creme

Claret I've just thought, if I want to complain to a company I google the CEOs email address and complain to them. It's the only way to get things sorted sometimes.

[email protected], email him a very polite, concise email and it usually works.

I'm in discussion with the CEO of Royal Mail at the moment. Seems a nice woman.

cremeegg no it wasn't my thread but I did see it. We love Northumberland too, we're actually staying in Kelso but went to Bamburgh yesterday (no spend) for a glorious few hours on the beach. Today went for a walk and spent £7 on ice creams. Tomorrow going to Edinburgh so will be spendier but should still be coming in well under budget for the week.
claret hope you get your energy bill sorted. We've just fixed until 2015 and will just keep an eye on prices.

Thanks adora.Glad you're having a lovely time, northender. Enjoy Edinburgh too.

Allegedly so, claret, but not in my experience. I went with Scottish Power last time after I left EDF, and I only once spent all my quarterly budget on the bill. Mostly, my bills were half to three quarters of what I'd saved to pay. It made me FAR more careful and cautious of my energy use too. For example, I still haven't even got the heating on yet!
I switched back to EDF when I moved house and am now on fixed tariffs until 2017 for gas and electricity, but there are no exit fees for leaving early.
So for me, it's been worth going back to a more old-fashioned way of paying, and I feel much more in control too.

NSD & £4.20 cashback came through.

Yesterday I spent £3 on wrapping paper and face paints. I also subbed 3 people £2 each birthday collection contribution. Not convinced anyone will remember to pay me back. Today was 29p on a packet of sweeties. Practically an NSD.

Today's spends
£3.50 for holiday club and £3 for DS2 lunch
£39.50 on two haircuts, one for me and one for DS1. I'm not sure how much they cost separately but I was a bit aghast it cost so much! They've even made me look like a lego man woman so I don't even like it I'm tres disappointed

£15.66 in Morrisons of which £10.66 was on food / pop and a fiver was on Halloween sweets (55 bags of haribo - the cashier loved me).

I was going out to lunch with my friend tomorrow but she's had to cancel on me, so I'm off to the cinema instead with my mum.

Had two invites to meals out today; a leaving do on 14th November and a Christmas do on 13th December.

I'm not going to complain about my fuel direct debit I'll just knock it off what I owe them.