been in debt for 14 years.. sick of it

delightfuldior

hi there, i shop online for dog food and advocate etc...tape worm is gunna be given in injection form from now on as they react badly to the tablets and granules.. its about 4 quid a jab every 3 months.. not too much really. I get mine from either petmeds or petcaremart.. with a 5% discount each time. The food is bought from zooplus.. again they give a small discount for future orders.
my boy is allergic to rice, soy and wheat.. i will continue to give the orijen as this has all this out of it but the meat blocks are a pain and can be pricey so gone back to the old faithfull butchers canned... a fork full of this with the orijen keeps them interested, its cheaper, it has no allergens in it.
I havent heard of the pet insurance scheme tbh i do know my vets practice (vets4pets) does a life long fee of £70-90 for all yearly vaccinations.. but .. I am dubious about vaccination overload so for their first booster I paid for a titre test doing.. lo and behold Joey with all the allergies had a massive healthy immune system and required no booster whereas gemma who has nowt wrong with her... had no immune system so she had a full booster. OK its cost me but their health is important.. I dont think I'll be doing this every year though I'll be doing more research on this..
I am determined to clip them myself £25 a go is so expensive.
thank you so much for your advice....
and i've just been paid and put my first lot of monthly savings away for car, birthdays and xmas!!! ok i'm skint but next month will be better and it will get better
thanks!
xx

Krisp_3

Hey there and welcome!

Getting your head round your actual monthly outgoings (rent, food, phone etc) and what I used to call 'theoretical' expenses such as planning for birthdays, Xmas and things like that can be tough at first - I remember in the first few months being 'surprised' by things I hadn't thought of that I needed to budget for. For me, things like that as well as spending on magazines, coffees, bought lunch and so on was what made me go from having a theoretical amount of money left over and actually ending up in debt. And that was without redundancy and house that needed serious renovation work.

If you can manage to keep a spending diary for the next few weeks, that should help you see where your money goes and allow you to then cut back/modify your spending, and be able to overpay your debts sooner rather then later.

I hope that helps!

delightfuldior

many thanks!! Yes the next step is the spending diary! I had about 70 quid left this month after all my outgoings and its gone already (since friday).... so ... next month is a deffo for the diary.. I've still missed out on little suprises but these are only occasionals and it would be silly to put 50p a month aside for the sake of them.. in my eyes anyhow..
I've even done a spreadsheet for my bf and he thinks its hilarious that I do the calculating and budgeting but when I did his and emailed it to him he was like WHHOAAAA Why didnt I have this sooner!!!
men eh phah lol
xx

Krisp_3

You're welcome! Funny about your OH - hopefully this means that both of you will be looking at your joint spending together, to make the whole process easier.

Just making a start can help you feel a lot more in control. For example, I reckon you didn't realise before that money could disappear so quickly on 'nothing'. Actually recognising this helped me think more about what I was opening my purse for each time. Now, I only spend on my one credit card if (a) I'm buying online (we never use our current account debit card online, to make it less likely that our account gets used fraudulently), or (b) or it is something that the credit card guarantee is important for AND (c) I know I have the money to pay it off immediately. Before LBM, I would use one of my cards (I had 5) because they were there to use and I pushed the worry about paying them off to the back of my mind.

delightfuldior

yeah I have done that.. I have two cc's sat in my purse. I AM GOING TO CUT THEM UP NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckystepho

Go for it!! You are doing really well! Hope you are having a good Bank Holday