It's really hard

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  • Ilona
    Ilona Posts: 2,449 Forumite
    edited 12 October 2016 at 12:47PM
    Thank you Essex H, we cross posted. There are different degrees of a frugal life, and if Hayley chooses not to be as frugal as I am, it will take her longer to become debt free, that's up to her. I set myself as an example as to what can be achieved by exercising self discipline, it may not be for all. The key is in priorities, my priority has always been to not spend more than I earn, and it has held me in good stead throughout my life.

    I do spend money now. I save on my day to day living expenses so I have money for a nice car, holidays, and my pets. My priority is not to go out for meals, to the pub, buying new clothes, and getting takeaways. Impulse spending went out of the window years ago.

    I do feel for young people struggling, I want them to get themselves out of a mess. But if they can't see the link between money in and money out, I feel there isn't much hope.
    Ilona
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  • MrsTinks
    MrsTinks Posts: 15,241
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    You'd almost have thought a clue as to why some 10+ years down the line I'm still a DFW might have been connected with where I was coming from on this... :)

    Hayley - we're not saying don't live and don't have fun. I have a 7yo too, I get that! She gets things like a pony on half loan, a weekly lesson, swimming (ok that's actually a life skill but still) and she has a nice holiday every 18 months or so. I'm overpaying my debts (which in my case are no longer debts racked up, they're glorified stoozing, I just choose to treat them as debts so the investments are 100% mine should I need to cash in on them), I'm still enjoying things with my daughter, but if it wasn't for husbeasts bonuses we wouldn't be holidaying for 2 weeks in Florida (which he had to sweet talk me into for 3 months!) because I couldn't justify that when we do have debts we could over pay. She would enjoy a week in a tent just as much.

    An SOA will help us in so far as we can look at where we think things like gas/electric is too high, how to make it easier to budget for the birthdays (ie add them all up and divide by 12 - put amount in a jar monthly), if the TV/internet deal you're on could be better, if your groceries are too high - there is no saying you HAVE to follow the advice but people get frustrated when you ask for help but then don't want to give us the tools to do what we do best :)
    Like others have said - we have seen it before, so so many times... we get sad because we've seen many endings to this, and whilst no doubt some have been fine then we have also seen people move into realms of BR, splits and deeper debts.

    We do genuinely wish to help, but as you don't want it then let me wish you the best of luck! I do hope for you that we're all wrong, seriously we LOVE being wrong about this.
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  • Hayley33
    Hayley33 Posts: 52 Forumite
    Ilona wrote: »
    Oh the frustration, I want to go and bash my head against a brick wall. Hayley, you are not setting a very good example to your 7 year old, you keep saying, I want, I want, I want. There has to come a time when you say, sorry, we don't have the money to do that.

    I suggest you carry on as you have been doing, then come back in three years and tell us that your overdraft is gone, you have no debts on cards or loans, and you don't owe anyone anything. I would love it if you did that


    Oh gosh, I keep saying I want? Do I? Where have I said I want I want I want? I'm only going to spend within what I have and I will report back that the cards/loans have gone.
  • Hayley33
    Hayley33 Posts: 52 Forumite
    YouAsked wrote: »
    Hi Hayley, I completely get where you're coming from - in amongst my mammoth post I did say that doubtless other people would have made different choices to me to deal with debt. I don't want to be all preachy-oh-look-at-me now but I do think you are where I was a while back.

    I very firmly had the viewpoint (and still do!) why work so hard to have a grey existence which is all about penny pinching BUT I also know that quite simply, in retrospect, I couldn't afford the life I wanted - no matter how much my "budget" told me I could, it wasn't true - because if it WAS true, why was I racking up debts? The stark reality is, if you want to decrease debt/increase savings but you don't want to cut back to the bare minimum to do this then you're going to have to find a way of increasing your income. If you can do that, fine (it's what I did), but don't take comfort from things like "oh in two years I'll have paid off this and that" because if you don't have savings then you will always need to take out loans when you need to make big purchases.

    It isn't always necessary to go "sack cloth and ashes" while trying to improve your financial situation, but the absolute basic requirement is a realistic budget based on your actual spends, and if each month you are relying on credit cards or falling short, then this tells you your budget isn't realistic. An optimistic budget is pointless (actually, it's not useless for many people, but I think for people like you and me it is!) because it tells you you can afford a lifestyle that you simply can't.

    Sorry, as I said, I don't usually post on these types of threads but I can see me a few years ago.


    Thanks for all your advice :j I do intend to do a monthly spends budget in my notebook and also write down what I spend. I think I have a more realistic budget now including some money being put away.
  • Hayley33
    Hayley33 Posts: 52 Forumite
    MrsTinks wrote: »
    You'd almost have thought a clue as to why some 10+ years down the line I'm still a DFW might have been connected with where I was coming from on this... :)

    Hayley - we're not saying don't live and don't have fun. I have a 7yo too, I get that! She gets things like a pony on half loan, a weekly lesson, swimming (ok that's actually a life skill but still) and she has a nice holiday every 18 months or so. I'm overpaying my debts (which in my case are no longer debts racked up, they're glorified stoozing, I just choose to treat them as debts so the investments are 100% mine should I need to cash in on them), I'm still enjoying things with my daughter, but if it wasn't for husbeasts bonuses we wouldn't be holidaying for 2 weeks in Florida (which he had to sweet talk me into for 3 months!) because I couldn't justify that when we do have debts we could over pay. She would enjoy a week in a tent just as much.

