A Thread for After Debt?

rising_from_the_ashes

Mort wrote: »

I would have the total or all pets information on the left in column A with a summary of the cat/dog balances in columns B and C. I would then have the dogs and cats information over to the right so that it does not normally show on screen unless I were to scroll over to it. Creating named ranges for the individual dog and cat areas would aid navigation as it makes it possible to jump around different worksheets in a workbook as well as different areas on the same worksheet. Named areas can also simplify complex calculations.

Wow! I'm afraid that went totally over the top of my head:o but will have a sit down and "play" over the next few days!

Happy Wedding Anniversary to you & Mrs Mort :j - hope the weather improves & you can celebrate with the BBQ.

LianneH wrote: »

What I am struggling with at the moment, is.... since I became DF I started saving a monthly amount for all my "annual bills" (including christmas, clothes etc). So far I have 2 months worth of savings, which is enough to pay, say, my car insurance, but the amount in the car insurance's individual pot isn't enough, so what do you do in this instance as really its robbing peter to pay paul! IYSWIM?!

This is my problem too Li ...... I've been having to overpay some pots by huge amounts (eg car, where everything was due in Jan) to get them to enough money - which is one of the reasons the other pots haven't yet been started:(. I reckon it will take me around a year :eek: to get sorted & on top of things.

JulieGeorgiana wrote: »

I tried to get a quote for Life and Critical Illness, and it looks like I have too many issues to get critical illness. DH and I talked about it and since it's his wage that pays the mortgage we will get joint life insurance, and try and see about him getting the extra insurances like critical illness and redundancy (if we can afford them!)

If it's DH's salary that pays the mortgage then it is him that needs the CI, Redundancy cover - personally I wouldn't get this if you're not paying these (but obviously life cover) so don't worry.

I'm in a similar situation to SOT in that I have an income protection policy (covers the mortgage and a few bits, but certainly not my whole outgoings - it was too expensive) and I'd dearly love to shop around for a new one as the premiums have been rising but as there's already been redundancies where I work any new policy wouldn't pay out so I'm stuck with it:( - still at least I do have something!:)

Have a fabulous weekend & have a lovely Christening for Eliza & catch up with the family & friends:)


Right ... must get on - need to leave to pick DM up at 8, then 2.5 hour drive to see a dog .

Have a wonderful Easter everyone:D

LianneH

Originally Posted by LianneH
What I am struggling with at the moment, is.... since I became DF I started saving a monthly amount for all my "annual bills" (including christmas, clothes etc). So far I have 2 months worth of savings, which is enough to pay, say, my car insurance, but the amount in the car insurance's individual pot isn't enough, so what do you do in this instance as really its robbing peter to pay paul! IYSWIM?!

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

This is my problem too Li ...... I've been having to overpay some pots by huge amounts (eg car, where everything was due in Jan) to get them to enough money - which is one of the reasons the other pots haven't yet been started:(. I reckon it will take me around a year :eek: to get sorted & on top of things.

JG / SOT - what do you do in this instance (are you "pot" people too?)

SOT2011

Hi lianne,

I am just about ahead on my pots so as long as I can keep off the unplanned spends I should be ok.

Was tough to balance before though, I did used to "borrow" from other pots with notes of which pots owed what, if say car insurance was due earlier than pot built up. Then when pots started refilling I would shuffle it all back. When I first started pots it was a good few years back and I built them up gradually only moving to annual from monthly insurances when the pots were ready, and I started each pot on a higher than 1/12th payment when I could to build it a bit faster.

Bear in mind though this was when I had debt but we also had two incomes coming in and relatively low outgoings to salaries. If I had to start now I would find it way harder as things are much tighter on my own. I also used to use my cc quite a lot back then to "smooth" the peaks of spends.

I'm not sure that helps really

SOT x

LianneH

SOT2011 wrote: »

I'm not sure that helps really

it does! thanks

about an hour ago I was thinking, "never have I had £900 in the bank and still felt skint!!". Seems silly but not having enough in my pots was making me feel like that. So I have now reshuffled the funds to those pots that are due first and prioritised them between bills and savings ie car insurance and Christmas. So I can borrow from savings but not bills.

Feeling a bit better about it now, it really was sending me off my head! I need to remember that all the time I was in debt I managed these bills with none missed, so the fact I am trying to get ahead with these pots is a good thing and nothing to stress about! lol

Rising - think I will be like you and take about a year to really be "ahead" - but thats ok..... isn't it :rotfl:?!

Mort - sorry about the "pot" chat, I know you dont do them!!

