I think this might help.

tbourner

I'm thinking I need to start a diary so I can get some motivation. It was going well but now I haven't been updating my spending diary and we haven't been sticking to the meal planner. It's not disasterous or anything but I think that's the problem, I know we've got some spare that I've allowed for in the budget and I keep letting myself use it!! grrrr.

You can see from my sig that selling the car put us way ahead of plan (6.88%), then I bought my scooter to replace it and all the gear, so we lost a couple of percent last month, also it's Christmas coming up although I've got some saved money for present allowance.

We've done the spending diary for over a year so I haven't been bothered to do it recently, I should do to see how much we're saving on the meal planner though. Maybe I need to simplify it as so far I've been noting every detail of what we're spending!!! Should have a column for 'food' rather than milk/bread/meat etc. How does everyone else do their spending diaries?

Meal planner seems to help, we do one big shop online and then just buy milk and stuff each week. We know we always went off list so buying online is good, trouble is we don't stick to the planner and it isn't perfect so it's gonne take a few months to get into the swing of it. Do you all plan every meal every day or just have a list of 30 meals and tick off which one you have?

Anyhoo, hopefully I'll get a bonus of around £1k in the next few months, and I still need to find some time to have a clear out and get on eBay!!

tbourner

It's not going well, we've had too many takeaways this month, already run out of money and dipping into my overdraft for basics until 01/Dec.

On the plus side, I did update the diary, we seem to be spending:
£190 on groceries
£30 on clothing (average over 14 months)
£105 on diesel (although we're driving for a charity, I've been given back £170 in the last 3 months)
£80 on car maintenance!!
£30 saving for presents
£25 for pet food
£25 for pet insurance
£60 for pet misc (including gear for working and any vet costs)
£30 for our entertainment (one meal out per month, we call it 'date night' so we don't end up splitting up over stress)
£40 for cigs/alcohol (alcohol is £13, cigs have been £0 for the last 4 months so the average is gradually going down)
£25 for takeaways!!!


So, clothing bad - we have loads to go through and sell if possible. I now have a scooter so car costs should reduce. Takeaways we need help with, but DW has been signed off with depression and keeps guilting me into buying her chow mein! We spend WAAAAAY too much money on our dogs.

jwil

Hi tbourner, well done on your debtbusting so far!

Now you've got your figures, you can work on reducing them and seeing how they change month to month.

Why don't you add that £25 for takeaways onto your grocery budget, and see if next month you can do £190 for the lot for the month. (Or maybe a little more allowing for Christmas). If you want to keep having the takeaways is there something else you can drop down on instead. Alternatively, can you find a good recipe for chow mein so you can make it yourself rather than getting a takeaway?

Good luck with it!

tbourner

Good idea on the recipe, I think I might order this book and see how we get on. Trouble is we don't 'cook' cook, we just heat stuff and use jars, so we might find we spend more on ingredients to start with.

Thinking I might take a couple of months payment holiday on the mortgage, and use the money to pay off my high interest debt like the GE Money loan from Safestyle (bloody Safestyle!!!). Obviously that's similar to consolidation in that I'd have to make sure I overpaid the mortgage by a few months when I'm all paid off. It also removes my safety net if interest rates go up as we finish our fixed rate in June next year!

jwil

Ooh, that book looks good! Going to add that to my wishlist, thanks!

twindad07

I like the look of that book, we might have to invest in one. Takeaway pizza is certainly one of our downfalls, but managed not to have one so far this month, - well thats a lie have had one but didn't pay for it - they messed the order up, actually ended up getting our order twice for free!!

We have a meal planner but we struggle to stick to it, at the moment its a weekly one that we just rotate the days for 4 weeks- not much variety, might try and do a monthly one, or I like the idea of having a list of 30 meals and cross them off when we've had them.

tbourner

Well, signature now updated for another month, nearly £6000 paid off my major debts in 6 months!!! WOOHOO!!!!

Also, heard rumours today that we're doing better at work than anticipated, so the 'guaranteed' 5% bonus we were due in February may now be an 8 or 9% bonus instead! Cool. Only rumours though, and I don't believe them I have to say, would be very helpful if they were true though, I could pay off my Safestyle (GE Money) loan and have £100 extra a month for credit cards, which would be nice.

Also, today I began creating a website on Canine Behaviour Information, the wife is involved as well as she's doing her Canine Behaviour and Psychology Diploma at the moment - so once it's up to scratch we should be able to start making a little bit of money from it, you get a few pence from ads but we can start offering behaviourist services when she's confident enough.

We did all our Christmas shopping on Saturday, £107 spent!!!! Not good, but not too bad either compared to what some people spend. Going halves with my father in law for some beers too so that's handy.

Merry Christmas all!! :beer:

jwil

£6000 in 6 months is fantastic, well done!!

Fingers crossed for the bonus. I'll pop over and have a nose at your website!

tbourner

jwil wrote: »

£6000 in 6 months is fantastic, well done!!

That did include selling the car for £3k though, so kind of cheating on the numbers! Feeling much better now about our situation than we were a year ago though, still a long way to go but thoughts of selling the house have gone away.

tbourner

Any opinions on my mortgage problem:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/39265758#Comment_39265758

Any rumours on base rate? I thought it would be up at 2.5% by now! Obviously it's not gonna be going down, and it can go up by 1% before I'm in trouble.

jwil

I'm not an expert, but I would imagine that you'd struggle to get a good deal with such a low LTV. If you switch your NR mortgage you'll be left with the unsecured bit which goes up to a hefty interest rate.

I would crack on with your debts and get them down as much as possible.

We switched away from NR earlier this year and used London and Country to find us a new deal. They were really good so it might be worth having a word with them/another financial advisor to see what they think your options might be, and where you need to be regarding your financial situation when you remortgage.