Organising Finances

I was following Toni over @ A Bowl Full Of Lemons with the weekly challenge of organising our finances....However, after talking it over with {TH} he said we would be best waiting to start at the beginning of the month. Our big payday is at the end of the month and thats when I normally work our budget out, so being mid month we are a little hit and miss. So I am reading all Toni's posts and making a list of things I need to do or buy, that way I am totally prepared to sort my budget at the end of the month ready for next month. I will get on top of our finances.

Headache

Just fetched {LM} home from a birthday party and now her and {S} are running round like wild animals! If that wasn't enough to give me a headache working out the finances was!

On the plus side we are not in as much debt as I thought we were, we should (fingers crossed) be debt free in a little over 12 months. It could be less, as when one thing is paid off we can put the extra onto debt no.2 and so on. However I am setting us a target to be debt free by April 2012. According to Dave Ramsey we should set up an emergancy fund first of $1000 that equals approx £622. I can't do this first, as I have a debt that I need to pay back by the end of April, but once that is paid we can sort putting some away for our emergancy fund. The most expensive thing to replace for us would probably be the tv in the lounge, so I will set aside the cost of a new tv plus a little extra, it will probably be around the £700/£750 mark.

I still need to jiggle things about and some of the statements for our bills haven't updated yet so I don't know how much is due in April, but I have made a start

Linking this back to A Bowl Full Of Lemons

Week 7 Challenge

I admit I haven't been doing very well with the weekly challenges over @ A Bowl Full Of Lemons, but this weeks challenge is one I both need and want to complete. Organising my Finances! or lack there of lol

This challenge is over 6 days and Toni has broken it down to nice easy bite size chunks:

Day 1 - Set up a budget, track all spending for entire 6 day challenge & Enter Giveaway
Day 2 - Learn about & set up an envelope system
Day 3 - Create a "Budget Box"
Day 4 - Create your debt snowball & learn about free budgeting software
Day 5 - Dave Ramsey interview questions answered
Day 6 - Giveaway Winner & debt free stories


I really need to do some research on who Dave Ramsey is and what it's all about. Being in the UK I feel a bit lost over Mr Ramsey.


{TH} and I are already on a budget and on the road to becoming debt free, although being debt free is a few years away yet. I am however always looking for new ways to budget and work our finances a little better. I sometimes get a little lost and mis-calculate so I need a system that works for us, that both {TH} and I can understand. It needs to be simple and preferably not use excel (unless someone can give me a crash course in using that damn prog!)

Maybe it's time for good old fashioned paper and pencils, I did buy those little notepads the other day that I have not given to the kidlets, therefore I could use those and those funky new mechanical pencils lol.

Whatever I go, it must be better than my current system, which involves:

Checking the bank online and scibbling on scraps of paper, that ultimately get lost. I always have a rough idea of how much we have coming in and going out, but I sometimes 'forget' to budget things in and then it messes up the week.

So this week, today is a new start and I'm determined to get a system that works and will continue to work.

First thing I need to do is write down all our bills and how much we owe, then I can break things down and work things out. For me the worst part is have 9 different paydays through the month and all our bills are paid monthly (at different times). Think today will cause me more than one headache but I know it's the first step on a long road that I desperatly want to get to the end of!

Home Management

Making a home management binder (HMB) was last weeks weekly challenge over at A Bowl Full of Lemons, now I've ummed and arrred over this over the last week (or so) since I read the challenge. I am vey un-organised (hense this blog) but some parts of my life are quite well organised. 

My diary/planner - this is incredibly well organised (for someone like myself).

As you open it, it has a full year at a glance. I have gone through this with 4 different coloured highlighter pens, highlighting dates.
Yellow - College Assignment Due
Orange - Governor Meeting
Green - Birthdays
Pink - Anniversaries

 

{Click pics for larger view}

The week by week I have everything for that week written in, very srcuffily but in none the less hehe. I write in bills that are due to be paid manually, like the rent and catalogue payments and then cross them off when I pay them. Bills that are paid by direct debit are in there too, on the date they are due, I then add when they actualy get paid. Some bills change date each month just to make my life harder

Now on the calendar (that lives in the kitchen) everything is duplicated from my planner (except bill payments). My planner goes everywhere with me, so if I'm out somewhere {TH} can look at the calendar and know who has what and when. (TH}'s has his own calendar, (in the bedroom) he adds things he needs to do, such a tax and MOT dates (man things he calls them). I add my placement, college and meetings (dates and times) to his calendar so he always knows where I am or where I am due to be, also that way he doesn't double book himself to go somewhere on the days/times when he needs to be home for the kids, but I don't add the kids stuff to this one. It just isn't big enough for all the info lol

My fridge freezer is the epi-center of my home management, not only is it opposite (very almost) the calendar but it contains all sorts of notes and letters. Each friday {B} brings home a newsletter from school, that contains information on upcoming events, trips, class assemblies, important info for parents etc etc. Each week I read the newsletter. Then I highlight all the dates on the calendar (on the newsletter) that I need to be in school for whatever reason and onto my fridge it goes, replacing the previous weeks newsletter. I also have appointment cards, recipes, school holiday list, college holiday list and some other bits on my fridge. Ttechnically, I could remove all these things as they are marked on the calendar and in my planner and my fridge would be a neater place, but this system works for us, as a family. The kids can take the newsletter off the fridge and check what they have coming up, they can't reach the calendar.

