Learning to think like a frugal person

mizmir

Wow - fantastic thread - and such a great idea to apply CBT to debt. I am subscribing and will be going back through from the beginning - so much stuff here it merits taking some time to read. Thank you.

chanie

Welcome Mizmir. Would love to hear your story. Although I haven't been doing this process for long, I can really see the benefits, so far, so I would absolutely recommend joining us.

Credits for today
Haven't spent any money today - so far.
Picked up my free coffee on the way into work from Waitrose Supermarket. Also grabbed a copy of the Waitrose magazine, which is also free.

ForMyGirls

Welcome to my dairy Mizmir :-) definitely a good plan to take time to read the posts slowly - in fact i would recommend taking the posts that have "day" in the title one at a time so that you can do each step of the program slowly. Feel free to skip to the end and start posting here about where you are up to - there is no need for everyone posting here to be at the same stage. In the weightloss community where i get support about using the Beck program for weight loss there are people who are in the first week through to people who have been maintaining for 10+ years. It is incredibly helpful and inspiring in that space to hear about people at different stages in the program - so I would love to see this thread develop into a similar space for money management.

Chanie - i totally get you on the impossibility of a 1 or 3 year old understanding the concept of "mummy needs to be left alone for a little bit". Mine are 5 and 7 and they are only just able to grasp not talking to me while i am meditating for 10 minutes in the morning. (One day hopefully they will understand that standing right next to me breathing loudly is almost as distracting as talking but i will take what i can get for now). I am very impressed that you are making these big changes in your life with such little people in your world - when mine were that age i was not able to see beyond surviving each day. Knowing your little ones are so little also makes me realise at an even greater level how wise you are to take each step of this program slowly.

Credits for today - being on (actually under) budget again today - which is good because there is an activity planned tomorrow that will be over tomorrow's budget - but within the accumulated underspend so far :-) entering everything into my budget system either before (most of the time) or immediately after spending; knocking a decent chunk of my "big ugly overspend" with today's pay; being in a position this pay to pay back the money i borrowed from my kids' savings accounts, and knowing that i am still left with the cash flow i need to get me through to my next pay.

Still no chances to really observe my "resisting compulsive urge to spend" behavior so i am still working on that day. Which is OK because i don't really have time to read the next day of the program while in holidays.

mizmir

I wrote a long reply but then my computer crashed and I lost it all! Suffice it to say I have been in debt for longer than I care to remember - it started with negative equity in the 90s then house renovations then just living outside our means. I am now self employed and have taken a big drop in income though my OH is still on a good salary. But we can't pretend that we can carry on the way we have been doing and we now need to take these debts in hand! I've been on DFW before but fell by the wayside - it was too hard and we could service our debts then. Now it is different. Self employed income is not guaranteed and although I am doing ok so far I am aware that this may change. I am a qualified leadership coach and have found coaching very valuable in other areas of my life so I am up for using a related technique in this.

So onto day 1. I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few days and there are so many reasons to get rid of this debt. We would be over £1500 better off a month without it. Just imagine what we could do with that and the freedom it would bring. So my ARC.

If I get rid of all our non-mortgage debt I will be able to
1. Travel abroad with OH on work trips and make the most of the fact she goes free!
2. Do the courses I want!
3. Sort the house out and save for an extension
4. Not have to worry about paying bills or put things off because we can't afford it
5. Reduce my stress and my partner's stress
6. Afford a new computer
7. Look after our health and get whatever care we need
8. Not worry about the dogs being ill
9. Retire when I am ready
10. Pay off our mortgage early
11. Concentrate on the parts of the business I enjoy
12. Go to the theatre/opera/out for dinner without worrying.
13. Support charities and causes that I believe in.
14. Feel free!

chanie

Thanks for the intro mizmur. I'm interested in your coaching, as I am setting up a coaching business, alongside my full time role. It's very early days and a very small business.


