Wake up call time

Broke_Kitty

gayleygoo wrote: »

Hi Broke Kitty, I just wanted to say I think you're doing great! There are so many young people who feel pressurised into living beyond their means just to live what they consider a "normal" life, keep up with friends etc, but obviously it all has to be paid back at some point and it's much harder to do after several years of interest piling up!

I'm happy for you that you have made so much effort and progress on tackling your debt and if you continue in this way you'll be debt free soon enough, with much more knowledge and experience of living within your means.

I giggled a bit at the thought of "not being allowed" a £3 eyeliner but you really do need occasional small treats to get you through the hard times. Do you have an overall monthly budget for personal spending/allowance for non-necessities? I give myself £40 a month and that is to cover all socialising, drinking, make-up when I need it etc. Once I've reached the limit I have to wait til next month to buy anything more, which means I often decide I don't need or want the thing anyway! Get into the habit of not impulse buying non-essentials, wait at least 24 hours and quite often you'll change your mind without feeling like you've missed out on something.

Also slightly horrified by how expensive your dental treatment is - £800 for a root canal?! Mine was £106, and that was a back tooth which apparently cost more to fix. I hope there is a solution for you which doesn't mean you take on much more debt and can be pain free (I seriously would rather go through labour again than a toothache)

For car emergencies, a credit union account is helpful, if you have one near you. While I don't intend to advise you to get into any more debt, a car is one of those things that will !!!!!! up every so often. Savings in a credit union account can be built up for emergencies, and if there is not enough in the account to cover the bill they offer very low interest rates to borrow on your savings. Much cheaper than bank loans or credit cards. It also pays dividends rather than interest, most years I get about £60-£80 return on my £300 savings! Saying that, if your boyfriend is able to lend you the money interest free to fix your car when needed then that's probably the cheapest option.

I hope your friends and boyfriend are more on board with your financial situation now. We rarely go out with friends except for special occasions - we visit each others houses, drink cheap carry-outs and homebrew, listen to music and play boardgames! Perhaps when you move into your own place that will be an option, particularly as you will have many more bills to pay than living at home. I've never liked the cinema for socialising - you can't talk during the film! (and always sneak in your own drinks and munchies rather than pay extortionate prices for them there!) In summer it is easier, you can go for a nice walk or sit in a park or forest, harder in winter when it's usually grim to go outside.

Sorry if I've rambled on or been unhelpful you're doing a great job of reducing your debts, keep at it :T

Woah thank you for the reply, I appreciate you reading all this!

I don't really have a budget for makeup/toiletries, I just kinda include it in my food shop. I do have about £40 remaining at the end of the month according to my Budget spreadsheet, which last month was literally bang on (if we exclude the unexpected horror of my invisalign loan going out early) so while I am throwing this at my loan as an extra payment, if I really need anything that's kinda what that is for, but I know that I won't need to buy stuff every month so it's a sort of 'extra payment/personal spends' crossover fund if you will. I used it for Christmas presents last month, but I also paid £100+ extra to the loan, so I'm still winning

Yeah the dental thing is a nightmare, it's not £800 for a root canal, it's £800 to REDO a root canal, cos they need to send you to a specialist and the NHS doesn't cover it. After getting three different dentists to look at it though they all agree that I just need to take it out and get an implant. They were all very keen to get me to have it this month, and my orthodontist said that would be fine and wouldn't mess up my treatment, but it's really not within my budget right now, and I'm seeing him next week for my bottom attachments so I'm going to say look, it's not hurting me RIGHT NOW, so provided it doesn't flare up can I just leave it at least 9 months til I've paid off my invisalign. I know it needs to go, but I don't want to dig myself into any more debt right now. And before someone says 'just have a gap, don't be so vain money is more important' I disagree, I'm not wasting £3000 I've already paid on orthodontic treatment and having a gap where my most important chewing tooth is for the rest of my life just because I was experiencing financial trouble in my twenties.

I haven't heard of credit union before really, that sounds like a really big amount of money to get back on small savings though! I have £600 in my emergency car fund at the moment (which is good because this month is road tax month) and I think that should probably be okay for now, the most expensive work I had done on my car was £550 for a new headgasket so that was kinda my benchmark.

Yeah my friends and boyfriend are fab, we are having board games night tonight, not specifically so that I can save money, but just an example of other activities we do that aren't going out!

Eesh yes I don't think I've paid for food and drinks at the cinema since about 2006, what a rip off. I did get a small coke at the cinema the other week, but it was free because I won it on the cineme app Usually I just my bottle of water in with me and that's it.

Broke_Kitty

I've done 4 Field Agent tasks today and yesterday, providing I haven't made any mistakes that's £18 in the loan payment account when it comes through

Broke_Kitty

Another £5 field agent task under the belt today. Also discovered an app called Roamler which looks similar! There's something about bananas which looks like a starter task for £2, and since there is a tesco on my way home I can do that too!

