Friday 14 September 2012

Happy New Year



Despite a life in the finance business I seem to be attached the the educational calendar. The end of the summer holidays always mean a whole new start to me. Re-work the budgets, sort out the bills, revise all the phone contracts and so on.

Budgets
New idea: The fixed costs are all split out. Then there is an amount that goes to Fahed for his pocket money, petrol, any shopping and the rest he can save. This works well as he cuts right down on expenditure when he gets the benefit. This is the money he uses for his individual visits to his family member sin various countries. It stop sme having to worry about that expenditure. The balance stays with me. I spent the unavoidable and squirrel the rest away.

UK Plan:
Modified version of the old 'to do' list. In Excel so that I can sort and filter. There is a category column (college/sitting room etc), a column that specifies what needs doing A column for any cost factor & a final column that says how we will finance it i.e cash, already own it, freecycle, eBay sales. Which brings me on to the next thing, which is that anything which I buy from eBay needs to be financed by previous eBay sales. So Sunday might just be turning into eBay advertising day.

Crete Plan:
Which is also a holiday plan. A spreadsheet of possible dates & costs for Crete trip (or hopefully 2) plus analysis for any family trips which Fahed has to take. The planner includes how I make my holiday allowance go as far as possible by including bank holidays and flexi days. In fact I just worked out I could go to Crete for 10 days at Easter and only use 2 days annual leave! Result!

Meal plan:
Total re-think. Portion control Less meat, more veg. Last weeks shopping was £41. I cant sustain at quite that level but I can do better than I was.

And on top of all that, my favourite thing Cleaning. Tomorrow is a proper great big old spring cleaning day. Old Style. No avoiding.

Let battle commence

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