Frugal January, part two.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Everybody is welcome.

Hoping for LSD today - might have to top up the Oyster card a bit, but I should be able to get away with only £5 as I really hope to be back on the bike on Monday. Fingers crossed the ski gloves arrive in time and are warm enough!

Pointless, could you borrow the money just till you get paid? How helpful are your bank? Mine gave me a £1000 overdraft facility when things went briefly pear-shaped a couple of years ago.

Onwards & Upwards spotty.

£40 aldi yesterday & £1.10 two copies of the mirror.

pointless - can you negotiate with the nursery if you explain the situation? Poor you, you sound worried. It's hard.

We have to pay DH's tax bill this week, £8.5k. Gulp.

I'll post fully later as it is pay day today.

Good grief that's a lot of tax. Is he a ltd company?.

Someone's paid me today which I am very, very relieved about.

Glad you've got some money in fluffy!

DH paid £200 off the credit card so that should leave roughly £150 to pay when the next bill comes. Then we will both not use our CCs for a good while.

Avoided shop this morning as DD got a lift so didn't have to walk all the way to juniors which is at the shops - just walked straight back from infants (separate schools)

I'm trying to remember to coin sweep now, just my purse for now though rather than bank.

Good grief this thread is nearly half full! Might we end up with thread 3 this month?!

He runs a Ltd Company, but that is entirely separate. It's because he takes a very minimal wage through PAYE and gets paid via dividend. It's fine, we apportion monies for the liability, we never ever think of the money as DH's, and indeed would never spend any of this. It's a tax liability that is collect via self assessment, just makes me gulp when I pay HMRC

Thanks for kind comments. Had another chat with DH this morning, I think it was a bit much waking him up to discuss it at 4am. I'm a bit annoyed that I sorted out some old jewellery to sell before Christmas and gave it to him to deal with as he works in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham and he still hasn't done anything with it. He is really busy today but has promised to remember next week.
I think extending my overdraft is a good idea and would be cheaper than using the credit card. I didn't think of that!

pointless could you put some spends on an interest free credit card to free up cash in the bank account?

£37 on dentist for dp and I so far. Couldn't find a parking space in Tescos so came home! I only really wanted to use my fish vouchers - anyone know if I have to give the Tesco Orchard "for a friend" to a friend or can I use them myself?

pass I think you can use them if you don't use your clubcard with them.

I haven't posted for a couple of days and I can feel things slipping. £53 Tesco. £1 at card factory. I'm using a budget app religiously this month. I feel in control but we'll see nearer payday. It's not helped by it being a 5 week month for us.

So NSD today and this week quite frugal, all told probably less than £40 total spends.

Spotty sorry to hear about the job, I know how it feels, I've been second choice a few times now and it's frustrating, keep thinking it must be my turn soon, still onwards and upwards.

Still ploughing on in the job search for both temp and permanent. Working on some freelance bids and networking but need something soon. Re did my Cv though and it now looks bloody amazing so hopefully that will help.

On a plus point - won £50 in amazon vouchers from a survey site, FIL sent £400, we have the £5 Aldi voucher and a £3 voucher from Maplins and we've seen a dehumidifier cheap on there. So all in all not too bad. Council Tax holiday next 2 months should enable us to gain some ground and using the banking app I'm keeping a tight reign on the finances. Need to find a good free budgeting app going forward - any recommendations welcome.

Virtually NSD day again today! I was really good too, I met a couple of friends at a soft play centre and didn't buy a coffee or snack. It took some will power but I'm pleased with myself now.
DH texted to say he has sold my jewellery and he will explain about it when he gets home. That either means he gave it away for a tenner and he wants to break it to me gently or it turned out to be worth thousands and he wants to tell me in person. I suspect the former...

No NSDs since Weds - yesterday had driving lesson, first in 2 years (£32) otherwise an NSD. Determined to get my test before 30th in June.

Today got paid and got tweezers, brow gel (much needed!), some bits of food, and sandwich/crisps/drink out

Had a horrible shock today. Although I am an accountant, i don't work in tax. I completed my own tax return between Christmas and New Year, expecting to have less than £2k owing (child benefit). Unfortunately I discovered I had underpaid on PAYE so actually owe £3,600 for last year. I thought this meant £1,800 now and the other half in July. I am such a dipstick. I am meant to pay £3,600 PLUS £1,800. AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH

I have registered to stop receiving child benefit. I have therefore reduced my payments on account on this basis (bit cheeky, will still have some to repay for this year), also my PAYE code is (or should be) correct. I now have to find £3,200 not £1,800 this month. I can get together £2,500 and pay the rest next month, might have to pay a bit of interest, but Will be ok. I will do a balance transfer on my credit card, but will try to clear ASAP. I have the advantage of not needing to find £1,800 in July. If I do next year's return as soon as I get my P11d, I should be able to get the child benefit collected via my PAYE code.

Ouch audit.

Nsd today it's really cold though so hearing is up full and all the blankets are out!

Hi Everyone, been AWOL a bit these past two days, work very busy with quarterly business reviews...I cannot WAIT to not have to do my trained monkey routine at the next one in April. 5 more work sleeps!

