I'm tackling my debts in 2010

InaPickle

emmie26 wrote: »

Today I've been on a training day and am doing the same tomorrow, I'll have to try and stop myself daydreaming about moneysaving it becomes all consuming when I have a target in mind!

Isn't that how any target you are really setting yourself should be in any area of your life?

And it's not bad thing, either: it's a bit like being on a money diet. 'Ooh, how many [STRIKE]calories[/STRIKE] pounds can I save and still treat myself' type-of-thing.

And so long as it gets you where you need to be, what's the harm? :cool:

emmie26

not been up to much over the past few days, I really need to complete my meal plans for the month so that I have a good idea of what to buy on friday!
A colleague is going to africa to do some charity work in an orphanage soon so she has been doing some fund raising to take over with her and this week it has been a clothes sale, I have brought a skirt, a top and some shorts all for £13 and two of the items were brand new from monsoon so that has been very frugal and great. Tonight I have to help hubby as he has an assignent due in but I will try and do some meal planning as well.

emmie26

I have been busy meal planning over the last few days, I have asked everybody to give me some ideas and I now just have a massive list, it now just takes some planning to maken sure everything has been taken out of the freezer in time.

I've spent an hour today reading through my old posts from when joined the forums, I wanted some inspiration from when I started because it seemed we were all so much more focused and managed to pay off £1000 a month or more for several months. How did we do it?

Well there is a few things I've realised, our SOA will definitely have changed, we no longer deal only in cash which makes a massive difference on knowing where our money has gone and we no longer have our monthly money meeting at home where we sat down with all the reciepts and worked out what we had spent from all our budgets.

I've spoken to hubby and we have decided that we will need to do this once more starting immediately.

I'm going to do an updated SOA so that I can see any areas that have really gone up or down, I'm going to work out what I can afford to spend on treats and draw it out of the bank tomorrow and aim to stick to it and we are going to have to sit down and work out how we can save some money. I have also not been doing many extra shifts which made a real difference previously this has already started but will have to really increase.

emmie26

Money in

wages £1800
benefits £174

Total : £1974.01

Mortgage [STRIKE]£675[/STRIKE] £591
Council tax £100
Loan [STRIKE]£100[/STRIKE] paid off
Water [STRIKE]£32.40[STRIKE] £28.08
Gas & Elec [STRIKE]£69.00[/STRIKE] £107
Household maintenance £100 £0 This will be incorporated into cc payments.
Garden £25 £0
TV, Phone Internet [STRIKE]£45.14[/STRIKE]£50.00
Tv Licence £10
Mobile x2 £35 £0 We will pay these out of our own money
Food £200
Eating out £20 £0
Drinks at home £20 £0
Car Insurance £25
Car Tax £12
Petrol [STRIKE]£80[/STRIKE] £100
Car Payments [STRIKE]£138[/STRIKE] £0 paid off
credit cards £200 £600
Childcare [STRIKE]£100[/STRIKE] Now at school
School meals [STRIKE]£0[/STRIKE] £80 my daughter is not allowed to take sandwiches until she is in reception so we pay for them both to have dinners
Dentistry [STRIKE]£5[STRIKE] £0
Haircuts £20 £0
Optical bills £10 £0
Clothes £75 £25 This is just money for the childrens clothes ours will have to come out of our own money.
Big One offs £150 £40 this is just for xmas

Total £1968.08

emmie26

Well as you can see from the SOA not much has changed in the overall figures, where we have saved money we have either added it to our credit card money or it has been swallowed by increases elsewhere. So the real change must have come from the fact that we are not paying anything from our own money each month. I have just looked at my current account and I have £180 left in there at the moment, I am going to draw £80 tomorrow to last me until next payday on the 26th June (the day we go on holiday), I am going to have my hair done on friday, I have £40 in cash saved for this and I am going to take the money from the copper jar to pay for the rest. I may try and go straight form work tomorrow if my mum doesn't mind me being a bit late.

When hubby phones from work later (he is on nights) I am going to have to have a chat with him about paying extra amounts off every month. I know for a fact that he has been bringing home double what he has been putting into the joint account because there has been so much overtime so I do not know where he has spending all this extra money, even if he could just pay £200 extra himself if I could match this we would be meeting the £1000 mark once more.

InaPickle

Go for it, Emmie - well done!

emmie26

Well today mum came round for tea after having the children, I made lovely fajitas, very cheap and cheerful.

Been at work so a no spend day.

Have not really had a chance to speak to hubby about paying extra amounts off the debt out of our own accounts as well as the joint account because he is on nights and my mum has been here all evening and now he has gone back to work. His credit card bills have arrived today so I am going to broach the subject tomorrow before he goes and pays them.

I had forgotten that I had been brought a take that ticket by my friend for my birthday the date unfortunately clashes with when we are going on holiday so I have sold it to another friend for £50 (the same as I brought it) but hopefully this should mean that if everything goes well this month then I should have another £50 to add to the £100 in my bank to pay off debt.

Hubby has had his annual bonus, not a great amount probably £800 after tax, he has paid about £600 of this off an overdraft he had built up over xmas, so that is good, I think the other £200 is going on some new clothes ready for holiday.

Hubby's parents have given us 80 euros to take on holiday with us, I'm hoping that this will be enough for the whole holiday as we are going all inclusive. I think really we could have got a much cheaper holiday but I really wanted the children to have a perfect time on their first holiday abroad, so lets just hope the volcano's and weather don't spoil it.

Fingers crossed for the euromillions tonight, if you don't hear anything from me for a few days you will find me in the seychelles!

InaPickle

If you win the Euromillions I fully expect you to share! :rotfl:

Having saiid that, you seem to have nice amounts of money trickling in here and there, and you seem to not want to waste them, so well done on that. :T I must admit to being a bit confused about the financial arrangements in your house, though: are you throwing all your spare ash at the debts and DH squirrelling much of his away. If so grab him by the nuts (proverbially speaking ) and see what you can do about it.

emmie26

OH is crap with money he does earn way more than me and yet we are both putting the same amount in the joint account, however he will pay for everything when we are out and it was hard enough getting him on board with the debt reduction anyway. I wish I could just get him to put all his money into the joint account and then I could give him appropriate amounts to spend for the week, but I don't think I would appreciate this if the shoe was on the other foot. I think I'm going to just have to put up with his babysteps at the moment, at least we are reducing the debt, I'm just inpatient and want it paid off now!

As for sharing the euromillions I think it would be lovely to share it around a bit I would love to hand over some cash to you and buy radish's house, you kind of get involved in people's problems here and it would be great to have the cash to do something about them.

emmie26

hubby would also say that I spend £80 on my hair every other month and money on make-up every now and then whereas he is bald and as far as I know he doesn't wear make-up so really he is spending about the same amount just on beer and clothes.