Millie's debt diary

mildredalien

OK so I've been a little slack in keeping up to date with my diary and spends! I've stuck to my budget though which is a good thing I kept under my £30 grocery and £20 pocket money budgets last week, and this week should be well under budget as I'm on a training course with all meals provided! The three course meals aren't doing much for my waistline but they are helping my bank balance :P So I've taken out £20 for drinks etc for the week, which I should be able to claim back anyway! Ah I do love a cheap week.

I have had other expenses coming out for my holiday in Sweden in April, but a bit of moving money around from savings accounts should cover that when I get round to it....

mildredalien

So I appear to have fallen out of the habit of updating my diary!

I'm still on track with my goals though:
- eating (mostly) to meal plan
- keeping to a £30 budget for groceries each week and £20 for extras
- checking my bank account regularly

And my compliance with my exercise and diet goals is also good

I suppose nothing much happens finance wise after the beginning of the month - everything goes out (including debt repayments), I update my spreadsheet and I stick to my budget! I'm currently pondering whether to close my two cleared credit cards or not. I've read conflicting advice about whether to close them off completely, whether to set up a regular purchase/payment to improve credit rating, or whether to purchase something and pay it off slowly. The interest rates on them are rubbish though so I'm not keen on that last option!

beanielou

Why dont you close one & keep one?

mildredalien

beanielou wrote: »

Why dont you close one & keep one?

Ah the voice of reason :rotfl: Yep that sounds like a sensible idea!! I wonder if it's worth ringing them up and seeing if they will lower the interest rates....

Yesterday I actually SPENT MONEY which was a very weird feeling. Not that every day is a NSD, but I generally only spend my grocery budget and pretty much nothing else. Yesterday I bought:

- a dress (and a belt and bra in the sale...) - £23
- two birthday cards - £5.20
- a meal out with a friend - £13

I never spend that much in one day any more!! It felt odd, and I had to resist the temptation to just carry on spending on things that I hadn't actually planned to buy. The dress and cards are actually covered by my clothing and gifts funds that I've been separating every month, which is nice.

mildredalien

New month, new spreadsheet The budget is going well and keeping me on track, after this months BC payments my new debt total will be:

£3907.43

Woohoo, under 4 grand now! The end is in sight

I'm also appreciating my decision to separate funds for non-monthly expenses into a different account, I need to get my car serviced and instead of the £170 needed or so giving me heart palpitations, I actually have more than enough to cover it, and already enough for the MOT in June.

I have been a bit 'vague' with my grocery/non essentials spending over the last month - it's a bit of a weird time for me as I'm away on training a lot with work so incurring a lot of extra expenses, but able to claim most of them back. In fact next week I'm away with all my meals/hotel paid for so should pretty much spend nothing for the 5 days!

I just bit the bullet and applied for a new credit card - no, I'm not going back to my spendy ways, I'm just trying to see if I can get a good deal for spending money in Sweden. Pre-paid cards won't work with Kronor, I don't want to take all cash, and my usual debit card will mean extra charges/interest fees etc. I don't really expect to be accepted but I haven't applied for anything in years so I figure it can't hurt too much! Funnily enough Barclays want to increase my limit to some ridiculously astronomical amount, probably getting desperate as I haven't spent on the cards in ages and they can see I'm paying it off :P Unless they give me 0% I won't be putting a penny more on there!

mildredalien

Hmph well got declined for that card, not unexpectedly.... guess crappy debit cards and cash will have to do!

It's been hard to track money for the past couple of weeks as I've been away on work training, so my spending has been a) unusual and b) generally to be claimed back in the future. I'll have to sit down and work it out next week when I put my claims in, see what I've actually spent out of my own money!

mildredalien

I got a good reminder why it has been useful to budget and save my non-regular expenses in a separate account - a £400 car bill :eek: That included a service, but pre-LBM I probably wouldn't have even put my car in for a service let alone been able to afford to repair what was needed! Now that I have a semi-decent car I reckon it's worth trying to look after it a bit more than my old banger.

It wiped out all of my emergency fund though, so will have to be careful this month in case anything else comes up. Under 2 weeks til payday though when the next emergency fund contribution will get put in, so not too worried about it!

I also sat down and went through my expenses for the month and updated my spreadsheet. It's all looking balanced and pretty much as expected, although I've become quite sloppy about keeping my eye on grocery spends. Must do better!

mildredalien

Things are chugging along, I've been on a lot of work training this month so keeping track of what's my money being spent and what's expenses has been hard. Still looking ok on the bank account front though, shaping up to be £100 leftover at the end of the month (before some expenses come back in). I've also checked my holiday fund which is looking healthy, hopefully I'll only need about half of it but there's nothing worse than going on holiday and realising you can't actually afford to be there!!

The OH and me are also going to move at the end of May (hopefully) so I've been playing around with numbers etc. to see how it might look when we move. I'm budgeting for my rent/bill contributions to go up from around £300/month to £550/month, which is doable once I kaput the holiday saving. The main reason I'm number crunching is to make sure that it doesn't impact on my DFD! I think I'm still on track for September if I continue to pay off around £460/month towards my debts, and I'm going to make an effort to pay off more. I've been a bit lax, and not put any of the leftovers from the end of the month towards debt. I suppose I'm afraid that once I do that, if something goes wrong I don't have a buffer! Well, I have emergency fund and holiday savings so if that doesn't help then I'm not sure £50 of my overdraft will....

mildredalien

Well I'm feeling quite smug at the moment as I've finally got round to cancelling two things that I really needed to cancel - my Lovefilm subscription (I've had a disc at home for about 3 months without watching it...:eek::o) and my Tesco credit card. Somehow I am in credit so have a cheque on the way for £22.78, hooray!

mildredalien

Just sorted through my March spreadsheet and my debt repayments for this month - paid an extra £48 to the Barclaycard from 'leftover' money in my overdraft. That plus the usual payments this month brings the total debt owed down to £3416.45 woop!

I also cashed in my Topcashback balance from xmas pressies etc. for a grand total of £34. Unfortunately I squandered it all on goodies from Amazon.... well I don't buy myself stuff very often any more, so I figured I could treat myself with my free money! Not very DFW but hopefully will keep me sane haha