Savings vs debt dilemma

lynzpower

Hi all

Just A quickie.

Many of you know i havent been well recently and I havent been able to pay my debts off at the rate that Ive wanted to ( ha who can!) and although we toyed with having savings, we dont have them. Ive always been in favour of paying off debt instead, im not even in the £2 club.

Anyhow, Ive not really been smoking over the last few days. Im loath to use the words given up, but put it this way, I havent had a cigarette in its entirety since Sunday. So far I estimate Ive saved £24 ish. :cool:

What do I do? Do I save this money? Or throw it at my debts. I might well start again ( although I hope not) I do really fancy a cigarette, but im not going to bother and hopefully it will pass by me keeping busy.

climbgirl

If you've got a buffer for emergencies already, I'd throw them at my debt. If there's no buffer, I'd be tempted to put it in a high interest savings account like ING, where you can get at it if you need it (and only if you need it!)

Smashing

I'd be inclined to stick it in a jar where you can see it to hopefully make the following

I might well start again

a bit less likely!
It should build up quite quickly and then you can chuck 3/4 or so at your debt and keep the rest as an incentive not to go back to it.

(I don't work for the NHS, honest. )

lynzpower

But its not that MSE to have it in a jar, surely I should be earning on it somewhere??? :rotfl:

*laughs at self after wasting thousands over the years scrabbling over pence interest*

Smashing

lynzpower wrote:

But its not that MSE to have it in a jar, surely I should be earning on it somewhere??? :rotfl:

*laughs at self after wasting thousands over the years scrabbling over pence interest*

Oh alright stick in an high interest account Just make sure you have online banking as an option and log in several times a day to stare longingly at it.

lazy&indebt

£24 SINCE SUNDAY?! Blimey, how much do you smoke? Stick to rollies! (or quite, obviously!)

Snaggles

Well done on stopping smoking Lynz. I'm tempted to agree that you should be making it work as hard as possible by throwing it at a debt or putting it in a high interest account, but for me, actually seeing it growing in a jar (sounds like mould, sorry!) is very motivating. I would base the decision on whatever you would find most motivating, that way you are most likely to stick at it. You're already doing the most important thing (the health benefits will outweight the financial ones, you can't put a price on healthy lungs ) so anything else is just a bonus. Well done you! :T

Edit - God, did that sound patronising? Sorry if it did !

lynzpower

lazy&indebt wrote:

£24 SINCE SUNDAY?! Blimey, how much do you smoke? Stick to rollies! (or quite, obviously!)

5.25 for 20.

just shy of 20 a day.

I have never managed to get on with rollies, anyway, not an issue any more :money:

DontDoDebtKids

Personally, I'd chuck it straight at your debts.

There's nothing more motivating than seeing debts go down down down :j

I got 7p in interest on my current account balance today - yup, you guessed it, it went straight to the credit card.

It's all money and it will save you more interest than you can earn :money:

Smashing

My teenage attempts at rollies always looked like tampons.

Anyway...

lush_walrus

If you really want to give up smoking, stick the money where you can see it. Although a jar won't earn you any money, if seeing the money everyday works at preventing you from starting again then it could potentially save you a fortune.

When I gave up I put £3 everyday (what it cost me at the time) in a jar next to my bed. Then when I woke up every morning I added to it. It is amazing how much satisfaction you can get from re-counting the money every day, well at least I did. As I say it worked for me. Once it got to about £300 I basically went out and blew the lot on a dress I really wanted. At the end of the day, I would have blown the money in smoking so that is what I felt like doing. After that I just kept stashing and saving the money.

Worked for me! Although the thing is I didnt have debts, but I was a keen saver so it still would have made more financial sense to stash it in an account, but to me numbers changing in an account didnt ever move me, but seeing it did!