The Debt Monster Must Die!

Keebs

Hmmm, nice idea Helen except sis and BIL are both rookit and currently guilt tripping me*



* Note to self: must grow a backbone!

Keebs

Tried to book my car in for it’s 1st service today and well near popped my clogs at the price. Dealers both wanted between £120 and £130, Kwik Fit wanted £170, and all were adamant it must be a full service at the one year stage. Think I may have made a small boob with Kwik Fit in answering “it’s black” in response to their query over what type of car, but even so…

In desperation I called my own garage (as I was under the impression, courtesy of dealer :mad:, that local garage + service = invalid warranty ). Own garage said stuff and nonsense, they called their Kia contact who also said stuff and nonsense, at 5500 miles (low mileage as was off the road for several months whilst I was travelling) an interim service is quite sufficient and even performed by local garage will still maintain the warranty. End result: lovely local mechanic man will charge around £70 for the job. Fab news, and a great relief as currently only have £75 saved in car budget. Phew!

Alas however, whilst it is good news on the car front, not so good news on the wastage front. Have just thrown away one bag of soggy carrots, another large bag of mutant mush (formerly known as spinach) and nigh on £4 worth of smoked haddock. Bah! In addition my weekly shop has just come in at £37.86, my budget only allows for £30 per week.

Am jolly cross with myself over both the wastage and the overspend as there was no need for either. Hope I’m not slipping back into my old ways, think the monster staying so quiet for the first few months lulled me into a false sense of security and this is going to be harder than I thought.

Anyway, am off to indulge in a cup of 'more expensive than it really needed to be' coffee and ponder upon my inadequacies in the hope that a second LBM may come my way.

Keebs

Total payment to debt since payday: £1049.10
Overpayment: £650
Minimum payment: £399.10

Debt at LBM: £20,970
Debt outstanding: £15,624

Percentage of debt paid: 25.5%

Have rejigged my figures to reflect the recent statement from Tesco loans (which includes all future interest, rather than just that accrued). A little disheartening to see the figure rise but hey ho, fingers crossed it will slide a little further next month.

The battle with my monster still rages, I’m holding out against the big purchases but the small ones are slipping through at an alarming rate of noughts. Currently over budget for personal spends by almost £20 and still 3 weeks to next payday _pale_:(:o

AnnieG

Fab diary *subscribes*
I'm v impressed with your efforts to keep the monster at bay. Keep fighting the good fight!

Keebs

Aaaaargh!

Feel as though I’m turning into a real money miser and folk are beginning to label me as such at work


I have a personal spends budget of £60 per month, this covers entertainment, luxuries (*cough* hammock stand *cough*), haircuts, clothes, work expenses etc. Out of this I have mentally earmarked a maximum of £10 per month for any work related expenses, normally collections for weddings, babies, sickness, leaving – all the usual work things.

Recently there have been a glut of sponsorship collections, none of which I have given to. The going rate is £5 per sponsored event, this month alone it would have cost me £30 in sponsorship plus the £10 I spent on collections. Now looked at rationally this is not a huge amount and I feel slightly guilty about my decision. Trouble is £40 is a large sum in comparison to the £60 I have available.

People at work have noticed my abstinence and are being really nasty about it, this is compounding the guilt I already feel. I do give to charity but have deliberately chosen smaller charities which mean something to me. These collections at work are mainly for large charities which A) already get huge amounts of cash and spend a much greater percentage of their funds on administration (ergo less of my cash goes to the charitable event itself).

Have worked out that if I cancel my current subscriptions to charity the money saved should cover all the sponsored events at work and any left over at the end of the year I can send as one off donations to my own prefered charities. It would certainly stop the agro at work but feels like I’m selling out my principles in order to be seen to do something (as opposed to just quietly doing something). Also, it just seems plain miserly, after all I’m managing to pay a huge amount off my debt each month so could conceivably reduce this in order to have more funds available for these unforeseen hiccups. Trouble with both the above is that it feels like I am having to compromise my chosen lifestyle in order to fund other peoples chosen lifestyles, especially as many of the sponsor forms are for friends/relatives of people at work rather than colleagues themselves.

*sigh*

Where does one draw the line between being MSE and simply just being tight?

Keebs

PS

Thanks AnnieG for the support, although not sure how justified it is at present.

Keebs

Another weigh in for my monster and another few pounds lost, it’s not been the pleasant rose scented journey I imagined way back in January though and sadly I suspect it will only get worse.

Anyway, good news first: I managed to scrape together an extra £947 to pay off my debt in June. It would have been more but it just seemed wrong to spend such a huge amount on myself when I’d refused to sponsor people as above so I spent a measly £45 of the above sponsoring people for good causes and the other £902 went towards my Halifax cc.

Bad news: the relaxing of my budgeting rules to allow for the above sponsorship seemed to open a flood gate of sorts and ever since I’ve been leaching money left right and centre. This has to stop or I’ll never get my debts paid but am seriously beginning to doubt I have the moral fortitude to keep to my budget for the next 18 months.

Summary:
Total payment to debt this month: £1,319.76

Debt at LBM: £20,970
Debt outstanding: £14,337.87

Percentage debt paid: 31.6%

Mags_cat

The debt monster needs reminding that charity begins at home.

Whilst it is terribly altruistic and benevolent to give money to those less well off...if one of those is you then you hang onto your cash!

It's awful how pressured your peers can make you feel but sometimes you just gotta stick to your guns. It's almost like being chugged in the street ("Don't you care about the poor, starving, abused little kiddiwinks, ma'am?" Cue the puppydawg eyes and the chasing you down the high street rattling a tin under your nose...). Makes me :mad:

Keebs

Wow, have just finished reading MemoryGirls diary and feel totally invigorated, what an inspiring woman. I wish her every good fortune and have no doubt that her life will turn out exactly as she wants, that or something better anyway


Has got me thinking (always a dangerous exploit, especially in this heat) and Mags cat is right, I paid that sponsorship money for all the wrong reasons and am now using it as an excuse for failing to keep to my budget. This would appear to be a recurring problem for me (not the reluctant sponsorship thing, the finding excuses thing – erm, just thought I should clarify that) and now’s as good a time as any to put a stop to it, become accountable for my own actions and actually make an effort to change the things I don’t like.

I don’t like my debt monster (sorry monster, but it’s true) and I will change him. In order to keep my focus I’m upping the anti and challenging myself to save at least £50 per month from my budgeted spends.

Going to be pretty tight this month as I have £97 left to cover one weekly shop, filling up the car (probably need done twice before pay day) and any other sundry expenses that come along. Bring it on… :T

savingholmes

Welcome to diaryland

We used to give nearly £400 to charity - however that has comparatively changed and dropped to £62 a month which is £20 to a local church and £42 to sponsor two children. We didn't feel we could eliminate it altogether and in fact still feel slightly guilty we are not giving more. However, one of the things people suggested to me was giving more of my time rather than my money so we have both been doing a fair bit of that. Perhaps something you could consider.

I also very rarely sponsor anything and usually say that I already sponsor my pet charities and prefer not to give outside those sorry