No more being "FinanciallyUnsavvy" in 2014!

StressedSteph

Hi Kim

Sorry I havent posted on your diary for a while. Been super busy here and barely had time to keep posting on mine.

You have done enormously well since January, paying off your Overdraft is amazing.

I also use YNAB, and with my new bank account I have no overdraft. I was too scared to have even a small one incase during tough times it was the start of a slippy slope again.

What I do is the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, so I am trying to get to £1000 savings in my account. With that sitting in my account, YNAB has it all accounted for in savings, but as it is my emergency fund, it can also mop up any over spends or disasters and prevent my account from going overdrawn.

Maybe you could consider keeping your savings in your regular account so that it can do the same for you. I dont really acknowledge that it is there because YNAB class it as allocated into the savings pot.

Keep going hun, I have the same issues with my hubby. He could'nt be less interested in talking about finances and when i get super excited about paying off a debt, I swear he looks at my like I have lost my mind

Thank heavens for MSE. xxx

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Long time no write!

This month, money-wise has both been very terrible, but very good. Since paying off my overdraft last month I've been in a bit of a quandary whether to keep up paying at the speed I have, or take it a bit easier knowing the card is interest-free 'til early 2016.

I've been back and forth, but I think I'm back to wanting to pursue being debt-free before Xmas. This month may hold me back a bit, but it shouldn't too much.

I've still managed to pay £400 this month. Well- I will do shortly. Pay day today, and I've decided to earmark the usual £300 to debt.

I've been slacking a bit with 63336. Until Friday, I'd earned about £2 all month. I'm making myself do £10 a day until the end of the month now so I'll at least have £100 or so. Last month I only earned £100 as well (which was this month's pay)... I, er, probably spent all that money.

I've been very spendy. Kind of budgeting, but not. Everything's been passed through YNAB but since my "entertainment" spend category dried up about 3 weeks ago I've just been spending from my savings and whatnot.

BUT, that said- my bank balance is MUCH healthier than it was a few weeks ago. This month I've:

-Got my £375 bond back from my house.
-Got £100 cashback credited from switching to Sky broadband.
-Due to get £120 cash very soon from sale of my iPhone 4S.

I've also sold a few things on ebay, but I've pretty much spent back what I've earned, instead of putting it towards debt.

None of the bigger lump sums I've got are going towards the credit card, that much I've decided. I now have a nice £600 pot sitting in my bank account/savings category. It's good to have as an emergency fund- but hopefully it will be a holiday fund as we're trying to sort out a holiday for October.

So I'm going to reel it back now. I'm only £100 off target this month, and I'm sure I can catch up between now and December. From next month I'll have to make sure I get back into the swing of regular 63336ing, back to ebaying, and back to putting those extras earnt into debt payments. I know it's not impossible. And after crunching my wage into YNAB this morning, I have plenty to live on. I've been able to put the £300 against the credit card, £100 into my Xmas/birthday pot (I have a friends and my dad's birthday in July, and I'd bled this fund dry spending a bit too much on other gifts, so I need to start building it back up for Xmas), I've got the same about as I always have in groceries, entertainment and eating out - AND i've been able to give myself £20 for clothes - desperately need a couple new tops for work.

I'm far from living on the breadline, I know that. And if I can just stick with this for a few more months, the year is going to fly by and it'll be so nice not to have the credit card looing at the back of my mind.

sassychick2014

Hi hon

Long time no hear!! It's good to hear you're still working on clearing your debt, maybe not at the speed you were but that's ok isn't it.

The fact that your bank balance is looking healthier and you're not paying as much off the 0% is a good sign that although you may be snoozing in some areas in others you're wide awake and on the ball!

It's been way to easy to relax when it's sunny but so long as you're kinda on target for where you want to be it doesn't matter too much how you get there.

Have a good day xx

misstara

Hi Kim, was beginning to wonder where you'd got to Glad to hear you're feeling so motivated and good luck with all your debt busting. Where are you thinking for your holiday?

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Oh god, I can't believe it's been a month since I last wrote in here. Forgive me MSE for I have sinned, it's been a month since my last confession!

I've not written because I haven't really had anything to write.

I've not been bad, but I've not been good. This month I didn't even get a payment from 63336 as I only earned £70 and the payment threshold is £100! I'll get that next week though (although so far I've only earned an extra £40, ugh). In my defence, 63336 has been crazy quiet all month, I've tried going on many times and there's just been no questions to answer.

Debt is going down, just at a slower rate. I'm currently not worrying about it too much. It's there, but it's not costing me anything, and it's going in the right direction. I'm sure once again I'll have a major spaz-out, but for now it's fine.

We've booked a trip to London for next month, so that's took some money out of my savings. We got a steal though! Staying in a swanky Radisson hotel for 2 nights w/ breakfast and return train tickets for £140 each. Very much looking forward to it. Now just got to find more money to do stuff whilst we're down there!

I also made a spur-of-the-moment purchase yesterday on a Gym membership. It was £69 for 100 days, which is really good value. Normally it's £30/£35 a month. I can use the swimming pool too with that, which is what I mainly want to do - and since the pool is over £5 a swim anyway, I've only got to go once a week to get my money's worth. I'm determined to be on a health kick so I'm quite pleased with that.

