Serial over-spender

savingholmes

:eek: I am probably by nature a bit of a spendaholic. I work full time - I couldn't afford not to work as I would spend far more. I am however trying to reform and I have been trying to do a budget since January. Forgetting direct debits and standing orders I have been trying to allocate my money as follows:

Weekly
£21 cleaner (3.5 hours per week) - I spend more if the house is a mess as we go out to eat more and no with ohf and I working full time and having 2 kids I struggle to keep on top of things as it is
£20 school dinners - kids are in childcare until 6pm so feel do need this
£3 pocket money between 2 kids
£5 for me (this is usually more like 15)
£5 for husband (this is usually more like 10)
£100 supermarket shop (inclusive of treats, clothes)

I tried taking cash out each week and sorting into little tubs - however I was always running out - and would then take additional cash out. I tried shopping on line with Asda 2 weeks ago. I got my supermarket shop down to about £45 and then blew it by 3 trips to the shops to get all the items I'd saved on / missed off the list!

I haven't yet followed Martin's advice for saving for big annual items, gifts etc so in practice that tends to go on the credit card in the hope that by maximising monthly repayments it should balance out over the year.

I started reading the thread on living on £4K per year - but I genuinely don't know how you do that. I occasionally manage to get my supermarket bill down to more like £60 - using a list defintely helps and then blow it when it comes to buying detergents, toilet rolls etc.

Hope you can help :A

SouthernSoftie

I have to say I'd happily do the cleaning myself or let it go for a bit than pay out over £1000 a year on a cleaner when I have debts.

savingholmes

In principle you're right - it's a lot of money to spend. Before we had a cleaner however we used to eat our 3 or 4 times per week. Also I'm out 8ish until 6ish. I then have time to give kids tea, put them to bed and have 2 hours or so free each evening. My job is very demanding - I'm often shattered by the time I've come home. OHF does very little around the house. I however do 6 loads of washing, drying and ironing (where absolutely necessary) of clothes, plus try and keep the kitchen straight, make meals, make sure kids are organised for school etc. This is on top of being involved at church and taking daughter swimming.....OHF if I'm lucky mows the lawn and occasionally helps out in kitchen. He has probably done washing less than 5 times in our (long) married life. He occasionally mows the lawn...:eek: Son does as much or more than him - or that's how it feels.:rolleyes:

I am planning to start to reduce my spend by tackling - spend on books, dvds britvic 55, sprite and coke - which should save me £10-15 per week... I'm trying to use this site for accountability as left to my own devices nothing will change much! If I managed to cut my chocolate habit as well - it would probably together pay for the cleaner (not quite ready for that yet).

SouthernSoftie

savingholmes wrote: »

In principle you're right - it's a lot of money to spend. Before we had a cleaner however we used to eat our 3 or 4 times per week. Also I'm out 8ish until 6ish. I then have time to give kids tea, put them to bed and have 2 hours or so free each evening. My job is very demanding - I'm often shattered by the time I've come home. OHF does very little around the house. I however do 6 loads of washing, drying and ironing (where absolutely necessary) of clothes, plus try and keep the kitchen straight, make meals, make sure kids are organised for school etc. This is on top of being involved at church and taking daughter swimming.....OHF if I'm lucky mows the lawn and occasionally helps out in kitchen. He has probably done washing less than 5 times in our (long) married life. He occasionally mows the lawn...:eek: Son does as much or more than him - or that's how it feels.:rolleyes:

I am planning to start to reduce my spend by tackling - spend on books, dvds britvic 55, sprite and coke - which should save me £10-15 per week... I'm trying to use this site for accountability as left to my own devices nothing will change much! If I managed to cut my chocolate habit as well - it would probably together pay for the cleaner (not quite ready for that yet).

Not just in principle but in fact I am right.
I know what it's like, I work from 7am until at least 4pm with no breaks, and then often work 6pm-10pm, and do all that you do.
It depends how serious you are about cutting your debt as you are probably spending a lot of your hard earned money on just interest at the mo.
You need to get your head into the DFW way of thinking;) ... once you do you'll be obsessed and realise how much money is lost every year. It'll become fun, honestly.
Get an Ebay box, I bet you have lots of stuff that could sell if you looked esp with children. Go to the old fashioned money saving board, buy value brands, honestly they are fine, plan your meals.
A good start is to fill in a spending diary..... http://www.spendingdiary.com/main.php it will help you see where the money is going.

