Tips to stop spending!!

oopsadaisydoddle

As the title says, I'm wondering what you DFW's do to stop buying without thinking?

We currently have approx £5000 on a credit card (used to pay for a new boiler and other house things when we moved) which is 0% until June next year. It will be paid before the 0% finishes but I'd like to see if I can get it paid before then.

I don't really want to post a SOA because we have Virgin tv etc etc but I do budget for things and I know people will say get rid etc. We are lucky that we have quite a a bit of disposable income. I also budget monthly for car tax mot and insurance. I do the same for clothing. My problem is things like this - I had £200 in by clothing account but we went on hols and all needed new clothes 3 kids and DH and I have lost weight. So we spent £400 - £200 went on the CC £200 we had saved. This included clothes for all of us and yrs worth of school uniform. Now because I set aside money each month for clothing, I will 'pay the Credit Card' back using this.

I just want to be back in the position we were a few years ago where we had money saved for these things plenty in advance. we never had rainy day money apart from we were always able to cover most emergencies without resorting to credit..we also always had enough for Xmas and birthdays, again without using credit. Xmas this year is covered by DH bonus.

Our house needs decorating from top to bottom and this is my motivation for paying off this debt early - so i can start paying for the house stuff without borrrowing.

I keep a spread sheet every month so know what we spend on and have loads of web savers for different funds but I just don't seem to be able to get my b u t t into gear and knuckle down. I try and reduce grocery spend as a challenge and this seems to have worked but then DH goes and blows it by popping for milk and coming back with expensive 'bargains'!!


Sorry for rambling, I suppose I just wondered if there was anyone in the same or a similar position to me and wondered what you do to stop impulse buying.

Thanks in advance!x

mildredalien

Hey there! I was in a very similar situation to you, and just paid off the last of my overdraft today! :j :T

Like you, I still had sky TV, I still budgeted a bit of money for clothes - and I planned and went on two holidays after my LBM. Could I have paid it off quicker if I had cut back even further? Sure! However I was in the lucky position of being able to make substantial payments to my debts and I chose to pay it off over a year and keep doing some of the things that I like to do

It's crazy how much you can throw towards debts though if you cut back even a little - I'd still consider posting an SOA. You might not want to take all the advice or suggestions, but all they are is advice and suggestions. It might help to point out areas where you are not only overspending, but paying over the odds.

You've started well by getting a budget and spreadsheet going. Record your actual vs planned outgoings each month so you can see where things are going over. Perhaps you could keep a 'cash pot' for groceries each week that both you and the DH can dip into to get your main groceries and top up bits and bobs. When it's gone it's gone! Do a meal plan and stick to it - if you know what you are eating for the week there's no point coming back with random bits and bobs that will lead to you chucking out other food.

Ultimately I think it's hard to stay motivated to really tackle debt when you have disposable income. What really helped me was figuring out exactly how quickly I could pay it off if I put my mind to it - and then I didn't want to slip back and not meet my goal!! You both need to be committed to this though, maybe DH hasn't quite had the LBM yet?

unimaginative_user_name

Thanks for posting. I've got one or two ideas!

Have you got a pot of loose change by your front door so when OH goes for milk he just takes what's needed for the milk and leaves his wallet behind? I find it's the little extra spends on groceries that put me over my budget so I stopped taking money with me when I did the school run.

Do you keep a spending diary particularly for all those little purchases (milk, coffees, magazines etc)? They seem insignificant but £1 a week for a magazine is £52 a year.

When you fill up with petrol are you tempted by the choc bars or other little things when you pay? If you go somewhere where you can pay at the pump this might help.

As for the web savers I've got direct debits that are set up to be leave the current account and go straight to savings a couple of days after pay day so that saving takes precedence over spending.

I'm going to subscribe to this thread as I'm sure I could pick up lots of tips from others.

DCFC79

Try doing the shopping with just cash, take a set of cash with you eg £60 and do the shop, you might find your more wary of A the cost of each item and B do you actually need the item/ could you do without it. Maybe even use cash for petrol purchases and put in the amount you have on you eg £30 and theres no room then to buy chocolate etc.

oopsadaisydoddle

Thanks for replying!

