Newie trying to sort out finances

Aiming_High

Well done on progress so far. We too weren't 'sinking' in debt, but it was bothering me and we now have more 'disposable' income than we've ever had in our 17 years of marriage...so much so that the 6 of us are going to visit family in Australia soon.

My tip to you is use all this 'spare money' - that you either don't spend on something (ie insurance) or that you make (selling clothes) and pay it straight onto a credit card or other debt - pick one that is the highest interest rate and easy to pay. Doesn't matter if it's £1.20 from a shirt or £8 from your insurance, pay it as soon as you can don't wait for it to mount up, as something will always crop up.

As for your sisters internet - I agree that should stay, my eldest is currently doing her GCSE's and it's vital for her, not only for school work but for her down time too. However I do think that is possible she should 'earn it' does she live close by? Can she come and say clean your house for it, or cook you a couple of meals? This will help her with the value of money, allow you to spend time with your sister, and get a reward.

harrys_dad

£3 a day on sald is a fortune I can highly recommend basing it around the fabulous rocket to be found in Aldi at 69p per bag (really fresh and peppery), carrots at 70p per kilo, worth paying extra for tomatoes that actually have some flavour, cucumbers currently 49p each on special offer. And my biggest tip, himalayan mountain salt at £1.99 per huge (390g) grinder which brings out all the flavour unlike any other salt I have ever tasted! Have you also considered growing some easy stuff from seed, radishes especially are cheap and easy to grow (even in a window box) and taste sooooo much better than shop bought ones?

ilovelondontown

I owe a whopping great thanks to Jessie4109- I just had a little look at the website she pointed me to and I nearly fell off my chair. A shop that cost £89 in Asda would cost me £121 in Waitrose...I just did a comparison shop and getting all the same stuff I would normally get. I can't tell if I'm excited or angry at this revelation!?

I'm sending off my DVD's and shirts to magpie before the weekend... the next thing on my hit list is the garage, it is RAMMED full of stuff, heaven knows if any of it is any good, but I'm itching to pull it all out and see....

Am I going to fast am I doing this too soon? I worry I'm going to burn myself out of enthusiasm...!

harrys_dad

There is no such thing as too fast when it comes to being efficient, saving money, and paying oiff debts. Got for it!

matttye

ilovelondontown wrote: »

I owe a whopping great thanks to Jessie4109- I just had a little look at the website she pointed me to and I nearly fell off my chair. A shop that cost £89 in Asda would cost me £121 in Waitrose...I just did a comparison shop and getting all the same stuff I would normally get. I can't tell if I'm excited or angry at this revelation!?

I'm sending off my DVD's and shirts to magpie before the weekend... the next thing on my hit list is the garage, it is RAMMED full of stuff, heaven knows if any of it is any good, but I'm itching to pull it all out and see....

Am I going to fast am I doing this too soon? I worry I'm going to burn myself out of enthusiasm...!

Your debts going down faster should give you the push you need to continue.

emmaglet

LBM don't change everything instantly. I simply refuse to get rid of my Sky subscription (£36.50 a month) and if I were to post a SOA on here then that would be the first thing people would tell me to cancel. But you know what? I don't then go and spend £140 a month on going out. That's not to say I sit at home every night watching Sky (actually that might be a lie...I don't like people and Sky doesn't talk back to me ) but it means that we don't eat out as much or we don't go to the cinema every single week like we were doing before. Moving in with my boyfriend also helped, because although we're now paying rent and bills, spending on things like food and entertainment have decreased. Because we have bills to pay, we have debts to pay, and we want any extra money to go on fun things, not boring things like water, electricity and gas! Boo, boring.

I've gone from a job where my drive home is 10 minutes to it now being 50 minutes. Coupled with working later than my last job, I'm pretty much exhausted when I get home. My bf is out of work so he prepares some meals, but I bought a slow cooker and will buy a big punnet of mince, use half of it to cook a massive spag bol one night - enough for 4 servings for two of us. Freeze 3 portions, have one for dinner that night and skim some off the top for lunch the following day. Some days you will need to go to the shop and buy a bottle of coke, a chocolate bar or a sandwich. You know what? It happens. And I've found that if I don't give in (within reason!!!) I end up going on a 'binge' at a later date - and instead of what would have been a 60p chocolate bar I'm spending £15 on 'cheer up' food or whatever. It is about realising that you're in this situation and you need to get out.

I now actually get a buzz from either saving money or making money. I really enjoy going to the Co-op at around 9pm (means a nice walk!) seeing what the reduced shelf has to offer. I LOVE finding betters deals on things, I LOVE getting cashback on something I was going to buy anyway, I LOVE saving up for something instead of sticking it on a credit card.

