No more being "FinanciallyUnsavvy" in 2014!

FinanciallyUnsavvy

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi FinanciallyUnsavvy,

How are things going?. I found your post after search the forum for YNAB. I have started the free trial as I am abit fed up on my excel spreadsheets. I am still feeling my way round it. Its tricky for us as my hubbys wages go in weekly, so I have split the categories up into weeks 1-4.

Currently switching banks at the moment, so I am waiting until the start of next week bbefore i can really test it out.

I have subscribed to your thread, it will be nice to chat to a fellow YNAB'er. xx

Hi Steph, thanks so much for subscribing! Indeed, it will be nice to have a fellow YNAB'er around - it seems pretty rare around here. I've just about finished my first month using it, and I'm still loving it. I'll write a proper update shortly, but not sure if it's because of YNAB or just because I've been very determined (either way, YNAB has certainly helped with that too), this month is the first month in a LONG time I've had money left in my account at the end of the month. I've about £150 from my wages left (still 4 days to go until next pay day but unless something drastic pops up I don't anticipate needing to spend anything!). For me that's AMAZING since usually by week 3 of the month I'm already scraping the barrel and dipping into the credit card ... Extra impressive considering this has been a 6 week month because of Xmas!

How are you getting on with it? The weekly categories seem like a good idea considering weekly pay. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in no time!

laurag89

Hey FinanciallyUnsavvy,

I didn't want to read and run. You seem to be doing amazingly well, and I hadn't heard of YNAB but I am going to have a look right now!

Hopefully it will work as well for me as it seems to be for you!

Good luck, I will be subscribing to your thread to see how your getting on

FinanciallyUnsavvy

dearlouise wrote: »

How are you getting on m'dear?

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi

Come back FinanciallyUnsavvy, Stick with us xxx

Aah, its so nice to come back and see that people have actually popped in - thanks so much! :j

I've been on holiday the last week, so haven't been online. Me and the other half spent Monday to Friday in a lodge in the countryside. It was perfect! We did absolutely nothing all week except laze around, eat good food, go on a few walks and soak in our own private hot tub. Back to work and reality tomorrow though

We got a bargain on the lodge, it cost us just over £100 each for the week, and that was paid for a few months ago out of my savings. As for spending money - because we didn't really do much, it's cost me practically nothing. We did a shop at Aldi to take our food with us - £30 for the week, and that was with plenty of "naughty" treats (the losing weight side of my New Years Resolutions has totally gone out of the window this week - but when Aldi are selling off marzipan stollen for 50p and massive boxes of danish cookies for 30p just what on earth are you meant to do?! )

Anyway - I probably spent less there than I would have at home. I'm still sticking to my budgeting just fabulously. I've just put in my figures for next month now since I have an idea on what I should get by on, and because I have some left over that I've not spent this month, it means I should be able to save even more this month. Maybe the YNAB "golden rule" of "live off last month's wages" is not as unobtainable as I first thought. It'll take some time, since my priority before that is to clear the overdraft, but it's really awesome to see some kind of progress already.

I made about £50 after fees and postage from the things I listed on ebay last week :j Bit disappointed because I had a Coast dress on there that SHOULD have sold for around £40... it ended for £15 :mad: the joys of ebay I suppose, but still happy enough to have £50 in my pocket for stuff that was otherwise just cluttering my wardrobe.

I've also got an extra £50 this month by getting away with not having to buy a monthly bus pass this month (due to Christmas, and being off work last week). I'm just having to buy a weekly pass for this week, which is £20 - saving me £50 or so from buying a monthly. That'll go in my "£2014 in 2014" pot I think!

All in all, so far so good

FinanciallyUnsavvy

laurag89 wrote: »

Hey FinanciallyUnsavvy,

I didn't want to read and run. You seem to be doing amazingly well, and I hadn't heard of YNAB but I am going to have a look right now!

Hopefully it will work as well for me as it seems to be for you!

Good luck, I will be subscribing to your thread to see how your getting on

Hi Laura, thanks for stopping by to say hi :wave:

Yes, definitely check it out. It's a bit expensive at full price - but I got it for around £6 on offer. It's certainly worth it - I think you can get a full featured trial for a month so I'd recommend it.

I'd also recommend signing up for their 9-day budget advice emails from the website - they're geared towards using YNAB but are also very insightful and inspiring for any budgeter.

Thanks for subscribing - I'll look forward to seeing you around :j

laurag89

Thank you I'm having a look now! Anything that will help me with my debt busting is worth it to be honest.

FinanciallyUnsavvy

I'm SO excited right now...

I was wary about applying for any more credit, but on a whim without really thinking I looked at the 0% balance transfer cards on MSE and applied for one of the top ones from Barclaycard. Really didn't expect to be accepted and certainly didn't expect to get much credit.

They accepted... and have given me a stonking £7000 credit limit!

