Gadget Crazy Abigail doesn't need a new iphone!

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  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    Kitchen - finished and painted! Woooo
    Ended up going to ikea for a bookcase as fed up of trawling for second hand ones. Got one for £70 that fits perfectly by the door.

    I paid for all my kitchen bits with MBing money and am back to £0 profit but still have a bank roll of £1000. That bankroll has to go towards household expenses on December 1st as it forms part of OH’s student finance. I basically just borrowed from it. So December will be a quiet MBing month, maybe make £2/300?

    I’ve used the soup maker several times now, it’s made it so much easier to cook soup if somewhat lazy and unnecessary. I can make dinner for me and OH, cook DS dinner, make soup for lunch and do the cleaning quite efficiently.

    September and October were expensive months. Yes I spent a lot on kitchen and household things, but I also made money to cover this. I’ve also managed to pay off £500 of a credit card with MBing and clear my Very account. So whilst I feel like I’ve spent lots and lots and lots, I’ve also cleared some money without using my wages.



    Bills I can have an affect on:
    Hair £20 no posh hair cuts for me any more - Going to go to the local college over the road for a trim.
    Clothing £20 - for DS, who needs a new water bottle for school, a new bookbag and new jogging bottoms.
    Car Tyres £250 - a big expense but my last set of tyres lasted 2 years. My tyres are £56 each and wheel alignment is likely to cost around £30. I drive a big car so don’t get to have cheap tyres.
    Health £20 - OH needs dentist check up. I’ll have mine in December
    Petrol £100 - to cover my fuel to and from work. Will clear out shed at weekend and try to cycle once a week
    Groceries £100 - to cover basics. Am starting slimming world soon (have a 12 week voucher somewhere) so need plenty of fruit and veg
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    I’ve used the soup maker several times now, it’s made it so much easier to cook soup if somewhat lazy and unnecessary. I can make dinner for me and OH, cook DS dinner, make soup for lunch and do the cleaning quite efficiently.

    Bills I can have an affect on:
    Hair £20 no posh hair cuts for me any more - Going to go to the local college over the road for a trim.
    Clothing £20 - for DS, who needs a new water bottle for school, a new bookbag and new jogging bottoms.
    Car Tyres £250 - a big expense but my last set of tyres lasted 2 years. My tyres are £56 each and wheel alignment is likely to cost around £30. I drive a big car so don’t get to have cheap tyres.
    Health £20 - OH needs dentist check up. I’ll have mine in December
    Petrol £100 - to cover my fuel to and from work. Will clear out shed at weekend and try to cycle once a week
    Groceries £100 - to cover basics. Am starting slimming world soon (have a 12 week voucher somewhere) so need plenty of fruit and veg

    MBing - is at £0 as I made some profit and then made a costly mistake so I am at square one. Lost money in the sense that my mistake cost me money but it only cost me my profits. I've taken a break and will start again in January as it was going well. Even £30 a week extra is a bonus!

    Bill wise in November, I didn't have a hair cut so transfered the money to a credit card. Same for clothing etc.

    Did spend the money on car tyres but also had to spend another £00 on fixing the car. (I then sold the car and put the money towards various things)

    Didn't spend any money on health, kept under budget for petrol and over spent by hundreds on groceries.

    So.... heres to December!
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    So December you fickle beast.

    I've tallied up November's budget and everything went okay. I say okay because it wasn't brilliant. Unfortunately had to put around £600 on a credit card (0% however). So my debt's gone up. But...I will have that cleared by January through a combination of overpayments, work bonus, ebay etc. No MBing though. Taking a break from it for a month after last month's debacle.

    I've been reading various NSD challenges so I'm working out how I can get involved. Even if its just my own little challenge. I'm awful at spending money, especially online and I really really want to be debt free so I can have another child. I categorically won't have a 2nd child whilst in debt, I personally think its irresponsible (in my situation, not commenting on other people's) as I know it would make things financially so so tight.

    I have cleared my First Direct Credit Card, so now I have to clear my OH's CC which I just checked and its 767.83 not 600! Eeeeek

    Looking at Ynab these are the categories that I can influence. I would like to spend less (or more for example on savings). If I do, then I will split the savings across debt repayment and savings account.

    Savings - £125.
    This could go down as if I overspend in a category, I take it out of that pot. I need to build an emergency pot.

    Pocket Money £69
    This consists of £5 for DS and £64 for OH (uni books if needed)

    Household £300
    This includes animal, clothing, health, food. I am aiming for a lot less as I still have a full freezer. Aiming for half this, but don't want to under budget. I'm going to take £30 a week out in cash to cover all the above and see where we go from there. Will stay away from Sainsburys and only visit Aldi.

    Christmas £100
    Also want to spend less on this. I've purchased most presents so far, I've got 3 left. I also want to buy DS a stocking and Santa sack. I plan to go to B&M for these, and maybe pick up a couple of cheap decorations. I am doing this shop on Saturday so will know my total this week.