I've really enjoyed finding bargains products that I am happy to use in replace of more expensive ones. I use a product which costs £10, sometimes on offer for £6, but found an alternative for £1, which does the job, but I just don't enjoy using the cheaper product. My head is telling me to use the cheaper product. I feel, I've done so well this month and have really embraced this plan with open arms, but I could be sucking all of the enjoyment out of life.

I have a small confession, I ordered a pair of shoes on Saturday, online. I was going to force myself to wait until the end of the month, but they were in the sale and selling out quickly. It probably shoes a lack of self control on my part, but it was only a £20 spend. I may revisit this issue at a later date, but for now, I think it is an acceptable spend.

StressedSteph

Wow.....ForMyGirls, what an amazing thread. I have been reading it since last night and I just love it.

We are in debt to the tune of 20k and reading about being aware of the reasons behind WHY you want to buy X, was really enlightening for me. I am definately an emotional spender - my family only have to mention the slightest desire for something, be it totally useless new gadget or ANYTHING, and I am instantly trying to work out in my head where I can scrape money from to get them what they want.

I think its a constant desire to Please/buy peoples affections. Not sure if that stems from some traumatic childhood experience or wether I am just a spoilt brat insisting that we have everything NOW. The latter is probably more realistic.

I also loved your thread because I have recently signed up for YNAB also. It fried my brain abit at the beginning because I have NEVER logged my finances this way before. It was always reactionary - looking back at what I had ALREADY spent, or forecasting way into the future at big sums of money, that (If I could JUST stop spending) would be in my account in 1 years time. Of course it never materialises because I am too busy spending!!.

I am in the middle of switching banks because I have been sinking in charges from my current Overdraft. My plan is to start afresh with a new account (with no OD) and then slowly pay off the old overdraft in my un-used account.

So...I have added all my bills etc into YNAB and set up my accounts, but I can't actually start using it until I get my bank card and access to the account online. All I am doing right now is trying to STOP the misc spending whilst I wait.

I will have to refer back to the Steps we need to follow, but for now here is my ARC.

I need to get debt free because:-

1: It will free up over £800 per month.
2: We can finally have the family holidays I crave for.
3: We can finish the house renovations that have been on hold.
4: Replace car thats on last legs
5: Financial security (Savings)
6: No sleepless nights and constant Stress.
7: Stop being afraid of the phone or postman.
8: Be able to say yes to the occasional invite to dinner instead of always having to say NO because we always have NO money.

Ok think that is enough for now. You are an inspiration ForMyGirls, and I will be following this thread fanatically.
Between you and YNAB I might just have found the inspiration I need to finally get this millstone of debt off my back xxx

chanie

Welcome Stressed Steph.

mizmir

Hi Steph :hello: - glad you have made it over here - it is a great thread isn't it?

StressedSteph

Hi Chanie and Mizmir,

Its a fantastic thread, and I have to admit, that I have been checking back in all day. just waiting for an update from FMG. (stalker alert!!) :rotfl:

mizmir

I'm on Day 2. Choose two budget systems. My first system is to use spreadsheets to keep track, the whatsthecost snowball for managing the debt repayments, online banking to manage my accounts and MSE challenges to motivate me! I have two main spreadsheets - an overall budget, which is the amounts I have allocated to each area of spend, and a month by month spending/income diary. In this one I record each spend, each payment in (I am self employed so I need to track this to see that I am earning enough!) and each debt repayment. Here I can see if I am on track and exactly what money is going on. It is basic but so far is working. The snowball allows me to see that my repayments are on course for my DFD. From next month I am going to use the "Make £10 a day"challenge to focus my income generation overall - but mine will be "Make £35 a day"! I have no fixed salary so I will include all my income in there. I think it will help with motivation.

My back up will be to check out YNAB. I can see several of you swear by this and it looks great - and I love software that I can use on my phone as well as my computer. But because of the cost, I am making it my back up plan for now. If I can make the free method work all good. If not, I will pay for the software!