Audit what a week you're having, that is a horrible bill to suddenly be faced with.

Good luck with the job hunt sporting

pointless if that was my dh, it would very much be the former. Good luck!

NSD so far. Two lovely friends treated me to lunch AND gave me presents to mark my 'Retirement' from the workplace for the time being. I got a gorgeous Jo Malone hand cream that I wouldn't buy in a million years for myself. Felt very spoiled.

Enjoy the rest of the day Frugaliers, I'll be back on this evening :)

I forgot to mention, post Christmas, credit card bill is £4k. This is about £2k Christmas and two months of normal spending.

So, two months with no council tax £266 extra each month. But need to book summer flights to Greece.

Also supposed to be away May half term. We are going to trade in our time share week from last year to points and use them, either in the UK (ideally) or Nirthern France. That is my job to look for something over the weekend. Will need to pay about €100 to bring back last year's week which has expired.

Good grief that's a big bill audit.

£5 petrol.

Bank: £657.48 (was £657.48)
Purse: £57.94 (was £57.94)
Jar: £52.00 (was £55.20)
Grand Total: £767.62
Reduced by: £3.20
Days to payday: 21

Spends:
£3.20 has gone out of the jar. I think this must be bus fare...

8 for DS's bus fare to Scouts.

€20 on a pair of leather boots from a market.
€25 on two non leather handbags for the DDs, also from the market.
€90 on food for the next week, including expensive "English" foods because we can't get them in Chile and DH couldn't wait until we return to the UK. He knows the Branston has gluten but he's going to "try it and see how it goes"

Garage £511.11
dozen eggs and sweets for panto £4.95

Today has not been a good day.

Right. This will be interesting, if just to me.

I split last months disposable income into 'pots', usually I would record everything spent by the household, but generically. I honestly feel that by having budgets for everything has gotten me into a more controlled mindset.

In some respects, January has been very easy as DH and I have done (for the main) Dry January. There have also been no clothes expenditures or hair cuts etc, or ad hoc and unexpected break downs or the like. We have had no major social events and toiletries, well, we have loads from Christmas. So it's been a bit exceptional really.

Anyway, here goes.

Holidays '15 - £200 (£200 saved).
DD ski trip school £100 (£100 saved)
Petrol - £200 (£200 spent, and car needs filling)
Pony - £200 (£180 spent, including a membership)
Bdays - £100 (£39 spent)
Xmas '15 - £150 (£150 saved)
Car insurance/tax/mot/expenses £200 (£200 saved)
Cash withdrawals - £500 (£430 spent, but I need to think as I think I have double counted my spends below, which is stupid)
Misc expenditure - £150 (£321 spent)
Food shopping and cleaning products £800 (5 week month and no clue what I spend a month, £540)

Other income

£140 cashback for switched to Sky, haven't claimed from topcashback yet.
£200 cashback for two laptops that DH bought for work from Curry's
£15 Selling.

Also saved usual amounts for ISA and the decorator, who is due next month.

I need to juggle my pots around to find out what I have double counted, and allow less for food but have a clothes/hair cut/dentist pot etc. But it was a really good exercise for me to do and really made me focus on saving for stuff that I might not even need until later in the year.

However, we never get this much ad hoc 'income' and rarely spend so little on clothes, hair cuts etc. I can definitely get the food budget down more though.

My focus is to prove that we can live on our income, and not rely on the dividend that DH gets. DH thinks this is frankly ridiculous, as he cannot envisage a time when this will happen. I take his point, business is finally good after a long recession. So is not on board at all!!

Spends today, £25 food and tumeric for pony. £5 on car wash, but paid £5 to the music stand. £4 DS karate. DH is bringing in a takeaway, I am shattered as DD and I have been up early all week sorting said pony given the weather, so that's fine by me. That will cost about £20 for 3 of us.

I am keeping going because when I finally sit down, I won't get back up

Weds and Thurs were LSD for me with £2-£3 on lunch each day. NSD today. My God I have had a crap week and am so pleased its the weekend!! Still one more week to pay day for me.

owch audit. How did you manage to underpay on PAYE?

Been checking/redoing DPs tax and he'd missed off lots of receipts on his attempt so his bill reduced by £500. I said that he needs to split the difference or at least take me to Frankie and Bennys ha ha.

£18ish in Sainsburys, new polo shirts for dd as she is busting out of her ones she's had for 4 months....shave gel (lots of male grooming half price!), tissues and dinner/salad stuff.

Thanks for the Tesco Orchard Tip - I could go in, pay cash, without clubcard and then they won't know my name if I can be that bothered to save £1 (3 times I think)

Pass not quite sure, except that HMRC changed my tax code late in the year, activating the new code in Feb/Mar would have taken most of the pay, so they put me on a Month 1 code and I didn't notice.

My car I've had for 3 years now, it could have been a late update of that, but I thought that had been in operation for a while. To be honest, I checked what was on the code was correct, but didn't check it against the previous one. I had intended to get the expected tax bill collected via my tax code, then I would still have had the money for the December bill.

The credit card bill for December was as budgeted for, this month was a bit bigger, but not massively, but now having to settle the tax bill will delay that.