There and back again... Diary of a debt.

ChopinonaBudget

Hi cat, I've massively cut down my grocery bills by meal planning; you might want to think about doing that too. I plan for a week at a time, and I really do stick to it (although I make sure I have a spare tin of beans/spare pasta sauce for nights if I end up unwell or too exhausted to cook something time consuming). Before shopping, I add in all snacks etc and household stuff to a list and stick to it rigidly. !y bills have come down from £80 plus multiple top ups to £35-40 with no top ups just by doing this! (There are two in my family but one has allergies so I can't always buy cheap own brands)

Good luck

LittleMissGiggles123

Hi


What is the mortgage payment you're making now? Is that the home improvement loan? Only reason I ask is that you previously said you'd borrowed money from your parents to pay the outstanding mortgage so wasn't sure if you've moved home with a new small mortgage or if this was the home improvement loan you'd mentioned in your first post.


Also, what are the 2 payments of £110.00 each for you & your OH (I'm assuming they are yours, Catherine & Wayne? Could these be cut down? If they're for entertainment etc could you halve them for a while just to throw as much as you can at the debts. If you halve them that's £110.00 a month to pay towards a debt.


Your gas & electric are a little high. We're also a 2 adult, 2 child family & our gas & elec bills are £60 per month combined. Make sure you switch everything off that's not in use.


Also you said in an old post you were cancelling the gym membership but your current outgoings still list it. This £56.00 could be also be used towards debts.


And final thing, in your first list of expenses you were paying £47 for phone, internet & sky but now you're paying £65 as a combined package. Can you cancel sky or even ring them saying you're thinking of cancelling to see if they'll do a deal for you? I've recently done this myself as they are the cheapest overall for phone & internet in our area, but we were paying loads for the TV package so I called them to say I was going to cancel & they halved the TV package for us.


These are just a few things I picked up on but could get you over £160 extra per month to put towards debts.


Good luck


x

LittleMissGiggles123

Hi again


One other thing I just thought of that is suggested a lot on here. Is your council tax over 10 or 12 months? If it's over 10 now, contact them to arrange it over 12 months which frees up around £17 a month for you. Or leave it on 10 months but on the 2 months you're not paying it you can use the £105 per month to make an overpayment on a debt.


And another thing (sorry, just keeps popping in to my head), your incoming is higher than your outgoing but I'm guessing you don't have any money left over at the end of a month, so another suggest people make is to keep a spending diary of literally every penny you spend. Every chocolate bar, every treat for the girls, every magazine or newspaper. This could add up to more than you think & would explain why you don't have money left over. Or it could be that you've left something out of your list above.


x

cat4772

The good news is that we have survived our first week.

i was reviewing costs from my post in 2012 and couldn't work out why childcare was listed at £500 but realised that this was when my parents were looking after the girls and we budgeted for them to have a fair few day trips each week. At one point our childcare costs were an eye watering £1100 each month but we managed to cut this down.

Wayne and I have £110 each per month (£25 a week). Mine covers petrol (£15), birthday presents, birthday cards and office incidental expenses (leaving collections, books etc). Wayne uses his for £20 bus pass each week and £5 for incidentals.

Sky is now £65 but we no longer pay telephone line rental. Wayne is going to look at reducing this - previously i would have looked at this and made the decision but he is part of our relationship and he has to have some responsibility.

Re mobiles. I'm locked into a contract until March 2016, Wayne is locked in until November 2015. But we will be reducing these costs as the contract ends.

The gym costs will stay. We worked out that before the gym, we spent £20-£30 a week on takeaways. We are trying to lose weight as well. So this will help with weight management. Another benefit of the gym card is free swimming sessions for the girls.

Food shopping - we have managed to spend £58 this week, meaning that we saved £7. I've menu planned for next week and anticipate a £55-£60 bill again, but our store cupboard will start to be replenished.

I haven't looked in my purse but may even have £5 unspent there

LittleMissGiggles123

Thats good new Cat for your first week. Hope it continues to go well.

patman99

You really don't need the gym. you have 2 young children to help keep you fit. Besides, if you save £50 per month from the gym by cancelling, you could soon be able to buy yourself a Wii and WiiFit and keep fit at home for no further cost.

In your position I would cancel (or reduce) the Sky TV package as paying debts is more important than watching Sky Sports/movies. Besides, you can get Netflix yearly passes for £20 - £30 from ebay these days so if movies are your thing then you can open a Netflix account then use something like 'DNSchanger' to fool Netflix in to thinking you are in the USA, thus allowing you to access the latest films months before Sky show them.

cat4772

Himself is researching alternatives to Sky... but he's not too keen. He researched a great deal from Virgin until i pointed out that our street is in the 2% of the country not served by them:rotfl:

this week our food shopping has stayed below £50, by using food in our cupboards, meal planning and buying only what we need (ok crisps for the girls was a want), but it hasn't been that hard. I'm sure it will get challenging as time goes on.

bad news though. car tax is due at the end of the month (£30 for the year so not too bad) and car is going in for its MOT and service on Friday (technically due tomorrow but I could't get it in garage before Friday). this is likely to set us back £250. it is included in the budget but I'll be keeping my finger's crossed that the car doesn't need anything major doing:o

cat4772

Thought I'd post an October update:

Mortgage - £22594 (paid off in 2020, early redemptions until 2017)
Halifax CC-£270 @18.95% paid by November 2014
Tesco CC - £7616 @0% for 33 months, paying £231 a month, paid off at end of 0% period
Barclays £2995 @0% paying £200 a month off, paid off Feb 2016
Car loan £3690 - paying £217 a month off, will be paid off in Mar 2016
Mum and dad -£6500 paid when other debt has gone
Overdraft £4200
Total debt =£47865

We've paid £3k off debt capital since our last update.

I balance transferred most of the Halifax CC debt to a Tesco 33 month 0% deal. Even with the 2.9% balance transfer fee, calculating the balance and dividing by 33, this will reduce our CC outgoings from £300 to halifax to £231 to Tesco. Even better, the repayments are now paying off more capital each month, rather than a lot of interest and a bit of capital.

DH hasn't done as much overtime this month, so I'm expecting our income to drop a little bit next month. never mind, as long as i can keep on top of expenses, it will not be a problem.

Cat.xx

cat4772

In other news, we are planning to move house. We have a pot of almost £1500 that we will use to fund the move, but I'm trying to cut these costs to a bare minimum as much as i can.

Cat.xx

cat4772

My house finally went on the market on Friday and the for sale sign erected yesterday. There is light at the end of the financial tunnel.

We are moving into my parents house in a couple of weeks (and buying this when the sale of mine is complete). It also means we can rent a room under the government scheme to increase our income in the short-term.