Eventually is now!! Time to grow up.

FionaWeasley

Hi there, well this is my first time posting anything on MSE (apologies for the long story), I have been a long term lurker but I’ve had my LBM & I’m determined that I’m growing up & getting things paid off. I have a lot of historical debt from when I was young & stupid and thought that it would all be paid off eventually. Well as my thread title says, eventually is now! I have a plan to get it paid off but it means a new budget and I’m hoping that if I keep a diary it’ll help me stick to it.

I live with my husband and ridiculously large greyhound so there’s not too many of us to look after but we’re hoping in the next couple of years to be able to have a baby so we really need to be out of debt before that. When we got married the agreement was that we’d keep our own accounts & have a joint account for bills, food etc. That he’d save money for both of us from his wages as long as I concentrated on paying off my credit cards & loan. That would have been fine but obviously I only half heartedly paid stuff off & he had the brilliant idea of starting his own business.

We’re now in the situation where, after a 6 month sabbatical Mr Weasley is about to go back to his office job 3 days a week & leave the day to day running of the business to his partner. So we’ll have his part time wage & my 4 weekly pay. Obviously we’re hoping to be able to take some profits from the business eventually but for now I’m budgeting with just both our basic wages & anything extra we get will be a bonus.

So I have a credit card bill of £5812.98 at 0% til February & a loan of £7414.42. We also have a holiday in San Diego booked for October. This is already paid for & while it might not have been our most sensible financial decision, it was certainly a good decision for family morale! Due to the business we haven’t been on holiday for a couple years & my brother moved out there at the end of last year. I can’t wait!!!

We have budgeted that we can save £300 a month towards San Diego spending money & emergencies, I pay £285 a month towards the loan (I can’t over pay) & my challenge is to pay as much as I can every month to the credit card. We’ve worked out we can afford £200 a month for that minimum & I’m hoping to keep my spends down throughout the month to pay more. I get paid 4 weekly rather than monthly & July is the month with an extra pay. From then on I’m going to squirrel my wages away until the 1st so that by this time next year I should have a full “free” pay. Then I can hopefully pay off the remainder of the card. It does mean that we’ll have a couple of 5 week months & we won’t be getting wages into the account as regularly as before but it also means that I can take full advantage of the double pay month which just now just seems to get swallowed up by day to day expenses. I’m about to join the sealed pot challenge & I’m hoping with meal planning and this diary to keep on top of my spending urges I can pay it off in the next year! Mr Weasley & I now both pay our wages into the joint account & take the same amount of pocket money out each month & that covers going out, clothes, treats etc.

So here I go – it’s time to grow up. Eeeeeekkk!!

FionaWeasley

Off to Edinburgh with my mum today. The theatre tickets were paid for months ago so I'm aiming to spend no more than £30. I'll be £14.40 for my train ticket & I managed to find a wee lunch deal so £12.95 for 2 courses & a glass of wine. That'll leave me £2.65 for some water & snacks for the theatre. Any smash left will be going in my sealed pot when I get home! My mum wants to go for a wander in the shops before lunch, I will not buy clothes!!

FionaWeasley

Today I'm down to pennies in the joint account before payday on Tuesday. I have £4 in Tesco vouchers to spend so I'm hoping to be able to pick up a couple of bargains. Really determined not to go overdrawn so if my total comes to more than £4 something is going to have to go back.

FionaWeasley

I did make £50 on ebay this week, I paid it straight to the credit card this morning so that I wasn't tempted to spend it in Tesco tonight. One buyer still to pay though, very annoying!

bigdog13

Well done for getting started
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FionaWeasley

Hi, thanks for the support. My biggest challenge is changing the way I think. I went far too long just doing what I wanted and buying what I wanted. I always figured it would sort itself out eventually. I'm really trying to change that although it's a proper struggle! Managed to overspend by £8 in Tesco last night, meaning when my phone payment comes out I'll be overdrawn for 1 day. It's not the end of the world but it's annoying. Really hoping by keeping my diary I shame myself into sticking to my budget.