Learning to Live on Less!

White_Iris

I'm having a very chilled out morning today - I have to wait in for a parcel to be collected, so DH walked the dog first thing before he went to work and MIL took the children to pre-school. I'm now on my third coffee and nibbling a bit of naughty Easter egg! I can't even do the hoovering in case I don't hear the door bell. I've just nabbed 1000 nectar points too, thanks to Martins email (fingers crossed they all register) but I have also done a bit of housework and the place is looking tidy (as long as you don't look down at the clouds of dog hair wafting around your feet :rotfl:). I've also got the 2013/14 tax return to so if I'm feeling really bored but I think I'll go and peruse MSE for some info on child saving accounts, as the ones the twins have are fairly rubbish with limited online functionality and a shocking interest rate. Considering they have over £2.5k saved between them, I think I should really move it somewhere more productive.

White_Iris

I'm feeling a bit melancholy this morning, a bit despondent about our financial situation. I've taken my eye off the ball a bit with my current account and I'm going to end up about £20 overdrawn this month. Mainly due to people I've sent cheques to, taking a long time to cash them and transactions being delayed because of the bank holidays, I haven't had a proper picture of what's in my account for a few weeks - my own fault really as I should have stopped spending until everything had cleared but frustrating nonetheless. This means there will be a knock-on effect in to May, which I really can't afford as I still need to find the money for the childrens birthday present.

I started watching the show about council houses last night but it made me panic a bit (totally irrationally) about our housing situation, so I gave up and switched over. Even though I'm pleased we've sold our house, it now means we're totally reliant on a landlord who could ask us to leave at any time. I won't feel comfortable until we're in a position to buy again but that's not going to happen until we can pay off debts and save for a deposit. What it really means is that I need to find a job as soon as possible (although realistically, due to childcare issues, I can't start until August at the earliest).

White_Iris

In a bit to be pro-active about our finances I've applied for a new 0% credit card, which was successful but I don't think the credit limit will be quite high enough to get everything on 0%. It's not too bad though and we should be able to pay off the remaining debt and cancel the card quite quickly.

It's also time to do the quarterly gas and electric readings and thankfully our usage has gone down quite a bit. When I read the meter last time, we had a deficit of about four hundred pounds (due in part to them underestimating our usage when they set the direct debit up in the first place and also to a poorly insulated house with a geriatric boiler), so our monthly direct debit went up by over £50 and even then, they estimated we'd still owe about £150 at the end of the term. However todays readings were much better and now they should owe us a few pounds at the end of the term. I'm determined to improve things even more though, so I've lowered the temperature on our hot water tank and shortened the time the water is on. The heating has been off the timer for a few weeks now but we did still put it on for the odd hour when it gets really chilly - not any more, extra jumpers all round! I've also been reducing tumbler drier use but now I'm going to go cold-turkey and if I can't dry outside, then it's all getting hung up indoors instead.

debtfreewannabe321

Hi WI

I hope you're feeling a little brighter about everything now, I often feel the same in regards to wanting to move into our own home. I didn't see the programme you mentioned but I have heard people talking about it and i'm quite glad I didn't watch it now. On a brighter note, how is the new car?

White_Iris

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Hi WI

I hope you're feeling a little brighter about everything now, I often feel the same in regards to wanting to move into our own home. I didn't see the programme you mentioned but I have heard people talking about it and i'm quite glad I didn't watch it now. On a brighter note, how is the new car?

Owning a new car is still lots of fun! The newest we've ever had before has been two years old and I didn't think I'd feel any different about this one than I have about the others, but I do feel quite proud of it. It makes me feel more affluent than we really are - not sure if that's a good thing or not!

White_Iris

Just ordered the twins birthday present. We're going for one big present between them (an outdoor toy) and I found one on offer at Tesco direct. When I checked again today I noticed there was a £10 off voucher and as I went through Quidco I'll get 2% back. While I was on Quidco I noticed I had £19 waiting to be cashed, so I'll put that towards the present. All in it'll cost us £85 - DH went away last weekend with £200 petrol/spending money and surprisingly came back with £70 left, so we're going to spend a bit of that this weekend (pre-planned night out) and put the remainder towards the present. Depending how restrained we are on Saturday (I'm driving and DH is still recovering from last weekend!), we should only need to find about £40 hopefully! Plus I'll get some extra clubcard points to turn in to tickets for the family day out we're having in lieu of a birthday party.

jwil

Sounds like a great birthday bargain!

White_Iris

So I've transferred the bulk of our credit card debt over to a 0% card, leaving £400 on an interest paying card (so that will be tackled first). Shockingly we've accrued nearly £4k of credit card debt - some from car repairs and long commuting costs over the past year but a lot from poor spending choices. Clearly we can't manage a credit card responsibly, so I'm finally putting my foot down with DH and demanding that once paid off, they are cancelled and no more are opened EVER! He's always been reluctant to do this (what if we have a big emergency?) but if we increase the balance anymore, we're not going to be able to afford to pay the minimums.

The debt is spread as follows:
Card 1 - £400 (18.9%) - aim to pay off asap
Card 2 - £1660 (0% until July 2016) - will round down to £1650 then pay off £50pcm
Card 3 - £1733.61 (0% until Aug 2015) - will round down to £1700 then pay off £50pcm

debtfreewannabe321

Hi

I think the birthday pressie sounds like a fab bargain! Well done you for getting it as MSE as you could

I feel the same with the CC. I have a new one as does DH and I had to use mine at the weekend as i'd forgotten my debit card and I felt sick as I was using it :think: I worried all weekend until I could pay it off and as soon as I did I felt relief again. We're only keeping ours as credit building things but it's so easy to use them. I think I might take mine out of my handbag and put it in the house somewhere so i'm not tempted to use it whilst out again! xx

White_Iris

White_Iris wrote: »

The debt is spread as follows:
Card 1 - £400 (18.9%) - aim to pay off asap
Card 2 - £1660 (0% until July 2016) - will round down to £1650 then pay off £50pcm
Card 3 - £1733.61 (0% until Aug 2015) - will round down to £1700 then pay off £50pcm

All change again this morning! While checking the balances I noticed an offer from card 2 (which wasn't there a few days ago when I applied for card 3 :mad:), offering 0% balance transfers. So I've cleared card 1 and paid a bit off cards 2 and 3. Once the balance on card 1 is showing as zero and I'm certain there are no more dribs and drabs of interest to pay off I'll get DH to close the account.

So the new balances are as follows:
Card 1 - £0
Card 2 - £2065.60 (0% - £1650 until July 2016, £400 until Aug 2015) Will round this down to £2050 asap as my OCD tendancies make me twitchy if they aren't nice round numbers :rotfl:
Card 3 - £1730 (0% until Aug 2015)