Learning to pretend, in a good way

Suziebabe

Thank you in need of direction! We did indeed enjoy and celebrate :beer::beer::beer:

And I've now cleared 2 overdrafts, one credit card, and should be able to bring my total down even further once the CC payment goes out and my work expenses go in! :j:j:j We've gone from having paid off 3% of our debts to 12% gone :j:j:j !!

It's incredible to be in credit on both our household bills and groceries account - exhilarating, but at the same time I'm very nervous that we won't be able to sustain it, that we'll creep back down into the overdraft region. I guess it's good to be afraid, because it means I'll pay super close attention to what we're spending and the state of the accounts - I had got a little bit complacent with the bills account, as it seemed to be successfully mirroring my spreadsheet, but I think I'll go back to checking every night, just to reassure myself!

I know that there's a school of thought that says I should request the overdrafts are reduced/removed - but as we have no safety net in terms of emergency savings (not the piggyback sort, but the 6 months worth of wages sort) I'm thinking of them as part of that, as they would cover 1 month's worth of expenses if the wheels totally fell off for some dire reason. Not having that 6 months worth of money makes me nervous, given the current climate at work - it seems that no one has any rights anymore & if your face doesn't fit, you could be out so easily. Anyway - enough doom and gloom!

Next step is to throw everything at the next credit card to come out of its 0% period (end of April :eek:) - I know there's going to be something left over from the bonuses, and I must tot up my expenses too, since I've cleared the CC I use for work expenses all of the expenses claim can go against other debts. And while I'm at it, I'm going to set up the one CC I use for work expenses to clear in total each month, which will force me into making my expense claims regularly. The CC payment can be snowballed in, and from next month the overdraft charges can add to it, plus the pay rise, so I'm hoping I'll start to see some momentum in the figures coming down. It's a bit of a step into the unknown though for me, moving on from just nibbling away at the overdrafts ... Wish me luck!!

EchoDelta

Good luck! You're doing so well.

Suziebabe

Many thanks Echo, I feel like I'm on a roll!

Good old British weather - no allotment time due to rain, so I've spent a lovely morning re-doing my spreadsheets instead, and now I have time to update my diary!

So in the excitement of my bonus & debt clearing, I forgot about the other regular payments going to the credit cards, which brings me down another %age point to 13% gone - whoop whoop :j:j it's not far off the next one too, just £60, so I'm going to figure out how to clear that and get us to 14% by the end of the month or bust!

BUT ... I do have to report that there's been a little bit of derailment occurring :embarasse:embarasse:embarasse - nothing major, but I'll confess to taking my eye off the ball on tracking the grocery spending, and OH has had a flirtation with old habits of picking up extra bits mid week ... oops! I spent some time yesterday getting back on track with the spreadsheets, and had a chat with OH last night when we recognised what we'd done and focused on getting back on track. Fingers crossed we've got our DFW heads screwed back on again, and no damage done that we can't recover from (although it would have been nice to have that £60 back to get to 14% without an effort...)

I'm torn between annoyance that we had a bit of a relapse, and relief that we've caught it quickly - I wonder, does it get easier to not revert to old habits? We're going to be on this journey for quite a few years, and after that I want to start paying off the mortgage - realistically it'll probably be 10 years before I can properly relax. But I'm wondering if thinking that way is the root cause of the problem - 'relax'= uncontrolled spending frenzy, which will just take us back to where we were at the start of this. Which is a bit depressing, to be honest - the level of vigilance we have now is hard, and I'm trying to tell myself that once the debts are gone, does the little bit of extra room in the budget make it easier to live within your means, without watching every transaction, every month, to make sure we don't stray? Perhaps it's a bit like an addiction - it never goes away, and we just have to take it one day at a time. Hmmm - a sobering thought. Which is quite a good thing - it feels right to come down from the heady exhilaration and get back to normal focus on the day to day DFW things that will contribute to the next big leap forward.

EchoDelta

I think recognising the slip so quickly is really brilliant. And yes, I have found it gets easier with time, the gaps between "slips" get longer.

Suziebabe

Thanks EchoDelta - it's good to know it gets easier!