I'm absolutely flummoxed and baffled at the prospect of having to record all these earnings and declare them to me tax man. Same with clixsense. I've had a little browse of the forums but haven't found anything yet that helps. I'm sure there's a thread somewhere that I just haven't found yet. In case it wasn't obvious from my predicament in the first place, I'm not a very financially savvy person

Broke_Kitty

Letter from Specsavers today saying I need to come in for a lense check. Probably the ideal time to ask them about cutting the costs of my lenses. I'm considering just getting a few dailies sent to me each month. I probably only need about 9-10 pairs a month, it's bound to be cheaper than monthlies when it's that few!

$3.21 made on Clixsense tonight, and I am eagerly waiting for all the Field Agent tasks I've done recently to change from the ? to a nice green tick so I can cash out my £23. Funnily enough the one I did this lunch time did that almost right away, but I'm still waiting on ones from days ago!

I had a thought earlier, if I got a cashback credit card (I know I know, more credit, but hear me out), and used it exclusively, I could stack it with stuff like quidco and make a bit of extra money that way. I was always scared of doing this, but then I thought - if I transferred the amount I spent every time I bought something into a seperate bank account so that I am still aware that I am spending my money, and already have the cash set aside to pay off the card in full each month, that might work rather well! It would also mean no days of wondering what my real balance is because things hadn't left my current account yet.

Something for me to think on, I think, I won't jump into anything just yet.

Also really excitingly, I've got enough in my loan overpayments account right now to bring my balance into the (high) £2000's which is fantastic considering that at the start of November it was still in the mid £4000's (I did a money transfer from my 0% virgin card of £1000 when I first decided to kick myself into repayments for serious, so you can't tell that from my signature as it's now in the Virgin balance). It just looks like such an achievable figure to bring down quickly now.

MrsGSR

Broke_Kitty wrote: »

I have set up my 'save the change' on my debit card to go straight into my overpayments bank account, which should start adding up to my overpayments day by day.

For those who don't know what that is, I'm with Lloyds and it basically just means that anything you purchase on your debit card you can choose to round up to the nearest pound, and pop the rest in a savings account.

Gonna really try to hammer clixsense tonight, see if I can get my head around how people make so much on there!

I have this and it's brilliant.

Broke_Kitty

MrsGSR wrote: »

I have this and it's brilliant.

Isn't it brilliant! The pennies add up quicker than you realise.

Broke_Kitty

Gah just had a thought which is gonna annoy me.

When I took out my barclaycard and my Virgin card I had a 0% on balance transfers offer on the barclaycard and a 0% on money transfers offer on the virgin card (transferring money to bank account).

I transferred money from the virgin card to pay off my small loan, my overdraft, and £1k of my Lloyd's loan. I probably could have then transferred that onto my barclaycard and transferred the rest of my loan sum to pay off the Lloyd's loan which is like 22.8% apr which I am really resenting paying and paid the lot off at 0%.

Obviously I only think of this now as the offers have ended now. Kicking myself.

Broke_Kitty

Looked into getting another money transfer credit card at 0%, and I'm eligable for one (soft search), but after snowballing, it would only cut off 2 months from my DFD! It would save me £450 in interest, so it is tempting.

The interest on my loan is presently 22.8%, where as the interest on the card would be 20.9% after the offer ends (obviously I would pay it off by then anyway) so even if for some terrible reason I didn't manage to pay it off by the end of the offer I wouldn't actually be losing anything...

Literally the only thing holding me back is I'm worried that getting credit cards too soon after each other will be bad for my rating (I last applied for and was accepted for cards in November).

Appreciate any advice

EDIT: Also despite forgetting my dinner for work today, I had enough subway points for a free sub so still managed to get my dinner for free, AND I found £1 roadkill on the way!

Despite feeling like I've let my budget slip a little this month because of birthdays, surprisingly I seem to have £300 to last me til payday in two weeks, which is very mysterious. Either I've done better than I thought, or I've forgotten something. I haven't filled my petrol tank up yet this month, so that will be helping. I am gonna see if I have £100 left at the end of the month or not I guess! If so, straight to the debt

Broke_Kitty

15 items listed on eBay tonight! Already got a bid on a £15 pair of shoes I'm selling that are brand new and still have the £59.99 price stickers on them!

There are a few more things that I photographed and just didn't get the time to upload because it was getting late and I didn't really want my listings ending after 9pm. eBay OCD hah!

Broke_Kitty

Wow, looked at my credit card bills from this time last year. I definitely had a bit of a problem, even if I didn't realise it.

I'm so glad I've cut back to buying just the basics.

Taxed my car for a year yesterday because I can afford it this month (although it means no/minimal overpayments) and I don't want to have the extra expense in the Summer time when my MOT is also due! I usually just buy the 6 months. Can't wait til tax discs are scrapped.