Now that's scary. I'm *certainly* NOT going to use that (will probably ask them to lower it) - but it means I can transfer ALL of the £3,800 from my HSBC card at 15.8%. AND it means that paying off just a few £ more than the current £150 a month I pay back on it, I can pay it all off within the 24 month interest free period!!!

It means I can be totally debt free in two years - and less if I throw all my spare cash at it :j

laurag89

FinanciallyUnsavvy wrote: »

I'm SO excited right now...

I was wary about applying for any more credit, but on a whim without really thinking I looked at the 0% balance transfer cards on MSE and applied for one of the top ones from Barclaycard. Really didn't expect to be accepted and certainly didn't expect to get much credit.

They accepted... and have given me a stonking £7000 credit limit!

Now that's scary. I'm *certainly* NOT going to use that (will probably ask them to lower it) - but it means I can transfer ALL of the £3,800 from my HSBC card at 15.8%. AND it means that paying off just a few £ more than the current £150 a month I pay back on it, I can pay it all off within the 24 month interest free period!!!

It means I can be totally debt free in two years - and less if I throw all my spare cash at it :j

Woohoo :j
Thats amazing news, well worth the spur of the moment application to get that result

So happy for you, tidies it up nicely getting the debts onto one card and knowing it will be paid off.

:T

FinanciallyUnsavvy

So far I've been focusing more on my day-to-day spending, but for those that are reading and just so I have a record and can see my progress later on, this is how my current situation looks-

Every month I bring home £1228.
My monthly bills totaled are £600.

(I did do a SOA in another thread a short while back if you are interested, look in my profile for threads started by me)

The juicy and grim part - the debts..

My overdraft is £1500 and before payday, it's usually maxed out.
I have £269.50 left to pay on a 0% Halifax CC
I have £3,872.01 to pay on a 19.1% HSBC CC (I thought this was 15% - just checked and its 19%.. shows just how little attention I've been paying to my money situation )

BUT as I posted above I've just been accepted for a 0% BT 24 month card, so will be transferring ALL of the HSBC card to that as soon as it comes through the post. So happy about this. It's going to save me a fortune in interest!

Having taken this step its really motivating me to properly tackle my debts - the first post by me here says how I'd rather save some money and take things slowly but now I'm not so sure. I'm doing the £2014 in 2014 challenge trying to raise extra money in various ways in the hope of having £2014 in a bank account at the end of the year. But now I'm thinking any extra I do earn or save, I should just throw straight to the debts to get them clear ASAP?

Though I suppose having secured 0% interest for 2 years, I needn't worry too much as I know the base payments I make every month will pay it off within this time. Perhaps leaving the extra funds in my bank account to decrease my overdraft would be the best thing? It'd be good if I could transfer my overdraft to the 0% card too but its not that simple!

Lots to think about, but I'm happy to be moving in the right direction

FinanciallyUnsavvy

I've just been fiddling around with my YNAB budget sheet. When I set it up I messed around with the dates of all my direct debits so I could start on 01/01. I've now realised that going forward, this won't work - I get paid on Friday but doing it this way I wouldn't be able to use that money to budget with until 01/02. So I've re-inputted the dates of everything so they're correct. It's going to be a bit of a pain to have to budget my wage split over the end of one month and into the rest, but that's the way you're meant to do it, I suppose I really like YNAB but it can be confusing! :huh: It'd be nice if there was more support for it on here to get a bit of support!

I've also finally correctly inputted my debts on there... :eek: it's a bit less motivational to see my balances as massively red rather than the plus numbers I was seeing, by just inputting my wage. The extra money I've saved this month is kind of lost now but it'll be better doing it this way in the long run so I can see the debt numbers going down.

I've been a bit spendy today. I moved my kitchen around a bit last night - put the microwave on top of the fridge to make some more worktop space, but the plug now doesn't reach so I needed to buy a new extension lead (£4 in Wilko!). Whilst I was in there I saw a pair of bathroom scales for £8 - the ones I have give me a massively different number every time I stand on them! So I "treat" myself - I used my Paypal card though so used money I made from selling things on eBay the other week, so doesn't directly come out of my budget.

In other news I've been so sidetracked sorting this bloomin' budget software out that I've let my cuppa go stone cold!!! :mad:

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Oh, yes - I just realised tonight by cross-checking my statement on online banking that my direct debit for British Gas was £30 this month instead of £15. Grr! I've not had any kind of correspondence or anything from them to say why/how my DD has been changed. Very annoying although I suppose I need to sort it out - I don't think they've had a correct meter reading for an age so I should really make it a priority to sort :S

Edit: Nevermind - just checked via the app. I had an actual meter reading taken in November (looks like the first one for over a year.. eek) so I was a bit behind. Looks like once I pay another £30 this month it'll be back up to date, so that's not too bad. Would have been nice of them to contact me with this though!!

I suppose it's a credit to my budgeting that I didn't even notice - any other month an extra £15 charge would have crippled me, this month even with that I still have an extra £150! :j