kirstle99's Motivation To Be Debt Free Diary

kirstle99

Well I haven't posted for a while so thought it was time to. Me & OH have now both got credit cards. We are currently in the mindset that we need to re-train ourselves with them (after not having credit for so long and also knowing how to use them properly!).
So, we are currently making some small purchases each month (less than £50 each) and putting the money aside for it, and then paying off the balances in full every month, WITHOUT FAIL. This approach will show us how to use the cards responsibly (more hubby than me really, but if he sees me doping it it spurs him on to do the same).

We have pretty much got xmas presents covered, except £30 cash we are putting into the baby's savings account instead of wasting on things he doesn't really need. He's having a few small presents & that's it, i'm sure the stuff he gets from others will swell his presnt pile up anyway!

We are having xmas dinner with hubby's parents, so the only cost there is driving the 1hr there and 1hr back on xmas day (I don't mind this as i'm going sales shopping early on boxing day).

I've got my 30th birthday coming up in about 2 weeks, 6 girlies staying in a city for a night going out in facy dress! Hotel is already paid for, just need the £15 train fare and also drinking/dinner money (already put aside).

We are managing to build up an MOT fund quite nicely for the car (due March) and another pot for the road tax (renews next August) so I feel much happier now.

Will post again soon, but feels great to be in control of everything! Oh, and our debt still owed has now gone under £6k (£5700 to be exact!)

kirstle99

Hi

Well I haven't posted for a while (a month!) even though I check the DFW boards every day to keep me motivated.
I had a nice surprise last week. I do the monthly budgets quarterly (I like to keep ahead) and noticed we had extra money. Like, a whole month's paycheck extra money. I sat there thining 'hmm this must be wrong, I can't believe this' and even got OH to check it.
I have to check it anyway because OH gets paid 4-weekly and I get paid 2-weekly and the benefits get paid weekly (yes I need to change benefits to monthly I will do ASAP.

Anyway, turns out we WILL have this extra money (I budget for a months bills etc on OH wage x 1 and my wage x 2 plus the benefits each month so I have worked out it's because he gets paid 13 times in the year as opposed to 12 because he's 4-weekly).

WOOHOOOO

This 'free wage' cannot come at a better time. I have suffered with a bad back for 4 years and our mattress (was only a £99 budget one new 3 years ago) has started sporting huge lumps in it which are so uncomfortable. So, we are going to buy a new matress on January 3rd!!!!!

I can't believe we will have £1100 of free money?! Anyway, once we've bought the mattress we're going to tell his parents the amount we have left (they are who we owe the remaining debt to as they settled us out of Payplan) and offer to give it them as a lump towards what we owe them (we currently give them £300 per month so I think minus mattress we will shorten our repayments by about 3 months).

I can't actually believe it!!!!!

kirstle99

Well another month and the debt is still going down! We have, however had a few 'mishaps' this month so our saving has been out on the backburner, i'll explain.

Hubby had this 'free wage' thing in Jan of £1200. We used £320 of it to buy a new mattress (I have a terrible bad back and our old mattress was so lumpy and uncomfortable we decided to go for a memory foam type thing with a 5 year guarantee to see if it helped, it is, I now no longer try to get to sleep in pain).

So that leaves £880. I split this 3 ways. Me and hubby got £200 each to our single accounts. I then spent £180 in the January sales (money well spent, I got loads of clothes for the kids and us mainly, all at absolute bargain prices). That left us with £300 which went to the savings account.

HOWEVER, mid-January we got a lovely (!) surprise letter from DWP regarding an old crisis loan hubby had taken out, 9 YEARS AND 4 MONTHS AGO. Apparantly he owed £220.

Hubby was told the money would be taken from his JSA or he would have to pay it back over his first 3 months of working in his new job (the crisis loan was to buy a suit etc for interviews) but according to them this never happened, and hubby being hubby just assumed it was all sorted.

We were so lucky that we had those savings to fall back on, so we have paid the £220 in full.

This, however, scuppered my plans for the car MOT in March. I was going to book it along with a full service and then I knew everything was taken care of. However, I have found a way around this. We save £10 a month for the MOT anyway (have £70 now) and the cost with a full service was £170. We pay our council tax over 10 months so that's £115 free in Feb so I have booked this anyway with the CC over the net and will pay the balance off in full on 5th Feb. Plus there is a whole £6 to save after that's done (every little helps).

