Skint dragon stops spending....

littleskintdragon

So here I am....

In debt & 6 and a half month pregnant!!

In our house there is me, dh dd (7) two cats a dog and a fish (rip fishy )

I had my Lbm in Jan 2012 and since then have reduced our debt from £53,876 to £39,271 (may's figure) now i know this sounds a ridiculous amount but breaks down as follows:

Shared equity on house: £17,000 (due april 2021, no payments until then and 0% interest.
Student loan: £6964 (roughly) not had this years official statement yet.
Dh's student loan: £902
Loan: £4416
Car: £3785
Family loan: £4500
Overdraft: £840 (crept up this month so not included in mays figure!)
Cc: £1704

And to top it all off after oct i get Smp for 8 months!

I am the main income earner in the house as dh lost his job last year, he now works full time but in a not well paid job. Also my job has a basic salary which is ok but am mainly commission based therefore making it hit and miss as to what i will earn/pay back.

My plan is to continue debt busting as we have been, however the substantial drop in income im about to have is going to have serious knock on effects unless i plan carefully now!

Some of the things i have done so far:

Ditched mr.t in favour of f.foods.
Sold one car
Lunch from home for all 3 of us
Paid off one overdraft completely (need to ring to cancel it)
Meal plan (ish!) i buy 7 meals and use them as i fancy through the week.
Insurance is always compared
Started an emergency fund
Bought a water butt as we are on a meter
Opened santander 123 account to get cash back on our bills.

There are probably more that i cant think of at the moment.

I also have a lot that i can still cancel/decrease before i go off on maternity leave

These are:
sky (can lower in august)
Dh's mobile contract runs out in august and will switch to sim only saving £27 a month
Aiming to pay off od before leave starts
Family loan will be on hold during maternity saving £100 a month.
Start nsd challenge


Soa will follow when im feeling brave, at the minute i'm working on next months budget....

Enough for now, just hope keeping a diary will keep me motivated.

Pippilongstocking

Happy new diary and good luck with it all.

Look forward to the SOA in all good time.

What's your monthly food spend? I see you're meal planning, which is ace, I find my main spends are food so I'm trying hard to tackle my own spending in that area!

littleskintdragon

Thank u

Groceries is a relitavely new thing for me, i used to have tesco deliveries, but found as hard as i tried it still came to around £80 a week by the time i bought extra bread/milk.

Im much better now though, last week for example i spent £37 in f.foods, £7 on veg/fruit & £4.50 on top up shops. Still not amazing but includes things like cleaning products, and pet foods.

I have started a spending diary today so we'll soon see where all the £££'s go.

littleskintdragon

So i mentioned to dh that ive started a spending diary to see where we spend and u could swear id asked him to do something awful!!

Why does it seem that one partner can be mse but the other is so useless. Ive read so many things the same!

Spent £25.13 today on bits..... :eek:

£11.05 in poundland
£11.08 in mr.T (did get fathers day pressies for dh in this)
£3 in local shop on cat food, bleach & milk.
Also spent posting ebay parcels but not adding that in as i made it back and have transferred it to my current account.

Not the best start but as we're away this weekend i wont b doing a food shop so got everything we'll need now to keep us going until fri morning. Rest of the grocery budget will go on food for over the weekend. Budget for groceries for this moth is £50 a week, dh gets paid weekly i find it easier to budget this way.

beanielou

Happy shiney new diary
A spending diary is good.

littleskintdragon

Thanks beanielou , i agree a spending diary is good.

Well a good day so far, today i have:
Made packed lunch for Me,dh and dd,
Listed another 2 items on E-bay
Eaten a colleagues chocolate bar (i did ask first!) :money:
Read other df diaries for more inspiration
So far a nsd.... Don't need anything so hopefully it will stay this way!

Still thinking of ways to get dh on board. He never spends money really because i do all the shopping, but its things like sky, this is a constant battle between us. I'd be happy with freeview but i'm ganged up on with him and dd!! At the minute we pay £84 a month, its shocking, this is the only thing dh is in control of everything else is in my name. We have rung to cancel sports, after next month as he wants to watch the lions tour first, and hd can be cancelled in august. We do have phone and broadband with them hence the ridiculous price.

