November news

It seems like these bi-monthly blogs are becoming a bit of a habit due to life getting in the way. However, I have kept up with the reading of my favourite blogs on a daily basis, so conscious spending is never too far from my mind. 

Maisie approx 7 weeks. x

Firstly, the little kitty has taken up lots of time- from trips to the vets (v.expensive- have now set up accident insurance £3.60 per month can't quibble, much cheaper than vets fees) to chasing her around the flat making sure she doesn't get into mischief. These are the photos from our first little photo shoot.

Second of all work has been manic! And in between all of that I decided I had had enough, updated my LinkedIn profile and CV and uploaded it to a job board. I had about five interviews within the space of a few days, followed by second interviews. 

Work spotted I looked all done up on my half days and offered me a decent pay rise to stay which was nice as was quite unexpected. However, a few weeks later I had a new job offer on the table, 4.5k more than I have been on which will come in extremely handy and might even start paying into my pension again (I am just that crazy!) haha. 

Consequently, this month I haven't tracked my spending in the usual way but have put some money away into my savings and am having a very frugal week this week (hence the blog post). Lunches will be bought from home, I'll be raiding the cupboards for dinner ideas and I will be resisting those extra cute, extra yummy Christmas coffee shop cups. 

From Monday (payday) I will be tracking my spending so as to avoid any Christmas financial hangovers. I will also be hitting the shops this weekend for a tree (on offer saving of £30, paid for with vouchers) and some decorations to take advantage of the lower price and in an attempt to beat the rush. 

We are finally in our own home!

Just a quick post to say we finally completed last Friday!! It seems money is being sucked from our bank accounts from all angles at the moment, from the three months’ worth of service charges upfront (£370) (we thought we could pay this monthly) to paying for the second hand washing machine and fridge freezer (£100) council tax which has been wrongly taken for the old flat (£138- still waiting for the old housemates to transfer what they owe) to TV licenses, contents insurance, other insurances, the sofa and finally not forgetting household items. We had £850 (approx.) worth of vouchers which has almost depleted now by half, but has come in ridiculously handy.  Luckily our first mortgage payment isn't due until next month (thank god!) and we had a small buffer of £100 or so.

It’s been such a busy few days so far, the spare room is still covered in boxes but I LOVE having my own home. I have lots of ideas of how I want to furnish and decorate- if you are interested please check out my Pintrest boards which can be found here.

The fight over the central heating dial has started again

A snap from this mornings rain filled walk. 

Like last year the fight over the thermostat dial has begun, with me turning it down a couple of degrees so it doesn't come on and turning down the radiator dials and them turning it up and leaving windows open. Grr! I can't wait to control my own temperature and bills.

In other news, payday came and went. I was thinking of buying a new autumn jacket in the price range of up to £50. However, I just dug out my old jacket which is proving fine, so some money saved there. Money from this months pay has been shifted to the ISA and the saving spreadsheet will be updated this week.

Last month I made it through saving an additional £200, so tucked that away in the ISA. I also managed to have a pretty cheap last weekend and saved the money I need to pay for the next six month water bill. Even though its good news I'm feeling quite frustrated and just want to get to my end target quicker.

Anyone else feel like this?

x

September Sunday.

Evening all,

I can't seem to believe it's September already- though the recent chill in the air and it turning dark outside by 9pm are starting to make it more and more obvious. Soon it will be my one year blog-o-versary, Halloween, our five year anniversary, my birthday and Christmas! Whoa!

Anyhoo, I think I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon a little. I think my frugal-y habits have become ingrained in everyday life, but despite my own posts becoming few and far between I'm still an enthusiastic reader of those I follow.

On the finance front, the BF was paid all his overtime again, clearing more money than the previous month. With the extra cash he has finished paying off his credit card re-payments to me, its all gone about six months earlier than we anticipated so yay on that front.

The saving spreadsheet shows we have the grand total of £19,359 just a few hundred pounds away from the minimum we'd need to buy a £160,000 property- so if things carry on we should have more than a 10% deposit, hopefully reducing the monthly re-payments which I'm pretty pleased about. I was thinking of maybe booking an appointment with an advisor next month just to see what our options are and where we need to be etc.

Finally, after chatting to some new colleagues at after work drinks last week someone told me I can get an overground train straight into where I work. Not only has it made my commute much easier, it means I won't have to fork out for tubes and buses next year. In comparison a season ticket for rail only is approximately £500 less over the year than the price of a full travel card- so I can put this money towards getting my car on the road as I'm starting to miss the independence of having it.

x

Where has August gone?

I'm not sure where to even begin...the last time I blogged was exactly a month ago. The break wasn't intentional but I just felt I couldn't continue documenting every tiny thing as I was getting frustrated with things not happening quicker, so I'll try to start at the beginning where I left off what's been happening. 

My new toy :)

First of all I handed my notice in at my last job, and despite the team dropping down from three to one they were prepared to let both myself and my manager walk away. Fine. The worst bit, they hardly even bothered to speak to us before our last days, which coincidentally were just one day apart. Then a few days before he was about to leave they said he could come back. 

