The 2012 budget changes,,, what it means for me

If what I can make of the reports is true I think due to the increase in the amount you can earn before tax I should be approximately £12 better off per month as of next month, I think. That's a whole £144 per year each and £288 between me and the BF which isn't too bad.

Although the price of cigarettes is going up by 37p hitting BF in the pocket. I want him to give up, but he doesn't want to even though on some days he forgets to smoke lol.

In other news our council tax has also dropped from £164 per month to £135 so we should be slightly better off there too. It all adds up, and as everyone here and at Tesco knows 'every little helps'. I'm hoping the BF doesn't notice the decrease in the council tax so I can squirrel away the excess into the holiday fund without hurting our pockets too much.

The weather is getting much nicer so this morning I caught the early train and walked from Waterloo to Tottenham Court Road. I'm considering refunding my tube train and bus travel card and getting an overground only rail pass as its almost £400 cheaper a year, money I could use for a holiday or car insurance. I also know my walking routes to and from work now so it doesn't seem as daunting as when I first started working in the city last October.

I think I may inquire at the train station at the weekend to see if its worth getting it changed over and I'll have to check with HR too to see if my monthly re- payments can be altered, as I know that they can be difficult in accommodating admin changes outside of the 'allocated window'.

Anyways, its been a fairly good month money wise, I think I've put almost £800 into various saving pots thanks to my interest payment. So here's to limping through to payday, eating carrot soup lunches (only the one jar remains of the batch I made the other week) I think I'm going to have a lovely golden glow come the end of the year from all the carrots I've eaten hehe- who needs a pricy spray tan?! 

Mother's day.... On a budget

Happy Mother's Day to any mums out there! This year I took my mum to see Coppelia at the London Collesium, tickets were just £30 for two so thought that was pretty good value for money. We ate at La Tasca the spanish tapas place, and used a voucher code from voucher cloud, an app on the iPhone to get buy one dish get one free, so we spent a nice evening in London without breaking the bank.

I also bought my Nan a present, a £2 box of Dairy Milk chocolates and recycled a gift from the BF's family which they gave me at Christmas; a mini bottle of Burberry weekend perfume and some English handmade soap all wrapped up in some wrapping paper I made using word and ordinary printer paper (courtesy of work hehe!)

To make this wrapping simply type the persons name repeatedly for one line across word, then copy and paste until you have a paragraph of text. Colour each line a different colour, then copy and paste the paragraph again and again until you have enough sheets to wrap your gift. It's really effective and costs hardly anything (or nothing in my case) work gave me my birthday present wrapped in it and I loved it, as did a friend of mine who I also made the wrapping for. 

Today my Mum and Dad popped in on their way back from my Nan's, my mum had been wanting me to bake her some bread for ages so put a seeded loaf in and wrapped it in some clear patterned plastic wrapping I had saved from a bunch of flowers (that's the blurry thing in the photo) I also gave her a little Pimms cocktail when she came in.

We went to the pub where the BF works to meet him, the parentals had a roast each and with four drinks the bill came to £15. On mothers day the pub is usually heaving but this one was a bit quieter as I think people are still cutting back on unnecessary expenses.