I have started to do a meal planner - I print one off netmums which is great and fill in breakfast lunches and dinners. I also get half of my shopping from Aldi and I love their nappies! The other half I get from Sainsbobs - a few things from the basics range which I can't fault. I still need to lose some more weight too but always seem to spend more when buying 'healthy' stuff for some reason!!

As for keeping change near the door, that would be a great idea but I'd have to convince DH to leave his card at home first. I'll work on that one.

I do have a savings tin for £2 coins and that is going towards paying for a hedge in our front garden because our wall is crumbling and will cost £2000 to replace!!! I also regularly get free bonus credits for a mobile phone bingo site and in the past few months has won approx £50 so this too went in my tin!

Last night I put a couple of things on my local FB selling pages but no interest. Don't really want to do eBay because all of the things are heavy/bulky and would cost too much to post. I might wait until the next free listing days and just try my luck anyway.

I think I might go through the last years credit card statements and see what rubbish is on there because although the credit card debt stemmed from when we moved, we haven't reduced the balance by much so that tells me something!

I also have a spread sheet which gives me a projection for when everything will be paid.

Thanks again for your posts...I think I might keep on posting here as a tool to keep me going. And I might pluck up the courage to post an SOA later!

poppasmurf_bewdley

I found that the easiest and simplest way to stop spending was to only deal in cash.

When you go shopping, it's so easy to hand over your debit or credit card to settle the bill, but when you have to count out the notes you do begin to realise what things cost far more than you do with cards.

Additionally, by dealing only in cash, you can do as others suggest and save by putting your change into pots, bags or whatever.

And if you limit yourself to a fixed amount each week, and strictly don't go over, you are again stopping spending.

It's how I got myself back on the straight and narrow after my divorce, and it's how I've kept straight since.

Chrisblue1962

My tips

• Do not carry "spending" money during the week if you go to work ... if I ain't got any actual cash on me then I can't waste it on snacks and suchlike .

• If you have budgeted a set amount each month for something you buy regularly e.g petrol or food shopping, get a prepaid credit card and load it with your budgeted amount - I have a prepaid AA Spend & Earn Card onto which I pre-load my monthly petrol budget when I get paid - costs me nothing to load up online or when I use it in garages.

• Take sandwiches for your lunch.

oopsadaisydoddle

Thanks again everyone.

I haven't looked at my credit card statements yet because DD and I have had a 'movie night' - Toy Story YET again! I'm definitely going to do this because hopefully it will help me realise how much stuff we've bought that we don't actually need.

I think I will try the cash idea. I don't normally take money to work...I might have a couple of pounds in my purse and once a week I'll buy a coffee from our little Costa Bar that we have but it's only 90p once a week. I only work part time over 3 days a week and 2 of those are only 4 hours so I usually just take a snack. On my 1 'full time' day I take a packed lunch.

Re the prepaid credit card - that sounds like a good idea. What I do at the moment is on payday, I transfer our grocery and petrol budget to a web saver account and then when I spend anything on either of those, I put it on a credit card specifically for that. I then transfer the exact amount to another web saver called 'credit card' which means the money is always there to pay it off straight away. Even though I do this, I often overlook how much I've actually spent from the groceries fund so end up subsidising it with the debt busting fund if that makes sense?!

The other thing I've done is I used to get my nails done at £20 a time twice a month. I've bought all the stuff I need off amazon and everytime I would have gone for my nails to be done, I've put £20 into the debt busting fund. Also I'm going to do my mums and my sisters too and we're going to take turns to buy the things we need so it'll work out loads cheaper in the long run. I'm a qualified beauty therapist and have often thought of doing it to earn money but wouldn't know the rights and wrongs of tax and declaring things so a bit worried!!

I wondered if anybody could tell me how I could do the signature thingy and I might put my amounts on it and then it means everyone on here will be like my conscience!!

