Amazing April Austerity.

[CremeEggThief]

Hi All,
Taking the liberty of starting a new thread, as I went to post spends on the old one and it's full.

We had a lovely day out at the seaside and visited an old lighthouse as part of it. As we rely on public transport, that's always a big part of our days out spend.
£9.60 bus fares.
£9.60 train fares (with the family railcard).
£6 lunch from Sainsburys ( £3 meal deal each).
£4.50 entrance to the lighthouse.
£7.10 coffee, hot chocolate and cookies in a café afterwards.

Oh and DS needed a haircut, which I think was £6.50.

I am tempted by the Santander one! Thanks 8! Will look into it all on Friday when DH is home.

A few of the ISAs have cashback options on QuidCo too!

Same for Santander, Thanks 8, that's really brilliant. The thread in action, fab.

Ahhh, but the £5 fee negates the interest rate somewhat..

Ipsos Yes, I know really high earners who have little cash for things like home improvements. they must wonder how we manage to live.

I'm never going to be a 10. Too unsociable. There's no "have the energy but a misanthropic streak a mile wide"

You could take advantage of all the 5-6% accounts but it means setting multiple current accounts and feeding money through them to the savings accounts. Savings accounts are tax free now. The isa allowance is generous.

Or go offshore & negate tax. Someone my dn knows is using office space in Cayman to do just that. It's devious but not illegal.

IKWYM Rafa - when I was working I was in some ways functioning less, because I had to push through immense pain during all my manual handling tasks, and I would get home and be completely unable to move.

It's so much better than it was though, so I'm very much counting my blessings. Need you sound like a really great friend :) and I'd never think you meant the 10 as a boast rather than appreciating it! :)

It definitely drops a few points on the scale when I have a bug on top of it though - which is another thing that really hurt on Monday when I spoke to the deputy. As since my manager was off sick, it must be really awful, because you know, she soldiers on when she has a cold [pointed look]. Well yes, I would soldier on too if I didn't have an utterly fucked immune system that means a cold is really not just a cold.

Seem to have descended into a rant again! Sorry. As you were. In some ways I can't wait to be out of that place now.

Spends

Tuesday:
£4.90 bus
£2.50 creative writing
£4.76 co-op

Wednesday:
£2.60 bus
£5.40 adventure playground
£3.99 HDMI cable as ours is broken
£25 Brownies subs
£1.18 co-op

Hi all, back to work today - ugh!

Have written out two cheques today, one for childcare which in theory is budgeted for and one for a term of swimming lessons £58.

Also £2.50 to dd for a school dinner.

Am knackered and still need to tidy kitchen and make pack lunches

Dd also miserable at school, am going to look to move her when we move I think. This year so far she seems to have made hardly any progress and in some areas actually gone backwards not impressed with her teacher at all.

Had a NSD yesterday.

Today we have DS ice skating lessons which is budgeted for. I've work this morning. Then a dressing change this afternoon then his lesson. I also need to pack everything for us going away tomorrow. I'm feeling really drained today. Not good. Not sure how I'm going to get on at work.

need, even with the £5 fee, the cashback on bills and the interest is worth it.
mSE has some very good analysis of the santander account, have a look :)

I am waiting for the house deposit and the solicitors and the move to wipe clean my bank accounts. I'll probably weep, I've been saving for so long and it's been so so hard but satisfying to see it all grow. One day it'll all be empty.
Then I'll have to rethink my battle plan :)
I heard someone the other day saying we are all one salary away from homelesness. I worked hard to make sure I have some savings, they are all going towards my home. So I think I'll feel a bit vulnerable untill I build it all up again.

Does anybody have mortgage insurance? You know, if, god forbid, something happens? As soon as we move I'll see my IFA for a wee chat, have no idea how much that would be. And I need a will. And more hours in the day and more days in the week to be able to work more.

£8 to send 2 passports, other two at the weekend. £6 in the coop on fresh bits. £4 fitness
LSD planned today. Fitness and swimming.
Have read but too tired to fully keep up. I miss out on loads on long work days.

Nsd yesterday. And am hoping for another today.

Am going for lunch with one of our directors today. Not sure why. She asked me - am wondering if there's an ulterior motive. We never lunch...

Had to remove my gel nails last night.my nails had grown so much. It was becoming difficult to even function. So had to soak them off and file them down.

Dh was home late from work again yesterday. For the 14th work day running. He's not happy. And is overworked. But is insistent he needs to stay until July (bonus payout time...). Financially this makes sense but I'm not sure he can cope with it.

Should be nsd today. First day of additional hours at work. Need to get the dc to school then go to work then finish and pick them up then come home get dd and I changed and go to swimming lessons.

We have Nationwide Flexplus. £10 a month but includes our full breakdown cover (inc European cover for holidays), mobile phone insurance, family travel insurance and some other bits. The interest on balances is paid monthly and is usually £4. Worth it for us and has saved us money so far and we are using the 5% regular saver at the moment too. It means a lot of juggling of money between accounts, but that's okay at the moment.
Low spend week so far & no major plans for the end of the week/weekend so hopefully it will stay that way.

