inspiration??

skye

I need some inspiration. Where do you get your inspiration from to keep to your budget?? I know that being debt free should be an inspiration in itself, but I do well and then tend to have little relapses. I was supposed to be looking for a suit to work (paid for by work) at the weekend but ended up with non work clothes.

I'm don't feel like I am getting anywhere with paying my debts off, I have debts of approx £14,400 made up of a
£3,200 loan @ 6.7 or 6.9% - £107.67 per month
£8,000 on credit cards (coming to end of 0%s, just switched one to 6.9% life of the balance) - £77, £110 & £21 per month
£3,200 car loan from my parents 0% - £120 per month - need the car for my new job - big payrise so it is worth forking out for

Parents can't really afford to lend me anymore and I want to pay it off myself, I've only just gave them an idea of how much I am in debt and they're a bit shocked to say the least. They did say they would consider gettng a loan to pay it off and I pay them back each month - but I really don't think this is fair on them and not sure it would work as I've already considated twice and failed (keeping the credit cards/overdraft).

My incomings are roughly £1480 per month (although I have just had a big rise I'm not really seeing it as I spent more than I earn and haven't had a standard month yet) I receive £300 per month from my boyfriend for his share of bills (not including food). Just started putting the clothes (that I have stacks of rubbish - that is all I have to show for the debt except the car) on ebay so hopefully that will start to save up ready to pay off a credit card. Any other money making ideas??

Outgoings that I have to pay:
Rent - £63 per week
Council tax - £81 per month
Water - £150 per year
Electricity - £50 every 3 months
Gas £19 per month (but got a £80 back last March)
Car Insurance - £51 per month (spent ages making sure I had the best quote)
Tunnel fares - £13 per week
Petrol - £15 per week (not sure as I haven't had car that long and use it for work)
Rabbit food, bedding etc - £4 per week
Contact lenses £17 per month (could get cheaper but last ones I tried seedmed too cheap - ripped etc)
My mum bought my TV licence for Christmas so don't need to worry about that.

Other outgoings:
Food shopping - £60/70 per week if not more on a bad week (I'm trying to get this down as I know its really bad, been doing a lot of home cooking lately, looking at the food section)
Do go out sometimes (drinking/eating) but have tried to cut this down (if we eat out use buy one get frees etc).
Cigarettes - £10 per week (I know I should stop)
I end up buying crap (magazines, clothes etc - I had tried to stop but as I said before have relapses).

See if anyone can work their magic over my outgoings!! Anywhere you think I can save?? I've worked out if I pay £620 on my debts a month I could have them cleared in 2 years, I just never seem to be able to pay much more than the minimum payments, and I still seem to be going into my overdraft £300 at the end of the month.

Sorry it's such a long post but I think most of the details are there now, thanks for any advice you can give me (I'm going to be stuck when my next 0% card runs out).

JAMIEDODGER

skye its all about reaching your lightbulb moment, the point where you realise that you cant live like this anymore and are determined to change. have you reached yours yet? if you pay the minimum payments on your debts it will take a VERY long time to clear them, paying huge amounts of interest to someone elses pocket. i think its great that you want to pay the debt off yourself and not rely on your parents BTW.

what you need is a plan, a "budget". do you just have one account for everything?

i have a account where my income goes in and pay a set amount to another account each week to pay all the bills. i draw out my housekeeping in cash once a week and when its gone, its, gone. what ever is left in my main account pays debt.

Hope this helps

JD xx

Little_Miss_Winner

What you need to do is, because you get paid monthly. Work your bills out on a monthly basis, and stick to a strict buget with whatever is left.

RENT; £273.00 (£63 X 52WEKKS DIVIDED BY 12)
COUNCIL TAX; £81.00
WATER; £12.50 (£150 DIVIDED BY 52)
ELEC; £16.66 (£200 DIVIDED BY 12)
GAS; £19
cAR INS; £51
TUNNEL FARE; £56 (£13 X 52 DIVIDED BY 12)
RABBIT FOOD; £17.33 (SAME AS ABOVE)
PETROL;£65
CONTACTS; £17
FOOD; £216
TOTAL £824.49

So the total is £824.49 per month, this is also by giving you £50 a week for food, :eek: this is very high, I allocate £200 per month, for 5 of us, to include nappies!)

