Elmer's moneysaving mission

ElmerFudd

Forgot to write up my diary list for this month. I'll also have to update my last months notes when I find them!!
Need to make sure I don't spend much this month!

Goal 1: to increase the number of NSD's - 3 so far
Goal 2: to try to increase income.
Goal 3: reduce outgoings.
Goal 4: not to be tempted by burger joints and coffee bars.
Goal 5: See if I can transfer some of the debt to other CC's at a lower APR. See if I can lower APR of bad CC.
Goal 6: Daily spending diary. Update diary for April - done
Goal 7: Cut back on electric usage.

May 2011:

1 May - NSD
2 May - NSD
3 May - NSD
4 May - LSD (bought milk - £1)
5 May - Spend day (bought coffee - 70p and shopping for week £50)
6 May - NSD!
7 May - NSD
8 May - NSD
9 May - LSD - done a little shopping, paid some bills
10 May - LSD - paid £2 for lottery (didn't win - no surprise)
11 May - NSD
12 May - will be an LSD as will be doing weekly shop later (spent £50)
13 May - NSD
14 May - did some online shopping for next week, spent around £50 (plan to go back to online as really not saving money going to the shop)
15 May - NSD
16 May - NSD
17 May - NSD
18 May - Spent £1 on milk
19 May - NSD
20 May - NSD
21 May - NSD
22 May - NSD
23 May - Small grocery shop to do (probably £30ish)
24 May - Another small spend for some items (under £20), and will be spending some more tomorrow. However this shouldn't occur for the rest of the month (except Friday and Saturday) and next month should be free of extra payments except a couple early in the month.
25 May - huge spend £50ish fees
26 May - NSD - paid £20 to Santander
27 May - will be spending at least £100 on final fees (no more of these!!!!)
28 May - will be spending £100ish on shopping for 2 weeks hopefully.
29 May - NSD
30 May - NSD
31 May - NSD

NSDs' so far = 19 (need to beat 19 - record from last month)
Shopping spend total so far this month = £300!!!!! - try to reduce for next month.

ElmerFudd

I have done another SOA and it looks like if I manage to keep up with the payments as I am currently I will only need to try to find an extra £10 a month, which shouldn't be too difficult. One thing to point out is I won't need to really find it til November when the TV license is due. Upshot of that is I will have an "extra" £2 a month to go toward the bad credit card til then. Further to this I'll be getting a pay rise in October so hopefully this should cover even this small amount.
I still haven't overpaid the bad credit card yet this month as I want to wait for all my statements.

ElmerFudd

9800 or less (dependent on various payments) @ 24.9% - CC1
7243 with majority @ 6.95% and 400 @ 0% for 9 months (all £400 should be paid off by then) - CC2
600 @ 6.95% £385 @ 16.9% - CC3
930 @ 0% for 9 months (21% after) - CC4 - finishes December 2011.
7511 @ 4.4% - student loan (won't know the exact figure until statement in September)
Total 26869 (not including overdraft or other loan)

The good news is that the credit card debt is now under 20k, at a staggering £19358!!! I am hoping to pump a lot more money at this debt once the Lloyds statements arrive. I think I'll keep a monthly CC debt tally to keep myself motivated.
2 weeks til pay day, thankfully some money still left in bank for remaining overpayment and food. Barclays still not offering anything so I'm not entirely sure what I will be doing come next months payments. May also decide to keep a little in the bank for emergencies but I haven't decided yet.

EDIT: not a great day so far. I have already spent £2.50 and will be spending more later when I do a mini shop (there are things that I couldn't get the other day that I am running low on). I'm kicking myself a bit as I know the coming months will be a struggle. Perhaps I should just set aside a little savings after all rather than overpay toward the card. A bit of a dilemma. I'm a bit confused about what's best. If I overpay £359 + whatever the interest will be this month to my bad card I may feel a bit better as I will be in the 18ks. Whatever I do it's better to have than having to pay so much interest. Also not sure about things as there's an offer on it for 0% for 6 months. I am tempted to transfer over the barclaycard and close that account. I'd be shooting myself in the foot though.

