Judicious January Jangling & Juggling *blows budgeteering bugle*

[claretandamberforever]

Sorry, couldn't resist going overboard on the J's

Happy new year y'all. Welcome to expert budgeteerers, newbies, lurkers and de-lurkers. We're a very friendly, non-judgmental bunch so please use this thread as you choose whether it's as a spending diary, to confess your money sins, ask for help or have a general whinge at the cost of living.....

Congrats claret!!

Sorry claret, I didn't notice the job. Well done! February always flys by so it will seem like no time at all.

Congratulations Claret! Very reassuring to finally have a start date.

I've sold a couple more bits on fb. I'm going to bag up what hasn't sold and take it to charity this weekend. I'm feeling good about having got rid of plenty of 'stuff' and the fact that I made some money is a bonus.

I've bought some tickets for some events in the future. Long term it'll be fine but this month really wasn't to right time to buy so I'm now in denial and trying not to look at the account!

Well done Claret a good start to the year. What job is it.

Spends yesterday were £98.00 for tyres on my car. That hurt . But I am going to work on overtime this morning. And intend to put some stuff on eBay. Am gonna try find three items a week to put on and leave all the money in my PayPal account for emergencies like new tyres.

Happy weekend everybody.

picnmix hope your mouth improves quickly, do you have to go back to the dental hospital?
Ellis welcome, well done on clearing your debts and hope your lo's eyes are better soon.
claret great news about your job, the time will fly by

Well my weekend got off to a pretty bad start, with the power to our kitchen
going off on Thursday night . We managed to get someone out to it yesterday but he's not yet been able to find out what's wrong. There's one more thing he wants to look at this morning but after that the landing floor will have to come up and then possibly our beautiful bathroom floor and . It looks like when we had our extension done, the wiring may have been done in a less than satisfactory/safe way. It was 5/6 years ago but apparently the builder would still be liable if its unsafe. So after having a good angry cry last night, then channeling my energy into cleaning the kitchen (complete with head torch as there are no lights), we spent far too much on a takeaway but felt we needed it.

I'm trying really hard to stay positive but sometimes its difficult not to feel like you're constantly fighting these setbacks.

Haven't used the aldi voucher yet and am limited as to what I can buy as we have no fridge, just a cool box (kept cool by blocks from the freezer in the garage!).

On a positive note, dh won a night at a local hotel a while back and we are cashing it in tonight .

Sorry for long post, but I needed to vent!

north I think I'd have had a takeaway in those circumstances too. Lets hope the floor doesn't have to come up. I worry how we'd pay for big stuff like that, we are slowly building a savings pot up.

£8 pygmy led bulb for the fridge
£5 led bulb for the utility, paid for both using paypal money from the energy monitor I sold so its a swap more than a purchase.

£1 sun+ membership, it's a £20 morrisons voucher this time so dh joined & I'll save the voucher for the Christmas turkey. Dh doesn't know he's joined though. Got a lipgloss coming too eBay fodder.

Hi all, been a bit absent this week. I have had meeting after meeting this week in the evenings and don't seem to have had any time for mn.
The good news is we made it to payday! It was yesterday. So far I have spent £40.10 on petrol (why can I never get it stop on the £40!!!) and I took £10 cash out to cover pub lunch and lottery at work. This morning I am off to the do the week's shop. It will be more than I spend on an average week because the first week of the month I always stock up on tins, cereals, juice etc. I will get everything I can in Aldi then have to nip next door to Tesco for anything I can't get. Luckily those things are getting less and less as Aldi do more ranges.
I'll report back in later to let you know how much I spent.

Thanks fluffy cloud, phone bill came out earlier than expected so not only will I be overdrawn but I'll be charged €5 for each item that comes out of account grrr

Definitely good case for a takeaway north!

Made it to payday with cash to spare - usually have to raid savings!

Having a wobble this morning panicking about what if DH doesn't get a job. No idea how to claim benefits and having visions of being evicted. Will woman up now.

Going to do Aldi monthly mega shop today. Have two Aldi vouchers so we're going to split the shop into two. Pleased to get an extra coupon for fish cakes as their fish cakes are lovely!

fluffy did you have to put in a code to sign up? Also, did you do it on your dh's phone or did you just enter his details? Ive just tried signing up again but it won't let me use the code that automatically comes up -mos something I think. Thanks.