    Holiday £50
    Starting now I am building up a holiday fund. £50 a month for 6 months then dropping it to £25. Would like to go on a holiday next summer to the seaside (caravan for 4 days)

    Childcare £60
    Already paid for DS school wrap around care but needs a week at kids club over the holidays. Would like him to go for less than a week, depends on Grandma.

    Car Expenses £350
    Needs new clutch and I think two new tyres. Need to get this under £350.


    Debt!
    Usual CC repayments total £270ish, I've budgeted £400. So I can start working on clearing OH £767.83 CC. I will make a payment of at least £130 towards it. I have also got £202 in my extra debt category so that would mean £332 in total to put on it. All this depends on me not overspending in any category.

    SO. In order to not overspend I will be laying some ground rules.

    1)No spending on anything in December that I haven't already planned for above.

    2)I will not go to the shops for food. I will send my OH as he sticks very strictly to the list. I will not step foot in a food shop. If I even go in for milk, I'll end up spending £20.

    3)I will not buy anything online. I will finish christmas shopping today to get the last presents and then I will stay away from ebay/amazon. (With one exception, a book I am desperate for is released tomorrow but I think I have enough amazon digital credit for it by having chosen slow deliverys on things)
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    Day 2

    Didnae spend anything yesterday.

    OH bought us Fish and Chips out of his "pocket money"

    Think I have overpurchased presents so going to look through them tonight, and return a few to amazon

    Also need to decide on budget for tomorrows shopping trip to B&M.

    Spending money today on food (doesn't count in NSD) as we need spaghetti for the bolognese. We don't need anything else have pudding in etc. Have £25 for food for now until Friday next week.

    Need to meal plan tonight for the weekend - don't want to spend any money on food at all.

    Have realised I am going to need new cake tins soon, luckily I'm getting amazon vouchers for Christmas so it will have to wait!


    Have a new household expense I had not expected. Need a new desk chair. Don't want to spend the money - might drag it out whilst I sell stuff on ebay so it's almost a cost free purchase. Ho hum.
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    Day 3 Spent what I said I'd spend. Almost...

    Went to B+M and the bill came to a whopping £75. I couldn't work out why it was so high!

    I did realise that £13 of that was two led light bulbs (I don't like buying the old style, I now get LED as they last for ever - the one in the hallway's been going for 3 years). I wouldn't have had to get new bulbs, except a friend managed to smash the living room one.

    £5 is OH pocket money as he bought himself snacks, £30 was on groceries like tomato soup, £8 was on the work tuckshop and then we managed to get OH's Uncle present etc. Anyway when I split it out over categories in YNAB it wasn't so bad and was less than I had expected. I think I spent £19 on christmas in total - tinsel, present, stockings, stocking fillers. Either way - under budget.

    The only bad thing was that it was lunchtime so we went to KFC which was £14 and came out of my pocket money. I had wanted to be home in time for lunch but we left a little late and it would have been 2pm by the time we got home.DS is only 5 so couldn't keep him starving. We looked in Tescos for sandwiches and DS refused to have any. Never going to KFC again, it was revolting!

    I just realised I should clarify something - when I say I have had a NSD - it really should be a NSSD (No Spontaneous Spend Day). I don't have a problem with budgeted spends - I budget well, in the sense that its reasonable. My problem is wanting something and just buying it no matter the outcome. I have a thread from a couple of months ago where I needed people to talk me out of buying an iphone. It really gets that bad. Luckily I no longer want a new iphone. Next time I have the urge I will just revisit that thread.

    Not sure if I have already said this but OH and I have decided I am no longer to go food shopping. As an example I have just done a shopping list on mysupermarket and it comes to about £8. But if I went into the shop it would end up as £30. OH can stick to a list, I can't. I'm happy to plan food and do the list but I can't be trusted to go. So OH and DS will go.

    Today I am going to busy myself by tidying, sorting out junk, taking all the cardboard to the tip, wrapping presents, making soup, batch cooking, making flapjack. Basically making sure the house is good for the next week. I also need to dye my hair, trim the ends, email the college to get a £10 hair cut.

    I've got no overpayments to make on debt at the moment but I need to do some planning for 2017. I'm in the position of being loaned 8k by a family member. All my debt is 0% so it sort of doesn't make any difference. However it will reduce my £400 a month payment to £130 which will allow me to build up an emergency fund. I then will overpay family member back. I also need to close the credit cards down otherwise I'd end up in a worse situation than before. Basically I'm not going to fail this time!!

    I'm putting my plan together at the moment
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    A confession. I have more debt than is in my signature. I just have been focusing on each section of my debt at once because I can't cope otherwise.

    Debt A) Credit Cards £9269.39 0%
    Debt B) Housing Benefit £950 0%
    Debt C) Student Finance £1247 0%
    Debt D) V12 Loans £1285.35
    Debt E) OH DMP £12600

    Debt F) Family Loan £7700

    So technically we have between us £26066.39 in debt. Not the 9k in my signature. I'm not hiding it or making it look better or in denial. I'm just focusing on things systematically. The V12 loans have interest already included, one of them I'd save a huge £9 by paying off early. So its treated as a bill. In fact everything is treated as a bill.