Your incomings are £1780.00 per month, so this leaves £955.51 per month. Or if you need the ciggies, use the odd £55.51 for these which means you have £900 a month for debt repayment! (give or take money used for everyday things that you may have to buy?)

I have just worked out that if you pay £900 per month on debts of £14,400.00 you can have these all cleared in 17 months - by June 2007. :T
But i worked these out based on all the debts being at 6.7%, so you should be able to clear even sooner, as your parents money is 0%.

If you really really want to clear in 17 months, you will have to cut out the "crap", and stop wasting money on magazines, clothes etc, buy off ebay...as well as sell, and use any extra funds, for any extras you may need to buy.

Can you give us any more details re; the 3 credit cards, what are the amounts outstanding on each, and aprs.

Hope this helps a little?

pot

citygal

Skye- know how you feel! But at the end of the day, do you want to get out of debt? If this is your aim then its a case of sitting down and being honest with yourself-I had my lightbulb moment May2005- wish I had it earlier but its better late than never!

ozzyfan_2

Hi Skye :wave:

heres some ideas to help with shopping

1. try to keep away from the shops
2. try to think of everything you buy in terms of how long it took you to work for it eg if I bought a pair of jeans for £24 it would have taken me 4 hours work to pay for them!
3. always think, do I really need it, can I find a cheap or free alternative, if I do buy it will it give me my moneys worth?

buying clothes is fine if you need them but stick to classic colours & styles which aren't going to be out of fashion the next year (blacks my favourite!) you can always dress them up the following years with scarves, jewellery, belts etc in that years colour.

I had a great afternoon recently sorting out my wardrobe, I put my favourite music on & sorted my clothes into co-ordinating outfits like they do in H&M
also sorted out some clothes to sell & give to charity, you could do the same, its surprising what you can find!

with magazines try reading on-line magazines for free.

if you get the urge to buy beauty products when you already have loads go to the freebies section & apply for things there. you'll also have something nice to open in the post!

make it a challenge to live on a small weekly budget & see how you go, you may find its not enough & have to adjust it but see how enterprising you can be & you may surprise yourself!

good luck xx

Queenie

Hi Skye :hello:

In addition to the advice you have received above ...

~ keep a spending diary. Write down *everything* you spend on a daily basis, then, once a week, translate that into a weekly spend. You really need to KNOW your spending habits, spending weaknesses. You won't be able to address those until you have cold hard facts staring you in the face.

~ Check out all the other forums particularly Telephone, Utilities etc to see how you can make savings in those areas. These are aspects we have to pay whether we want to or not.

~ Pay Yourself First! Now, this may initially sound counterproductive, but in fact, it isn't! Even if it is only a nominal amount to begin with, you need to make a direct debit or however you choose to do it and pay *yourself*. Could be a fiver a week or a fiver a month or whatever. It's not the amount that is relevant, it's the principle. You need to allocate a small amount of money in your budgeting, that is yours to do with as you please. The feeling of "deprivation" and the frustration that you are working (seemingly!) for nothing but debt is a fastrack way of falling off the wagon. (When we were at our most hard up, hubby had a monthly "Me Money" of £25 ... just knowing he had that helped to curb any rash spending and helped to overcome his negative feelings).

~ come and join our Pin Money Savings Challenge in the Old Style Forum (PMS Instructions and Feb PMS ). Noting each conscious saving you make will be far more refreshing than feeling guilty for spending over budget.

~ Reduce your grocery bill by checking out the monthly grocery challenge - read through the January one although I think they are soon to start the February one

~ Magazines. Which one's are you buying? If it is gossipy ones, use the internet to catch up with celeb gossip Also, think about the subject matter that attracts you most about the magazine, then go and explore your local library. You might be pleasantly surprised by the sheer variety of topics available to borrow for FREE If the library doesn't have it, the internet most likely does.