Don't buy anything until you check to see if you can get it through quidco.
Can you get any utilities cheaper to save money?
I checked on Uswitch, found out NPower was cheapest for me, but I didn't go through Uswitch, I went through quidco and go an extra £40 in commission back.
What is your OHF's feeling about your debt? Is he as committed?

savingholmes

I have never sold on ebay and don't know where to start.

I've already moved utilities to npower - didn't do it through quidco tho

I buy some value brands but I must admit they are rare - I probably need to do more.

OHF has just cancelled his on-line gaming £10 per month and changing broadband to one half the price which should help. He is contributing £20 to savings per month.:j I do all shopping - his contributing to our debts has come from big spends, like on computers, games, DVDs, PDA etc and meals out, takeaways etc. Also if I fall off the money wagon, he gives up and falls twice as hard....:eek:

SouthernSoftie

I have to say you sound a bit like me a year or so ago... ie you know you have debts but you haven't had your LBM yet, when you realise no one is doing you a favour lending you money. They do it to take your hard earned cash, and actually it is mostly for 'stuff'.
We have dvds we may never watch, they may have cost a tenner, I'd be happy getting 99p for them now.
I even have a dvd upstairs, still in it's wrapper as I bougth it forgetting we already had it and just couldn't get round to sending it back.

I now have debts of over £50k but after joining here and having my LBM I'm ok about them in the fact I can see what to do and am doing it. My Other half isn't as eager only because it's my LBM, not his, but he does understand now.

Have you done a SOA to see what's coming in and out?
It's a good idea just to get it into black and white.

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

If you post it on here we can suggest ways to help you quicker.

savingholmes

I did an SOA over a year it suggested we spent £1K more than we get in per month! That has been true in the past but isn't so much now. I think realistically our outgoings average £200-300 more than our income.:eek:

If I look at the Desired column on the budget planner it would look something like this:

Home 1200+
eg gas 40, Elec 70 with npower, phone 28, internet 10 was 20, mobiles 15 between us plus cleaning, mortgage, garden, home insurance (just reduced by half):money:

Insurance 100 (life insurance, critical illness, income protection - covers me not OHF) - ideally we should look at cheaper insurance but have had time off with depression which ups premiums and may make it difficult to get insurance

Eats and Drinks 407
Groceries 360 (probably at least 400 currently), Eat out 15 (currently 30), Coffee and desert 12 (currently 24), Work meals 10 - mainly for OHF as mine are free (currently spend about 20 on top)

Car Maint 527 (run 2 cars and a motorbike. Considering selling 1 car worth £1300 but gift from family so worried could cause offence. One of most expensive free gifts we've ever had - as we have in a year nearly spent what it's worth on repairs)
Car Maint 50
Ins 55 for 2 cars and another 15-20 for motorbike
Parking 2
Petrol 400

Debt repayment 815! (1 0% loan, 5 cards between us)

Family 213 (but excludes 243 direct out of wages for childcare vouchers)
eg childcare 100 (afterschool club), baby sitter £20 (occasional), pocket money £13, School meals £80

Fun and Frolics 66 (probably double currently) eg Hobbies, swimming lessons, days out books, dvids, cinema, TV license

Big one offs 150 - xmas, birthdays, holidays (probably almost double before)

Clothes 26 (get given most of kids clothes, most of this spending is shoes and suits for work)

odds and sods - very significant! Mainly charity giving - believe should tithe ie give 10% to God/Church and then we give to charity on top. Kind of feel we should be able to afford to give so give anyway even though we can't afford it. This is a pattern in other areas of our life too - where I sometimes give to friends or pay for others as my income is good and I feel it is our poor management that prevents us from giving painlessly. Some of them know I have significant debts and accept the offer anyway!
also dentist plan on OHF, haircuts, occasional magazine

If we met the desired outgoings above - then we would be able to live within income and possibly put more money to debt repayment. Currently rob peter to pay paul and don't really get ahead.:eek: The money we currently put into repaying cards gets "borrowed back" if emergencies hit, or for petrol etc.

