Healthy, Wealthy & Getting Wiser before I turn 40!

plzhelpmesave!

"I am in control of our finances. I am a planner and an organised moneysaver and know where our money goes. I am a budgetting queen and track all our incomings and expenses. I spend wisely and follow Martin's money mantras"


Wow that sounds good eh?? Well, that WILL be me very soon and deffo before my 40th birthday this time next year!

I've been on and off MSE for years now and while I love talking to everyone about HOW to save money, I have put very little into action for myself, other than some of the fun stuff - grabbit, hot deals, looooads of tesco DTD a few years ago, energy switches BUT I have very carefully avoided the BIG stuff - which is dealing with the debt!

I mean to every year, and usually join a challenge or two and then never post once I've been given a challenge number :doh: Get scared off easily I guess and never really had a LBM - loads of little flickers though!

Soooo, I am making 2014 the year I tackle head on the fact that we have BIG debts that we WANT and NEED to pay off. This year I am making the changes that I have read so much about and seen so many other people put into action. Well I'm gonna be one of you action taking, debt busing, life changing, money maniacs....wooo hooo!!


Will be posting an SOA within the next 24 hours in the main forum begging and borrowing for any advice/tips/ etc that I can get from the wonderfully supportive and very knowledgeable peeps on how best to get FINALLY started for the last time :-)

mum2one

Good luck with all the challenges as youve got a thread now why not pop ur SOA on here.
What type of challenges are you looking for, baking ideas, christmas and birthday saving, saving 50p, £2 etc.
xx

plzhelpmesave!

Hello mum2one and thanks - think you're right...should put the SOA on here now I have me very own diary!

Kind of having a mini heart attack right now as have just totalled up mine & hubby's credit cards and a loan taken out this time last year....

A LOT WORSE THAN i THOUGHT!

How the heck have we got nearly £50k on cards and a loan and V little to show for it!

Just worked out that we are paying over £800 a month on our debts - more than our mortgage!! And if we could pay that much onto our mortgage INSTEAD then our mortgage would be paid off in 2020 instead of 2031


Ok, ok, getting ahead of myself and overwhelmed so calm down and work through everything to get an up to date SOA up here....party time coming up soon!

plzhelpmesave!

Been spending the last few days going through stuff and putting changes in place - home folder set up, menu planning done, spreadsheet done, with all expenses in.

Reality check discussion with DH who is very on board in theory!! So very hopeful that with both of us working together we can tackle this full on.

Have already done the following this week:

saved £100 on home insurance
saved £50 a month on utilities DD by phoning them
cancelled a couple of DD's we didn't really need
had a couple of NSD's
Ate from the cupboards and freezers
Checked both of our bank accounts daily (actually 2-3 times a day!!)
Just about to make our first overpayment to CC1 which is on 0% til September and balance of 6853.51 - just paid 153.51 off it - woo hoo!!!!
Will clear this card by September by making 100 payments in total

Will be decluttering the house over the next couple of weeks and ebaying once peeps got over January blues! Actually have LOADS to ebay so aiming to pay at least £1500 off that card by ebaying between now and September - will pay all ebay money straight off that card

Have asked someone who owes me £113 to pay me by next friday - she said she would be paid then so gonna chuck that on to the MBNA card. In total have about £1700 that family members owe me so will be paying that as soon as it is paid - have reminded them all and asked them to pay as soon as they can.

Liking the money saving stuff right now :-)

plzhelpmesave!

liking round numbers - so going to keep the amount in mine and Dh's current accounts at numbers ending in 0 and transfer over the extra into Virtual Sealed Pots - should start adding up nicely

StressedSteph

Lovely shiny new diary.

Sounds like you have an excellent plan, a probably like me, we both have to just learn to stick to it. Normally by March I will have given up and disappeared. NOT THIS YEAR!!!.

Lots of luck, keep it going, have subscribed to your diary to follow your journey xxx

plzhelpmesave!

Thanks Steph....been neglecting it already!! Saw ur sig....looked at ynab the other day- signing up for free trial to start 1 feb-looks fab!!

Made £50 today at a focus group and got car tax refund cheque....£31.45 so good that money flowing in!!

Need to do totals for the month...all handwritten at the mo!

plzhelpmesave!

Right done first post in nsk feb challenge so first new habit is to post regularly!!

Been an eye opening month-lots of unexpecteds - £100 speening fine, new driving licence, new school shoes, so still v much reactive spending but working on it from now!!
Have written down most spends which has been good-need to tally up and record totals.
Enjoying daily 'rounding down' in bank account - adding to vsp and paying off mbna card with it.

Feel good to know we paying odd debt....need to do my 100 squAre repayment chart!!

plzhelpmesave!

Worked out today that we spent nearly £1800 on all bills, CCs and loan from our current account. Another £523 on everything else and that doesn't include any petrol yet - also have brother living with me for a while and he's been buying bits of groceries etc.

WOW - that's a lot of money!! This month, with bill changes DDs etc should be around £1650 with dd cancellations etc.

Shopping bill this month was £286ish but part month as we were away for most of first 2 weeks - again WOW! that's a lot but included some restocking of biggies.

So challenge is to stick to a £350 shopping budget for whole of this month - should be fun :-)

plzhelpmesave!

oooh petrol bills will be starting again now I got car - costs another £40 in insurance too :-(
Still really bad at collecting in money owed to me - well over £2000 if everyone paid up (£200, £600 from 5 years ago, £850 from last 12 month and £500 from old work expenses)

This is sorting out Finances February so still need to sort out DD and changing all DDs to come out of come account - and lots and lots of other money saving things to manage my money better and pay off those darn debts! Looking to pay another 2% min off main CC debt

StressedSteph

Morning Plzhelpmesave,


Sounds like you are making brilliant steps in the right direction.
How are you getting on with YNAB. I read you were starting it in February. Don't get disheartened if you find it hard to get into the swing of it. Keep watching the tutorials and you will get there. I really feel it is my life saver now I have got it figured out.

On the subject of the money that is owed to you. Why don't you send these people a letter or an email asking/begging for the money back. Be honest - say you are struggling financially, try to pluck at their heart strings. It might get them moving.

Keep going, it sounds like you are a lot like me. We are at the beginning of our journey and I still have odd extra bills to get settled before we get into a regular routine. I still have both hubby and mine National Insurance bills to pay. Hubby has a £100 tax bill. and we desperately need a vehicles fund, because both our car & work van need MOT's in July and all the tyres will at least need replacing before they start on any other faults :eek:.


We will get there, will check in again soon to see how you are doing. Take care xxx