December debt destroying *blows the budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

Okay, so probably not much debt will be getting destroyed this month, but hopefully we won't add too much to it.

Here's the thread you want if you need to keep a spending diary somewhere, confess money sins, ask for help or have a general whinge at the cost of living.

Welcome to any newbies

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Claret I have an ongoing joke with my MIL about 'personalised' Christmas/birthday cards as she loves them and I loathe them. The result is that she goes out of her way to buy the foulest one she can find every year. At least, I think it's an ongoing joke. Maybe she just likes them...

DH has just been paid his dec salary. Now all we need to do is not spend it in its entirety before the end of December so we can afford little essentials like food in January.

Looking forward to getting our Christmas tree on the weekend. Not looking forward to inevitable £££ price for one that won't drop needles non stop.

so the car's been repaired - to a tune of £400 (argh). to be fair, the garage gave us a hefty discount as part of a loyalty thing, and I honestly believe went beyond what they needed to do, to discount things. It would have been at least £550 otherwise.

better news is tomorrow I'm off to do some extra work for extra pay. It'll mean trekking into London (but paid for) and it'll mean missing DS's christmas fair (not so bad a thing?!?!) but we need to do this....

have had a couple of NSDs - looking at my fridge and cupboards, I do think all I need to get this weekend is fruit.

£5.50 in sains on Christmas bits

£6 petrol

50p the mirror for the aldi voucher.

Great news about the rebate, Wimsey.
£6.15 on postage to Rep. of Ireland and 89p on milk, so £7.04 altogether.

Spent a fiver today on pizza for dinner (food shop needed rather urgently! DH out doing it now) and treats to keep DC2 occupied during DC1's nativity.

peter great news on the rebate! Love it when things like that happen.

NJ5 eek, that's expensive! Hopefully the next service will be dirt cheap though.

£5.20 on bits in Tesco ready for my dad and girlfriend arriving. That included a few yellow sticker bargains.

I get paid tomorrow so I've just worked out my budget per week. I've got a work Christmas do coming up but that's just a curry out so shouldn't be too expensive. Thank goodness we're a bunch of boring farts

Hey ghetto i have £140 to last 2wks til nxt pay day n £35 a wk on petrol plus food shops n few xmas presents to get means some serious budgeting !!

Car tax due 1st Jan but have that as save some each mth for car stuff.

wimsey the universe is on your side today!

I really need a car pot put aside. We just had MOT in October and since then one of our front bulbs has gone. We're going to try to replace it ourselves but that means time, motivation and YouTube tutorials. What are the odds we end up at our local garage?!

NSD today and realised (again due to daily statement checking) that DH's £18 spend on Sunday was from his own account not joint (adora I don't think that counts either!) so £18 back on food budget. We've had some pretty odd dinners this week, including a half fish half BBQ chicken freezer pot luck! Il add this windfall onto Christmas spends.

Defo Turnoff

Wamsey at that rebate.

Ghetto that's good going.

Not sure How much I Spent Today but was definitely less than DH. Christmas gift shopping now done and I just need To Get wrapping paper Tomorrow. So, taxi £4, DH met me later and parking was on a Pre paíd card, lunch £4 - bad planning- farmacia £6 on sanpro with a small donación for a foundation that does Dr. Apptointments for poor DCs.

DH bought afternoon coffees and DD's gifts plus from GPs and aunt's/uncles back in UK, and my pressies. He's feelling a little hard done by as thinks he's only got the 2 polo shirts he chose Today. DDs have already bought and hidden gifts for him.

eastmidlands nn - thanks, oh, ok. You've put my 'money left till payday' into perspective. Despite me spending 140 quid on groceries. (Still got a few more to get, will get smaller amounts of deli meat and no small fruit juice cartons 'till after payday). We've got 60 quid to last us until next Tuesday night's pay roll run.

Although, I have got my husband's Christmas presents now. I'm going to tell him that the fifty quid I spent yesterday on clothes should be part of my Christmas present. He's keen on me having something to open on Christmas Day. There's a book I've asked for so if I get that as well, then I will be happy.

Adora, thanks. This particular Department Store where I live overseas has periodic sales. Once a year in December they mark down all their womenswear to half price. Further discounts on already marked down clothes too.

yesterday was another NSD but DH did put some work petrol in. I'm off out tonight on my work xmas do so it will be quite a high spend day today

Hello to everyone. I have been keeping up with everyone but not posting as it's been too depressing. I've nc as it felt like time for a change.

Pay day today and 4 weeks until our household end of year. I gave up work after having dc2 so we have been living off 1 salary for 11 months. It's been tight at times but I think we're going to end the year debt free but without having put a penny into savings. To be honest, I'll be very happy with that.

Food is being delivered today. Hopefully I've got everything we need for the month except fresh fruit & veg and milk. I'm planning a weekly trip to Aldi as their Super 6 is fab this month and they do organic semi skimmed. I could have saved the delivery fee but I had a voucher that covered the cost and no impluse buys.

Staying in with dvd tonight. Park, flask and packed lunch tomorrow. We're out in the evening but it all pre paid. Sunday may be a trip out using our annual pass before it expires, packed lunch again. This is the worst month to keep to a tight budget. As someone said earlier you just haemorrhage cash.

I'm not going to admit to you all how pitifully little I budgeted for Christmas (I am a bit about my insane optimism) but suffice to say I am £312 over budget, with still a couple of bits and the tree to buy! Will be amazed if I come in under £400 over budget. Insane. I just can't believe how much I used to let slip away on odd bits and bobs at Christmas, as I have actually been semi-sensible this year compared to previous years. I daren't even try to work out how much we must have spent last year on Christmas.

