Learning to pretend, in a good way

Suziebabe

Thanks all, really appreciate your messages, helps me stop beating myself up!

I really think I'm going into this with a different point of view to before - Julie your focus on getting through the journey is what I want to get to! And I know all about the diet version of binge/bust, unfortunately ...

Chocoholic - good point on the rebound effect! And well done on the Xmas saving - have set up our savings pots for all the extra categories I found from my spending diary/soa, and have transferred out of savings to set them all up for where they need to be for when the expenses hit - except for Xmas! We're now debating whether to use OH's overtime to pay off the overdraft, or save ahead for Xmas - the o/d makes more sense as we're paying interest, but not sure we can face seeing it go down then back up again!

Eyes wide open - agree on the scenic route, reckon we'll have done the full world tour by the time we get there! And we've been really really good at saying "stuff it" - it could be our motto!! Maybe anti-motto? Actually, now you mention it, my memories of saying it are nearly always in the supermarket ... Hmmm! Just as well I've joined the grocery challenge for September!

Many thanks all, so glad I'm not alone in this!

Suziebabe

Wow Buffy, that's a LOT you've paid off! How long did it take? I'm sure you're right about how good it feels to have no debts, I wish I had some experience that wasn't decades old

I think you're right about balance - most of our problems are down to see sawing between being really strict and then breaking out - over the years the break-outs have lasted longer than the strict times though, I'm hoping to get the balance back. And the attempts at being strict have been so miserable we both associate budgeting with deprivation.

I've revisited our savings pots, and created a few more for the extra things I hadn't been planning on (but had been spending on ) like clothing, dentists, vets, decorating - so am hoping we'll be able to stick to the planned budget. It seems counter-intuitive, but this month it's meant putting more into savings rather than paying off debt, but I feel like we need a baseline to work down from, knowing there's money put aside to cover the unexpected (although why I thought the dog's annual injections or DS's school uniform were unplanned is a bit of a rooky mistake ) Once we've got a baseline we can work with, then I can start reducing spending in different areas to throw against the debts - at least, that's the plan!

I spotted another area where control's lacking (it feels a bit like plugging a leaky colander, i keep finding holes where the money leaks out :sad:)

I often have to travel with work, and while I get my expenses back each month, I find it really difficult to manage my account, and know where I am in terms of my actual spending vs what I can reclaim. So, for instance, yesterday I was travelling and can reclaim the cash spent on taxis & trains, but not on coffees & lunch. Add to that the fact that I book travel by an M£S CC (for the rewards) but cash for the taxis, and my login for the CC seems to be broken so I can't login & see my balance, and it all gets in a muddle! So have spent this evening playing with spreadsheets to try and come up with a format that means I can see what's what - not sure I've got it right yet - any suggestions welcome!

And another challenge - how do you keep track of cash spending? My new spreadsheet means I can quickly keep track of my balance each day, so when we take £20 out as cash, I can log it as £20 and see the effect on the end of month balance. But I'm not sure how best to track what we then spend the cash on without double-counting? I want to know the detail of where the cash goes, so I'm keeping it in a separate spreadsheet, but it doesn't feel very joined-up? Any ideas?

Eyes_wide_open

In my spend diary I log the cash withdrawal but dint count it until its spent. Although I have a constant balance I am equally interested in what it's been spent on and just a line £20 cash withdrawal doesn't assist me.

I'm an old fashioned girl when it comes to my spending diary. I have a pocket filofax and purchased the finance sheets and I complete them ASAP after any purchase or payment etc. I think I'm about 5p this month. If its a payment by debit card I tick that box and then once it's out if my bank I tick the row - so regularly cross checking.

My system works for me. The spending diary for me has been the biggest change as it keeps me totally focused xx

Suziebabe

Thanks eyeswideopen - really like the idea of a separate column for spending vs when it appears on my statement, I've been running ahead of my statement for a while! Have adapted my spreadsheet to reflect it and can already see more clearly what's still to go through but already spent.

Unfortunately, I'm rubbish at writing down my spending with a pen & paper - I've tried many times over the years, and have a lovely collection of cash books & little notepads all with the first few pages filled in!:rotfl: I've set mine up in a99le's rubbish version of excel, as I've found I'm really good at sitting on the sofa and playing with my iPad while the tele's on, and so I'm trying to 'bolt on' new habits to existing ones - and this is a lot more productive than playing bejewelled or solitaire :T

So far I've managed to keep my spending diary (as a separate spreadsheet to the budgeting one) for almost a full month, which is a record for me! Even OH hands me any receipts voluntarily to plug in each evening - massive result :T:T It's helped me spot where the missing money was going, and I've got most of my piggybanks set up now for the annual/regular spends like the dogs flea treatment etc - what I think I'm failing to see, is how to tie this back into my main banking spreadsheet for cash withdrawals - and as you say, the catalogue of what the cash actually gets spent on is a mine of opportunities for budgeting! I'm wondering whether to just track the cash in this, and the withdrawals separately, or whether to set up extra rows in my main spreadsheet & track the cash spending in a different column, underneath the cash withdrawal?

Feeling rather embarrassed that I've reached middle age & still haven't got this figured out - how on earth did that happen? And how cash rich would I be now if I had sussed this out 20+ years ago? :mad:

Suziebabe

Another month, and still working at it. At the moment I feel a bit like I'm trying to drive a steam train with only rudimentary knowledge of how to speed it up or slow it down :eek: I realise I find it easier to completely stop doing something for a while than to moderate it, but i need to develop more control with money than just on or off! I just have to keep on keeping on and hope it gets easier the longer we stick to it - its great to read some of the other diaries & threads and feel like we're not the only ones going through this. I've joined some of the challenges again, as that really helped last month - I'm a newbie to the grocery challenge but as I've found that's the main drain on our cash I'm hoping that'll make a big difference.

