Can Edinburgher be debt free and a mortgage holder by 30?

doodledo_2

Well done on the Quidco payout :T

PS - I'm on my way for dinner....... yummy

dancingfairy

The only thing that seems high is the presents budget - you should be able to cut this down by careful buying, by lots of things in the january sales (and the sales now) for people's birthdays- and don't forget to stock up on christmas decorations,cards,wrapping paper etc now for next year.
Try swapping presents - if you get something you are not too keen on - make a note of who bought it for you and give it to someone else for their birthday etc.
You can also try collecting freebies for presents as well - for instance my OH loves collecting the 'free' dvd's /cd's from the papers, we collected all the david attenborough dvd's as a christmas present for family and also collected some of the 'free' lego toys with the papers - the kids don't mind -it doesn't have the proper box - it's still lego and has the instructions and cost us 40p for each one as opposed to 3 pounds or more - and if they have some of the previous days cd's/dvd's /lego sometimes stores will just let you help yourself - we got 3 lego toys for about 20p in the end I think!
Also think about maybe making things - hm wine/beer? /jam/hm cards/hampers etc.
Gym - well you've identified you are going to cancel that.
Savings - necessary for now - but this is obviously taking a big chunk of the budget so hopefully when your OH is in more secure emplyment this can be dropped or reduced which will really help.
Travel - is quite a big part of your budget - what is it- train/car/bus tickets? - check whether you can get any season tickets or whether buying 2 singles is cheaper , whether you can book in advance and save money, etc.
df

edinburgher

Thanks dancingfairy - I have started being a little bit more sensible with presents this year (cutting back from say £25/sibling to £15 or so). I have to say that since joining the working world a couple of years ago I've felt a {self-imposed?} need to spend more on these sorts of things.

Unfortunately I do have in the region of fifteen folk to buy/help with the cost of presents for

doodledo_2

I know that feeling I have around 20 people I buy for including several of my nieces and nephews.

This year I have cut back my budget considerably and started buying from the start of the years. It's the only way I can do it without going broke.

Next year I will be cutting back even more :T

edinburgher

Back from the gym - mince pie and coffee for lunch, thanks to gf (who has also cleaned the house from top to bottom while I was out!) Now I just have to do the ironing..

Have fixed a flaw in my debt spreadsheet that meant I was always going to be one set of payments out based on some cells that I'd copied the incorrect formula in. Tidied it up too and put in the new values for 2009.

Have realised that I'm paying a disproportionate amount towards my overdraft and will balance things in the new year. I am charged fees on my overdraft, but as it's only £5 or so a month, I'd rather pay a fair amount towards both.

I figured that my debt split (overdraft/credit card) was 22%/78%, so I had to add about £25 a month to make sure that I wasn't stiffing the credit card. I have a policy of never reducing a debt payment once I start making it (want to stay on my DCA's Christmas card list, after all!) - which meant that I saw a reasonable jump in my payments towards debts. Just to be a super-enthusiatic DFW in the new year I decided to add 10% to the new figures too!

This means that I'll now be paying £122/mth come the new year, as opposed to £84/mth now. That will take my DFD down to 38 months (currently 56 months). So, even allowing for December's monies, I will have cut my DFD by 17 months

doodledo_2

Well done on the new debt free debt and I bet you will shave more months off it as time goes by too.

edinburgher

Gym again today and I actually did some work at work (it's been slow lately). Somewhat miserable to hear that my new job with DFID may be delayed as government security checks may take 'some months' to complete :(I've already said that I'm leaving my current job and while I haven't handed in my notice (so no leaving date as yet), I feel a bit unwelcome)...

Not much accomplished on the debt free side of things, although I did pay £5 towards the money I owe my GF. Posted off a cheque for £100 to Skipton for our joint savings account and saved a couple of pounds of a CD for a Christmas present too.

Going to look at joining slice the pie tonight too, maybe bring in a few more pennies.

Feeling a little tired.

dancingfairy

Just a random aside -I was feeling fed up and felt that we hadn't saved much money - I think we saved about 6 on some christmas presents but I remembered I had saved 12 the week before on a new coat plus 8 on 2 pairs of jeans (very much needed as I was looking like a bag lady). - Anway it was all necessary expense but I figured that saving on average 6 a week on various items in the supermarket (used some coupons), a bit on clothes when absolutely essential,a bit on christmas presents etc that 6 a week made 300 a year without a major amount of effort.
df

edinburgher

I think what you're saying is that pennies make pounds? I know, just get a little impetuous at times (especially after doing so many dfw activities over the last few days). Sometimes you feel like you should be doing something all the time - I suppose we all need a little downtime tho.

edinburgher

Good dfw start to the day - got expenses for a work trip last week, so paid £2 into my online saver and another £4 towards my gf - down to £111 and never borrowing from family or loved ones again She's barely mentioned it, but I'm a proud lad at heart