Also he can home yesterday and had seen a car he fancied, a 2L bmw with 130k on the clock!! Erm.... No thank u!! We arnt even looking for a car!!

Otherwise he is very good and as i said rarely spends, but as we have a little in savings its burning a hole in his pocket! Where as i know over the next year we are going to be in a right state and need a little behind us.

Right thats me for now, back later x

littleskintdragon

Day 3 in the ms house! See what i did....

Nothing very exciting here, managed a nsd day yesterday which im very pleased about!!

Today may well be another nsd unless somerhing crops up in between.
Still on target for my £50 groceries as i havent been food shopping, but keeping it for our weekend away instead. Also been driving very sensibly to work, so that i can just fill up the car ready for the weekend and not use this weeks petrol budget, if i need more than £40 i'll have to dip into next weeks budget but that should be fine as i only have a half week in work next week! Ps, my weeks run tues to tues as thats when dh gets paid.

Also planning on using our entertainment budget for hols so that i dont dip into the leftover money. Budget for this month seemed do-able so fingers crossed we stick to it!!

Another thing i forgot to mention, every time i go food shopping i'm trying to put one extra thing into the trolley to keep us going for a bit longer whilst i'm on maternity leave. Even if its a pack of beans etc, £1 is nothing from a £50 budget but after sept we'll have another one to feed, on hopefully the same budget. How much are nappies these days??

Plans for the day are:
Nsd??
[STRIKE]lunch from home[/STRIKE]
Drive sensibly
Wash othes ready for the weekend and put on airer
Make a list of things to take away at weekend

timetogrowup89

hi,

Just been reading youre diary..

Not sure if this is an option you could consider..

My friend had a baby and was the main earner, after 3 months she transfered her maternity leave over to her partner, so he was off work and receiving SMP and she went back to work as was paid almost double what he was.

I don't have children so this is just a suggestion as being at home for a year seeing them develop is probably an amazing experience that you wont want to give up..

Anyway, good luck on your maternity debt busting..

I will be reading your progress.

xx

littleskintdragon

Hi thanks for the reply,

Yep it would be an option, dh earns far less than i do but is now training to be a manager so fingers crossed his wage will go up a bit.

I'd really love to stay home for the 9 months, which is why i want to do as much as i can before my maternity starts. I wont be taking the last 3 months unpaid leave, thats definately not do-able.

It'll b nice also to have more time with dd, as i feel she misses out not having me home every day. She probably doesnt even notice but nevertheless i feel guilty as a mother. Saying that id feel guiltier if we were bankrupt!!

As long as i can get a few bits done before my maternity starts like pay off my o/d & cc, im hoping we'll cope, if not i'll have to give notice to my work and come back early.

I'm quite happy to live off basics and ebay etc to make extra, and meal plan.

Xx

littleskintdragon

Sorry diary i seem to have abandoned u....
I must admit its because i havent been a very good girl!

I knew we were going on a weekend away so maybe the week before wasnt the time to start a diary.

Did manage not to use some of food budget £50, and petrol budget £40 and entertainment budget £30 last week so i have got those to take off my spends. Will have to do the maths later as we're on way home, so it may not be as bad as it sounds!!

Back to normal from tomorrow morning i promise!x

littleskintdragon

So 12 weeks until baby arrives...

Omg last weeks spends were awful and came in at £113.69 over budget!!
This is absolutely awful, i'm gutted

The main things that i stupidly didnt account for were 3 x fathers day presents (dad,fil & dh) and my dads birthday.

Also the weekend away cost more than I wanted it to.

It's made me want to give up before I start, but if I do then every week will be like this, and this is obviously the reason we're skint!!!

New budget will run from the 25th of every month, this is the date I get paid. This gives me 8 days to get it written up properly.

On a more positive note - My first goal is to pay off my overdraft.
there is some money in my Paypal account [STRIKE]which I am going to pay into my old bank account to help pay off the overdraft.[/STRIKE] DONE!

Balance is now £799.70 down from £818.63. Think i might start one of the challenges on here 100 days challenge or something like that, helped me before.

This weeks spends so far: £31.30/£50 food budget.
£0/£60 petrol