How to stay positive?

Debts06

I know how you feel for the first time I've spent £20 in 2 weeeks but my car has gone in twice and I've missed days at work been trying to save so much then it's just wasted on my car but trying to look on to the furture

dizzyblonde82

I knew the debts were there but now that I have my mind set on clearing it I can't stop checking things.

Bad news from the garage as I need other parts fitting so the parts bill is already over £400 without the labour charges

elfen

dizzy, what keeps you going is knowing that sutff in the short term sets you back, but in the long term, you are doing something to try and battle down those debts, and one day you can sit in the sun, drinking a glass of wine with your nippers and your OH, knowing you're debt-free and don't have to worry about where the next holiday is being paid from.

dizzyblonde82

I have finally got my car back but the repair bill was over £650 My nan has been a star and has given me most of the money towards the car so I managed to pay some extra off one of my loans this month and have saved £229 in interest alone

Was feeling really good this morning then my husband rang to say that my bike has been stolen from where he works, his had a puncture this morning so he took mine - worst of it is that mine was worth 3 times the price of his bike! Police are looking into it but i'm sure I will never see it again! Feeling really down about everything now

Cleosmum

Can you claim on your house insurance?

Also, nothing wrong with daily checking of bank balances, things change from day to day and you want to avoid nasty surprises

dizzyblonde82

Not worth claiming on house insurance as excess and increase in policy costs would outweigh the cost of the bike

frugalqueen_2

I went of Dave Ramsay's website and he says that car break downs, dental bills, christmas, birthdays, furniture falling apart are not emergencies but they will happen so you have to budget for them. We've never saved for car repairs and servicing before, but we do now.

LeeSouthEast

As others have said, life throws these things at us, but they don't need to be a huge issue. If you hadn't started to sort your finances out, imagine how you'd cope? Throw it on the credit card? Would you even be able to do this due to credit limits/current balances? Your savings will stop you having to put it (or all of it) on credit. Sure it's annoying, but it isn't the disaster now that it might have been if you'd not done what you've done so far.

Once out of debt the first thing I did was focus on building an emergency fund. This currently stands at a little over £2,000 and isn't touchable except for inconveniences such as the one you highlight in your post (i.e. car repair disaster outside of normal budgeted servicing costs). I add about 20% of my take home pay to it each month, and it just sits and grows and accumulates interest at 3.5%.

I have a few other pots as well that gets the remainder of my disposable income for set targets (retirement, fun money, holiday, moving house fund, etc) and the rest goes to living costs.

You're better of this happening when it did, than say a year ago. That's how to look at it positively!

BigMummaF

dizzyblonde82 wrote: »

....How do people stay positive when life seems to throw so many problems at you?

With difficulty at times it must be said Thankfully I have been blessed with a relatively good sense of humour so try to laugh it off--rather like LabLover--but do get the 'why meeeees' occasionally. I know it sounds cheesy but finding this site has been a tremendous help. It's open 24 hours a day, if folk don't know the answer they'll help you look for it & best of all, there's at least one other person who is going through the same thing.
Guess tho, it boils down to frame of mind. You can wallow in the tears of self-pity or order up a goodly dose of self-help--the choice is, as they say, entirely yours.