Mighty Titan Overdraft will crumble!

hohum

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Well... you could always go back to Edinburgh and get some of these... http://www.bloglovin.com/viewer?post=3347480667&group=0&frame_type=a&blog=12561659&frame=1&click=0&user=0

That's actually going to happen in my town too. Am wondering whether I want to be the person queuing outside the shop for two hours. It sounds a bit stressful. I have never queued up before a shop opens for anything. £3 shoes is tempting though.

liltdiddylilt

Dooooooooo ittttttttttttt :d:d:d:d:d

hohum

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Dooooooooo ittttttttttttt :d:d:d:d:d

I walked past at 10am and they were still queuing - don't know why as apparently there were 100 people at 8am and only 60 pairs available?

I am reminded of why I don't shop for shoes very often: I loathe it. Apparently I have the opposite taste of everyone in the world. The shoes i liked are from last season, they've done a similar shoe for this season but it's not as nice and not in the colours I liked. Someone on ebay has the shoe in my size but wants £40 for a used shoe with clear signs of wear. HAH err no. I might make her an offer of £15 and see if she goes for it.

All I want is a calf length boot, well made (ie not glued together and will come apart at first sign of rain), not high heels, lace up/ adjustable fastenings, able to wear with skirt and trousers, all weathers, not black or brown. Is it too much to ask?

liltdiddylilt

No that isn't too much to ask. Rocking horse sh*t to find mind you....

I did the exact same thing, where I didn't buy something last season (Rocketdog Knee High boots) and then never ever found any that were as nice, to this day, and that was 9 years ago

As for the queue! Madness! Yes there were only a limited number, glad you didn't bother queuing up now!

hohum

Sooo I've got my boots. Didn't have the pair I wanted in stock. Ended up on the bay of E and found a second hand as new pair of Rocketdog combat style boots (they do make a nice shoe, even if the upper is synthetic). Got them for £23. Then saw another style from the brand I was looking at before, in knee boots. reduced from £87 to £53. Got them too. Which is slightly ridiculous but it does mean I now have two pairs of boots heading to me, and have only gone over my budget by £8.

There's a post on the YNAB blog which has been ruffling feathers as in it the company founder is basically saying debt is a your hair on fire emergency. I kind of disagree. Here I am making budgeted purchases with £80 that could be thrown at my overdraft debt. However, I am also paying away the debt, building up my rainy day and emergency savings, living off last month's income. This is so far from the crisis lurching I had when I started this diary and I love it. I know how to live on nothing. My overheads are pretty low. I have NO desire right now to go back to the extreme scrimping of a few months ago. I also have no desire to go out and splurge. Get this - I haven't used my overdraft once since I got paid three and a half weeks ago . Even better, I'm not kidding myself that this means I've 'paid off' my overdraft because the debt is still in my budget being reduced. It's entirely possible that over the next 6 months I may dip back into it again, as we bring in less money. But I won't be increasing the debt in my budget. I know it works for some people but honestly, I've never saved for annual bills or had an emergency fund before (currently just under £100, better not be a big emergency) and I think doing this as well as ( rather than instead of) throwing everything at the debt is making a major difference to our financial wellbeing.

liltdiddylilt

Hello missy! Wondered where you had gotten to.. Boots sounds brilliant, and very well done on the pricing too! I love Rocketdogs so am jealous!

I don't follow the blog, maybe I should go on there and have a look. The founder isn't exactly qualified to say all that much about debt. He used his wedding gifts (monetary) to set his own YNAB up way back when he began it all. He was never actually IN DEBT. Considering that YNAB became so incredibly perplexed when I posted a starting credit balance on my one and only credit card, he hasn't really covered all of the bases for debt that well with it anyway. And to be honest I kind of resented the way the 'Debt' side of it was set up, as it seemed to make a huge deal out of it. £3.42 of credit was suddenly a massive red figure stretching into the future of ''unbudgeted spends'' no matter what I did and I was thankful that I got around it in the end because I was quite intimidated by the persistent reminders that there was SOMETHING on my credit card.

I was speaking to someone else on this forum who has a very healthy near £7k emergency fund, but also £15k on credit cards. She feels safer doing that; she has her own things going on that may or may not require that huge cash boost, and it is a fallback, rather than the cards which she is paying down the debt on each month. Everyone does their own thing differently. As Martin himself says, not all debt is bad debt.

This month is the FIRST month of YNAB that I have actually budgeted any spending money whatsoever. If I don't start doing that I will very soon be a hermit in a shell going stir crazy. (It was £20 by the way for the month :rotfl:)

What you are doing is fantastic and you have come SO far, and learnt a lot from the experience. You were never bad with budgeting or spending, just struggling to count on cash coming in at the right times. YNAB for you is about organisation, not paying off the debt right here and now. I don't think one blog can attempt to cover the millions of circumstances and set-ups that people have

3 and a half weeks with no overdraft charges!!!!!!!!!!! :D:D:D and £100 is a new microwave, toaster... car repair, lost bus pass.. so long as these things do not all come at once, you're doing great honestly

hohum

Typed out a reply then got a bit distracted halfway through and lost it. Anyway, belatedly thanks for dropping by lilt!

