Evan's DFW & Wedding Diary

~evanesco~

I'm back, with my tail 100% between my legs. Why? Because we should have been DF by not, and clearly, we're not. In fact we're no closer than we were at LBM. So, I think LBM was a flicker, and now it's actually on. I've sat and done my budget for the whole of next year, and we can do it, well most of it, by Xmas. As well as saving £5,500 towards our wedding, which will be Aug 2010. But, I keep falling of track, I have done since Nov 06, LBM. Bad isn't it. What's wrong with me? I have all these major plans and they just don't happen. I need someone to take all our finances out of my control. I know we can do it, it's just me that's stopping us because I can't never say no to buying things. Grrr. We've paid off 2 credit cards this past year and ran them both back up again. I do think things are changing. I've made us manage on a very tiny budget for this past few weeks, so it can be done. We just need to keep doing it. So I'm starting my new diary. I've tweaked and nipped and tucked our budget spreadsheet and this is the plan.

Current Debts

Shell's Next £870.45
Littlewoods £2,089.69
My Next £107.65
Shell's Loan £460.42
Vanquis £1,412.07
Capital One £447.08
Additions £59.46
Simply Yours £217.78
Grattan £66.60

We're snowballing at £450 per month. We had a big discusion over the past week over weather to snowball more, or save for the wedding. I know, you're all screaming snowball, and to be honest, I'm still undecided. I think, if we don't have something that we need to pay for towards the wedding, we'll snowball it. Otherwise it'll get saved. Our SOA is non changeable from the last time we posted it. I'm doing every other weekend to earn extra money. I've Ebayed most of our stuff. Given my friend the credit cards. Made a 100% resolution not to order a single thing from any of the catalogues. I really hope we do it this time. I don't want us to start married life in debt. We've spent 2 years like this and got nowhere. Keep me on track DFWers!

DFW thing done today.... had a NSD.
Payments made today.... none.
Saved.... £6.00. Pole dancing class was cancelled.

Evan. xox

hypno06

Welcome back

~evanesco~

Cheers Hypno. No kick? Slap? Chocolate cake? Well, no, not chocolate cake, a kick or a slap would have been good! You're doing well. Come and live with us, keep us on the long and bumpy, not the free and easy.

hypno06

~evanesco~ wrote: »

Cheers Hypno. No kick? Slap? Chocolate cake? Well, no, not chocolate cake, a kick or a slap would have been good! You're doing well. Come and live with us, keep us on the long and bumpy, not the free and easy.

No point in kicking - you KNOW what you have done wrong, and you KNOW what you need to do.

Just the simple fact that you know I can be stern should be enough :rotfl:

~evanesco~

hypno06 wrote: »

No point in kicking - you KNOW what you have done wrong, and you KNOW what you need to do.

Just the simple fact that you know I can be stern should be enough :rotfl:

That's true. Look at this (below) it's from my New January 2008 Diary. We've gained a debt and added another grand to it. Honestly I'm I without hope?

Debts

OH's Next : £1,023.34
My Next : £197.85
Littlewoods : £531.39
Additions : £453.61
Simply Yours : £93.59
OH's Loan : £673.99
Vanquis : £928.77
Capital One : 461.69

Total Debts : £4,364.23

hypno06

Ok, here is my suggestion.........

Do a £ for a £.....

If you have £10, pay £5 to the wedding fund, and £5 to one of the debts - starting with the smallest one - Additions - just to get rid of it. Once you have paid one off completely, you will feel much more in control.

In fact, why not join the £10 a day challenge - you could have that Additions paid off within a week.........:D Then the following week put everything you make in the wedding fund......etc.

doodledo_2

Welcome back.

Don't worry about the added debt the main thing is you are here and you are doing something about it rather than keeping your head in the sand.

Use your wedding as motivation so you start your married loves debt free.

Good luck

~evanesco~

hypno06 wrote: »

Ok, here is my suggestion.........

Do a £ for a £.....

If you have £10, pay £5 to the wedding fund, and £5 to one of the debts - starting with the smallest one - Additions - just to get rid of it. Once you have paid one off completely, you will feel much more in control.

In fact, why not join the £10 a day challenge - you could have that Additions paid off within a week.........:D Then the following week put everything you make in the wedding fund......etc.

You're magic, you are Hypno. That's a bloody brilliant idea.

Oct, there's no spare money, so all will be minimum payments.
Nov, that Additions wil be paid off anyway, because I have still kept a DFW head on that account, and instead of making the minimum repayments, which they charge 29.9%, I've been making the interest free ones, which don't charge APR, but are currently £30. I also need to give my Dad £250 that I borrowed, and save £150 towards Xmas. Since some repayments drop, I'll bung whatever it is, £2-3, off the vanquis, that's evil APR.
Dec, the Grattan will also be clear then, since I've kept the same principal, and clear some extra off my Next account. Plus another £450 for Xmas. We did Xmas last year on £700, without adding to our debts, so I know we can do that again.

Looking again at my spreadsheet, I can continue snowballing at £450, which is what repayments are currently, so no point reducing it. But, what I will do is, where I've allocated to save between £300-600 a month for the wedding fund, I'll split it. But, and this is my onlt compromise, after we're booked the venue, since we need to do this asap. After that, split and snowball. It'll soon be gone.

I did look at the £10 a day challenge, but I'm already working 12 days on, 2 days off, so it's not really a viable option, whereas, split and snowball....not a problem.

Evan. xox

~evanesco~

Ah, flip, no, no, no. Last week, on impulse we bought a wall mounted candle frame wotsit, which is lovely, we didn't really need to buy then, Martin's mantra had been buried, so that's £30 to add on to the Additions, which delays clearing it. Now, what they now will do is drop the minimum interest free payments, so I'll keep my snowball at £450 and add a little to the evil vanquis instead, I think. S'always better to pay the high interest, even though I like to clear a debt too. I've still got a little sense, somewhere.

~evanesco~

One last thing, before I pop off to bed. How on earth do I get out of our overdraft? Daft question, but I can't snowball it, becasue we'll just spend it. It's probably going to be the last thing we tackle, but anyone have any other ideas?

~evanesco~

Today then...

DFW thing done today.... had a NSD, update my snowball since 2 new bills have come in. Saved £2.20 on bus fare by sharing a dayrider with OH, instead of us all trooping to town.
Payments made today.... none.
Saved.... another £6.00. I won't be going pole dancing next week either, since I have to visit the doctors.

Feeling quite positive still. Should be a NSD tomorrow too, excepting the shopping, which is budgeted for. We also want to buy some white paint for the ceiling, but we're going to shuffle the shopping and buy it out of that.