Must not spend must not spend must not spend...

mustnotspend

Hello everyone

I've been lurking for a long while now but never posted. I'm a DFW who's gone from £22k to £14k-ish since I had my LBM and went back to work in June.

The trouble is that I'm losing my focus now and am going back to my bad ways of spending money on "stuff". Trainers, clothes, etc. I really need to get my focus back.

So my plan is to trawl through my spending for the last couple of months and post an SOA later tonight.

I need to get my motivation back. MUST NOT SPEND MONEY!

WHY I NEED TO GET BACK ON TRACK:
- I've become complacent about my debt. In my head I'm focusing on "I've done really well to get from 22 to 14" rather than "14 is a big big number…"

- I reckon I've spent about £300 or £400 this month on "stuff" which couldve been spent on bringing debt down.

- I'm a contractor. So I can earn a pretty good income when on a contract. But there's a very big risk that my contract will not get renewed when it comes to an end in December. So I REALLY need to be saving every penny NOW in case it doesn't and I have a few weeks with a gap in my income.

- I have a small child who is in full-time nursery. This costs £1400ish and comes with a 2 month notice period. So if my contract doesn't get renewed (and I won't really know this too much in advance), I've still got an outlay of £1400 per month for at least two months…

- I need to pay £1500 on flat stuff in December

- Xmas is coming up

- I want to clear this debt (and have a buffer) so that I can have baby #2.

- I'd also quite like to start working 4 days per week instead of 5.

So really need to get it into my head that I don't need more clothes or trainers or baby clothes or even baby toys. I'd like to use this diary as a control mechanism. And I'd love it if you join me on the journey and give me a kick up the bum when I write back that I've bought yet another something I don't really need.

How hard can it be? Seriously??? MUST NOT SPEND!

mustnotspend

So I've got a bit of an action plan. Most of my shopping is done online. The trigger is generally an email newsletter, boredom, online shopping.

I've taken to delivering things to friends houses or instore (picked up in my lunch break) so that partner doesn't notice the parcels. Anyway, here's the plan:

Action plan:
- Give my credit cards to my partner rather than carrying them around with me.
- Enter all my regular online shopping sites and delete my SAVED payment options.
- Remove myself from all the newsletters that handily tell me when there's a sale on. (HOBBS, TM Lewin, Jojomama, ELC, Mothercare, Clarks, Debenhams, Monsoon, Reiss, Amazon, M&S, Dotty P, gosh this is a long list!)
- Need to do something with Paypal cos most sites allow you to pay through Paypal. Not sure I want to actually close it off... Maybe I'll ask partner to change my partner so that I'd have to tell him when I wanna use it...

Any other thoughts?

Adoremouse

Hello and well done on starting a diary

I have the same problem as you, spending on the kidlets mostly! And I know where you're coming from with the expensive nursery, thank goodness DD has just started school is all I can say.

I'm subscribing so that I can see how you get on and give you a virtual kick when you need it

citizenkitten

mustnotspend wrote: »

- Need to do something with Paypal cos most sites allow you to pay through Paypal. Not sure I want to actually close it off... Maybe I'll ask partner to change my partner so that I'd have to tell him when I wanna use it...

Any other thoughts?

ask your partner to change your password and not tell you, make him choose something you would never think of and is not password LOL! and then that way if you want to buy anything you need to ask him to put the password in and explain your spend to him! if you dont have a partner - just re read your post, non mentioned, ask your best mate.

mustnotspend

Hi Adoremouse and citizenk. Thanks for replying.
Yup, I got a partner... So that's what I'll do. Tomorrow. Procrastinating already?

Anyhow this should help me refocus. Not gonna post a full SOA as erm I dunno where to find it. But I've just put all my spending for the last 30 days onto a spreadsheet. THIS is the outcome. Quite alot worse than I thought...

