A diary, for becoming debt free......

natdjay

I meant to start this last night, but i put it off again! So here goes......

I'm guessing that a quick explanation of circumstances would be the best way to start.

OH and i have no joint debts, but money is passed between us (more him to me of course )

Me:
Income- Wages= variable (0hrs contract) £450ish this month
Tax credits= 200
Fam All= 130

Bills- Water= 34
Phone/broadband= 25-30 (depending on calls made)
Mobile= 36 (new contract, will lower when allowed)
Car insurance= 32


Debts- Next= 414 (over paying £10) = £50
Littlewoods= 385 (over paying £5-£8) = £70

I think thats all of my 'bills'.

I have no budget and i'm not sure how to make a realistic one.

The purpose of starting this diary is to keep me on track to clear my relatively tiny debts so that i can then help tackle OH's more. I have just set up a payment from my account to his super high interest (32% :eek:) CapO CC for £10 and i plan to make extra as and when. He has also rung them this evening to cancel the PPI (finally pulled his head from the sand!) and they have lodged a complaint about it being miss sold at the same time, so i feel like i can start my diary on a small high.

Thank you for reading
And thank you to all the other diary writers who have helped me get to this point, i have read many; especially MrBloater, the main man behind my LBM

NDJ x

natdjay

Ok, so i've eaten my out of date noodles for tea (2yrs OOD :eek:) figured if i'm going to clear the cupboards i might aswell start with the worst things!

I've just remembered that my car tax is due so thats £90 extra this month , but hopefully the last time i pay it in a panic lump!

To add to my first post.....
We have 2 young children so i will have to add child related costs to my figures, but i'm hoping to do a SOA soon. Does anyone think i would be better putting OH's and mine together? His side of things is chugging along at the moment, managing to break even or in the black (just) most months so he isn't at a point where i need to take immediate action. There are some expences that arn't cut and dry, ie. Food shopping and gas+electric (PPmeters). These things are paid from which ever account is in the best situation at the time, i would ideally like both these to be paid by me only but have never managed to work out if i can do it regularly, i suspect if i cut down on grocery shopping (I love MrT a little too much ) i would probably fair better! That will be one of my tasks over the next few months!

I believe today was a NSD! If you don't include bill paying of course, no actual cash in my hand spending happened.....

I have a list of jobs for tomorrow so i will come and post them i think, to keep me on the rails.

NDJ x

jwil

Good luck with the debtbusting!

natdjay

Been a good day here

Settled down this morning to do an online shop and decided i needed to see what we had in the house first. I ended up taking a freezer inventory (never done this before) and was suprised to find i had 32 fish fingers in there!! :eek: Along with a lot of other stuff of course. After all my searching and listing i managed to make a meal plan that will clear half the freezer (if not more) and that meant my online shop was £27 inc delivery :j
I do have a meat order coming from the local butcher on thursday to add to that grocery total but i'm pretty sure it will be half the usual still.

It's been another NSD :j

I do need to pay my car tax tonight at some point and the garage rent too though

Off to make the freezer tea of fish, chips and mushy peas

NDJ x

Igamogam

Good luck NDJ! Lots of good advice on these forums - when you get a chance have a look around and join up to some of the challenges and subscribe to some diaries - all very addictive but fun and you will save a bit on the way

natdjay

Good morning diary!

You'll be glad to hear that my car tax did get paid and has been delivered (must remember to put it in my car today!), i actually had a couple of moments when i forgot that i'd already paid it! I'm sure i'll get used to being more organised one day, but the old habits of panic die hard
I also paid the garage rent, before we got the final '7 days' letter, don't think thats happened more than 3 times in the last 8 years! :j

OH is not quite on the same page as me yet! He came home last night having dropped into an aquaintances garage on his way home from work. He has already paid to have his wheel arch re-sprayed late last year, and apparently it is 'bubbling' again so he went for a quote to get it done again, this time having a new arch put in!
This annoys me for many reasons!

Firstly, he is paying for the same thing twice, basically!
He was advised by a knowledgable friend to just have the arch replaced the first time!
We have a £350 caravan booking to pay for by 23rd march!
It's a car!!! The 'problem' is all but invisable!!! :mad:

He agreed to wait a few weeks!! :eek: Well that'll help!?!
All i asked was that he wait until the end of march and i would then be able to work out when he could book it in.
It's 'only' £100 he says!

Gah! Rant over............

I'm off to get a cuppa tea and see what PAD's i can do

NDJ x

natdjay

:j:j:j:j:j

Just after i wrote that last entry, the postman came......He was bearing great news!

Capital One have agreed to refund all PPI + interest on OH's card!

:j:j:j:j

That will all but clear the card!

SO chuffed right now.