Iamnotanugget I know what you mean about haemorrhaging cash!

Looking on the positive side, we have plenty left in our food shopping budget for the rest of the month - about £350 - so shouldn't go much over budget on the food front, as the turkey and most of the other meat is already bought, and I know relatives are bringing lots of booze.

DH's work Christmas do tonight, but I'm driving and they are quite good with wine on the tables, so shouldn't be too expensive a night. MIL is babysitting so no costs there either.

£26.something on postage to the Rep. of Ireland, sending family gifts!
They're all getting vouchers next year...

NSD for me.

at your postage cremeegg. I've got a mug to post to oz and I'm wondering how much that is going to be.

Please don't get me started on overseas postage charges. I live overseas and have sent a box to my Dad in Britain with his presents of clothes in it. Sixty quid's worth of clothes cost about forty quid to post, including the box they went in. He's a 3XL size so when I wrapped up the 2 t-shirts and 2 sweatshirts they were larger than average parcels.

Tax Duty was extra again on arrival in Britain due to the value of the gift/s. I didn't know that, I thought it was all taken care of in the cost of posting. My Dad got cross and, in a letter to me, threatened to send the parcel back to me. (Don't go there - just don't). He had enclosed the correspondence from the UK Tax Office requesting the not quite twenty quid payable. I paid it from my UK bank account so the could get the (goddam) parcel. He also started ranting about, 'Christmas is cancelled'. Mostly because of the cost of things and, 'not paying 50p for a card'. What ? It was just rant, rant, rant.

Twenty quid in a card next year methinks. Well, that's what he sends to my husband and I respectively, for birthday and then Christmas. So, I think I'll do like wise for him. I can do without the aggravation and him being ungrateful.

Although, fair's fair. The twenty quid each he sent to us. I've converted it into local currency and, as expected, we will purchase still and sparkling wine with it for Christmas.

Had a bit of a spendy day Today despite my plans.

Bit of food for weekend, Monday and dogs - £20
Gift wrap for DDs £2.40

Then DH called To say the car has gone wrong so can I collect him, from the City. So after collecting DDs from school tríp coach I Spent £1.60 on the road in and £6 because I realised that DD2's stocking isn't as full as DD1's, so got a few moré socks and knickers.

Then we had To eat because neither DH ñor I had had a chance To eat lunch and by 6pm we were Starving. He paíd for that. After eating, birthday gifts for 2 parties this weekend, classmate and boyfriend, plus the things I can only Get in the supermarket in town came To about £60.

Iamnotanougat Well done on staying in the black

Ghetto I just don't post anything form here unless it's urgent, like medical insurance claim forms, and then it goes by DHL because I can't rely on it arriving other wise. Very annoying.

Can't see who is out on the works Christmas do tonight but I hope you had a nice evening.

Morning all! Up mega early after being woken up by DH coming in from his works-do extremely late. Wouldn't usually mind but am going to London later on this morning - I hate falling asleep on the coach!

Hello nugget. I'm fairly new to posting on the thread and have found it invaluable for keeping me focused on family finances. I love the idea of 'household end of year'! Are Aldi super six the same all over the country? I'd find it really useful if someone can post what they are when they see them. Would really help me to meal plan!

£14.67 on lunch out with family yesterday afternoon.

Just answered my own question by the magic of google! Super six are parsnips, carrots, maris piper potatoes, sprouts, clementines and lemons. On offer until 31st December (do they not change every week?) perfect for Christmas dinner! Think il make spicy parsnip soup next week and mash with sausages. Only need to shop for meals til Thursday as on Friday we're away for our first Christmas stint!

Turnoff I was up moments after you due to the delight that is ds shouting 'Mummy, sun' at his gro clock. Although it's still early it's actually about an hour later than he was getting up by slowly, slowly changing the wake up time. Our aim is to eventually get him to sleep in until 6 low ambitions when you're a parent!

The Super 6 usually change every 2 weeks but things have been on offer a bit longer this month. I love this selection. It's not exciting but stored correctly all these items will last ages and can form bulk of loads of meals.

I can honestly say that running my household finance like a business is without a doubt the dullest most useful thing I've done to sort out our accounts. I have a budget for everything, including 'paying' me and dh pocket money monthly. I keep track of spending monthly, quarterly, half yearly. Probably takes about 90 minutes per month on average but if it means I don't have to go back to work until it suits us then it's time well spent.

Possibly I hope you've had a good night out.

Don't forget you can parboil, roast for 10 minutes and freeze potatoes and parsnips.

I'm doing our Christmas Day dinner ones later today. I buy goose fat off amazon because I do roasters at least once a week in the winter and it works out cheaper that way than buying teeny little jars off the supermarket.

nugget think I'm most put out that dd is away at grandparents - wasted lie-in! I did manage to have a couple more hours sleep after a cuppa and mooch around downstairs so feeling more refreshed now. I actually think if I had charge of DH's earnings and gave him a monthly spend I could probably make it stretch for all of our household finances! Haven't quite got to that point yet, we're slowly getting on board to budgeting our joint finances!

fluffy a friend of mine swears by this! Says it gives her a totally stress free Christmas too as she freezes then in disposable trays and pretty much everything is done. I'm making room in my freezer by eating all of the random-ness so may try this next week!