To remind myself how far I've come - my debt diary. - SOA added

slowlyfading

I'd be up for that as well! x

chocaholic110

Yawn, barely got any sleep last night and feeling very headachey and groggy so finding it hard to find motivation to move today. I have loads I could be doing but finding it hard to drag myself away from the computer.

DD had a Halloween disco at school last night, then we went to a kids' party at a local pub. DS turned us down in favour of pizza at his friend's house. Tonight we have an awards presentation at DS's school. He's due to receive an award for 100% attendance last year. Hopefully, I will be able to pull myself round by then and dress myself in something other than tatty jogging bottoms!

Just to prolong the sitting a while longer I will post my October spends. We spent slightly less in October than the £4444 in September but we still spent a frightening amount! £3,629.18...ouch!

Here goes with the breakdown!

After School Clubs £11.50
Baby Scan £50
Birthdays: £30.60
Breakfast Club: £9.50
Bridge Toll: £2
Broadband fees: £17.99
Car Payment: £260
Car Parts: £2.99
Car MOT: £92.50
Charity: £10.20
Christmas: £233.10
Cleaning: £10
Clothes - DD: £17
Clothes - Baby: £175.80
Clothes - DS: £3
Clothes - self £10
Contact lenses: £15.50
Council tax: £94
Credit Card: £792.30
Credit card interest: £4.14
Credit Record: £7.50
Digital TV: £45
Dinner Money: £102.68 (DD now paid until end of term so no more until January for her!)
Eating out: £37.97
Ebay fees: £4.47
Ebay packaging: £2.97
Ebay postage: £29.32
Electric: £38
Entertainment: £17
Football Pack (from Sun newspaper); £2.59
Football training: £20
Gas: £75
Groceries: £272.77
Haircut (OH): £7
Holiday Spends (DS): £10
Household (New pillows!): £40.50
Lottery: £17 (includes OH catching up on work syndicate)
Magazines: £7.25
Mortgage: £340
Newspapers: £7.05
Parking: £2.80
Pension (OH): £63
Petrol: £140
Phone: £29.20
Pocket Money: £9.80
Overdraft payment: £250
Overdraft interest: £11.48
Snacks: £1.70
Student Loan: £92.77
Sweets: £11.56...oops!
Swiming: £2
Takeaway (Asda version): £8
TV Licence: £11.93
Water rates: £19.50
Windw cleaning £9
Work expenses (OH): £7

It is VERY scary when you see it all broken down like that! OK, targets to reduce next month - NO baby clothes, LESS sweets (notice you don't hear me say no sweets!!) and LESS on Christmas - which should be fine as practicaly have everything for DD and have half stuff for DS. Think everyone else covered apart from a few bits to complete hampers. (Oh, and have nothing for poor DH!)

milesoneill

Wow, that's even more detailed than the one I have! You never said if you've been left in credit or debt for the month, mine up till now has been in the red (having to pay rent and mortgage as I relocated and waited to sell my house). Pain.

For me my main spend is in coffee shops (a mocha, a good book and a quiet coffee shop is my idea of heaven), but £60 a month was a bit too much expenditure! Down to about £25 thesedays.

Looking at your list, for me, I'd get rid of the Lottery, Mags, newspapers (internet is a useful alternative), charities (oh, I know there'll be trouble with that statement, but I'm not very charitable, it's just me..), and I'd reduce my broadband (switch provider). Probably save you about £40 in the month.

£11.56 for sweeties. I've no problem with that!! :rotfl:

chocaholic110

Thanks for that, I know what you're saying make sense. In fact I say it myself every month BUT seem to justify all the expenditure...

Lottery is works syndicates and neither OH and I can bear the thought that everyone else will win and leave us behind at work. Perish the thought!

Newspapers / magazines is not me but OH. I read 'em online. he's a wagon driver who is often away nights. He cooks in his cab, doesn't go out etc. I think I can allow him to have a 35p a day paper to read and do the sudoku to fill his time. Wouldlike to knock the mags on the head though, not because of the cost but because he doesn't throw them away and we have a house full of trucking magazines!

