Simple doesn’t mean easy

CaroleM_3

To anyone that reads this, I apologise for all the waffling!

I’ve been lurking on MSE for about a year and a half now, I did start posting regularly on the SAID thread but stopped a while ago out of embarrassment at falling off the wagon. This diary is me sneaking back into MSE with my tail between my legs, hoping no one notices my return....whilst also kind of hoping someone notices cause I’m really going to need a kick up the backside from time to time!

Anyway, I’m starting this diary to help me find my money mojo and get back on the wagon – I have fallen off in spectacular style!

I know what I need to do, it’s really simple – I need to live within my means and save enough money to do everything that I need/want to do. But simple isn’t the same as easy.

CaroleM_3

To start at the beginning:

Debt free date – 4th December 2008

My debts came from a mixture of generally not living within my means, shopping when I couldn’t afford it and going travelling without saving up my spending money first. I don’t have a total at their highest, partly because I didn’t record things obsessively in a spreadsheet like I do now, and partly because I would have good intentions and pay one off but then lose momentum/motivation and then start another debt. But at a guess, at its highest I would say it was 4 grand. I will try to root out an old paper diary tonight and see if I can find any proper figures.

After my debt free date I started saving for a house deposit with the intention of buying somewhere with a friend – this plan is now off as she is currently renting with her boyfriend and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

So my savings plans have changed – I still plan to save a house deposit but that has moved down the priorities list and I only aim to get it to £5000 by December. I have £4540.01 so far.

Other things to save for are as follows:
Spending money for my holiday in July - £850.00 (3 weeks in Peru including all accommodation, transport and food, hence the high figure)
Dental work - £500
Deposit for a rented flat - £850
3 Peaks Money - £140 (This figure is a guess, but I hope it will be enough, I am hiking/walking Ben Nevis, Snowdonia, and Scarfell Pike with 4 friends in July. This money is for my share of the car hire, petrol, food etc)

Total - £2340

So far I have £440.54 of this figure – leaving £1899.46 to get in 4 months

The 4 month deadline is due to my parents moving out of the area. At the moment I live with them, paying only £160 a month in rent. Once they move away and I’m renting somewhere, my rent and bills will sky rocket and my ability to save will be reduced to next to nothing.

CaroleM_3

There are 2 reasons I’m posting this on DFW in spite of being debt free:

1) In my head I still feel like I did before I was debt free; struggling to do what I know needs doing, feeling guilty for the mistakes that I make, feeling inadequate for not finding something as simple as living within my means to actually be simple, and wondering how the hell everyone else in my life seems to find this sort of stuff so easy.

2) Back in the debt days, I knew it needed paying off so I was always coming up with a new budget, a new plan, a new timescale to get it all paid off. And I never stuck to it, because in my head I was quite there yet. And then one day it just clicked, and I got on with it. I can’t explain it properly, but I just got on with it.

And I need to find that mind set again, desperately. Because at the moment I’m doing exactly the same thing – coming up with new budgets and not sticking to them, putting money in my savings at the beginning of the month and taking it back out towards the end and going clothes shopping even though I know I can’t really afford it.
I need my old DFW mindset back, and I think this is the best place to find it.

CaroleM_3

Part of my debts came from clothes shopping, so I’m sure you can guess that I struggle in that area. Managing to pay off my debts was at least in part due to weight gain: hating how I looked really killed the clothes shopping urges. For a while the shopping urges transferred to other things like books, but eventually they transferred into an obsession with paying my debts off – which worked out really well for me!

But the old problem has resurfaced now – I lost all the weight this time last year and for a long time made do with my old clothes – 2 sizes too big and worn out. But I made peace with how I look, and eventually learned to love it, and oh my gosh, shopping is sooooo much fun when I love how I look! So now I ‘m back to my bad old ways.

In reality a lot of what I have bought has been really needed, I genuinely had next to no clothes and what I did have was truly worn out. So I don’t regret a lot of the shopping I did – but I wish it had been better thought out and less impulsive – for example, I have 22 dresses and only 1 jacket, that’s not really a sensible balance!

So, I acknowledge that stopping shopping totally for me isn’t really an option – I just don’t think I could manage that. So I want to make shopping less of a pleasure and more of a task to be accomplished. I need to shop from a list for things that I have identified as wardrobe gaps, and stick to a budget/what I can afford at that moment in time. It needs to stop being a little lunchtime pick-me-up on a boring work day – that’s not healthy and its bad for my wallet.

I think I’m going in the right direction – this month I have spent £55 on clothes, the previous 2 months it had been £250. So now I just need to keep the downward momentum going.

CaroleM_3

So, the current state of things:
Money in purse - £5.16
Money in current account - £37.61
Bills to go out - £25.89
No of days till pay day – 9
I need a lot of NSD's to get me through the last 9 days of a 5 week month....lets see how it goes!