So in finance news..boyfriend and I are enjoying staring at our positive bank balances. It's amazing. I have to keep reminding myself that we're not going to be as flush as this for a while, and I will probably have to go into my overdraft at some point in the next four months..but it's still fun looking at the balances!

I am somewhat over my second job (waitress 2 nights a week for extra income) as I don't really need the income right now and really I would like more than one day off. However I can bet the minute I give it up is the minute we have a sudden dip in income so I will persevere. Here we see yet another example of me valuing time over income. Would so much rather have time at home/ for my projects then the extra money. Even if it does basically cover my driving lessons/ debt repayment. And I like looking at positive bank balances and this is how it happens.

Debt balance of OD as of this month in YNAB is -£1291.10. Actual overdraft has not been used this month. Which is impressive to say August and September have been spendy months - they've also been high earning. I'll do a full breakdown of august later but basically in august we spend £1340.66 less than we earnt.

liltdiddylilt

It really is brilliant that you haven't touched the OD in a month! Even though you know that officially that money is still technically owed, the fact that you aren't paying interest on the balance has to be a serious boost!

PS £1340.66 kinda makes my £1k look puny

Must be tough with the second job. It is for a good cause, and if you stuck at it for another couple of months, think of the Christmas tips! (Do you get them?! If not, out!! :rotfl:)

Reminded me to get on my YNAB and figure stuff out. Have been avoiding it, due to changes in my income - money dropping left right and centre, more than it should but I can't quite work out why. Still I am grateful, what comes in is still more than what goes out. Just not to the same level as you in August!

NoOneAround

Positive bank balances ---that's brilliant Hohum,
Have popped in and out of your pages and realised I hadn't posted so it does not come up in subscribed threads...so am doing now!!
Thank you for dropping by and your advice....much appreciated xx

hohum

Thanks for support N.O.A (this is how I read your screenname in my mind. Like the notorious B.I.G. Showing my age..) and Lilt, who also gets 'totally tropical taste' in my head every time.

Plodding on. So ready to go into next month. Had to do some fast work on re-allocating funds to various categories in the budget after spending continues. The boy and I apparently would rather have small reward now than big reward later. Not sure how I'm going to ever really tweak that. Our spending money in September has been really high (for us), a lot of food outside home.

I was feeling a bit gloomy about that, however looking at our income/ expenditure we still spent £800 odd pounds less than we brought in for September. OTH, I should hope so when apparently we brought in £3339 between us. And we got the car serviced plus repairs for £228 and paid annual professional subscription of £125 within that. And my new boots. So I suppose it's not too bad. And I am still in the plus on my bank balance, even with ordering our holiday money. We're paying for accommodation in cash so it's a fair amount.

I'm a bit worried I've underbudgeted for the holiday, as I've allowed £200 spending money between us for a week. Which has to cover meals, travel and any excursions. However we have an apartment so the plan is to cook evening meals in, and take advantage of cheap lunchtime deals so we feel like we get to enjoy a bit of holiday dining out. Plus most of the things I want to do are low/ no cost (walking tour of city, Parc Guell, look at outside of sagrada familia, wander along beach at barceloneta, ramblas, gothic quarter.). And if we go over I can always dip into our ordinary spending money category.

Should all go to plan in October, I will be socking £250 off the overdraft debt category bringing me to £1004 still 'owing' in that category. I would like this to happen!

I am having to remind myself that just like the lows when we started however, this particularly prosperous period is our normal-not-normal. boyfriend won't be bringing in quite as much this month, so that means November could be leaner. I have also increased all the rainy day and savings categories so there's more things to fill up! Last night I stuck 'new bed fund' and 'white goods replacement' fund into savings and future bills, respectively. Our freezer was donated to us, it still works but the hinges have sheared which means that you can't actually open it without just lifting the whole door off. We've lived with it for three years and never actually fixed it. It's possible I may move it further up the priority list. Our bed is also a freebie. We had nothing when we moved in and our family/ friends are brilliant! It is however a double and when boyfriend stretches out he doesn't quite fit on it...Suspect new bed may take longer to save for than new freezer. I will have £400 in the new car & annual car insurance fund by October too.

The aim is to have £1300 by June 2015 when I am expecting car to not pass MOT - or at least we'll need to have serious think about cost of running it vs keeping on the road. TBH, I think we maybe should have scrapped it as the cost of the repairs in total this year is close to replacing it...however at that point we would no way have been able to put together enough to get a new car in time for boyfriend's busy season which he definitely needs a new car for. It costs too much to run, basically.

So I am trying to keep reminding myself basically that although all is rosy at the moment, it may not be later. Our finance journey will not be exactly linear with regular payments. We certainly a whole lot more even than we were when we started but I must. not. get. attached. to that positive net worth that's showing at the moment because in truth that's a few months away yet.