Well we've managed to clear the extra £60 and made it to 14% - and I still have an epic expenses claim to make that should bring it down further. Unfortunately I also had a £200 repair on the car to pay, and will have another £250 to find for my excess for a minor prang - my fault unfortunately, just don't know when I'll need to pay it, so I'm not counting any of my expenses reclaim until I know what's what with that

On top of that, I've not been very well for over a week now, so am not getting much of anything done, so feeling a bit fed up. I've had a series of illnesses over the last 12 months, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm running my health down, trying to do too much. I've been doing some calculations as to what the financial effect would be if I had to reduce my working hours, which is a mixed picture. On the one hand, the thought of some free time, just one day a week, makes me giddy with relief (which does tend to suggest I might be overdoing it a bit!) but it means that our debt free date stays out in late 2017 - if I could stick it out at full time I think we would clear it by mid 2016. But as my OH says 'at what price?' Luckily I've had a decent pay rise, so reducing my hours doesn't take me too far below the salary I had before the pay rise, it just seems a shame. But the truth is that I don't think I can sustain the pressure of full time work, with all the travelling and long hours that seems to be the new working culture these days, and maybe it is better to look after my health and take the long road.

Sorry, bit of a maudlin diary today - in case you can't tell, I'm not a good patient! Hopefully things will pick up next week

in_need_of_direction

As someone pointed out to me, you noticed the overspend and can deal with it. Would you have been aware pre tackling your debt? While I love percentages, in old money do you realise you're nearly three twentieths of the way thru your debt?

Suziebabe

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

do you realise you're nearly three twentieths of the way thru your debt?

Thank you INOD, I hadn't thought of it like that, very encouraging!!:T:T

Well, we're definitely back on track now, I'm pleased to say!
We managed to do the weekly shop yesterday for under £60, which I was really pleased about as it was that one in the month that includes wash powder, loo rolls etc - usually the biggest of the month. Plus we're focusing again on stocking up the freezer & eating good wholesome food, to try and build up our immunity. Our routine is that each week one or the other of us batch cooks something for the freezer, this week I did a huge batch of leek & potato soup, and we've bought the ingredients for OH to do a large batch of chilli next week. In the past when we've done this it's proven a really easy way of getting good food throughout the week without spending, as after a couple of months there's a good stock of home made "ready meals" to use during the week when neither of us really want to spend hours cooking. Plus there's usually a good variety once we get going.

I've decided against reducing my hours of work - partly because I don't think the actual amount of work would go down, so the stress would crank up even more, but largely because it would mean reducing our debt repayments and/or refinancing the debts on to the mortgage to have a sensible budget, which I DON'T want to do again! We've done that 3 times in the past, and I get properly grumpy when I think of how low our mortgage would be now if we had shown some discipline and just paid the darn things off (the mortgage will be the next thing to tackle after the debts!) So I'm going to focus on managing my stress levels at work, and keep chipping away month by month on the debts.

Current DFD is March 2017 - that's assuming no bonuses/overtime, and current payment levels ie no increases/extra payments, so I'm hoping to bring that in earlier. However, with the flaky state of our car, I've decided to calculate on a pessimistic basis, then I can handle it psychologically if some months I have to spend more than is in the car repair piggy bank. At the moment, I'm sticking with the car rather than thinking of getting a newer one - we couldn't do it without borrowing, and the extra payments to finance a new car would be more each month than the repairs have been, so cash-wise we're better off sticking with it, and keeping our fingers crossed that it lasts us through our debt-free journey!

Righto, off to plant some vegetable seeds! Love being back on track :j:j

Suziebabe

Righto, trying to get back into my Sunday morning diary update habit ! I think, once I get to that debt-free place and I'm reading back through the years of diary entries, that I'll find far more updates in the winter than the summer - there's just too much to do in the summer! :j:j

So, still plodding on - have got a week off work coming up so will get chance to update my totals soon, should be at least another 1-2% reduction in debts :T:T:T although next month won't be as good as i need to do a credit card 0% shuffle and that first payment that includes the transfer fee will reduce my level of debt clearing. Once that's gone through, and now that we have bank accounts in credit, I want to try a focused attempt at clearing/reducing the next CC who's 0% deal is due to expire. It'll be the first time I've been able to focus on one that way, in the past everything has been focused on the overdrafts, with the CC shuffles just a way of nibbling at the card debt, and stopping them getting worse. That feels good!:T

Other than that, it's full steam ahead in the garden! Major seed planting time today - with illness I've missed out on starting things early, so I'm racing to catch up! Have got tomatoes, peppers, chillies & potatoes on the go, today I'm aiming to get courgettes, aubergines, sweetcorn, runner beans, French beans and some salad crops sowed - yes I know I'll get a glut, but that's what freezers are for! Plus I'm hoping I can gently rouse the sleepy husband to get up earlyish and help assemble my new greenhouse, since my little plastic one is now hopelessly broken!

Have a good bank holiday everyone!

EchoDelta

The credit card thing sounds really positive, yay! And 14% so far is fab.

Good luck with the gardening and green house today. Hopefully the weather is better than it is here!

Suziebabe

Thanks EchoDelta!

Quick check in for payday, and to update signature with new totals - 15% gone now :j:j:j:T:T:T

Gotta love payday!