My Moment of Realisation!

bigrob2

Agreed! I think the best thing for me is to set up a spending diary and try to get back some control. One thing I notice is that when I have very little cash in the bank and no credit left on the plastic I cope fine, similarly when I get paid I seem to go crazy buying little bits of this and that, draining my cash and not having anything to show for it!

savingholmes

I know - my problem is frittering... the other day I walked out of a shop and left a full basket - in theory cos the queue was too long - in practice cos I knew it was all a waste of money! I am getting better tho....

bigrob2

I tend to do the opposite, i go for a loaf of bread or milk and come out with loads of things. What should have been perhaps a £1.50 spend at most turns into a £10 spend!

I think I have close to no will power! One day I will fix this as well

savingholmes

One thing to try might be to move to cash only - and only take exactly what you need....

You might also want to try myspendingdiary.com to log all your spends

bigrob2

Definately up for the cash only option. If I leave my cards at home then I can only spend what I have, i like that idea!

savingholmes

Its the simple ideas that are usually the best. If I want to stick within a spend limit - I send OH or my DS - with that amount of cash! They then stay within it. They might shop at a more expensive place but I will still have spent less then if I went!

bigrob2

Ive just added myself to the sealed pot challenge aiming for £500 for the year i think.

Im going to think about NSDs too but I think this will be realistic to start from Jan 1st considering the xmas socials, present shopping, trip to prague, new years eve etc.

Fortunately (i think) for me, I work in sales in the health and fitness industry and January is by far the busiest month so i dont think ill really have much opportunity to spend money thenanyway!

savingholmes

it might be worth writing on "what small dfw things have you done today" on the main dfw board

bigrob2

Its been a while since i posted so here I am, things have changed slightly, Xmas hit me harder than I imagined so I have updated my signatures below and started afresh from 1st Jan.

My biggest problem appears to be my inability to control credit card spending so between xmas and new year I took the step of cutting one of them up, my other is pretty much maxed out but on 0% so this will come next. What a shock to the system!! I knew I spent heavily on my card but i didnt realise just how much I relied on it. The good news though I paid of £700 just before xmas and havent spent anything on it as a result of cutting up the card. The bad news is that I have about £60 left to last until payday on 24th Jan.

I truly think this is a good thing for me, it has made me think about budgeting and saving for things coming up and within a few months I am sure I will be used to the tight budget I work from.

bigrob2

Well after a month or so of 'living within my means' I have managed to reduce my debt by £600 or so, and the previous month I paid close to £900 off as well (although this wasnt on my signature).

The frustrating thing is that even though I have paid off close to 10% of my debt, I did it with very little impact on my life which has only highlighted the amount of money I wasted on uneccessary spending before. Cutting up my credit card has been the best thing I have done for a loooooong time!

Another positive, I received a refund on my car insurance as the premium jumped when I made a claim although it wasnt my fault and a cheque is also on its way for £285 as a settlement from the other party so this will be applied to my signature when it gets paid!

I am also due an upgrade on my mobile phone soon so I will be getting the best possibly phone I can and selling it on ebay when it arrives.

I love this debt reduction stuff!