    So how am I tackling this? My portioning each part off and forgetting about the others until it's paid.

    Next week I will receive £7700 as a loan from a family member to pay off part of Debt A. Obviously this seems a bit odd considering Debt A is interest free. But they want £130 back a month and so it means more money is freed up for the others.

    So Debt Buster plan looks as below.

    Debt A) Paid off by August 2017
    Debt B) Paid off by November 2017
    Debt C) Paid off by March 2018
    Debt D) Paid off by April 2018

    Then I plan to keep saving so I can settle the DMP debts. So once I have got to the end of Debt D I will look at where we stand with the DMP and see how much we have in savings. Once DMP is done, any remaining money will go to paying off family loan. I expect to be clear by 2019. Exciting!
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • Hi I don't think you have to feel bad about 'confessing' you have other debt. I personally think that splitting the debt and concentrating on one part of it it a great way of doing it and what I do myself. What I've seen people do also if they have a large debt is cut it into chunks of 1% or 10% or whatever suits them.

    As long as you know how much debt you have and have a plan to deal with it then good on you is what I say! As long as that debt it going in the right direction then all good!!!

    well done done on the amount you have paid so far and good luck with the rest of the debt free journey. Mine is going a little slower than I'd like atm but still going down.

    xxx
    Total Debt:
    Dec 2015: £20,090.87
    Dec 2016: £16,320.85
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    Hi I don't think you have to feel bad about 'confessing' you have other debt. I personally think that splitting the debt and concentrating on one part of it it a great way of doing it and what I do myself. What I've seen people do also if they have a large debt is cut it into chunks of 1% or 10% or whatever suits them.

    As long as you know how much debt you have and have a plan to deal with it then good on you is what I say! As long as that debt it going in the right direction then all good!!!

    well done done on the amount you have paid so far and good luck with the rest of the debt free journey. Mine is going a little slower than I'd like atm but still going down.

    xxx
    Thanks :) The reason I don't do the 1% or 10% goals (and I have tried before) is that it still means I have to look at the total amount. The more I can see of the debt the worse I feel. I've got all the debt saved on whatsthecost.com, I've split each portion out across different snowballs. For example, all the credit cards are on one. DMP is on another etc. All the debt is logged on off budget accounts on ynab as well.

    Now, I said I was concentrating on Debt A - but as I've said, it's sort of being reallocated so even though it says I am paying it off by August - really it's just the leftover that the family loan doesn't cover. So it's cheating, but it's motivating me more! Currently going through my budget with a fine tooth comb to work out what I can get rid of. We currently have an income of 3k a month (what when did it get so big?) inc mine and OH wages and student finance so we should be able to throw more at it but as I have no savings I need to get that sorted. This christmas is proving to be expensive but as of January 2017 I am going to be keeping the purse strings well and truely tight/tied/glued together
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    So - received family loan and paid off as much as possible. I paid things off in a different order in the end - saved £132 interest.

    I now have £1247.50 owed to Student Finance
    £7785 to family
    Oh's DMP £12600
    Credit Cards £3464.80 totals £25279.30

    I am working on a chunk at a time. So I am going to clear the £1247.50 from student finance. I think most people would leave it till last but they are really hot on CCJs etc so it would make me more at ease if I could clear it.

    I could clear it by March however my OH announced last night that he hates working nights as he has no time to himself (3 nights then sleeps and then has to go to uni for 3 days). He doesn't know if he want to change jobs or what. However the problem for me there is that he earns more in 3 days than he would full time when he worked during the day! I really just need him to push through it. It's not permanent after all. His year at uni finishes in April and then all he has to do is work 3 nights - and do whatever he wants during the days where he isn't sleeping. And then he has one year left of uni and he can quit!

    So because of the above, I am now quite nervous of overpaying on debt - if he quits then I need to have money put aside. Argh!
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
  • abby1234519
    abby1234519 Posts: 1,961 Forumite
    £120.59 paid off HSBC card today

    Once a £400 betting refund is sent back to my account card then I will be up £237.64 in my MB category. So I will put that on to a debt.

    I don't keep a bankroll any more for it. I keep the category budget at £0 so as it leaves my account the category goes to say -£500 and over the month builds back up. Once it goes over £0 then I'm in profit. I just have to make sure by the 26th of each month I'm in profit or I can't pay my bills. Well I can as I've got savings but anyhoo I'm not MBing in the run up to Christmas as I'm too busy!

    Debt pay off plan for December.

    £583.64 overpayment from MBing and spare budget.

    £105 to payplan

    £25 to student loan

    So I would hope that £25,158.71 will become £24,445.07 by the end of December.

    I have set myself a stretch target of getting it to £24,400 by the end of December. I have KPIs at work so am setting myself KPIs at home!

    So...

    £0/£758.71
    Money money money.

    Debt
    Dec 2016: [STRIKE]£25,158.71[/STRIKE] £21,999.99

    #28 Pay off debt in 2017 £3803.55
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