Thanks folks.x

mum2one

Chrisblue1962 wrote: »

My tips

• Do not carry "spending" money during the week if you go to work ... if I ain't got any actual cash on me then I can't waste it on snacks and suchlike .

• If you have budgeted a set amount each month for something you buy regularly e.g petrol or food shopping, get a prepaid credit card and load it with your budgeted amount - I have a prepaid AA Spend & Earn Card onto which I pre-load my monthly petrol budget when I get paid - costs me nothing to load up online or when I use it in garages.

• Take sandwiches for your lunch.

Hi,

Sorry to be nosey just asking about ur AA prepaid card does it say debit or a prepaid visa card, - do you have to put a minimum amount on it.

The reason ask, just starting a DMP and its bye bye credit cards, just 2 debit cards, - but like the idea of a prepay card as set myself petrol allowance the idea being if don't spend it can put it on a card so when theres a dearer month the money is there,

Cheers x

mum2one

oopsadaisydoddle wrote: »

Thanks again everyone.

I haven't looked at my credit card statements yet because DD and I have had a 'movie night' - Toy Story YET again! I'm definitely going to do this because hopefully it will help me realise how much stuff we've bought that we don't actually need.

I think I will try the cash idea. I don't normally take money to work...I might have a couple of pounds in my purse and once a week I'll buy a coffee from our little Costa Bar that we have but it's only 90p once a week. I only work part time over 3 days a week and 2 of those are only 4 hours so I usually just take a snack. On my 1 'full time' day I take a packed lunch.

Re the prepaid credit card - that sounds like a good idea. What I do at the moment is on payday, I transfer our grocery and petrol budget to a web saver account and then when I spend anything on either of those, I put it on a credit card specifically for that. I then transfer the exact amount to another web saver called 'credit card' which means the money is always there to pay it off straight away. Even though I do this, I often overlook how much I've actually spent from the groceries fund so end up subsidising it with the debt busting fund if that makes sense?!

The other thing I've done is I used to get my nails done at £20 a time twice a month. I've bought all the stuff I need off amazon and everytime I would have gone for my nails to be done, I've put £20 into the debt busting fund. Also I'm going to do my mums and my sisters too and we're going to take turns to buy the things we need so it'll work out loads cheaper in the long run. I'm a qualified beauty therapist and have often thought of doing it to earn money but wouldn't know the rights and wrongs of tax and declaring things so a bit worried!!

I wondered if anybody could tell me how I could do the signature thingy and I might put my amounts on it and then it means everyone on here will be like my conscience!!

Thanks folks.x

To do your sig, just under the line where it says welcome, thers a pale blue line, with deeper blue writing,
click - Quick Links
this brings a box up
click - edit Signature

bring up a box bit like when you reply to a private message and you can alter fonts, it allows upto 5 lines, but depending on how much you pop on a line and size of the font, if you have too many it says so.

Then when you need to change something, just follow the same and you alter away.

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Sounds like your well planned, a couple of suggestions

Nectar card - have you logged that into your computer as you can get nectar points for downloading tool bar (100 points) and then 2 searches = 1 point, = theres shops such as Amazon, ebay etc you earn points back from.

Cashback sites - I mainly use topcashback, and 2nd choice quidco. Even if i'm buying on ebay as long as the starting price over £1 you get a % of the price the seller pays all adds up

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Tax - if you set up beauty business
You'd need to ring the tax office and register as self employed, keep receipts, expenses, incomings, you can do your own tax online and theyre tell you. I did a self employment a few yrs ago mystery shopping, but my income was less than £300 per yr, so I didn't need to do anything.

You may have to weigh up all the pros and cons, - if you have children and have tax credits may affect these, - are you going to work from home, or rent a room in salon, or do mobile, (again you have to declare on car insurance as part time job, may send the price up).

xx

xKazi

Some really good ideas on this thread! Who do you get a prepaid card with? And do they work at the petrol pumps - I always try to pay on the pump and it would be good to put £100 a month on a card that's my petrol card! Can you withdraw from it? (for example if after a year you'd only spent £80 a month on petrol could you take the excess out?)