    An SOA will help us in so far as we can look at where we think things like gas/electric is too high, how to make it easier to budget for the birthdays (ie add them all up and divide by 12 - put amount in a jar monthly), if the TV/internet deal you're on could be better, if your groceries are too high - there is no saying you HAVE to follow the advice but people get frustrated when you ask for help but then don't want to give us the tools to do what we do best :)
    Like others have said - we have seen it before, so so many times... we get sad because we've seen many endings to this, and whilst no doubt some have been fine then we have also seen people move into realms of BR, splits and deeper debts.

    We do genuinely wish to help, but as you don't want it then let me wish you the best of luck! I do hope for you that we're all wrong, seriously we LOVE being wrong about this.



    Nowhere did I state I wasn't wanting help. A lot of the replies have been really helpful. I just said I wasn't doing a full household SOA I'm not really comfortable with putting every DETAIL of my bills on the internet, I did provide my wage and what I pay out and for me that's enough. That doesn't mean I didn't want or am not listening to any advice given.
  • MrsSave
    MrsSave Posts: 1,817
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    Household bills are the easy place to cut back. During the past year I have knocked sky (yes, I still have the luxury of sky) down to £11.25. My home phone I have knocked down from almost £40 to £18. Last week I switched my mortgage which has freed up £120 ish per month. I've also knocked my gas/elec down from £72 to £51 per month. That's pretty much £175 per month saved on just those 4 things. How have those changes affected us? They haven't. Our sky package didn't change, our phone usage hasn't changed, we are still paying our mortgage off at the same rate (it's just we're paying less interest) and we still use the same amount of gas and electricity.

    No one is telling you that you can't have some nice things, it's just when we're in debt we've got to be more careful. My ds still has swimming lessons and another class every week. I have no intention of stopping that. We go away every year.

    I can see how this thread is frustrating for others. Posting a full soa will give people the ability to help you so much more. People are genuinely trying to help. Yes, some ideas won't suit you. They probably wouldn't suit me either. But, there could be that one small idea that will make a big difference.
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  • MrsSave wrote: »
    My home phone I have knocked down from almost £40 to £18.

    TBH, I don't know why people bother with land-line phones nowadays.

    I can understand having the land-line, if it's necessary for the BB, but the calls can be done on a mobile nowadays.
  • MrsSave
    MrsSave Posts: 1,817
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    Bedsit_Bob wrote: »
    TBH, I don't know why people bother with land-line phones nowadays.

    I can understand having the land-line, if it's necessary for the BB, but the calls can be done on a mobile nowadays.

    I use it for the internet as well!
    Starting a new debt free journey
    Starting Debt: £5,250
    Current Debt: £4,995.50
    Amount Paid: £254.50 Percentage Paid: 4.84%
    Emergency Fund: £350
  • EssexHebridean
    EssexHebridean Posts: 21,200
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    Bedsit_Bob wrote: »
    TBH, I don't know why people bother with land-line phones nowadays.

    I can understand having the land-line, if it's necessary for the BB, but the calls can be done on a mobile nowadays.

    You have to remember that not everyone lives in an area with reliable mobile signals - or even a mobile signal at all. If your mobile signal isn't reliable, then a landline is a sensible precaution in the event of emergency calls being needed - either incoming or outgoing. We can't ditch ours for that reason.
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  • enthusiasticsaver
    enthusiasticsaver Posts: 15,445
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    Hayley33 wrote: »
    Yes. Three years. So now no credit cards (unless the bill is paid IN FULL). One car loan to finish in 2.5 years £200 PM back. Sofa to finish in 1.5 years interest free £50 PM back. And then finally the loan £150 PM back in 3 years. I have had my moment I will not get into the credit card/ overdraft cycle again. I'm so sick of it. Was making me ill worrying about money all the time. I do roughly work out before pay day all I've got going on for the month and take money out accordingly. I'm going to slimming world I'm wondering if this is a bit of a waste of money but I really need to get my weight down also.

    That food budget is for 2 adults & a child I don't think that's excessive roughly £60 per week. I sometimes struggle to keep to that also, food is so expensive.

    It seems unacheivable because £100 doesn't seem like much over a whole month.

    When money was tight I did not use the credit card as paying it off in full the next month meant we were short of money then and tempted to use the card again the following month for living expenses. I do not think anyone who is on a tight budget should be using a credit card due to the way it throws budgets out when you have to pay it off the following month. Only exception is large item on 0% divided up over interest free period. We always had a rule in that only one item on interest free at a time. Everything else had to be saved up for.
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