~ Council Tax - if you pay by DDebit - you get two months (Feb and March) where you do *not* pay council tax - that money can be thrown at one of your debts to reduce it further.

Got to run, but do take heart, each babystep you take along the way is another milestone passed and nearer to debtfree living. All the very best.((hugs))

dinkylou

Skye,

All the posts above are good, and you should do all those things to reduce your outgoings.

But also, I just wanted to point out that you are on a good wage and your outgoings aren't that huge (except food, oh and try https://www.visiondirect.com for your contacts, I buy mine from there and they even have bausch and lomb - best contacts you can buy)

But what you will need to clear your debts is a change in your attitude to spending.

It seems you are spending a fair amount on crap and 'entertainment' of some sort.

When you want to buy something, ask yourself - do i really need this? or try leaving it for 24 hours and if you still want it, then buy it.

If you cut back on crap, you'll soon pay off your debts.

briona

skye wrote:

I need some inspiration. Where do you get your inspiration from to keep to your budget?? I know that being debt free should be an inspiration in itself, but I do well and then tend to have little relapses.

I'm don't feel like I am getting anywhere with paying my debts off, I have debts of approx £14,400 made up of a
£3,200 loan @ 6.7 or 6.9% - £107.67 per month
£8,000 on credit cards (coming to end of 0%s, just switched one to 6.9% life of the balance) - £77, £110 & £21 per month
£3,200 car loan from my parents 0% - £120 per month - need the car for my new job - big payrise so it is worth forking out for

Other outgoings:
Food shopping - £60/70 per week if not more on a bad week (I'm trying to get this down as I know its really bad, been doing a lot of home cooking lately, looking at the food section)
I end up buying crap (magazines, clothes etc - I had tried to stop but as I said before have relapses).

Hi Skye

One of the things I found was that by clearing one debt, however little, I felt as though I owed loads less money, e.g., I gather that the minimum payment on one of your credit cards is £21 – which means that the balance must be pretty low [compared say with the one with a min. payment of £110]. Therefore – others may advise differently and of course it depends on the APRs – I would make a special effort to clear this one card meaning that your debts amount to one loan, TWO credit cards and a car loan instead of one loan, THREE credit cards and a car loan...

Re. the relapses, I think everyone has them. Don't beat yourself up though, just put it down to experience and move on. I too, have fallen into the trap of blasted magazine buying but instead of going cold turkey and saying "I will not buy any magazine ever again", I buy three titles instead of um... eight! This will be cut down and gradually i will put the money towards something else. [It should probably be noted here that I DON'T really need to stop buying magazines as I am not now nor ever have been in massive debt – I would just rather spend my money on something more lasting and worthwhile].

Re. food shopping, I realised that I didn't actually know for example what a pint of milk or a loaf of bread cost! I just randomly chucked things in the basket and seemed mildly surprised at the checkout when I was paying twice the amount I wanted to! I sat down with a lot of old receipts, looked at what things REALLY cost [as opposed to what I THOUGHT they cost] and made a list which I bring with me every week. It has helped a lot!

Some other savings I have made are:
1. Bringing lunch to work [saving of approx. £3pd/£780pa!!!]
2. Changing mobile phone tarriff to cheaper option – am about to go even cheaper again [saving over £138 pa]
3. Giving up... um... chocolate [a VERY EMBARRASSING saving of approx. £500pa!!! Really!]
4. Changing home phone to Onetel
5. Not carrying cash – I am a LOT less likely to rush into a shop for a bar [or seven] of chocolate if I have to use my credit cards!

The main thing is just to stick with it, ["every little helps"] and soon enough the reduction in debt will be your inspiration and drive to stick with the budgets however rigid they may seem.

Best of luck

B

Queenie

See if anyone can work their magic over my outgoings!! Anywhere you think I can save?

Ok, skye - I have a few more thoughts for you to ponder on.

Currently, boyfriend gives you £300 pm but it begs a few questions you may need to ask yourself:-

~ How did you both arrive at that figure?

~ How long ago was the figure set?

~ How often do you both sit down and review it?