Well DS is still poorly bless him. Supposed to be going to a rugby match tonight but we will see how he gets on. Good news is we bought tickets ages ok and the people we are going with owe us money for the tickets we got them so that money will cover any extras tonight.
Also sold a cookery book on amazon today but the cost of postage is so high I barely made the amount I sold the book for. Going to stick to eBay from now on I think.
Hope everyone else is doing well

ilove

I did it on the ipad again, I used his details & it came through as a £10 voucher so I emailed them & they said the links not working properly.

Good news the electrics are sorted with minimal work. It turns out that when we had the extension built the electrics were connected to their own control panel very separate and well hidden from the main panel. This is apparently lazy rather than unsafe or botched in any way........phew! The electrician refused any payment for his time but his ds plays cricket for the same club as ours so we'll buy him a couple of drinks in the summer.

Having leftover takeaway for lunch today

Instead of our usual Saturday lunch treat from the deli up the road I made us pancakes for lunch. DD loved them and it saved some money. Need to recheck budgets and check everything is adding up. I still aim to pay off the £900 debt in 2 months. Thinking about maybe changing my weekly food budget to a weekly one and any leftover money gets saved. What do other people do? Weekly or monthly budget for food?

£170 in IKEA but all stuff that was budgeted for/on list except for the meatballs and chips ahem

I have now got a huge box of stuff to eBay and plan to list it all tomorrow afternoon on 7 day listing, so people can bid next Sunday. Anything that doesn't sell will go to car boot in 2-3 weeks, along with 3 more bags of stuff in the garage.

All proceeds will get me closer to CC debt freedom!

£24 aldi
£6 morrisons
£2 poundshop. So £32 weekly shop.

If anyone wants my aldi voucher pm me & I will post it first class.

£4 wine.

£300 in Aldi. Two overflowing trolleys but that only leaves us fresh stuff to buy for the next 6 weeks or so.

Used most of my coupons so I saved about £17.

Got my tax code sorted so £35 rebate this month and DH's tax bill is a couple of hundred less than we were expecting. All good!

Spendy day, but all budgeted for and used my £20 voucher from JL AND my free coffee and cake one too. About £76.50 altogether, on travel, food shop, a Venus gillette razor, pocket money for DS, and dinner at Pizza Express.

Aldi voucher has been claimed.

north im going back on Friday to see the consultant.

fluffy thanks. Im wondering if I can do it in my mum's name and phone but use my email address.

We were supposed to have family come this weekend but they broke down en route and the car had to be recovered! DS and I had a very quiet day. £10.25 in m&s for a friend's birthday present but I used a voucher I had from my birthday. Then £9 in asda on vests and a doll for DS that he was very taken with. However, he then completely ignored it when we got home so I think I'll put it again till his birthday. Again I used a voucher from my birthday so effectively an NSD for me today.

Spendy weekend (DS's birthday) but budgeted for it so think we'll be ok. Annoyed that we've only just discovered we could have been claiming Child Tax Credit all this year (didn't figure it out until we did our tax returns last week). But 3 months of it is better than nothing.

Has anyone had any luck selling baby and toddler clothes at boot/table top sales? I need to clear out a load to declutter but reckon I'd make more money working for clients for a day than faffing about with trying to sell them.

Good things: DS loved his birthday presents bought on the cheap from eBay. Clients paid for my lunch several times recently at workshops .

£30 Spent yesterday. NSD Today.

artemis I've been to ikea too - meatballs obligatory! I treated as had just enough left in my personal spends, £13.24. We spent around £34 on stuff, a frame, a plant, etc. dd was being a typical toddler, only happy when tearing around, jumping on everything in sight, so we whizzed around fairly quickly - didn't even browse in home organisation (my usual weakness!). Unfortunately this money will also have to come off the remaining food budget. Think there's around £20 across all budgets left until we get to February.

Other spends today - £2.50 softplay, £2.90 coffee and babychino.

Two more sales today, £10 in total.

Sainsburys shop £48. Which is great. I made soup in the slow cooker and we were invited to dinner at a friends so we've saved one meal. We are going out tomorrow for lunch with friends so that will be £30 I think. Dinner will be a roast that I bought last week....