Have had a useful few days - managed to harvest 2 1/2 pounds of blackberries from the fields backing on to my mum's house, and instead of leaving them to go soft & furry in the back of the fridge,:eek: I bought some cooking apples and have made enough pie/crumble fillings for Sunday lunches through the winter, all safely put away in the freezer for later in the month when we need a treat. Plus I harvested my redcurrants and made a couple of jars of redcurrant sauce, and used up the remaining apples with some of last years raspberries (back of the freezer find) to make 2 jars of apple & raspberry jam/puree for porridge or sandwiches. Not bad for one weekend, hopefully it'll help to stretch out our budget for the next couple of months, plus I really enjoyed pretending to be a domestic goddess!! Back to work tomorrow though so that's the end of that!:)

Am now off to check out what I can get for some old books - at least 6 months ago I found they were going for a good price, on a site I can't remember :huh: but didn't get round to listing them at the time - typical of the approach I'm trying to avoid now!

Suziebabe

Well, not sure if this is progress or not. Feeling a bit hopeless at doing my spreadsheets, and realised that
(a) I had my calculations wrong, and while it looks like we've still reduced our debts over the summer, my original calcs were out and the debts were even higher than I thought
(b) in trying to set up savings pots for annual expenses, I transferred too much into our current account and have set myself up for an overdraft on an account I thought I'd cleared
(c) we've had to spend on school uniform & sports kit last month, but of course I didn't have the saving pot set up for that yet, and I'd somehow thought it would get paid off by my work expense reclaim - but that was the old way I used to get by, now with tracking what I'm doing I realise we're probably not going to clear much, if any of the debt this month

On the plus side, at least I'm not sleep-walking through it anymore, and have caught it before it escalates, I guess I just thought I'd worked it all out and was on plan now - it feels like I'm starting again.

And I've got spreadsheets that show at a micro level what's going on and what the impact is before it hits, which I've never had before, so hopefully it'll be different. :rotfl: The myth of control!!

I also realised that having my debt totals in my signature wasn't helping, as I didn't want to acknowledge any changes to those figures, especially the starting one, so for now I've taken them out - when things stabilise I might add them back in, but for now I don't want to give myself any excuses not to face up to where we are.

I must remind myself that we have made progress, that we're tracking spending and debts better than we ever have before, and we're cutting back our spending in lots of ways - and soon all the changes will start to take effect, the power switch & cutbacks WILL reduce out outgoings, and the savings pots WILL build up and by sticking to our planned budget we WILL start to see it coming down.

It can't come soon enough!

BEAT_THE_DEBT

welcome and well done. Whatever changes you make are a change for the better x

trixie888

It all boils down to discipline... Realistic are done better. Good luck.

Suziebabe

Thanks BeatTheDebt & Trixie - I guess lack of discipline is how we got into this fix in the first place!:rotfl::rotfl: I'm hoping that the uber spreadsheet and close monitoring is at least giving us a realistic picture of where we are with our money, so then the cutbacks are also realistic too. My usual approach has been to come up with a figure that would be good, then try and hit it - and then get despondent when we miss it by a mile!:shocked: Not surprising we've never managed to clear our debts in the past really. :wall:

So this time, the focus hasn't shifted/drifted off to anything else - even with the return to work/school, we're still talking about the spending and tracking it - we're over budget, but I'm trying to see this as part of the journey this time, rather than a failure, and next month I can set a more realistic budget. This morning we were looking into the cost of the foil containers etc on the internet to try and get into some serious batch cooking - we've done this a bit in the past, when I was part-time, but have got out the habit, we seem to have the same old things in the freezer chilli, spag bol etc, with the temperature dropping it seems like the right time for a pie revival! We're just trying to figure out to plan in the time to shop & cook around work etc.

I had a read through the debt free role of honour - how inspiring! It's awe inspiring how much debt has been cleared, and really made me want to get to that place! One thing that a few people had said really struck a chord - that they'd put a lot more focus on their jobs, or got a second job, which made a huge difference. OH has now got a permanent job, after years of on-off contract work, and he's grabbing all the overtime on offer, which is a massive help. At my place, I haven't had a pay rise for a few years - only the top 10% get a pay rise anymore, but they get a BIG pay rise - so I'm working my wotsits off, trying to make sure I'm in that group, as it would make a huge difference. Plus I'm pretty rubbish at getting round to eBay!:rotfl:
So hopefully between us we'll be able to nibble at the debt each month with OH's overtime, and fingers crossed I'll be able to take a big bite out of it next year, and in the meantime we're not spending more than we're bringing in, and each month trying to reduce the outgoing, so at least if things don't go to plan we're no worse off.

On a more practical note (love the philosophising I bit too much:)! ) my monthly DD for my old energy supplier hasn't gone out this month - I sent my meter readings to the new supplier last week, and got a letter from the old one today saying I'll hear next week if I'm in credit or debit. I'm hoping its the former! So am not counting the £140 that hasn't gone out as a reduction in the overdraft until I know for sure i don't owe anything, but it would be great to have that to keep! Fingers crossed.

fedupandskint

I just read your first post and that is exactly how I used to think - try for a little bit then pack it all in and revert back to spending any extra money as if 'oh well, I can treat myself with that can't I?'

I'm not sure what clicked in me to change but something did and it worked a treat over the last year. I think it was sticking at it regardless and paying off debt became second nature (which it never was before).

Good luck suzi!