Another lurker joins the fold.

Scubajay

Right.

After a really heavy month on the old spendathon, I was left with no option to sit at home and wait until payday. I was miffed at having to wait until payday until I could live a normal life again, and I got to thinking about why I am never in the black, and always way into my far too large OD facility. Having heard Martin on the radio a bunch of times, I popped into the site, and suddenly had one of those lightbulb moments. Whilst I am in a saveable position, I am not as comfy as I would like, and having found some ace ideas on the site, I thought I would swallow my pride and join, and see if there wasn't some more help I could get.

First, a little about me. I am a copper, and therefore on not too bad money. Owing to the way things are nowadays I was suspended from duty over 18 months ago, and despite having been acquitted and found to be an all round good egg, I am still waiting to go back to work. I have a hobby - scuba diving, which certainly eats into the gold, and I have had time to indulge a lot in the diving world.

Now some more background. I have had a nice little life, but have been entering the world of bad debt since 1997. A bad trip to a far away land to see a girl who wasn't worth it started the whole thing, and I went down the route of borrowing on the ever increasing OD to save my butt. As time as has gone my wages have gone up, and at it's worst the OD was in the region of £1500. After lifes ups and downs I got seperated from a long term partner, and all told my debts mounted to £12500. An equity split between me and the cheating ex left me with £18500, and nearly all of it went on the debts.....old loans, OD etc. A llot also went on financing my hobby - training and gear but at least I didn't raise the debt again by new spending, so I am happy with that.

Now comes reality time. Because I am at home all the time waiting for the suspension to be lifted, I have been diving loads and loads, and I am terrible for going to the ATM and getting money here and there in dribs and drabs(those certainly add up don't they????)

Anyway.....I looked at my account this week instead of diving on the OD and found the following needed to be fixed.

1) OD limit is £1000 - Currently at £1006
2) CC limit is £350 - Currently at £349

My outgoings per month are:

£450 rent
£348.09 on phone and loans repayments

So I should have loads left over. I have had months where certain bills have been massive (large phone bill after I was cleared at court etc) but the general theme is that I spend way too much and will never get out of the OD trap if I don't stop. I spent £850 since my last payday and was only stopped because I ran out.

What I have done to fix this mess before it gets too much is this:

1) Sold stuff I don't need anymore on EBay - got £106!!!:j (all getting flung at the CC)

2) Changed all the DD's so they don't make the situation worse, and I am going to move them to a DD bank account so they are paid independently of my "gold to wallow in" account. That should help. That was a tip from the site.;)

3) Decided to spend no money at all for the next however long it takes to get the OD down bit by bit. This means I will be loafing around chatting and enjoying time with the girlfriend. No drama there then as she thinks it is a great idea.:rolleyes:

4) Wait until December to see if my £700 in premium bonds wins anything. If it doesn't then straight into the OD lowering fund.:(

5) Seeing if there are ways I can earn some loot which doesn't affect my real job. Help here would be appreciated!!

6) I wrote an E-book (another tip from this site) and I am going to put it on Ebay soon. hopefully that works as well.

7) Applying for the OD charges I have accrued over the last 6 years of being a spending looney. I think they will be quite big. By this point I hope to be in a position to ask advice about savings!!


Any and all advice is welcome.

climbgirl

Sounds to me like what you really need to do is focus on your spending habits. Start a spending diary where you write down everything you spend for a couple of months. And I mean everything! This way you can tell exactly what you're spending your money on and areas you can cut back.

Set yourself little challenges - like only spending £20 a week on food and trying to cut it back where you can. It becomes like a game after a while.

Learn to shop around so you're getting the very best possible price for anything you do end up buying.

Once you tighten up the unnecessary spending and make cut-backs where you're not going to miss them, then you'll find you'll have more money for the diving. I love travel, another expensive hobby. But by giving up my cd and dvd addictions, finding the money for trips is pretty easy.

Scubajay

Aha.....the spending diary is easy. As I have the time at the moment I have been wallowing in the misery that is my previous few months bank statements.

Now that I know that I have been spending £850 ish each month on nothing really - I haven't counted money spent on things like boat fees and air fills - I know where to start. Like you say....focussing on the pointless spending and mad generosity is a start.

The goal thing is easy. I can't go diving as I have gear that needs servicing. I shopped around and found somewhere that can do the same job thatn onthers but for cheaper and I can't dive whilst it's away, so a saving there!! I told my girlfriend today that I intended to spend nothing other than essentials until January, which is easy as we have small families (cheap Xmas!!) and a large DVD collection we can wade through.

I also cancelled the costly gym that wasn't getting used.

I am looking forward to getting to the end of the month and seeing that after having had a life (gone diving!!) and paid my bills and done some saving I still have a few hundred left over. Now that will be a good day.

climbgirl

Yep, it's the pointless spending that'll do it! I've gone totally cold turkey on cds and dvds. I just don't let myself buy them now. I don't miss them nearly as much as I thought I would...

One other tip is to try and have a certain number of days a week where you don't spend anything at all. It really makes you conscious of what you are spending and on what. Try "extreme budgeting" for a week or a month where you don't spend anything over and above what you need to pay rent, bills and food. It makes you stop and think about what you do actually spend your money on and how much you waste!

Seaxwyn

HI Scubajay,

I enjoyed your post, you have a nice writing style. Maybe you could make some money writing for Scuba Diving magazines, websites or whatever. I do freelance writing for magazines, rates vary but I generally get about £200 for 1,000 words . It's time consuming but could have other perks eg free gear to review, press freebies to exotic diving locations...

Other idea, as you are police could you get casual work doing security? Must be lots of work this time of year with late-opening shops, pubs etc.

Good luck with it.

seaxwyn

lynzpower

great to have you around Jay :wave:

Its lovely having more fellas around here





especially those in uniform

hang on- did I turn into southern scouser there? Sorry

WELCOME

Storm

Hi Jay & welcome,

What I do is take my weekly budget out on Monday morning, and then leave my cards at home for the rest of the week. I make sure I do the food shopping early in the week, and if by the weekend I've not got any left - I don't go out! I'm only a couple of months in, but so far it's working!

Got any change jars lying around that could pay of the £6 you're over the O/D limit?

Storm

Scubajay

I get paid tomorrow and I will be out of the hole, but still on the edge of it.

I am living the extreme budget as we speak.....I have no need to spend anything so haven't for the last week. I am going to do that for as long as I can as all my bills take care of the essentials.

I think that with some willpower and a leaving of the cards (they can sit and play on the xbox whilst I am out)I will be in the black before too long.

Scubajay

Seaxwyn wrote:

HI Scubajay,

I enjoyed your post, you have a nice writing style. Maybe you could make some money writing for Scuba Diving magazines, websites or whatever. I do freelance writing for magazines, rates vary but I generally get about £200 for 1,000 words . It's time consuming but could have other perks eg free gear to review, press freebies to exotic diving locations...

Other idea, as you are police could you get casual work doing security? Must be lots of work this time of year with late-opening shops, pubs etc.

Good luck with it.

seaxwyn

The terms of my suspension mean I can't do ANY paid work. And they look at my banking as well to make sure. Being a cop is great.;)

However, the writing thing is something I am interested in. Got any tips on making contacts that might be interested in my scribblings about diving? (the suspension is being finalised this week)

anniestar

Hi there, just wanted to say welcome to the site. You will get great support and advice here. Good luck with your work stuff as well.

Phoenix79_2

Welcome to the site old chap :beer: