Fed up of being the family's Money Muppet

FalseEconomist

Trying to do signature- not working

FalseEconomist

Lol, just seen it come up x

fed_up_with_debt

Hi FE, I've just read your diary and wanted to wish you good luck. Roll on January 2015!

FalseEconomist

fed_up_with_debt wrote: »

Hi FE, I've just read your diary and wanted to wish you good luck. Roll on January 2015!

Thanks!:beer:

Now, I thought September was looking suspiciously straightforward, and I was right. We bought our car last year and I thought the MOT was til November, couldn't find paperwork but went online to check when test was due (did you know you could do this? I didn't til today) and it's...... The first of October- so due this month- scary!! I hate MOT time as I don't trust garages at all- I really don't, think we'll maybe book it in to KwikFit as I think I trust a big name more than a local garage - if anyone thinks this is not a good idea please let me know.

Tax on it is due next month so MOT will have to come out of September's money, eeek. However, if we do it early in the month we have the rest to try and claw it back rather than waiting til the end and having to credit card it. I SO don't want to do that!!!

Have had such a lovely day- picnic lunch with family in park- chilled out afternoon then Mr FE made pasta and a lovely fresh blackberry and apple crumble. Nom nom nom. The only thing that hasn't gone well today is a diet- oh well, that's what Mondays are for:rotfl:

On a night shift now- so plenty of time for skulking on MSE (I always do this I pack my laptop and loads of text books and then spend the night looking at carp on my phone on the Internet).

FalseEconomist

Yay! made it through the month and tomorrow the game begins again. We have been spendy today - treating ourselves to a pub lunch and a couple of bits from the charity shop. This was to celebrate (console) after our ds had his first ever morning at school. A landmark day for our family and so I'm glad we marked it. I'm even more glad that throughout the day which involved several bits of shopping and trip to petrol station I kept checking my bank balance. Clearly a new habit is forming.

So tomorrow I'm back on the case - and feel hopeful that I can keep things in check a bit this month. Can you believe we spent around £350 on petrol last month - possibly more!! Inexcusable seeing as only one of us works at a time.

So this month is hopefully going to be very calm and boring, and I shall entertain myself by trying out 150 new slow cooker recipes....none of which are likely to be edible, I'm no nigella.

Going to put the car in for MOT next week. bit scared, my mum has just paid £500 to get her's through the test - Her car is an 02 plate, probably not even worth much more than that and she thinks it's normal! If we get stuck with a bill like that we'll be on the hunt for a new car!! watch this space...... actually don't - I'm sure you've all got better things to do

On dieting news...I am on my sixth piece of toast and honey. Told you I could only focus on one challenge at a time!!

FalseEconomist

So the beginning of a new month has come and gone,and I'm feeling a little pleased with ourselves – all standing orders and credit card payments made, which is bringing the debt total down.




A couple of unexpected expenses, our talktalk bill is 25 higher than normal, because as part of the new package we had to buy certain equipment to make it work (our phone point and tvpoint are not in the same room). Managed to get it down from 35 to25 but no lower, but looking on ebay it wasn't any cheaper so went with it. I think I have the option to pay over two months, but if we can do it all this month it makes life a bit simpler going forward.




Other things, paid for a second hand bunkbeds and bookcase (out of last months money) and OH was meant to be borrowing a van to collect them, but he forgot to organise it so we ended up having to pay someone £20. Grrr a bit.




Car MOT on Tuesday – bit scared about that,getting a garage recommended through a friend who has helped us out with car before, so hoping not to be stitched up but time will tell,would be nice to be able to pay out of current account, but much more than 60/70 quid and I can see a card being used – I've ordered a new tesco card (naturally had cut most of them up) because if we do have to use a card then I want points from it! Would pay it off immediately anyway so interest rate not a problem, if I thought we couldn't do that then I'd use virgin who despite us having an £1800 balance on them are bombarding us with further 0% offers!




Other biggies – my phone bill, I'm paying £50 a month!!!! unacceptable. My basic contract is for £30 and then I have made a couple of calls to an 0844 number (equifax doncha know!Trying to be savvy by cancelling offer before month is up, seems to have cost about £8 to do so – doh!). Then of course 3 add VAT to whole package so of course the number goes up. My contract doesn't finish til end of June. Now, before I have always been ready to upgrade and enter a similar contract, because they are always 24 month ones my phone gets a bit battered and i'm ready for a new one,but actually because it's nearly always in a cover, this phone seems to be weathering the storm a bit, and so I'm going to keep it and haggle someone for a MUCH lower price plan. Now, don't all shout about PAYG etc, I know some people are really proud about only using their phone in an emergency and sending 9 text messages a year, but that ain't me. I use my phone all the time, much more than any other piece of equipment, so I definitely want unlimited data and a large amount of minutes and text messages, but currently am still paying the cost of the handset within my package, so I expect I can get a really good price plan when that ends.




There are big plans afoot- next Sunday we are planning to do our very first car boot sale! We are both so sick of a house full of clutter and no money that this seems like a bit of a solution. Things that might thwart us include: weather, kids, the fact that our local boot sale isn't very big – but quite frankly if half the stuff doesn't sell we can just drive to the tip before we go home – once the stuff is out of the house I don't want it going back in!




I'm really noticing a change in how I view money. Example, we need a single mattress for our bunk beds (moving DS froma toddler bed into full size). Well, eventually we'll want two single mattresses but as we only NEED one now that's all we're buying. OH's suggestion after being presented all the options was to stick a new £100 one on the Argos storecard, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So I scoured the selling sites and he's picking up a nearly new one from the next village on Thursday for £25. I'm just really getting into the habit of paying cash for things. Yes, it might leave us short in the short term, but then we can pull it back in the short term, rather than sticking it all on credit and masking our outgoings.




I'll need to remind myself of the positivity of this post come the end of the month when I'm having to sell my hair to pay the water bill.........

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about. Looking through this forum there are loads of people who are facing austerity measures for years and years, and doing so with stoicism and pride, and it brings it home to me, that actually, I might be debt free by next December, which feels like a long time to knuckle down and go without, but in real terms is no time at all. And it struck me, I cannot imagine being debt free because as long as OH and I have been together, we have always had worries with debt. It has become the normal way to be in our relationship, and I cannot imagine us not always doing battle with credit cards etc.




Top athletes always bang on about having to actually visualise winning in order to enable yourself to win, and I guess the same thing might apply here. What would our debt free life look like? Well for starters, it might not look ever so different as we want to save for a deposit – but what if we managed with my mums help to get a house?




I can't imagine our mortgage would be loads more than the £750 rent we pay now – I know home owning is more expensive than being tenants but surely the boiler can't need repairing EVERY month?! We'd have £900 free a month to live on. More maybe as the kids would be slightly older and I could maybe work more, and I'd certainly be more able to pursue my career because we could afford child care. We wouldn't constantly have to say no when invited out for things – lovely things like Christening and wedding invites would be things to look forward to rather than worry about. We could plan holidays in advance, rather than having to rely on lastminute deals, we could save for the future and get proper pensionplans (well, any pension plans really). And all this could maybe start in less than a year and a half if we keep focused...... Ihaven't ever let myself visualise this before as I never really believed it might happen – you just get so used to a certain way of being. But perhaps it's time to start believing in ourselves.

scotdebs

Well done FE you sound so positive and focused and great to see that debt coming down in your signature - like you I would like to be debt free by end of next yr and then start on the massive mortgage currently £1300 of our salary goes on credit and store cards and that's just the minimum payment - gosh we will be well flush when I can get rid of all that lot!

Mara_uk7

Lovely positive post , Thank you , I really enjoyed reading it.

FalseEconomist

So I've signed to noddle seeing as I'm getting nowhere fast with Experian - grrr to them!:mad:

Noddle is quite easy to use and it's fascinating to look back at my (quite extensive) list of debts.

I've only got 3/5 which I was a bit disappointed about, but when I look closely I can see that I've got a few 1 month late payments scattered around and in 2009 up to five months late on a LLoyds loan (I wasn't, I was making agreed lesser repayments as that was when I was made redundant and my insurance claim wouldn't pay out because I was pregnant - Lloyds weren't going to reduce the repayments at all until OH threatened to go to the papers with the story and they backed down) but if I understand it rightly that will go in 2015. Hopefully the other late payments won't affect me too badly, but even if they do there's nothing I can do now - I was late making payments so I just keep plodding on and getting little green ticks from now on.

Trying to work out whether it's a good idea to close my catalogue accounts or it's better for my credit to keep them open even though I'm not going to use them - seem to read differing opinions on the matter. Perhaps it doesn't really make much difference but I can't help thinking it's safer from an identity fraud point of view to close them.

My OH thinks I'm getting obsessed about money - :rotfl:

Catching up on the old Downton Abbey's before the new series start this autumn - it's such a load of old tripe but I LOVE it.

HOK3Y

FalseEconomist wrote: »

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about. Looking through this forum there are loads of people who are facing austerity measures for years and years, and doing so with stoicism and pride, and it brings it home to me, that actually, I might be debt free by next December, which feels like a long time to knuckle down and go without, but in real terms is no time at all. And it struck me, I cannot imagine being debt free because as long as OH and I have been together, we have always had worries with debt. It has become the normal way to be in our relationship, and I cannot imagine us not always doing battle with credit cards etc.




Top athletes always bang on about having to actually visualise winning in order to enable yourself to win, and I guess the same thing might apply here. What would our debt free life look like? Well for starters, it might not look ever so different as we want to save for a deposit – but what if we managed with my mums help to get a house?




I can't imagine our mortgage would be loads more than the £750 rent we pay now – I know home owning is more expensive than being tenants but surely the boiler can't need repairing EVERY month?! We'd have £900 free a month to live on. More maybe as the kids would be slightly older and I could maybe work more, and I'd certainly be more able to pursue my career because we could afford child care. We wouldn't constantly have to say no when invited out for things – lovely things like Christening and wedding invites would be things to look forward to rather than worry about. We could plan holidays in advance, rather than having to rely on lastminute deals, we could save for the future and get proper pensionplans (well, any pension plans really). And all this could maybe start in less than a year and a half if we keep focused...... Ihaven't ever let myself visualise this before as I never really believed it might happen – you just get so used to a certain way of being. But perhaps it's time to start believing in ourselves.

:T See if you can borrow a copy of The Secret from your library or a friend - it really hits this principle home. Lovely, lovely post FE. X