Payday!

When I get time I'll go back through the bank statement and work out what went in and came out. At the moment it's all very confused as not everything has cleared. Yesterday I did two lots of shopping for £25 and £68.11 which set us up nicely. As it was my birthday, the first lot was a lot of cakes for work!

Had a lot of car trouble, trying to get one through the MoT. Spent £81 on some parts, and put it into a garage where it will cost a lot more tomorrow. We also put £20 diesel in the Xantia and filled up one of the Imps for £23. There will be a lot more to come out in the next few days. I'm leaving my account alone for a bit to see what clears!

It occurred to me as a result of doing this blog that we're not as poor as we think. We make a lot of decisions knowing that we have revolving credit with both my Mum and my mother in law. This month we paid them each back £150 (5% of total salary in) and I know we're going to have to borrow some, possibly more than that, to get through to the end of the month. But, they both feel they can be honest with us about whether they can afford to lend us money, and are willing to help, so we are actually quite lucky in that respect.

Last day before payday

Spent quite a lot today - took £30 out of the bank at lunch-time. Put £10 in diesel in the car. Spent £5.55 on lunch for both of us, put 1.30p in the chocolate machine at work, and bought a big issue for £1.40.

Then got overtired and still don't have a cooker so ordered a Chinese takeaway for £12.60 - and Eleanor had to work overtime too. Tomorrow is payday so that'll be a big post!

Missed a day

Went to London last night for a relative's 80th birthday dinner. Borrowed the money for the dinner. During the day worked on the cars and spent £2.50 at the school fete.

Today (Monday) spent £7.99 on lunch, and not much else!

Saturday

Had a massage today which was £18 plus 90p for parking. Went shopping at Tesco, spent £16.something - of which £5.50 was for a present for a good friend. The rest was bits of food and beer for the barbeque we went to. Spent a lot of the rest of the day working on the car. Put £25 diesel in one of the other cars because we have to go to London tomorrow.

Still tired

Got some money into the business today and spent some of it on the business which is outside of the scope of this blog. Bought lunch at Tesco for £5.33 and went shopping after work. We bought a new wheelie bin with some B&Q vouchers from my Mum which reduced the cost to £9.98 - and I bought our eldest son (ES) an England flag to wave for 48p. Then went to Argos and spent more vouchers and £7.99 on a freeview box. We've got rid of Sky now so that's saved us £22 a month. Then we went to Asda and put £1 in a box for Guide Dogs. Then I did something I haven't done in a while and bought some stuff that I can't remember how much it was! ES had a kinder egg for 40p and 3 packs of party invites for £1.68 each (£5.04) as he's five soon. And some turkey for £1.68 plus a loaf of organic bread and 2 pints of mik.

Thursday

So tired today - at least the money from my Mum came through. Went down the pub for a leaving do at work and spent £6.35, then another £5.42 on the way back in Tesco, and rounded it off with around £12 in Sainsbury's on the way home for a Chinese for a treat. Also put £20 in the car and spent another £2.63 on school trousers for our eldest and some pens! On the way to work we nearly ran out if diesel and put £5.22 in the car, running another account over its limit. Eleanor bought a treat for afters for 99p on the way home.

Bad day

Well the govt didn't give us our child tax credit - in fact they told us we owe them £1008 and it's going to be over 6 months of zero money until we pay them back. Moved most of the stuff from the house - the rest is going down the tip and the cost coming out of our deposit. Spent 80p on 2 chocolate bars and apart from that ate what food we had. Borrowed another £50 from my Mum - that should arrive in our account tomorrow. It's actually getting a bit touch and go whether we'll have enough diesel to get to and from work for the rest of the week.

Graham's Life

Right so, waiting for the insurance money to come through. Another day at work and another day of moving and cleaning (tomorrow's the last day). Spent £2 on lunch and £2.55 on breakfast. Put another £9 of petrol in the car as well, from the business account. Also we had a direct debit go out which put another account overdrawn.

£5.66 carried forward, minus £4.55 leaves £1.11 (hope we get some money in tomorrow!). I've got £1.06 so my maths must be a bit off!

Had enough

Right so, back to work on Monday morning and the hottest day of the year. After a day at work we tried to sort out the house but to be honest it was too hot and too tiring and the Vax carpet cleaner wasn't shifting the dirt.

On the money front I got the carburettors for the Husky back in from the reconditioners. And one was bent so I spent £8 at an engineering workshop to get that fixed. Spent £1.55, £5.94 and then 75p on food. And I think that was it for today. I know it doesn't add up but we found some money in a business account so we took out £10 for the carbs and paid for the £5.94 lunch with that.

In: £15.94
Out: £16.24

So, I only spent £2.30 out of my purse and put £2.00 back in so it should be £8.56 in there! Actually it's £5.66 because we spent £3 on work based sweepstakes and I must have found 10p somewhere!

So out is £19.64!

Another day, more stuff moved

Well another day, and temperatures up in the 30's apparently - it was blisteringly hot. Did nothing all day but run to and fro with boxes of stuff from the old house. Missed 2 deadlines to move out now and still have about another 2 days of moving plus one day of cleaning to go!

Anyway, not a bad day financially, put £10 worth of diesel in the car (well Eleanor did) and didn't spend anything else. Took the boys to the playground which is a big treat for them and free for us :)

Out: £10
Remaining £8.86

Money's not as bad as it looks - we're getting an insurance refund soon that'll be £26.something and there's also child tax credit of £33 coming in on Wednesday and we've got lots of food in the house!

Graham's Life

Just counted my money and I've got £18.86 so that's pretty good - at least I've got a handle on things.

First post 10-Jun-06

Welcome to my life. I thought I'd record all the details and statistics I could think of about what I do everyday. At the moment we're in the final throes of moving house so I'm very tired. We're doing most of the work ourselves, with two children under five. The reason for this is that we have no money, but that doesn't put the whole picture across. We shouldn't be hard up because we both have decent paying office jobs. One of the reasons for this blog is that every month the money just drains away in the first week and we end up borrowing all over the shop to make ends meet. I just thought if I wrote it all down every day then I could see where it went and maybe make it last longer. Perhaps it's just not possible anymore to live in this country - certainly the South East is very expensive.

A bit of background, first, the "we" in this blog is my wife, Eleanor and I, and we have two lovely boys, 20 months and nearly 5.

Yesterday I borrowed £100 from my Mum. So:

In £100
Out:
Shopping (food) £4.50 (ish)
Breakfast in cafe £13.08
Shopping (food) £56.50 (ish)
Baccy and sweets £7.35 (ish)

So that's £81.43 spent, so there should be £18.57 left. On the plus side that's shopping for the week so we shouldn't need to spend too much more on food. On the down side, we've got to buy diesel for one car, probably before any more money arrives (should be Weds at the latest).