The Ultimate Incentive part 10. The only thing holding you back is you.

Dinah93

His grandparents don't have a computer, let alone skype, and his mum is erm, not technical. We did try it before we got the landline but we didn't really find we were saving much as he was always texting or calling first to get his dad near the computer, and then he could only talk at home which is never - his dad has it set up so his landline diverts to his mobile so this way NIM can talk to him anywhere in the world.

I've read Dave Ramsey and I'm afraid I just don't think a lot of his principles apply in the british economic model if you're already in debt. If you're in credit then great. I really can't get my head around having an emergency fund when we have debt, we have a credit card with £11,500 spare on it, which would cover any emergency.

I know the Amex is the issue, around £300-£400 is fuel usually, depends how far we go, and then most months we have some form of insurance/tv licence/mot/service etc due out, so I can usually say around another £300 will be an annual bill of some kind. Maybe £150 on food which I am working to bring down.

You know what Cinny, since I view you as the conscience I want to hide from I'm going to go now, tot up the Amex spends this month that aren't 'necessary' - then on the 1st October (well 6th when we're back from Ireland) I'll do it again and you can either wag your finger or give me a cheer. Lets hope for the cheer.

Dinah93

Right Amex August bill:

Total Spend: £1937.07
Total 'essentials': £371.09 (food & petrol)
Total lost money that I'd rather have in our pockets: £1565.98. Christ, this is nearly my entire wage that we're not really accounting for each month. This includes £112.91 to come to the London meet, £109 for the London hotel, £176 that should have been refunded but company claim parcel hasn't arrived and I'm currently trying to get courier details, £216.28 to go back to Ireland and the rest is little bits and bobs on Amazon or ebay mostly. Granted I do use Amazon to get a lot of Grace's food and nappies but I doubt more than £100 of this money falls into that category.

Cinny91

In that case, £25 to keep in touch with family isn't too bad. I'm not great with long distance calls though, maybe one of the other girls (or Poolie ) know how to get around it?

I'm a big believer in the emergency fund! More than anything it gets you out of the cycle of depending on credit to help you get by, and I know that was one of our big problems (OH's, mainly!) so it helped us out that way.

Maybe it would be worth starting to save monthly for annual bills? They're our kicker too, but we're getting there with trying to get a head

I'm kind of just annoying until people listen to me, so I guess I am a conscience but in the nicest way possible, that is crazy :eek: I'd just say, try and leave it at home as much as possible in September. That's what we did with ours last month, and the normal £700 bill we "owe" ourselves is down to £200 this month you'll get there, I think that's what you need to remember!

Dinah93

I never, ever carry cash though, resulting in an issue this morning when I got on the train and realised all I had was 2p and several loyalty cards! I called NIM as I had an inactive card for our bills account and got him to find the pin in the bottom drawer so I could actually pay for the train. Leaving it at home doesn't work, I'd be better to leave it out the home - I'd say 75% of our unnecessary spends are online.

kavics17

I used to get tesco calling cards for £5 which gave me 500 landline min to Hungary or 200 mobile min. I used my mobile allowance to call the access number. Can this work for you?

The Amex spend is crazy. You have to tackle that first. Maybe write down everything in September to see what was essential what wasn't?

Dinah93

Aye we plan to, but at least £1200 of that I'd say could be trimmed which is a massive amount

Cinny91

Happy Wedding Anniversary!

Maybe what you could do is when you want to spend think "is it essential?" if it is - like nappies, food etc, put it on the card. If it isn't, only get it if you can put the money for it to one side in your bank. Do you have a saver you put the Amex money in? Whenever I do essential spends on our credit card for le cash back I put that money straight into the account for our credit card bill.

I think if you just get yourself on a strict budget. No luxuries, basic meals for tea, make do with what you have etc. I'm talking serious old style business, you could cut your £1000+ overspend a month and have your debt cleared in under 10 months - probably be sooner as you always seem to pull money out of no where when you put your heads to it!

Just think of the awesome holidays you could save up and pay for in cash if you had £1000 a month spare!

Lara44

We put £2000 into the joint account each month, and we use that for all everyday spends, including dinners out, socialising etc. Bigger bills like holidays, clothes, repairs come out of our savings account. If we know we're getting close to the edge, we start cutting back and economising and having some store cupboard dinners.

Might it be an idea to stick your target spends for the month in one account and spend from there rather than Amex? I know you use Amex for the benefits, which is great, but might be interesting to try something else to get the spends stabilised?

Our SOA is quite similar to yours except we don't run a car or have any kids expenses.

Lara44

My other thought was if Medicash is still worth it?

shrimpy_80

Nothing really to add on the SOA Dinah as I think it has already been covered here. I definitely agree that spending cash is way more painful than spending on a card. I'm seriously thinking of using the envelope method for a couple of months to sort myself out.

But mainly I wanted to wish you and NIM a very Happy Anniversary :beer: