Immoral_angel's Debt Diary

immoral_angeluk

Feeling a bit calmer now. Have had a look at the finances and how much we'll actually have to get through december and having budgeted £30 to rent a tens machine, and £60 so Steve and I can get each other an xmas present we'll have just over £400 to live off, so not too bad but food, petrol and everything is going to be coming out of that so we're going to have to be careful with our spending and not go overboard at Christmas. I'm just so thankful that we've got pretty much all christmas present sorted already and that we've managed to cut a lot of our outgoings down already by paying off 4 debts, cancelling sky etc as otherwise we'd be REALLY struggling right now as we're saving £88 this month just from paying those 4 debts off so in a funny way this couldn't have happened at a better time as it would've been a financial disaster if it happened before now! Has really opened my eyes to what a good job it was we decided to knuckle down and sort out our debts and finances! If this would've happened in October we would've only had £200 to last us the whole of the month after all the bills had gone out.... that's actually quite scary to see! Funny how things work out though.
Called Steve at work and he made me feel a bit calmer and grateful that at least we've got some savings as a back up. Not much granted but it nearly makes up for the loss in my wages so in respect we've been really lucky. We've decided that because we'll be getting £100 more than we expected in my wages NEXT month that we'll save extra in January to make up for what we're having to use this month. Feeling a bit better now. Still need a strong drink though and have had to settle for flat coke! yuk!

Oh well. C'est la vie.

Lesson learnt? When things are going really well for you, expect someone to throw a big pile of crap at you.

yung

Life is always struggle, specially when you try to do everything accordingly, however hard you try there is always another hurdle to overcome but if you keep going you will always get where you want to be and at the end the reward will be sweet. glad you are feeling a bit better all the best.

immoral_angeluk

Well it's the end of the first 'week' of our december challenge. And even with our reduced wages etc our budget for each week is £93.10. This week we've spent £67.66 and that included £25 for Steve buying a game. We're not going to be putting the saved money into savings just because of it being christmas and all the palaver with the maternity pay !!!! up and we're just going to save what's left at the end of the month. Will make up for it next month though but seeing as it's christmas I don't want us to be really struggling saving every last penny especially when money is tight.
Either way we've done well! Hopefully we can keep it up and be able to have a stress free relaxed christmas and maybe even save some money!

gettingitsorted

i always read your diary IA ,just want to say your doing sooooo well dont let this glitch grind you down,keep up the exellent work

immoral_angeluk

Well.. it's the 11th December and it's 2 weeks today til christmas day! :eek: :eek:!
I'm 34 week pregnant, feeling fat, in pain and fed up but otherwise things are going well. Money hasn't been too bad even with the !!!! up in wages. Pretty much all of the bills have gone out and we still have enough left after we've bought our presents for each other to have a fairly comfortable christmas and not struggle. Everything is sorted and our tree went up saturday night. STILL need to finish our christmas cards but they'll be sent by the end of the week. Just need to do a top up food shop next week sometime (Can't believe next week is the week before christmas!!! where has this year gone!).
Ashli has got soo many presents, which is crazy considering we spent less than £100 (probably about £70 actually.). She must have about 15 presents just from us. Just shows you don't have to spend a fortune to be able to spoil your baby girl! lol! We don't feel bad about getting her loads this year as it's our last year as just the 3 of us.. (Unless Kaitlyn comes early! :eek:) so this year is for Ashli.
The scariest thing at the moment isn't debt, isn't money or anything like that.. it's that fact that in 2 weeks it's christmas and I'll be 36 weeks pregnant.. which means that realistically Kaitlyn could come anytime after christmas and be classed as full term..... argh! I'm not getting my hopes up though. Ashli was 10 days late and I'm a right lazy b****r so if Kaitlyn's anything like me she won't want to come out and will want to stay in bed! lol!

Hope everyone's well and all the christmas preparations aren't too stressful or hurting your wallets!

themaccas

I've just caught up with your debt diary, what nightmare with your wages, they realy choose their times to give you all this news, they should have been able to tell you all this way before you went on mat leave.