Ok thats about it for being organised lol, so back to this home management binder thing 

With the burning question..........Do I need a home management binder? What would I put in it? I went to look at some of the awesome HMB you bloggers created and this is what I came up with - section wise for the HMB, most of them from Toni @ BFOL

• Calendar
• Schedules
• Cleaning
• Menu Plans
• Finances
• To Do
• School
• Medical
• Contacts
• Blogging
• Shopping List
• Take Away Menus

Now let's see, 

Calendar - Do I really need another one? Perhaps having one with everything else that could live in the HMB might be handy

Schedules - These live on my calendar, but I guess having a set schedule would un clutter my calendar an awful lot

Cleaning - yeah I do probably need this, my current cleaning schedule in on my pc, turn pc on to check it and get side tracked by emails, blogs etc

Menu Plans - I don't cook lol, {TH} does all the cooking and he doesn't plan that much in advance. He buys everything he 'thinks' he'll need when he shops and picks up other bits as and when. The most in advance he plans is a day!

Finances - I currently do this (poorly) on my pc in excel (I can't use this properly) but again, when I turn the pc to check something, I get side tracked

To Do - As above (but not in excel lol)

School - All on my fridge, but again like other stuff would be handy to have it with everything else

Medical - Have no real need for this section, no-one except myself has any known allergies and I carry an ID chain with my medical info

Contacts - This I like, 90% of these numbers are in my cell phone, I'd be screwed if I lost it!

Blogging - I don't feel I need a section for this, I blog when I want lol. Unless I have the wrong end of the stick about the blogging section?

Shopping List - I don't shop (see menu plans) sohave no need for this {TH} would NOT follow a list even if I gave him one!

Coupons - Don't have many of these, but those I do have are scattered in various locations

Take- Away Menus - Currently hiding in 'the man drawer' we don't have take away often but when we do it's a danger zone going through that drawer (I still can't bring myself to tackle it lol)

Ok so I guess I have more to put in a HMB than I originally thought.....I have to nip into town on Saturday to get a binder for college so I will garb an extra one and the bits I need and make a start on this next week. The kids are off school next week, so they can help me decorate it :), plus I need to buy a new printer as mine is broken :(

Whoopsies

I somewhat broke my blog slightly....whoopsies. I wanted a 3 column layout, but in trying to do that (which I couldn't do by the way) I seem to have reset everything else. So now I have boses round my pics and my links are the wrong colour. Right now I just cba to put it right. I've had one of those days and now all I really want to do is go to bed, which is not an option at a little after 6pm on a Thursday. 

We ({TH} & I) moved our dryer inside today, I don't remember if I mentioned I was waiting on a condenser box to arrive in the post. Quick recap - dryer has always lived in the garage, not enough room in the kitchen for it. Yet it can be a royal pain in the bum, when at 6:30am you (I) remember that I didn't take out uniforms/towels/whatever from the dryer the night before, so no matter what the weather or how grim it is I have to trapse outside in my pj's to get the stuff out the dryer. We don't have an internal door to the garage (wish we did) So we decided to purchase a condenser box, the pipe from the dryer goes into this box, along with 2 cups of cold water and stops the whole house steaming up and getting damp. The great thing was it only cost me £9.95 (inc postage) and I got 2 of those dryer ball thingie-me-bobs. With the shift round we've had these past few weeks, the dryer now has a permanent place to live, along with the hoover(s), ironing board and our wardrobe. So I (ok we) have acomplished something today, even if it is only something small. All we need to do now is get a curtain pole and a curtain to hide it all away as there is no door to where everything now lives. As soon as we get the curtain up I will share some before and after pics (before pics will contain dryer as I forgot to take them before it came in lol)

I also spoke with {TH} about the shelf in launchpad that i wanted to paint, he says that due to the amount of varnish on the shelf it would take hours of work to strip it down and probably wouldn't be worth all the effort:( but he added, that if I paint the mirror frame white (like I want to) and jazz it up (he is not impressed with my jazzing up idea but hey ho never mind lol) that, that alone will brighten the hallway up. It will also act as base coat for painting it a different colour when we finally get round to re-painting the whole launchpad area. I want to ty and do that next month, but as usual {TH} and I can not agree on a colour scheme. I ideally want to paint one wall (the one with the mirror on) a deep colour, maybe a deep pink or teal with the other walls brilliant white. Not sure {TH} is going to agree with me (he never does)I found these fabby colours on Crown, I'm sure {TH} will like one of these :)

{Click for larger pic)

I think either one of those colours, would look great down one wall with everything else white and the yucky brown shelf would have to come down and something else to drop my keys on some where else, maybe behind the door......