Potty Li x

backinbusiness

Hello all - have not posted since the ides of March but been reading. So frustrated by the slow speed of MSE pages loading and hanging and timing out - it's driving me mad. There are loads of complaints on the Site Feedback thread. As I said there, glad I've had my lbm and absorbed all the info I did by reading when I did, 'cos I sure as heck wouldn't be able to do it now!

Anyway - been really busy in the run up to the holidays. Music festival, climbing trips, etc - the usual. DD1 was 15 the other day, and there are currently 5 of her friends upstairs telling each other scary stories and goodness knows what else. Lots of laughter tho. DD2 managed to bag herself a sleepover at her friend's house, prob best out the way! I'm having Good Friday lunch with friends tomorrow whilst leaving DD1 to tidy up and hoover - hope I get some sleep!

MSE-wise things are going along ok. I do struggle still between trying to save every single spare penny and trying to cut myself a little slack - I need to get it into my thick head that as long as I continue the way I am I will be just fine - it's a weird mindset the old post-debt one isn't it? You just can't quite forget the fear. Ironically I have more in savings now than I ever had throughout 17 years of marriage.

Re pots - I only have two. My ex pays maintainence for the children and that goes into the untouchable pot - any surplus from salary, unspent budget for a week, any extra income etc goes into my surplus pot which is used to pay for anything not accounted for by way of direct debit etc, including treats. It might be too simplistic but that account tends to sit at around £500. If the balance gets too low I tighten up on my weekly spends for a few weeks, too high and I transfer some into the untouchable pot.

Guess it works differently for all of us.

Good luck for tomorrow Rising - your wet-nosed friend will be out there somewhere!

Happy Easter everyone.

Don't eat too much chocolate!

BiB x

backinbusiness

LianneH wrote: »

about an hour ago I was thinking, "never have I had £900 in the bank and still felt skint!!".

See my post above re this weird mindset! I couldn't agree with you more!

(Not that I am accusing you of having a weird mindset - well not really!)

rising_from_the_ashes

LianneH wrote: »

about an hour ago I was thinking, "never have I had £900 in the bank and still felt skint!!". Seems silly but not having enough in my pots was making me feel like that.

That's exactly how I felt Li

LianneH wrote: »

Rising - think I will be like you and take about a year to really be "ahead" - but thats ok..... isn't it :rotfl:?!

Yup - seems OK to me bit frustrating but I think it's sometimes easy to forget that we're trying to "get ahead" and budget in ways we've never been able to do before and not stack up any new debt at the same time!

backinbusiness wrote: »

Good luck for tomorrow Rising - your wet-nosed friend will be out there somewhere!

Had a great day yesterday - it was a beautiful day so the drive was lovely (but long!) - and ..... let's say that I'm very optimistic! (don't want to jinx anything by saying too much as yet):)


Typically as I've a few days off, it's chucking down - so my plans for tackling the garden (desperately needed:o) are on hold for the moment & hopefully it'll brighten up later.

JulieGeorgiana

When I first started my pots to pay for things in a lump sum, I used to rob peter to pay paul ALL the time!! After a year or so I no longer had to do that!

However there are two pots which steal from each other regularly... Presents and Holidays. I take holidays in the summer and I buy presents in the winter... so between them they are always in a positive, although my presents pot is still recovering until next payday! Saying that I have all of 2012 birthday gifts and all but 3 2012 christmas gifts! So I am doing okay

I have at the good point in the year (when all my pots are nearly full, in September it get's worrying because nearly ALL of them are empty and I drop to £100 - £200) and have a few thousand right now... yet my overall balance is -44p and I feel skint too!!!

Add that I have a 20% deposit ready and waiting for the house buy you would think I feel like I am rolling in the money!!

Actually my £5k for fees pot (which I was told was a HUGE overestimation) is projected to have £500 left and my savings will be in minus numbers at the end of May!!!!! I am hoping (but not counting on it) getting some deposit back from this place to pay for paint and a few bits I need for the house when we move in, otherwise it'll have to wait until August!

BiB so agree with the site issues... My whole computer just freezes when I try and get onto MSE each time!!! I hardly use it anymore unless I get an email to tell me someone has posted on this thread... don't talk about how many posts i've lost along the way and not had time to re-post

Right best be off... house needs scrubbing top to bottom ready for Sunday!!! And DS desperatly needs mummy time, so I have to go to the park this afternoon with him (he's finding it hard me spending so much time sorting things out for the house buy!)

JulieGeorgiana

Ohhhhhh! Rising! GOOD LUCK WITH THE DOGGY xxx

JulieGeorgiana

<<< Two more posts until my 4 stars (I think!!!)

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