Anyhow you have done very well and because you have been in the budgeting mind set for a few months that has really paid off literally for you.
Hugs to you and your family you so deserve a good xmasx

Snaggles

Hi there! I've never spotted your thread before, so have just been having a good read through it. What a pain about your pay being a lot less than expected, but you sound to have coped with it really well.

Hope you manage to have a comfortable Xmas and Kaitlyn doesn't make her grand entrance in the middle of your Christmas lunch!

Well done on all the debt you have cleared this year, you should be proud of what you have achieved, and hopefully the new baby will motivate you to keep going next year too.

All the best, love Snaggles xx

Serialdieter

Hi IA

Just found this thread. You've done amazing getting the debts down and still managed to buy loads of pressies for Ashli. Hope Kaitlyn doesn't make too early an appearance, so you can enjoy Christmas.

Have to say your work situation with money is c£$% considering it's Christmas - so much for Christmas spirit, but well done you for not letting it spoil your debt reduction plans.

Jx

immoral_angeluk

Merry Yule everyone!! Time for a quick update!
Well it's the end of week 3 of the december challenge.. and even with having to rebuy Steve's xmas present last friday we came in £13.72 under budget, so if we were being strict about saving the money we would've saved £55.01 this month so far which is great considering we've less money, christmas to deal with AND have done 2 big food shops this month (Although we haven't gone over budget on the food shopping and have only spent £141.22 for the 3 of us for the whole month so far which is brilliant considering our budget is £150 and we've got enough food to last us into january now. ) This moneysaving stuff is great. .

Steve even bought me an 'extra' christmas present last night which was the 'thrifty ways for modern days' book (with his discount of course) but it was so sweet of him and I'm going to have to invest in gallons of white vinegar LOL.

Feeling much more positive at the moment than I did at the start of the month. There's only 10 days left in December, we've got plenty of food in, everything for xmas is sorted (except we need to the xmas drinks in but that's nothing really.), the tax credits and child benefit go in tomorrow instead of next week and we've got enough money to get us through to January comfortably so feeling much calmer now! lol! Roll on January!

immoral_angeluk

Steve got paid today and because I already know how much I'm getting this month SMP (Thanks to the bat at payroll I spoke to when my pay was cocked up.) I'm able to work out an accurate January money challenge to get us back on track now that we're getting paid properly! lol! Here's the jist of it.

January Money Challenge

Total income
including wages, maternity pay, child benefit (Get 2 lots this month woohoo!) and tax credits (Bare in mind this is based on what we're currently getting, obviously as soon as Kaitlyn's born the child benefit and tax credits will increase.)
£1836.51


Total outgoings
including bills, £150 budget for food, £50 budget for petrol and Steve's driving lessons
£1147.67

Spare
for everything else including Ste's lunches, treats etc etc etc..
£688.24 :eek:

BUT we're going to put all the child benefit and tax credits straight into the debt saving account.. so the REAL spare amount is
£372.04


Weekly Spending Budget £85.92
(For everything else except bills, driving lessons, food and petrol.)

January Debt Saving Targets:

• Save both child benefit payments - £139.60 minimum
• Save all Tax credit payments - £177.20 minimum
• Transfer £60 xmas pressie into debt account when cleared - £60
• Save all money left over from weekly spending budget - £ ??

Minimum Target Savings towards debt by 31st Jan
£376.80

Based on our spending this month we should easily be able to save £20 a week out of the weekly budget... and if that's the case that'd be at least another £80 to add to the savings which would take our savings total to nearly-another-debt-clearing stakes . Obviously baring in mind at some point in January we're going to have another mouth to feed but if we're controlled that shouldn't effect our finances too much, especially as once it's sorted the child benefit and tax credits will be going up. It feels good to be able to dive head first into clearing our debts again, especially after this month! It's been a bit tight but we made it.
Just have to make sure we don't go dipping into next months wages at any point this week! Lol!
Roll on january!