Oh well only time will tell :)

Quick Edit: After looking at colours for my hall I went back to the crown website and picked out colours for other rooms, you can find it up there ^^^ under Colour Scheme Ideas

So Far.....

....So good. I am plodding along at my own steady pace. I had my placement in the school this morning, which was brilliant, I had a fabby morning and learned some new things. Came away at lunch time very pleased with myself. I had a dentist app this afternoon, which I was not looking forward too. When I went 2 weeks ago, I was meant to be having a small filling behind one of my front teeth, however I broke a tooth, so that had to be repaired first, which meant today was filling day again! I do not like needles at all so having anesthetic is no fun for me. I got there and she poked and prodded a wee bit and explained that the very small hole was still very small but none the less still needed filling, she also wanted to carry out some work on another tooth, but we agreed that I could have this with no pain relief. So at last only one side of my mouth was numb. She did all the work and I coped very well, I think it helps that my dentist sings along to the radio (even if she doesn't know the right words) and really puts you at ease. She then gave me a (free) polish. So although I am only just now (5hrs later) getting the feeling back in my mouth - it was worth it.
Needless to say, this hasn't left me alot of time to get on with decluttering and cleaning the remaining rooms on my list. So all I've actually done today is hoover the downstairs. Not much but that little thing now doesn't need doing again till Friday.
Now I know that I'm not going to get anything done tomorrow or Friday. Tomorrow I have my placement in the morning again andtomorrow afternoon I am staying in school to study. Friday morning I will bein school doing some last minute studying before the kids break up and in the afternoon I have some governor/parent duties. So I don't forsee anything else getting done till the weekend.

Saturday I will see what I can do with my launchpad, but not hopeful of anything really. I have no money to buy some of the fabby things I have seen, like this shoe rack {HERE} (only in white) and matching coat hook {HERE} (again in white) and I think these mirrors are just awesome {HERE} & {HERE}. Maybe a quick spruce up with be enough :) Just thinking about it though...I have a mirror in my hall above a shelf, the mirror is pine and the shelf a dark wood, maybe if I painted them both white, and maybe something funky to pop on the mirror frame that would improve the look loads.....I wonder what bits of tat I can find in the poundshops lol

Now before I go, please check out this post {HERE} by Kia, especially if you are a fellow UK'er :)

Anyway until the weekend........

Best Laid Plans

Just never work out how you want them too. The kids {B},{S} & {LM} decided to bring me down a load of dirsty washing this morning, despite yesterday claiming everything dirty was downstairs in the basket. I had 2 loads left over from yesterday and the kids generously gave me another 2, so I've spent most of the day washing and drying. I always leave my hot whites wash till sunday morning, I don't why, but I do. That wash alone takes close to 3 hrs, so add to that the extra 2 loads I've got and my laundry schedule as gone west.

I did manage to get a nice new pretty layout for my blog though, although it took alot longer to get it installed that I thought it would, but hey ho, I'm a happy bunny now it's all sorted. I am going to try and make my own in the near future, I know the basics of how to make one, it's just finding the right materials and putting it altogether.

So needless to say I haven't done half the things I wanted to do today. I haven't thought about what I'm going to do with my 'launchpad'. Well I have thought, I need a new carpet out there but at the moment that is not an option. It's alot more than we can afford (at the min) to replace the hall/stairs/landing carpet. That however is the only thought so far regarding this high useage area. 

I have an assignment for college due in by 8:30pm tomorrow night, it's about 75% done, so I need to spend an hour or so at school in the morning doing some more research so I can finish it off. I also have college tomorrow night, so my time tomorrow to get things done is sparse to say the least. I then have another assignment due the following Monday, so I think this week is going to be spent doing alot of studying and researching. Not leaving alot of time for me to get the house straight. Why, Oh Why did I not start this house cleanring task BEFORE I started my course???? Oh yeah because that would have been the sensible thing to do!


So this week I think I will focus on trying to do little things round the house. Maybe next Saturday/Sunday I can focus on a larger task until then it will be a little here and there

Weekly Challenge Two

This weeks weekly challenge, is the LaunchPad, this (as I found out) is your hallway. I have a very large hallway, but no doors seperating rooms. As my house is disabled friendly, there are no doors to the kitchen, small room (I will cover this room at a later date) or my dining room. So my 'launchpad' kind of merges with other rooms.
I will be working on this challenge throughout the week, along with more challenges from the 21 Day Challenge and more items from The List
I'm looking forward to this challenge and seeing what useless junk I have round my house that I can make useful again.