~ Have any of the household outgoings increased since you first "agreed" on that amount?

~ Is it realistic?

You may need to have another think about who is responsible for paying what, when and how.



You are approaching the income/expenses/debt from the viewpoint of a single person; yet live as a full time couple. If you soak up the day-to-day living expenses ie: housing, utilies, food etc., from *your* income and b/f contributes a regular £300 pm then, in financial terms, the relationship sounds more like landlady/lodger?

Perhaps it's time to rethink how you approach the issues of finance as a couple? In which case, it would be your *joint* monthly income and your *joint* financial commitments that would give a truer picture for you to work with.

For example:

If you matched b/f's contribution and put £300 per month into the household kitty, that's £600 pm in the kitty to budget for rent, council tax, utilities, food.

Looking at the figures you gave, £600 wouldn't cover those basics let alone the items that haven't featured in the equation such as home furnishings, repairs, replacement household items, insurances etc.

skye wrote:

I need some inspiration. Where do you get your inspiration from to keep to your budget??

Inspiration comes from having a clear direction/target/focus on a longer term aim. Without that, we are all prone to quick-fix-must-have-now-excitements. You need to plan your life! Just like planning for a holiday.

You need to have a clear idea of your goals (financial, career, personal) , both as a couple and as individuals. Short term and long term.

Once you have decided your goals, set yourself a time plan for them. Where do you want to be in 2yrs time? Five years time? Ten years time? How are you doing to achieve it? How will you know you've achieved it?

These are the golden carrots that the donkey focus' on when he grind the mill stone

Failing to plan, is planning to fail.

climbgirl

There's some great ideas in the posts above Skye, a lot for you to think about!

One thing that really struck me reading your post, is that your listed outgoings and expenses add up to a lot less than your incomings - so you should in theory have plenty of money left over to throw at your debt. But as you point out, you don't!

It has to be going somewhere and it's so important to know EXACTLY where it's going and what you're spending it on. If you want to start clearing debts and living to a budget, you need to know exactly what you're spending every penny on. A budget is only going to work if you include EVERYTHING.

Start with a spending diary - write down EVERY PENNY that you spend, down to the smallest pack of gum. After a week or a month of doing this, you'll have a good idea of what you're spending on and you'll be able to draw up a realistic budget that will work because there's no surprises.

And once you see exactly what you're spending on, you'll realise just how much you're wasting on things you don't really need (I did anyway!). If you're anything like the rest of the MSErs, you'll get addicted to saving money, finding bargains and shaving bits off your budget and that will become the motivation in itself.

What works for me is asking myself just how many hours I have to work to buy that £60 pair of shoes, or whatever. If you think in terms of hours of your life, it puts things into perspective a bit more.

Set small goals for yourself so you can see your debts coming down and have something to work towards. Start small - maybe you'll say I only want to spend £15 this week on food and try to beat that. Pick something that works for you.

And if you need inspiration and motivation, just come here and ask for it. There's plenty of people here with stories and tips to keep you going!

Beccal_3

Hi there

You say you spend £81 on council tax. Is that 1/2 or are you paying all? if you live by yourself you can get a 25% reduction.

Also, you say you spend £40 a month on fags??!?!? i'm not a smoker so I guess i don't get it, but I'm on a debt management plan with the cccs and have £25 a month for fun - so £40 on something that'll probably kill you anyway....

And me and my man can live on £80 food shopping per month. we never buy ready meals - too expensive. if we are in a real rush we buy packet mixes - not as good as the real thing but cheap and tasty. Use chicken pieces (legs, thighs etc) as they are cheaper than breast, and if you purchase a slow cooker,(£15) you can make some really tastey meals with them.

I am just starting out on my debt free path, and have had to make some major sacfifices, but what you'll learn is that it can actually make you appreciate what you have, and what a good life you can have if you are carefull. we used to eat out all the time, and go to the cinema all the time and be out every night. Now we can only go out once or twice a month we really really enjoy ourselves when we do. We've learnt to enjoy each others compnay in other ways - long walks, picnics, 'the bedroom' ...