Charity - actually that's just up this month as my Mum had her hair dyed pink for Breast Cancer care and I couldn't refuse. normally I only pay £2 a month to NSPCC and Foundation for Sudden Infant deaths and I have special reasons for doing this and won't stop.

Phone / broadband. Yup, I know I cold get it cheaper, but this is my weak point and whenever i read / hear anything about switching I just hear blah, blah, blah and don't understand which is the best deal!! Can manage to switch gas / elec / insurance etc just not phone! And I don't understand either!

Sorry, you've tried to help and I'm just being a pain in the you-know-what aren't I? I do appreciate the coments. often other people can see flaws in your spending patterns that you can't see for looking at them. Oh, and it's only so detailed thanks to spendingdiary.com

As to whether we've come out in the black or red, well, I do believe we've more or less spent everything earned, but the overall debt has reduced nearly £800 so i'm happy!

milesoneill

Getting the debt down is a great feeling. I'm coming off the back of a divorce which left me £8,800 in debt, it's down to £3,500 (on 0% till June 08!) and have put away some nice savings too.

On your broadband, what I did (cos I'm with Orange mobile) was go for their free broadband offer. I'd usually spend £30 on my contract anyways, so to get broadband as well saves me £18 per month. Most would tell you to avoid them, but I found them ok. Switched to freeview too with a recorder, so when there's nothing on TV I can watch shows I recorded. No more Telewest for me!

Good luck for next month, and aren't you organised getting your Christmas shopping done so early. I usually leave it to Christmas Eve!!;)

chocaholic110

I'm already with orange broad band, never had any problems (touch wood). My mobile is a PAYG and I pay 5p per text message with Fresh. I only seem to put £10 credit on it every few months so it works out quite well.

Shopping on Christmas eve? You're a man, aren't you!?! Though I have noticed a lot of sales have started then, so possibly very MSE!

chocaholic110

Gas bill came today and we're £104 in credit. I know supposedly that's to cover winter months but I asked for it back. It will come in very handy at this time of year. Anyway, I would rather owe them money, than have them owe me money...is that very bad??

Our gas bill doesn't change that much over the year anyway, mainly as I am very naughty about not changing central heating settings.

lunar

well done on the debe reduction last month, i really should keep a spending diary, keep starting for a few days then forgetting.

our christmas thread coud be a "DFW Shoestring christmas challenge" or something similar. we could post our progress on vouchers, savings, bargins we find through the year etc. dont know which board to put it on though. im really looking forward to it now, it will be nice to have no pressure this time next year. we can all be smug with our friends on how prepared we are!!!

chocaholic110

lunar wrote: »

well done on the debe reduction last month, i really should keep a spending diary, keep starting for a few days then forgetting.

our christmas thread coud be a "DFW Shoestring christmas challenge" or something similar. we could post our progress on vouchers, savings, bargins we find through the year etc. dont know which board to put it on though. im really looking forward to it now, it will be nice to have no pressure this time next year. we can all be smug with our friends on how prepared we are!!!

Good idea. I will post it on here in December sometime. If it really should be elsewhere then it will get moved I suppose but if I start it with DFW we might be able to keep it on this board?

chocaholic110

Excellent pile of post this morning. Postie brought NO junk mail and instead brought

• £4 vouchers from a survey (2nd lot this week!)
• product for OH to test
• PC game for DS's Christmas that was paid for with vouchers therefore no spend
• cheque for £7.50 from the man I bought the parcel of clothes that went missing for a week. Apparently Parcelforce refunded him £14.99 so he split it with me. Wasn't that nice as he could have kept it all and I would have been none the wiser.

Shame the post is not like that every day!

Could be an expensive day today. OH hardly saw kids at all last weekend then has been away all week so today is taking them swimming, then taking us all out for an early evening meal, then onto a fireworks display. Should be fun though!