Also, when i rang OH to tell him, we discussed his car repair again and he has agreed with me, he will wait till end of March at least. He said because the weather will be better for the paint work by then, but i know it's because i'm right really

Good day all round

NDJ x

natdjay

Good day to you!

Still going well here

Grocery budget is going well. I reckon i've about halved our costs on that front, especially when i think of all those extra trips i was making to the local co-op :eek: I've come to the point where i'm rufusing to go and get a loaf from there cos i'm scared at what i'll spend, but that is good cos that means when i do have to go i don't even look at all the little things i would of before, like another pack of bickies to have with a cuppa later, or 'Ooo, reduced garlic bread' (which i will bin in 2 days!). Also, what i have picked up in the co-op i've really thought about, ie. Nearly BBE Kellog's rice crispies, massive box, £1.24. DS1 had run out but i chose to buy Alpen in this weeks shop and make him wait for his RC's. Well i reckon they ended up cheaper than the MrT own brand i usually buy
(Nevermind the fact that we would usually have about 10 boxes of cereal on the go in the past. Used to think if it was on offer it must be good! Pah! No more. Favourites only from now on, one at a time)


In other news

I'm in the process of setting up/working out a new bill/budget system with my bank accounts ('invented' by Poosmate ). I guess a basic explination would be- Bills acc, spends acc, savings acc- working out how to split my money between the 3. My first test will be what happens after Pday (23rd), but i'm expecting it to take a couple of months at least to fine tune.

OH still seems to be nosing around on A*azon a lot!! But i managed to stop him from making a £7 purchase with his (tiny) savings acc, and because it was something we needed i paid with my DC.
(Just realised that that £7 was probably my person spend budget for this whole month! Oh well, everything is slightly tighter for me this month due to a pretty low wage. Will be better next month)

That leads me nicely to my last subject............Something i am REALLY cross with myself about.
I work on a 'as and when basis' and all my hours are paid vis time-sheets. I am meant to hand these in every Monday in order to be paid correctly and on time for the hours worked.
I currently have the whole month of January's time-sheets sat here, with me, NOT in the office, or even fully completed in some cases! :eek:
I REALY, REALLY nedd to get a grip on these! One of these months they will NOT pay me, i can see it coming
Worst of all..........One of my best paying shifts from January, i didn't even get a time-sheet signed for!!
I have to stop doing this! It is not hard to get them sorted every week, on time and complete. I MUST do this.

Ok, thats enough nagging at myself!
Lets just hope it serves as a good reminder to me in the future.

NDJ x

HappyNow

natdjay wrote: »

I have no budget and i'm not sure how to make a realistic one.NDJ x

Hi Natdjay, I've just read through your diary and wanted to say well done. I really admire your commitment, kudos for eating noodles that were two years out of date !

You might have sorted a budget now (I don't know if the one you mentioned by poohsmate is a full budget or whether it's a bank account-managing method) but if you are still trying to sort it, have you tried the BudgetBrain one on the main MSE site? If you zoom about a third of the way down this link
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning

and click on 'Get Started Now' it takes you into a brilliant budgeting tool. I love this one because you can tweak it and change it as much as you need, and save/re-save as often as necessary.

Well done so far and keep it up! x

natdjay

Thanks Happy The noodles were perfectly fine, just goes to show doesn't it.
On the budget front, i have one, which is more than i've ever had, lol. I've even set myself a petrol spend, it is an estimate at the moment but once i know how i'm doing on it i can set it right if i need to. The one that i read from Poosmate was a whole how she budgets post, inc. bank acc use. 1 for bills, move remaining money to spend acc, then remaining from there into savings (very basic explanation). I've never been a huge wasteful spender (appart from groceries maybe ) but i've never found a way to know at a glance what i actually have, the beauty of monthy pay i guess. It should be far easier once i get this system set up.


Well, it's not been a good few days
I'm 90% sure i'm not going to be paid this month. Yes, it finally caught up with me, i must of known when i wrote my last post if i'm honest. Completly my own fault and if the next 6 weeks (till 23rd Mar :eek:) are as hard as i think there going to be, i will have learnt a hard lesson and will not be making the same lazy mistake again! Very cross with myself :mad:

I'm therefore thinking i'm going to need to make some money (duh)
Ebay scares me but i don't think i have much choice.
Also, seen as i will still get the wage but as a double one in march would anyone agree that i shouldn't pay my 2 debts this month? They are 2 cataloges so of course i will get a late payment fee but i think the £110 is needed in my pocket more. I could use OH's acc to cover some of the things i would normally pay for, ie. 2wks G+E, 2wks groceries, but this would up his out goings back to the level we don't want them + the OD charges he would enevitably encure would be as much as my late payments (and they are my fault so i don't want him to have to pay anyway)


I'm off to get a coffee and try and work out how the £220 in my acc is gonna last me till end of March :eek:

NDJ x