Other than that, not much to say. Just updated my signature with my most up-to-date figures.

I'd say I'll try write more regularly... but I'd probably be lying! Until something comes up, there's unlikely much to say! I have started a proper blog on Wordpress recently though, about life and the crazy stuff in my brain more generally speaking! So if anyone wants to keep in touch with me that way, I'd be more than happy to drop you the link in a PM.

Hope you're all doing well! xx

StressedSteph

Hi Kim,


Hope all is well with you. Just giving your diary a little bump as I haven't seen you post in a while.


hope you are still tackling the debt, can't believe you only have £2500 left to pay off. Wow do I wish that was all I had left.


Hope all is ok, give us an update when you have time.


Thinking of you
Steph

FinanciallyUnsavvy

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi Kim,


Hope all is well with you. Just giving your diary a little bump as I haven't seen you post in a while.


hope you are still tackling the debt, can't believe you only have £2500 left to pay off. Wow do I wish that was all I had left.


Hope all is ok, give us an update when you have time.


Thinking of you
Steph

Steph, thanks very much for thinking of me and checking in! I'm still alive and well, just not ben posting here as not much of note money-wise has been going on! I'm just about to make a REAL update though so bear with me.

Means a lot to know you guys are still around! xxx

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Alright strangers!

I'm still very much alive and well! I haven't been posting much, through choice really, because kicking debt before Christmas kind of went well out of the window.

Don't get me wrong! The credit card is still going DOWN and only down, just unfortunately not quite at the rate I hoped to be able to maintain.

My signature is up-to-date, I've been popping back every month to update that.

I've been paying off £300 a month (*cough* except last month where I managed £200 thanks to booking a holiday and a long weekend in Londontown...), but haven't any extra income coming in any more aside from my monthly wage.

63336 went out of the window. Some of you may know that a couple of months ago, they changed their terms. Instead of getting 40p per question, we are now getting 25p per question, and have no option to skip questions (so if you get stuck on one, tough- you've got to answer it. Which, when you're getting nearly half of what you used to get, is a big bag of crap, quite frankly!). Anyway. I haven't done any since then. Not for lack of trying, mind. Almost every day for a month since they announced and implemented the changes, I was logging in but there were absolutely no questions available. I logged in last night for the first time in a few weeks, and still no questions available. I know some people are still managing to get plenty of questions, so there MUST be some, but I'm just not willing to sit there all night waiting whilst they come in. I don't know what on earth happened to the company, but it's almost like overnight it just went belly-up. The extra income was nice, but it's just no longer worth it. If it ever gets really busy again, I may have a dip in, but in the meantime, there's no way I can earn enough per hour to warrant my time.

I'm still using YNAB rather religiously. I've had to start fresh a couple times though because there's been times where I've slipped and have missed some purchase here and there, so my balances didn't match with my bank account- and it's seemed easier to just start afresh rather than try and figure out what happened. Kind of a shame as it means that I don't get a true picture when it comes to the net worth graphs etc. (would have been nice to see how they've gone up over the course of the year!) but it isn't the end of the world- I still completely rely on it for budgeting!

So big news time...

My boyfriend and I are buying a house!!

Shock-horror. It's all happened very quickly; we viewed it last Thursday, put an offer in on Tuesday, and it was accepted. It's the first house we've seen (after trawling ALL of Rightmove, we know nothing is coming close). Very exciting, although I do not feel "grown up" enough (at 26... ha!) to be doing this. I know nothing about the process! Mortgages and conveyancers and whatnot - very scary, but very exciting.

So, er, yeah. Technically that 2500 debt is now becoming 115000k, ha!

Once we're moved in though, month-by-month I'll likely be better off than I am now, because obviously everything's going to be joint, whereas at the minute I'm paying all the bills and buying all the groceries.

We have a holiday in a cottage in Northumberland booked and paid for, we're supposed to be going in 2 weeks. Now we're kind of wishing we didn't have it booked, because we could use the holidays off work for moving. There's no point in cancelling it with the company though, because it's highly likely we'll just lose all the money anyway. We were discussing whether to find someone to buy it off us, but aren't sure what to do. I was really excited for the holiday, but now that's been overshadowed by buying a house. I kind of want the time off work just to be able to get sorted at home now. If any of you fancy a week holiday in a 3/4 bed luxury cottage in Northumberland in October, please let me know. LOL!

And that's about it I think! I'll try and write more regularly over the next few weeks to update about the moving process. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly and we get in quickly!

Emzilla

Congratulations on the house :T - I hope you will both be very happy there.

It really sucks what happened to 63336, hence why I left. I still see some of the emails from people saying that there are no questions available etc. I hope the company does go belly up to be honest. The way they have treated people is appalling and they shouldn't be allowed to make loads of money whilst their 'workers' are not even managing minimum wage.

Good luck with the move.

Emz xx

misstara

Hi Kim, great to see a post from you and that all is going well. Exciting news about the house :j