My LBM was when a few years ago we hit £33K we got that down to about £6K before racking the debt up again to nearly £30K. Through good luck rather than planning I've reduced that to £20K this year but now need to change ingrained habits. I have through using Martin's Money Diet book switched our utilities, halved our home insurance costs, remortgaged (but not increased debt), and moved at one stage about 25-26K of debt to 0% with a few thousand more at higher interest rates which is mostly now repaid.

moneymabel

Hi, sounds like you have done a lot already so congratulations!!! Two pieces of advice-one) get that OH trained up to help with the housework, you shouldnt have to be exhausted to the point of having to pay for a cleaner if you are that much in debt-get him (and your son )off their butts! (i know that is easier said than done lol)
Two , you cannot afford to give to charity if you are in debt, whether it is chuch or anything else makes no difference.each donation you give is a payment that could come off your debt, cutting your interest and making you debt free quicker, there is plenty of time for charity when you can afford it. I know this sounds very harsh but its true.
Hope you dont take offence at any of this as you have done so well to have your lbm and do all you have done so far, just had to comment on those points.

SouthernSoftie

moneymabel wrote: »

Hi, sounds like you have done a lot already so congratulations!!! Two pieces of advice-one) get that OH trained up to help with the housework, you shouldnt have to be exhausted to the point of having to pay for a cleaner if you are that much in debt-get him (and your son )off their butts! (i know that is easier said than done lol)
Two , you cannot afford to give to charity if you are in debt, whether it is chuch or anything else makes no difference.each donation you give is a payment that could come off your debt, cutting your interest and making you debt free quicker, there is plenty of time for charity when you can afford it. I know this sounds very harsh but its true.
Hope you dont take offence at any of this as you have done so well to have your lbm and do all you have done so far, just had to comment on those points.

Totally agree, if you think of tithing in your situation, your are actually giving away money that doesn't belong to you, money you actually owe to the creditors. And when you pay for others do you pay cash or put that on carsd?
As MM says, plenty of time for charity when the debt is gone.

gallygirl

Well done on action so far!

Re you having a cleaner - pot and kettle spring to mind here as I wouldn't give mine up (& got flak for it ), however I compromised by raising the funds to pay for it from ebay. So what if you've never done it - you've got a brain so use it!!!! It takes a little while to get the hang of it but then is actually quite good fun (ok, so I need a life ).

Charity - hmmm. Lets say you give £100 a month. If that stops you paying £100 off a credit card at say 30% interest you're actually paying out an extra £200+ a year interest. What I did was stop my charity payments & put the money towards my debts. I kept a record of how long I missed charity paymenst then when I'd cleared real debts I cleared this 'debt' also. (On the internet, with Giftaid natch .)

I do agree with others though that you haven't quite reached your lightbulb moment yet. But you've already made good inroads so well done :T:T:T:T

savingholmes

Thanks for the replies - I liked the one about totting up how much you would have given to charity/church and then paying it later when debts repaid.

Yes I do put things I spend on others on a card. I don't see it as taking money owing creditors as we've never defaulted.... We've always had good enough credit that we could move money around in time....!

I also agree about LBM as I am trying very hard - to the point it's given me a headache! - but I want in theory to be debt-free but am reluctant to face the pain of the choices that means I have to make and what I and my family then have to do without.

If I pretend for a moment I'm talking to Benjamin Fry on Spendaholics.... To get out my violin my childhood involved a lot of financial hardship which as an adult I've tried to run away from as fast as I can but then pretty consistently made poor spending choices. I remember being hungry and in patched clothes and don't want that now for me or my family.... and to be fair with more sensible spending there is no need for that now either. :cool:

Also using psycho-babble I know that debt is a form of self-sabotage - if we were debt free that would increase our life choices but also potentially mean that I get pushed in directions that I don't necessarily want to go. I am vaguely trying to deal with the psychological side of debt too but it is difficult.

Coming back to the charity side of things I am a firm believer in "Live more simply that others might simply live" - not managed the simpler life bit and try to make up for it by charity giving anyway! A lot of this is very deeply ingrained and could take some time to undo the bad habits and create more positive ones....

Locally, a new support service around debt may be starting... it is possible that I may join that - although with that comes the risk of exposure and wider consequences. Discretion is not their strongest point. I am also concerned we could be judged and found wanting. It may however provide an opportunity to discuss their view of us reducing our charitable support.... Most people would look at us from the outside and think we were successful....:o