ElmerFudd

I'm more inclined than ever to use the Barclaycard for normal purchases now til it's almost maxed out and dump the money onto the nasty debt. If Barclays then decide to offer some sort of deal then I can BT £1000 or so onto the Lloyds (still 0% for 6 months) and then BT from the nasty card to Barclays. I'll wait til the weekend though to see what I feel like doing. Little annoyed that I didn't see the Halifax offer in due time as the nasty debt would have been 1k lower by now. Also a little more annoyed that I lowered the other Lloyds limit just a week before being sent a 0% for 9 months deal (technically the bad CC would currently be £2700 lower). May take a few months but the bad debt should drop considerably by June. I'm determined to make this work.

clippy_girl

Hi Elmer,

thought i would pop by and offer some advice

have you done a SOA? if you have would be good to post it so people can comment and hopefully suggest some savings for you!

re your food spends, i think you could def reduce that. i spend about £70 (sometimes £80) per month on food for myself. i love meat and eat it everyday and i eat well. the key is definetely to meal plan and batch cook stuff. i cook things like chilli, stew, sas casserole and freeze it in portions. works out about £1 per portion and added bonus is that when you get in from work you only need to cook pasta etc.. so its quick. i do the same for soup and take it to work.

also, you dont appear to waste that much, just the ocasional coffee. as you buy these ocasionally anyway, perhaps give yourself say £3 a week or whatever to spend on whatever you want. that way you could buy your coffee if you want or you could choose to save it towards a takeaway/meal out/drink other treat etc... or be competitive and see how much you can save of it and pay to debt!

as you said early, is def best to wait til end of month for overpayments. so many times i have paid extra earlier and then somethings come up and i have been short! very sensible!

ElmerFudd

clippy_girl wrote: »

Hi Elmer,

thought i would pop by and offer some advice

have you done a SOA? if you have would be good to post it so people can comment and hopefully suggest some savings for you!

re your food spends, i think you could def reduce that. i spend about £70 (sometimes £80) per month on food for myself. i love meat and eat it everyday and i eat well. the key is definetely to meal plan and batch cook stuff. i cook things like chilli, stew, sas casserole and freeze it in portions. works out about £1 per portion and added bonus is that when you get in from work you only need to cook pasta etc.. so its quick. i do the same for soup and take it to work.

also, you dont appear to waste that much, just the ocasional coffee. as you buy these ocasionally anyway, perhaps give yourself say £3 a week or whatever to spend on whatever you want. that way you could buy your coffee if you want or you could choose to save it towards a takeaway/meal out/drink other treat etc... or be competitive and see how much you can save of it and pay to debt!

as you said early, is def best to wait til end of month for overpayments. so many times i have paid extra earlier and then somethings come up and i have been short! very sensible!

Hi clippy_girl, thanks for the advice. SOA has already been posted and I am following all the advice given (and good advice it has been too):).
With regard to the food spends, it's for 2 people plus a sickly pet that needs special meals (over the years the vet bills have been ridiculous and I don't want to go down that road again so £5 to £7 a week on him is a price I am willing to pay). So that's roughly £86 per month per person which covers food, cleaning materials etc.
I still hate to waste money though even on the odd coffee, but maybe I should set aside an allowance for myself then I'll be in a better frame of mind if I do spend it and an even better frame of mind if it goes into savings at the end of the week . I try and pay twice on the bad card each month, once covering the minimums plus a little extra and then the remainder once payday is a few days away.

Woowoo

Hi Elmer

Thought I would pop over to your diary as you visited mine today

Keep at that Lloyds credit card, mine has been the bane of my life but I am slowly getting there, this one stood at £10,200 to start with back in Aug 09. I cannot wait to be shot of it.

It is hard tackling the larger debts as you have to wait a lot longer for the boost of closing another card. I have a spreadsheet divided into £100's and colour off a square for each £100 cleared, it shows me how far I have come. I never would of thought I could get excited about colouring in squares lol, but it does help to motivate me.

Have subscribed x

tootoo

Hi ElmerFudd - not sure if you would find this useful but I've just started myself a wish jar - the idea is that whatever I've saved can be used for a treat (not sure what yet). So when I go for a walk with my little girl, instead of picking up a magazine or chocolate bar etc when I pass the shop - I pop the money I would've spent into the jar. Only started it on saturday, but I already have a few pounds in there!
Sorry to crash! Will follow your progress.
Tootoo

ElmerFudd

Hey Woowoo and tootoo, thanks for joining me here . The Lloyds card is definitely the worst one - what was your APR out of curiosity Woowoo? I'm counting the days til I can pay it off. Fortunately I've had a few offers of 0% balance transfers the last few months so I have been at least able to remove some of that debt from monthly interest for 9 months. Hopefully the statement will come in a few days so I'll know how I can proceed from there, but I'm definitely going to bank any loose change I find.
I don't tend to have many treats nowadays Tootoo, though I admit to the odd coffee out if I'm thirsty or run out of coffee etc at work if I do though I'll remember this and either put it in a jar or straight into the bank.
On the plus side I have found another 11p today so far so that's going with the other loose change to be put into the bank tomorrow (if I can get away during lunchtime). Total so far £19.55

Woowoo

My APR is 16.8%, not great but could be far worse!

Paying the extra pennies into the bank and off the cards has made a massive difference to my debt reduction and is great for keeping the momentum going.