Just completed my last payment on my buy now pay 6 months later dishwasher €57.73 saved in interest and have my fantastic dishwasher rather than my old terrible one just 5 months now

fencing do you mean payment protection on your mortgage or life assurance on it? We have both, the first will pay the mortgage for 1 year, starting 3 months after you become eligible. We were offered this paid back under the ppi rule, it would have been about €8k back but to get new insurance would be much more expensive than the rate we were paying so we said no Life assurance will pay the mortgage in the event of either of us dying before the term is up.

I also have income protection for myself, dh works as a truck driver and so is ineligible.

Checked my emails on another account and reason I've access to ynab is they gave me 16 days extra free trial. I think I will subscribe but I will fully commit to it for next two weeks to decide for sure

8I really ought to have explained more thoroughly, ha! We already have the M&S current account, which I pay a fee for. However the attaching benefits and cashback for this account and credit card (especially given DH can spend £3k per month in work related expenses), mean this works well for us, particularly given we still qualify for some of the benefits used as a selling tool when the bank launched. I can also use their 6% saver account.

I'll have a further read about the 1,2,3 account though.

I essentially want to utilise the best option for some cash savings, on top of ISA allowances, but not stick anything into stocks and shares.

God, moving house does wipe you out and make you feel hugely vulnerable, we've done it 3 times now, if we move again it would be to downsize thankfully.

Girlie What year is DD in? Is she close to coming up to high school age?

Cag, thanks. Did you write down the gist of the conversation for the record/future? Such a lack of empathy or understanding by the deputy. Probably in society in general to be honest.

lila I'm still a bit in love with my new dishwasher if I am being honest!

Spends already planned today.
£60 Morrisons.
£25 DH guitar lessons for DH.
£30 Cleaner.

Planning a mundane day in the house. A mundane day in the house is very rare for me. I am looking at my attractive best in my dog walking sweatpants and hoody, and will remain so all day

I wish ynab would let you change your month to month dates, I get what they are saying (you only commit what you have etc) but I found it so confusing being so out of line with our wages days. I really liked the function of moving amounts to cash before actually allocating it and stuff but it just became too much of a headache.

Nsd today.

I'm waiting for an essay back from uni, tutor is leaving it to the last minute again but I want to get on and enrol for next years module and I'm debating between 2 modules depending on the results of this essay. I want to get it sorted sooner rather than later as I hate doing the whole student finance stuff.

On my break at work. Busy busy day. I feel like I can't cope. Only an hour and a bit left after my break though.

I'm looking forward to picking DS up. Going home and packing a few bits. Still haven't done anything. I'm so disorganised.

Collie - Sainsbury have really increase prices haven't they? I'm finding it tough to come in on budget. Im going to start trying to do Aldi in a few weeks and compare the cost.

hairspray I don't fully get what you're saying but if I'm thinking along the right lines - what I do is I set goals for each category for the month and then they remain orange until they're fully funded. Is this what you mean?

don't I hope ye have a fantastic holiday - I try to bring ends of bottles of stuff so that I'm not bringing them back with me like ketchup, mayonnaise, shampoo, wash up liquid etc.

Sorry to hear your dd is struggling too Girlie. I wonder how much we're all still struggling since that flu too. I do feel as though ds has not yet bounced back. Maybe when the sunshine gets through to us all life will perk up a bit. (Or maybe school just sucks.) So sorry to hear your dd is finding it hard, either way.

My grocery bill has gone up 25% for no good reason at all. Good grief.

It's odd but Tesco keeps deleting things that we eat regularly, and then today I read in the paper that they have deleted 20% of all of the product lines. Wow! That is really a lot isn't it? It certainly explains why we keep finding we can't get our favourites. On the plus side their gluten free range has suddenly quadrupled in size in our local shop, which is wonderful. Ds can't wait to have a go. :-)

Don't Keep breathing, a few minutes at a time, plod on, the shift will be over very soon. Then you can get organised.

Ok, I've applied for a joint 1,2,3 account as it makes financial sense, emailed IFA to increase my ISA contribution and also got a 30 day trial to Experian to check my credit rating.

Don't power on through. You can do it! X

I just remembered I dreamt about YNAB a few nights ago

What Aldi definitely makes a difference. We buy cheese, butter, milk, cereal and bread in there. It saves us loads! We've not been able to pop into Aldi lately as their carpark is too small and there's often a long queue of traffic waiting for spaces. Last week we went at opening time and it was rammed!! So we gave up and went to Sainsbury's

Girlie that'll be a lovely fresh start for you both. New house and new school! Shame that her teacher has let her down though.

Em hope lunch goes well!

We have no plans this weekend either. And I really like it that way :)

Right, Off to look at Nationwide and Santander etc!

Oh and NSD today

Collie with a 3 year old and 7 month old it is so much easier getting a delivery. Wilf is not doing two full days at preschool so that should give me some extra time to go just with G. Sainsbury deliver and it's so easy. Just takes minutes to pop it away.