Another little triumph I had was organising mine and Hubby's anniversary this year. We got married in May 3 years ago but have actually been together 10 years this year so I wanted to make it special. Anyway, found out our favourite comedien is showing mid-June in our town, tickets were £60 for two with all their booking fees ec, but I had £40 ticketmaster vouchers from my birthday so only £20 spent on that!
Then, I really wanted us to stay in the hotel we had our wedding night, checked availability and they had a lovely deluxe double room for £89 with a 5 course meal and breakfast included! And it gets even better because I made £75 on Ebay this month so only paid out £15 for the room out of our money! It's really close to the theatre too, so we will now have a lovely child-free evening out, can't wait!

Next month is quiet for birthdays, i've only got 2 and have bought the present for one (don't buy for the other) so that's relatively low-cost.

So all in all, January could have been terrible but it turned out not too bad, we won't be able to save much again but never mind, at least we're not going into any more debt and i'm still getting a lovely kick out of seeing out debt total go down every single month.

kirstle99

Oh dear, looks like we're having a bad run of things!

Has to pick up DS (5yrs) from school today as he has chicken pox. So i've lost a day's pay at work that I managed to make up yesterday. Have got DH to cover Friday and Tuesday with 2 days holiday and my mum is luckily here all day monday so i'm hoping he will be ok for school next wed. Also hoping other DS (1year) either gets it and recovers quick now or doesn't get it!

I'm going to go over our finances with a fine toothcomb this month, and put up a print out of February on the wall and use it as a spending diary. I have told DH in the past I think we spend far too much on silly things (especially takeaways) so i'm hoping this will motivate us to not spend!

kirstle99

Well now DS2 has caught chicken pox! So another 2 days holiday used for DH. Oh well, at least it's all over with (hopefully!)

Had a bad day yesterday, my car exhaust hasn't sounded right for ages (sounds like a boy racer car & the garage only replaced something on it last year).

So instead of going to the big expensive garage opposite my work, I have called a mobile mechanic guy reccomended to me by someone at work, plus he's a regular customer at work so I doubt he'd try & rip me off at all.

So I've asked him to look at my exhaust, plus there is something wrong with one of my front sidelights so i'll ask him to take a quick look at that.

I just hope i's not too exensive a job. Happy Valentines day to me, lol!!!!

kirstle99

Well today we went on a much needed trip out. We went to Legoland in Manchester Trafford Centre. The place was so busy it took ages to get on stuff but DS1 was so happy to go! DS2 was really good in his pram.
The only money we spent was the admission tickets (booked online to save money of course!) and spent £21 on DS1 in the lego shop - got him a building board, the big one for £11 and also 2 little car kits so he can race them around!
Also got DS1 a game for his DS £7, spent £6 in mcdonalds on lunch (got 1 happy meal, extra small fries and an employee meal, so good getting it cheaper!)
We did walk round the shops and DH was pretty much telling me to treat myself, but I didn't see anything jump out at me and din't want to spend just for the sake of it so I left empty handed (but with money still in the bank to put into the savings account!)

We both get paid next thursday, and any money we get extra above the basic bill budget will be going into the savings account as my car is due it's MOT in March (i've already booked and paid for a MOT & full service online when I could get a good deal In Jan, so it's only going to be any extra repairs/replacements to pay for)

Not doing too bad on the whole this month!

kirstle99

Hmm, it seems we are having another month of high spending. I have managed to squirrel away £380 of savings, only to discover that it will probably all be gone by the end of March!

1) Hubby is getting fit to apply for the TA. So he took us all to the local running shop so he could get some proper running shoes. I know he will use them alot so I agreed. What I didn't expect was the £110 bill for the shoes and a pair of running socks!

2) I got a free sight test at Mr T yesterday. It transpires I need glasses for driving, grr. However I do feel lucky that I have escaped this expense until being 30. I got 2 pairs for the price of 1 but needed anti-glare coating on or something for the driving. That's another £130.