Cash......................290 I honestly don't know what I've spent this on. I spend about £30 a week on food at work or so I thought!
Clothes for me!.......538 WHAT??? Shocking!
Dry cleaning............23
Entertainment..........51
Gym.......................34 Yes I do use it.
Kid stuff.................110 Again, too high
Life Assurance.........10
Loan......................326 Ooops this should go into my debt tally!
Medicines etc..........54
Nursery...............1,400
Petrol......................65
Phone.....................56 This is a one-off as it includes around 3 weeks of roaming. Am on a £10 contract plus £5 overseas texts bundle.

Other notes: I own a flat which is rented out. I have a shortfall of just under £200 per month (mortgage is repayment though so I view it as an investment)

Also, in case you're wondering I live in my partner's house and he pays all the bills and groceries. While I pay our DD's nursery. This is kindof historic as I was not working for about 18months.

So there we have it. Total outgoings last month was £3,157.:eek: Idiot

This is what it could've been:

Cash......................150 (saving £140)
Clothes for me!.........50 (saving £490)
Kids........................50 (saving £60)
Phone......................15 (saving £40)

That is, another £730 more debt paid off.

I'm quite annoyed at myself. I knew that I'd gone a bit may but didn't realise had bad it had gotten...

citizenkitten

mustnotspend wrote: »

I'm quite annoyed at myself. I knew that I'd gone a bit may but didn't realise had bad it had gotten...

the immortal lines of most of us DFW.

I never realised how bad my debt had gotten till i put all my bank statements together and realised i got through 14k in 8 months of being unemployed?! because i was depressed about it, so i bought stuff to make me feel better. then i felt depressed about how much i spent. then when i got a job, i rewarded myself with more stuff and thought i must be paying it back.... WRONG I had spent another 7k.

Homemadehappiness

Hi must not spend!

We sound very similar! I have a 17 month old an desperate for number 2! Well done on your debt busting to date - that's hardcore! Stay motivated you can do it xx

Victoria2322

Hi,
Just popping over!

You can defiantly do this! Ive got quite into budgeting so if you need any tips just ask.

mustnotspend

Well hello everyone. Been a bit of a tumultous couple of weeks. But in a good way.

So you know when I was saying I need to refocus, particularly because I want to be debt free before having sprog #2, well I now have a very finite timeline in which to achieve this! July to be exact!!! (very early stages yet!)

So, wasn't exactly the plan but it has certainly refocused my attention. Since my last post all I've bought is £40 worth of clothes for my child (fleeces and warm trousers so yes really required.
I've also joined the NSD challenge which I'm finding really works and I've set myself a weekly budget of £120… This covers everything I need to spend on. I've got a spreadsheet of what nI need and when and it really helps me prioritise.

So I've not been to the drycleaner for a while (because I can't afford it in my budget) which means I'm wearing stuff I wouldn't normally wear or even doing my own ironing! I'm looking around for options for a toddler friendly ipad protector and some cheaper waterproofs, whereas normally I'd have just got whatever was available at amazon or jojomamanbebe!

I've studiously avoided going into town on my lunchbreaks and am avoiding online shopping. I've got to say it helps not received a gazillion newletters each day!!

So all in all a good couple of weeks. Have set a mighty challenge for end November. I want to be<£10k in debt…

It's gonna be tight...
　

mustnotspend

Got paid - yeah! HAve some monies left over so paid £600 into my Barclaycard...

Total debt at the moment is £13,390. Bit higher than I would like as I just paid £700 for flights home at Xmas. But rent from my tenant is due in a day or so, so that'll bring it down a bit.

And hurrah - there's 5 fridays in November (I get paid weekly on Fridays... ) :j

The Spreadsheet says i'm still on track for <£10k by the end of the month...

mustnotspend

So I've been checking my weekly budget…
I set a budget of £120 to cover all my weekly spend. This is how I've done:
Week 1. £164
Week 2 £70 (the overspend from week 1 was carried over
Week 3 £114 (incl £40 for an ipad cover - to stop my DD from destroying it. And £25 on new vests for said DD as she's now outgrown her current batch)
Am pleaseD with that!