CaroleM_3

So credit where it’s due:

· Yesterday I had a NSD - woohoo!
· I went through my wardrobe and created 3 new work outfits for next week using things I don’t wear often -because I can’t possibly need to shop if I have new outfits to wear (if I get a chance I will do 2 more tonight)
· I went for a walk yesterday evening - my social life is going to be a bit quiet for a couple of weeks, and if I spend too much time in the house I have a tendency to brood

I really amused myself last night: one of next week’s outfits is based around a pair of trousers I bought last autumn which rarely get worn...which got me trying to remember when I last wore trousers to work and I couldn’t - I think it may be 6 weeks ago or even longer!

Plans for today are another NSD and another walk this evening.

Lula-Hula

Hi Carole,

was wondering where you'd got to :think:

Sounds like you're on the case & as I'm currently thread-dodging my own :whistle:, I'll come & hang out here for while if that's ok

*subscribes*

Lula
xx

CaroleM_3

Hi Lula -Hula, welcome to my pad *smarmy wink* you're always welcome here .

Yeah, I ran away and hid - not sensible but then I'm frequently not sensible so I spose it was to be expected.

Am currently sat at my desk hatching plans - mostly about making chocolate cake when I get home.....as the day goes on its sounding like a better and better plan

CaroleM_3

So, credit where it’s due:
· Yesterday was another No Spend Day - it was a bit close at lunchtime cause I really wanted a packet of crisps and that’s easy to justify because it’s not much money. But I resisted and I’m glad I did because if this MSE lark is gona stick this time it’s not about the money with little temptations like those – it’s about the habit. The habit of buying something the second I think I want it, the habit of just getting things without thinking of the consequences. And the financial consequences of a packet of crisps are minimal but a bad habit like that can do a lot of damage in a clothes shop. (Oh my god – how much do I talk?! I could have just put NSD and left it there but no, I write a whole paragraph! I’m crazy!)
· .....ok, that’s all I’ve got – it was a quiet day yesterday!


The current state of things:
Money in purse - £5.90
Money in current account - £37.61
Bills to go out - £25.89
No of days till pay day – 6

This weekend needs to be done totally on the cash in my purse, at the moment it looks like I will be going to a friend’s house on Saturday night for dinner, which will be £3.80 in bus fares. I like to take something with me and would normally buy nice biscuits or a bottle of wine or something but I think I will make a batch of cup cakes Saturday morning and take those instead.

And if my boyfriend is feeling better I may be going to the park on Saturday afternoon to meet his 5 year old son so I don’t think I will need any money for that, maybe just for an ice cream or something. And since mini milks are my favourite, £2.10 should be plenty for that.

So – weekend to do list
Make cup cakes
2.5 hour walk (3 peaks training)
Remember to take a bottle of water to the park so I don’t have to buy one
Usual cleaning and laundry type tasks

CaroleM_3

There’s no way to say this without sounding like a total drama queen but: Oh My God - I walked 14 miles yesterday! I still can’t believe it!

I did my 10 mile training walk in the morning, came home, had a bath, went straight to the park to meet my boyfriends son for the first time, ran around like a lunatic for an hour, realised I had missed the last bus and walked home – another 3.5 miles. What’s worrying me most is that my legs don’t even feel that tired today.

The current state of things:
Money in purse - £3.30
Money in current account - £1.51
Bills to go out - £0
No of days till pay day – 4

Could be interesting....I have a trip to the pub on Tuesday which I can do out of the change in my purse. And I’m popping round to a friends on Thursday – will have to use the £1.51 in my current account to get something to take round with me, nice biscuits or something....I could always make cookies or something on Wednesday evening, haven’t tried that before but shouldn’t be too difficult.....will hunt for a recipe.

And credit where it’s due:
· Friday was a NSD
· Friday evening I made cup cakes, meaning I had something nice to take with me on Sunday.
· Sunday was a NSD

CaroleM_3

I’m busy hatching plans for May – It will be quite a tight month in some ways, but if I can pace my spending money throughout the month then I should be fine. That’s always a problem for me; I have grand plans of sticking to a weekly spending limit, but blow almost the whole lot in the first week and a half, which means I have to be super stingy for the rest of the month, leaving me feeling deprived – and the feelings of deprivation set me up perfectly for another spending binge on the next payday.


So, this month the aim is to stick to £35 per week. This breaks down to £10 for food for work for the week, £10 for my social life, and £15 for ‘sensible stuff’ like toiletries.


May Targets:
Regular Saver (House fund) - £30
Instant access savings (‘other stuff’ fund) - £480


The current state of things:
Money in purse - £3.30
Money in current account - £1.51
Bills to go out - £0
No of days till pay day – 3

I’ve found a cookie recipe that I like the look of so will get chocolate chips out of the money in my current account tomorrow and make them Wednesday evening.



And credit where it’s due:
· Monday was a NSD