3) The car is due it's MOT on the 23rd. I have already paid upfront for an MOT & full service but am keeping the rest of the money back in case something turns up that needs to be done.

so £380 - £110 - £130 = £140 + £200 to add on 21st = £340

I just hope it's enough to see us through, if not we might need to put the car repairs on the credit card & pay it off in full at the end of March when hubby get's paid if it's over £340.

Here's hoping it's all ok!

kirstle99

Good afternoon diary,

I have just noticed I haven't posted on this for 2 months! I need to keep motivated!

Well, one thing that does keep me motivated is the fact that after tomorrow's payment, we are down to £3900 debt. It's nice when you go down £1k!

The car got through the MOT in March, but it did cost me £200 extra for tyres, light alignments etc so a good job we kept the money back!

Our tax credits have been cut by £50 a week since April, which is right but means we can no longer save much due to the debt payments (we pay £300 a month to DH's parents). However, we can still afford to have our £50 allowance every 4 weeks each (me & DH) and can also put away £75 a month for yearly stuff (£30 xmas £10 Birthdays £15 clothes £10 car tax £10 MOT) so we aren't doing too bad at all.

I have set a minimal wages budget for myself of £250 every 2 weeks. I do generally get more than this but it's in case the kids are off sick and I need to take time off unpaid (DH cannot do this). So anything left over either gets split between me & DH or goes into the savings account.

At the start of this tax year I opened my very first ISA! It's very exciting. I just got the easy access cash ISA and currently it has £40 in it, but this is the account we will be using to save up our £5k towards the house deposit (buying is 5 years away but we have to start somewhere!). We have a regular savings account for all the other stuff and I have a spreadsheet to track it all.

I've also started jogging with a friend! We're only on week 3 (she has an app on her phone which we work to) but I feel so much better already and I can feel my asthma improving. Not doing it to lose weight we just want to be fitter and actually be able to run 5k at the end of the programme! Then I think we will try the 5k - 10k one after that if we feel brave enough.

Anyway, that's it for now, will post again soon!

kirstle99

Hi Diary

So, had a chat with DH about money last night (this is rare without getting into voices raised and I felt so much better after).

Currently we have a boiler loan in my mum's name (she is our landlord so was happy to take out the loan & we pay her the amount on top of the rent).

Well, my mum brought the annual statement round last week. To say I was shocked was an understatement. The loan is over 10 years as it was the only way we could afford it at the time, but there is no penalty for settling it early. Of the £64 a month paid, £53 is in interest. What?!?!

So, now we have a new plan. Once we have finished paying DH's parents in June next year, we are going to get my mum to phone up and see if we can overpay the loan each month by £300. The balance is currently £3100 (ish) so this will not take long to clear if we can do this. The alternative is to save up the £300 for a few months and just settle it in full. We will see what the bank say.

Then after that (after we are truly 100% debt free) we will have £364 a month 'spare' (assuming nobody gets a payrise or anything) and will put £250 a month minimum into my ISA to get to our £5k target for house deposit.

So, I feel better now we have a series of targets to work to, it makes me feel more in control. :cool:

kirstle99

Hi Diary

Well June was an interesting month. So DH decided that May half term was a good time to brick up downstairs and make 2 reception rooms. I was working all week (probably why he picked that week!) and him & his friend did it! We already had all the bricks but I was still mad he went out & bought mortar materials and plasterboard on the CC without asking first!

So, the end of June and the whole of July was/is consisting of just getting by. After the tax credits got renewed we lost £20 a week, which was expected, so the shopping budget has been cut to £50 a week. That's do-able - I've done it before. However there will be no treats like crisps or choc unless it's on a really low price deal!

So, I've managed to balance the account for July, having had to drop £50 regular savings for xmas and birthdays but one month won't hurt.

We also owe £160 to the xmas fund as I used it to pay off the CC (better doing that than accruing interest) but this will be put back by the end of august.

On a plus side I won £100 in a karaoke competition last weekend, so that was some lovely pennies to make this weekend special getting ice lollies in and saving the rest.

I have also sold our old sofas on ebay (DH) needs them out of the way so he can plaster the new front room) and they are being picked up this week hopefully.

So it's been a bit of a sings & roundabouts month. I am vowing to log on here before the end of the month to keep us on track!!!