Needless to say I wasn't very happy about the situation with the management, but the rest of the teams I had worked with over the last eleven months were lovely.  The people I worked with have a collection whenever someone leaves, and they bought me this Kindle case as well as a £10 amazon voucher so I could get downloading and reading straight away which I thought was pretty nice.

So, prior to handing my notice in myself and some of the other 'grads' spent about six weeks orgainising an office Olympics, which unveiled the bossiness in some. Anyways, at the final event we were all given £75 worth of vouchers to spend as a thank you which I thought was pretty nice. I was going to spend it on new work clothes as mine were looking worse for wear and wanted to look presentable when I started my new job. Then I thought, why not spend it on something I wouldn't buy myself... like a Kindle? 

I voiced my thoughts to the BF, to his horror as he was planning to buy me one as a present with the extra money from his new paycheck. I was never keen on the idea of the Kindle, thinking what's wrong with a good old book. But I didn't expect to love it as much as I do, haha. I find I can hold it one handed so read much quicker and I think its actually more enjoyable to read on. So much so I whizzed through the Hunger Games trilogy in just a few weeks. I read the majority during my week and a half off, and whilst we went to Bournemouth for a long weekend. (I'm now saving the vouchers to use as presents instead). 

Beautiful Bournemouth

The weekend away was part of my birthday present to my BF, along with some Lyle and Scott t-shirts and socks- they had a 50% off sale on their existing sale if that makes sense so I bagged some pretty good bargains there. Secondly, the weekend away was purchased through one of those gift websites, but luckily I have a friend that works there who was willing to give me his 30% discount code. 

One day at work the deal popped into my inbox, £100 for two nights stay in a three star spa hotel with breakfast too, which after the discount came to £70. I also made use of the free tickets for SW trains that they gave me when I bought my season ticket so our travel there and back cost absolutely nothing. It was so nice to get away, have some time together, the rain held off all weekend and we even managed a swim in the heated outdoor pool! 

BT Live- London 2012 

We spent the rest of our week off together cycling about, pottering around and generally enjoying each others company. One day though I did venture into central London to meet an old uni friend. We went to BT Live to watch the Olympics on the big screens. She had just got back from holiday and constantly is at her overdraft limit so we thought it would be a nice, cheap day out. 

I packed a picnic but when we got there we were told that we weren't allowed to bring food or drink in. We sat outside along with all the other people cramming ourselves with food to avoid wasting it before heading through security to watch the games and to see some cheesy boy band and Alexander Burke. Once again, despite threatening to rain the sun came out- yay! 

Practicing my portraits 

Hmm, what else.. ok. So the BF got his first paycheck, and enjoyed his first month as the breadwinner, a feeling I think we both enjoyed. He then got £300 a few days ago for the scrap copper they pulled out the air con units, so this month has doubled his old salary. 

He's so excited, has opened his ISA, put £1000 away so far and has paid me back a chunk of the money he owed me for paying his credit card off earlier in the year. He's going to give me the last £135 on Friday when he gets paid and he'll be debt free :) I had to 'borrow' the money from him this month because I had to pay back my season ticket loan, meaning I had to pay for six months worth of travel all in one paycheck. Needless to say, I havn't been able to put any money into my ISA this month, but will be putting my 'travel' money in whenever I get paid to make it up. 

Sunday afternoon photo session x

I think now he's earning more (for now anyways due to getting paid more to work nights) meaning he can contribute towards our deposit a bit he's getting used to the idea of buying a property and that it might actually happen, and he was even looking online the other day too at a property website whereas before it was always me getting excited and planning. 

Finally it was time to go back to work- I've been at my new place for nine days now and I didn't realise it would be so surreal and hard trying to learn all the new processes, finding out where all our log ins etc are kept on the shared computer drive, even the new journey has thrown me. 

I can't get the tube anymore so have been getting the bus, which has been kind of annoying. The queues are rediculously long in the morning, and there is so much traffic. However, today I managed to walk without getting lost which took me half an hour and is quite a good work out too. I tried walking home, but bumped into someone I used to work with and got all confused and lost my bearings :S. 

Coupled with the fact its been horrendously busy due to about ten different university clearing campaigns going live on the same day I've been pretty tired when I get home, especically as I hardly ever leave on time anymore. But the time flies by, unlike my last job which is always a good thing right?

Ok so I hope I havn't bored you too much, I think I'll be posting more regularly again now I'm hoping to get back into my old routine.  

Ten days to payday....

With ten days to go my pocket money has run dry, and so I have found myself on Pintrest furiously pinning away as if money is no object. If you fancy checking out my boards here's the link http://pinterest.com/swingsand/.

I'm not sure whether its a good thing or bad thing lol, all this material wanting but I do like to look at my ideas all together if that makes sense?

Does anyone else have Pintrest, if so, or not what are your thoughts?

Happy Sunday xx