I love that you've written your clothes are just cheap ones from Dorothy Perkins - I totally begrudge their prices and don't buy anything from them. I actually pick up their clothes for 50p at boot sales to sell on eBay!

This forum is great. People will be tough on you - as you've seen, but it really is great. Reading on it as well as posting is also good because you can pick up so many good ideas.

Good luck

ilovelondontown

I let the husband see my new thrifty way of thinking in action tonight, we've got a bag full of clothes going to a charity shop and I went through it and pulled out 5 pairs of jeans. Put them on musicmagpie and told him we'd get £12.50 for them. Then I showed him the £28.35 for the 50 DVD's I was going to be sending off and he just said "that's a lot of DVD's for £28"

Like a previous poster mentioned I shouldn't expect him to be suddenly inspired in the same way I am, especially when he's quite happy to "manage" our debt, but it has left me feeling a bit dishearted and deflated.

In fact I was reminded that we are supposed to be seeing friends tomorrow for a dinner in town, having cancelled on them twice previously and them already asking where we should book to meet, I'm feeling reminded of why we are in the situation we are, because we are sociable people, we see different friends all the time, how do I explain to them that we don't spend money in the same way anymore, because we are in debt?? My only thinking is that we do, we don't have anything to drink and just get a main meal each.

Wow, I think I might have to put the moneysavingsavvy to bed for tonight all of a sudden I feel like I've hit a wall....

matttye

ilovelondontown wrote: »

I let the husband see my new thrifty way of thinking in action tonight, we've got a bag full of clothes going to a charity shop and I went through it and pulled out 5 pairs of jeans. Put them on musicmagpie and told him we'd get £12.50 for them. Then I showed him the £28.35 for the 50 DVD's I was going to be sending off and he just said "that's a lot of DVD's for £28"

Like a previous poster mentioned I shouldn't expect him to be suddenly inspired in the same way I am, especially when he's quite happy to "manage" our debt, but it has left me feeling a bit dishearted and deflated.

In fact I was reminded that we are supposed to be seeing friends tomorrow for a dinner in town, having cancelled on them twice previously and them already asking where we should book to meet, I'm feeling reminded of why we are in the situation we are, because we are sociable people, we see different friends all the time, how do I explain to them that we don't spend money in the same way anymore, because we are in debt?? My only thinking is that we do, we don't have anything to drink and just get a main meal each.

Wow, I think I might have to put the moneysavingsavvy to bed for tonight all of a sudden I feel like I've hit a wall....

Drink water.

Are you close enough to your friends to tell them about your debts? If so, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Hopefully they won't then try to encourage you to spend money unnecessarily.

foxgloves

Hi, Just back again, as forgot to say that I've done really well over the last year selling clothes on ebay. I've lost a lot of weight (partner too) so we listed lots of the stuff that was too big for us to carry on wearing. Almost everything listed has sold. In the most recent lot of stuff I sold, one of my tops which I started at £1.99 sold for over £19, although between £4 & £9 has been the norm for tops. I think we've probably made around £300 overall by doing this over the last year or so. No need to buy expensive materials for sending the parcels out. I do buy the brown packing tape, but when sending clothes, I use brown paper recycled from other things, or I save good quality plastic carrier bags, which I cut open & use as 'wrapping paper'. When we were debt-busting, we put absolutely every extra £ we made through ebay or other means straight into the debt/loan we were working on paying off at the time. We're debt free now, but we still do this when we're saving up to buy something or to build an emergency fund.

ilovelondontown

The friend I'm going to dinner with is a work colleague, she got me the job where I work now... I think about telling but I feel like I'm not ready to share this with other people, especially as I fully intend to be DF well within the next year. I guess I just need to learn how to tackle these moments more cost efficently. I've already cancelled all my weekend plans. If anyone wants to see me I'll be at home, with a glass of wine and the Sky for company

I'm definately going to put whatever I save/make on to the card, while I need a full month to see the changes I've already done this:

1) Reduced Sky Bill to £30 for this month-- Saving of £23
2) Cancelled laptop insurance £8
3) Reduced food bill by £30 a week-- Saving £120
4) DVD's to sell £28
5) Clothes to sell £12
and I just realised that my pay increase comes into effect this month- which after the tax man/student loan take there pick of it is another £68 a month.

Really want to try and think of new ways to keep this momentum going. I checked my credit report and it was "fair" - The reasons being Not being on electrol roll -which I thought I was but can fix, my current account being relatively "new" and having the 2 lines of credit open at the moment, so I'm not sure if I'd be able to get another 0% credit card, but the extra interest is now feeling like a pain in the butt. Gah.

I should point out too that in December I had the full loan that was £4700 and previous credit card with the halifax which had £3900 debt on it, so I have before coming to MSE been making some leeway in clearing this debt!