help required - fed up hamster in wheel

debtfreegonnabe_2

pennypusher wrote: »

Why have you got life insurance if you have no dependents? Is it practical to have this?

someone asked me that question, should the worst happen, who pays to bury him or me or my OH. A funeral these days costs about £1500 to £2500 not fair to leave that burden on anyone else.

DFGB

katsu

But you could just get a funeral plan and pay for the funeral costs. If that is all you are worried about. Cheaper than the full insurance surely?

loveGSDs

Hi Y and F

great to see ur doing so well! let us know how u get on with ebay

:beer:

kaz0705

I'll add my name to the list of late 20's who had LBM! I turned 28 this year and am determined to be debt free by 30... And, according to figures I should be!

I lived the classic champagne lifestyle on lemonade money- paying for Karen Millen Dresses and shoes at £250 a time, going on holidays to Florida at £1500 a time; all on credit card. I was actually taking control of things when I moved to London and then started using my card to support going out every night- messy!

A few things that I would suggest that have mostly been mentioned:
1.ebay. I gave up. I was selling £150 dresses for £5 and couldn't even sell designer shoes!!! Now *thats* demoralising! In the end, because I can meet my DF date using just my wages (and a very limited entertainment budget!), I decided that I just couldnt be bothered with the hassle and took bags and bags of clothes to charity shops. I figured that way a charity would benefit and I benefitted from the cleansing act of getting rid of piles of stuff. So do what works for you but do a purge- it feels awesome!

2. Groceries. You spend more on 1 person that I do on 2 and I credit our savings with online delivery. It stops the whole 'nipping in daily' to the shops (we only have locals around us) and means you can plan better. We do a big shop once a month of about £55-60 and then have £10 a week for veg etc. On the plus side....

3.... you can also get topcashback with this. I can not recommend TCB enough!! You can get money just for doing what you would do normally. I've earned £135 so far this year just from buying stuff I would have usually (or, occasionally, signing up for something and cancelling within the cooling off period- if thats allowed for the specific thing). Just today a colleague needed to book a train ticket and hotel and offered to do it for him- meant I got 1.5% of the cost of his ticket and £15 (!!!) for the hotel - and both were a good deal for the company anyway (I work for a charity so am always trying to save money for them too now!). Do it, get in the habit of it and buy all gifts online!

4. Your flat. I know you said you were tied in for a 2 year contract but it might be worth speaking to your landlord. As a general rule, if you can find someone to replace you (that's what gumtree's for!), they don't care if you leave early. They might not even ask you to do that! As you said, living right in the city doesn't exactly encourage people to drop by because most people dont live in the city! I moved to putney (ha, yes, still v.expensive but moved for partners work) and loads of people said that it was 'so far out'... Well, not really! Can be in Vauxhall for Victoria line in 10mins and waterloo in 15 and then can get train from Waterloo East to London Bridge in 3mins or so if I want to get over the other side.... Or of course, anywhere from CJ. Anyway, my point is that plenty of the more 'suburban' areas of London are really lovely, really accessible and far more sociable!

Finally, with the iphone 4, you should be able to reduce the tarriff after 6months or so. Lets face it, as long as youve got unlimited internet access, who needs texts (or mins, to an extent!)?

My last point (sorry, i'm rambling!) is to check out the snowball calculator (whatsthecost.com). Its amazing!!

Sounds like you're really taking control so best of luck. And don't worry about what friends might say- mine gently rib me because most of my sentences start, "well, on MSE" or "I got the best deal on TCB"... but actually they're all really proud of me for sorting my life out. And, at the end of the day, the only person *guaranteed* to be in your life forever is you so who cares what other people think?

xx