Pay off mortgage and start having fun!

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Hi NewGirly, I wondered if this would help and I understand we were fortunate to both have good incomes but it is the mindset change we went through.

Mr T and I used to spend every penny we earnt. All of it and lived in a permanent overdraft, briefly cleared, then rebuilt. We had credit cards that were cleared monthly but wiped us out. Bonuses were used to balance the books. This went on for years and I'm ashamed and cross with how we behaved. Eating out, tons of holidays, day trips you name it, we did it. However, it took both of us (I lurked on MSE for a year before starting my diary) to sort it out. Both our minds had to shift. Mine alone was insufficient.

For the first two years we were extremely careful. We saved, OPd, Tilly Tidied - surveys, eb@y anything to help. However, we included the kids. We explained exactly where we were, why and what was needed to get sorted. Having the kids on board has been fab and more importantly they learnt a great deal from our mistakes. I see them both living their lives (financially) far better than we did.

I know your kids are only young once and you want time with Mr NG too, but get the kids to do something on their own, on a Saturday maybe. Use that day as your date day, picnic, walk, sea, whatever, but it won't cost anything really.

I'm sure you feel a bit bruised but a wake up call has and will help.

I agree with Ahem, talk to your best friend. I promise you she won't want you paying for coffees if she knows. That doesn't mean she pays, just have her come to you, take a flask to the park, go to her. Have tap water instead and she can buy her own. This is the mind shift change - Goldie is right, it can be short and painful or long and drawn out. We definitely went for short and painful but if we hadn't, we would not have changed our behaviour sufficiently.

Take it easy and you can see the tons of support you have here.

Tilly x x

newgirly

Lots to answer!

Ahem, its me that overspends, although dh will go along with whatever - Eric being a fine example, he is a softee. As for getting him involved in the finances, I have been going through stuff with him the last few days. He doesn't have time to get fully involved and to be honest can't deal with any more stress, he has enough worry about the business and without going into too much detail , he had a breakdown a couple of years ago through stress, I don't want to add to things. As for someone to talk to, its tricky,my wonderful best friend is very wealthy and is quite sensitive to the fact others are not so well off, she knows we are no where near as well off , but would be shocked probably to realise the situation.

I think she would feel uncomfortable chatting as usual about her life , what they have been up to etc. and I don't want her to feel uncomfortable.:o plus I am quite private and its our business.

Next obvious answer is mum, but to put this in context , when I did the picnic for our yearly afternoon out at the races and said I was getting the food from aldi, she asked if she can bring her own from M ands :rotfl: to be fair she did help me shop at aldi and did eat it. But she has not worked since I was born and my parents are pretty well off. She couldn't give me any advice and would just say, well if you are that hard up we will lend you some money

Re the kids they did not enjoy butlins , it was my idea! Centerparcs should be better as they chose to go there and I wanted to have a special break this year as dd was 18 and I was 40 , after butlins though i did chop it from a week to four nights to save money and in case they got bored.

I've done a rough add up of all cards and accounts for the last 15 months as that as far back as I can see. Clearly I can catorgorise that accurately as for example "tesco" is probably food ,but could also include lots of other things.

We must have spent cash too, and I estimate that virtually all that has gone on food, the odd £1 for the kids to buy sweets and small top up shops.

So here's a list of totals over 15 months and the monthly average:

Eating out and concert\show tickets £1362 - £90.80 pm

Food £3868 - £257.86pm

Petrol £1051 - £70.06 pm

Holidays\breaks £2618 -£174.53 pm

Oyster and schoolbus -£576 - £38.40

Uncessesary mini purchase! £2657.50 - £177.16

Everything else shopping £3679.26 -£245.28

Totals- £15,811.76 - £1,051.09pm

Although it makes embarrassing reading , its also quite positive as some areas were less than expected and it was the more frivolous areas were too high. The food costs were lower due to the higher costs eating out, I would imagine, this is also possible to change.

Holidays cost will have to change and we have a good year or so of some great concerts , queen, prince , many other fun nights out. But I guess that will have to go


But the biggest and probably not most shocking figure is the everything else category, basically everything I buy ! Clothes and any other random things, this can be cut a lot too. This section is also showing the Xmas birthday presents too.

Oyster and bus costs , going forward will be £30 as the bus is paid for and its her last year.

I'm still setting a budget and will move over savings at the end of the month when I have achieved sticking to the budget which I WILL DO

getmore4less

You have to do everything, you earn loads more more than £16k over 15 months.

For the period look at the debt at each end, which will be +- some amount.

Then add all income.

The work out where it has all gone, rough for some will be fine and things like mortgage will be a bit of debt repayment and some interest.

Most people when they do this find there is a new catagory "unknown" as the numbers do not add up.

newgirly

Again with out every detail, I seem to be adrift £173 pm over the last 15 months on average.

We have paid off £23,420 and also have all interest costs and card new deal fees, plus obviously mortgage interest payments on top.

The random spending category is the biggest area I can cut back as this £245 along with the £173 we are adrift I know is my overspending.

We can easily afford to do this and not starve looking at the figures.so much of the spending has been unessesary, concerts, meals and me buying too many clothes and gifts. I think it should be a comfortable budget if I stick to buying just what's needed.

Plans:

Find a folder and fill with spending from the last few days when I started monitoring, write every single thing down spent.

Check accounts and make new budget taking into account not the information I have to work with.

Find saving accounts suitable for use as pots for the various things we need to save for.

Do a monthly review of spending and the usual yearly plan

Also perhaps a six year 10month plan

Find a new spending app suitable for hudl

Get back to being more oldstyle

getmore4less

For this sort of task MSMoney is probably still the best tool available.

No online or apps but they are not really needed once in the swing and running to budget most are automatic updates with the details from the receipts once a week, review once a month.

Takes a bit of time to set up but the budgeting, tracking, cash flow and forcasting are all built in.

The key is to have at least 12months in detail, once on target for a bit the reviews can go out to 2-3 months rather than monthly.

No needs for pots of dosh it can all sit in one account.

In a previous post you had over £100pm going towards house doing up things, has that been factored in.

getmore4less

One issue everyone seems to hit is the task becomes one of feast/famine a few weeks of getting the budget nailed down then tedioum just tracking and keeping to the plan.

One option is to fill the void with other related tasks like a clothes audit,cycle through trying to use everything at least once, a food audit get to the bottom of the freezer and the back of the shelves, look for free/cheap things to do(there is quite a lot out there).

As you still want to decorate, keep on the lookout for bargains, like paint, floor coverings etc, have something in the budget so you can snap up the bargains.

newgirly

Thanks gm4l I've been told by my far more savvy ds I can't use that on my hudl so have downloaded a spending app instead.

I think you are right about the boredom setting in after a while, that's happened in the past a lot.

Its been an exciting day for dh, I couldn't mention it before but he has had lunch with the queen and prince Philip she visited the borough where our business is and as he won business person of the year 2014 he got an invite.

She shook his hand and asked what he did. There were a few tables of eight and he was sat at the one next to hers, after they ate prince Philip came over and bent down to talk to dh about his job as its an unusual one , and said it was an interest of his and how this type of trade keeps Britain's history alive and he should be proud.

It turns out everyone except dh and two others were London borough mayors! Very proud today, my mum is still recovering from her shock though - he met the queen in an old primarny suit as I didn't want to buy a new one :rotfl:

Alchemilla

Wowee how exciting.
Great for you to have that accolade.

greent

Wow! That's brilliant! xx

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

That must be a lovely boost x x x