Scrimping behind the scenes - with debt of £31,000!

Seasidegal58

Hello! - So I’m back a bit earlier today as I’m out later to my sister’s for lunch and will be staying over with her and her OH.

Before I get started I note that I left one “essential” off my list yesterday and that was clothes. Tbh I have loads of clothes (one of the reasons for the debt!) and don’t foresee buying any in the near future. I currently have clothes in four different sizes (some still with tags on - I can’t get into them!) so this will also be an incentive to drop some weight properly. I will probably need some new underwear at some stage but I have £110 in Marks & Spencer’s vouchers which I am keeping for this purpose and perhaps a clothes emergency, though I can’t envisage what this might be!. I like their underwear as I find it’s comfortable for me.

I’m now looking at what you could classify as “non-essential” items. Some of these will be a shock to DFW forumites! These are costs that I can actually foresee exactly what I will be paying each month. The rest are coming in a later post.

• Broadband - £10.50 per month – will be getting on to provider to negotiate this.
• Sky TV – this is currently £44.65. It was higher but I negotiated it down a few months ago and am locked in until next February. I enjoy Sky and will keep it, but will definitely get rid of the movie channels when my fixed period is up.
• TV Licence – need that because of above.
• Lovefilm – this is £7.99 monthly and I am cancelling because of Sky.
• Dental Plan - £19.99 per month. This is a private plan taken out because of my previous awful NHS dentist. However, my firm are introducing some new staff benefits next month, one of which is s dental plan. You do have to pay but it may well be cheaper but I won’t know till next month.
• Hair - £61 per month – I know, I know! I have my hair cut and highlighted every eight weeks. It’s a London rate, but tbh all the perceived “good” local hair salons in my area charge about the same. I’ve been going to my hairdresser for a few years now and he does let me off with the cut now and again and gives me a discount occasionally. Also due to a medical problem my hair has become rather thin and I don’t trust anyone else with my barnet!
• Nails/Pedicure - £45 month – again a bit of a bill! I have monthly nail extensions because my nails have never been that strong and never looked good, and a monthly pedicure (well I am from Essex you know!).
• Birthdays and non-Christmas gifts - £30 monthly budgeted for this.
• Christmas - £80 monthly budgeted

I don’t smoke or have any pets. I ditched the slimming club and the useless gym membership a couple of months ago.

I know this if you strip out the last five items this comes to over a couple of hundred pounds which a large percentage of committed DFWs could quite easily ditch or bring the amounts down quite radically and then throw at the debt. However, it ties in with my plan of not letting friends or family know there is anything amiss. There is an excellent thread on here called “Keeping up appearances” by a lady called Happynow who had quite a bit of debt and was determined to keep the fact of it to herself . This could also be the title of my own thread!

I have to leave off now, but will post again tomorrow with going forward with what money I have left and my budget.

Have a lovely Easter Sunday everyone and enjoy your eggs!

Chrysalis1976

It sounds like you've already made a good start to looking at your expenses, what a shame about the buildings insurance but yay to your mortgage.

In terms of things such as hair and nails I think you can jolly well treat yourself every now and again, maybe with the clothes since they still have tags on you could sell now and then use your vouchers when you have got to your goal weight.

I really can't see much else apart from maybe seeing if you can get your train ticket through Quidco for cashback, not sure if this is possible?

C x

in_need_of_direction

Re your nails, is there a nearby beauty school with discount prices?

Seasidegal58

Good evening

Thanks for your post Chrysalis and your idea on my season ticket – You know I’ve never thought about buying it via Quidco. I buy it direct from my local station. I will definitely have a look at this and let you know how I get on. One thing I do – when I put my annual application form in for my ticket at work they then pay the whole amount into my bank account to pay for it. I then buy it with my Marks & Spencer card and get my points for my loyalty vouchers (around £30) and then sweep the money from my bank account across to the credit card to pay for it in full.

Hi Inod – I’ve not seen a local beauty school near me but I will investigate. The girl that does my nails/ped does come to my home and so is a bit cheaper than going to an actual salon, plus she comes to me in the weekday evenings so I don’t have to waste my Saturdays getting an appointment.

So – I’m now left with what I have left from all my previous calculations, which I work out to be £369.29 or £92.32 per week (for a four week month). This is where it gets sticky as this amount will have to cover everything else that I have not covered in my previous calculations, i.e, entertainment, holidays, day to day expenses etc and this is where the scrimping comes into play!

So far my postings have covered what I feel is the “Dr Hyde” side of my finances in that everything has been budgeted, I know what is going out, I’ve looked into the best deals I can get, etc.

Now comes the Mr Jekyll part! I mentioned in my first post that I have been keeping a spending diary for the past month and I was horrified when I went through it all.

For instance – lunches and coffees at Pret a Manger during the working week has come to £99.60 – nearly £100! Socialising (eating out and drinking) came to just over £100! There were also tickets for an exhibition, cinema, and theatre! And I don’t feel that this has been a particularly busy month compared to some!

So now the Easter break is all but finished and a new dawn starts tomorrow! No more bought morning coffees and pastries – I’ll take in my cereal (we have free milk at work) and I’ll be drinking the firm’s free instant coffee. I’ll also be taking in sandwiches made at home for lunch!

In addition, I’ll be pondering over ways to minimise the cost of entertainment, etc without alerting everyone I’m scrimping.

The other thing was my budgeting system – with a lot of help from reading other posters’ systems, I basically now have all my direct debits set up to be paid a couple of days after I my salary goes into my bank. I have three savings accounts also with my bank, one for Christmas, one for birthdays and the other for the periodic payments such as the insurances, service charges on flat,etc and the monthly payments on these are swept from my current account to the applicable savings accounts just after I’m paid. I’m then left with food/household and money for the month as above. I’ve decided to draw out the food money in cash each week in put it in a purse for this purpose only. With regard to the money left over for day to day, entertainment, this will be looked at separately each week as I work out what I will need.

Finally, I hoped to post my SOA but I've been having trouble copying it to MSE. I'll have another go tomorrow.

Sorry this post is so long – it has been quite cathartic for me this weekend compiling my diary. I hope I haven’t bored the pants off everyone who has been following me, but I feel the real-life journey is now beginning. Hopefully now I can now get round to reading and subscribing to other diaries and joining the community proper. .:T

Night all!

Seasidegal58

Hi there

Well it was official day one of scrimping today. Instead of my usual Pret latte and pastry I took into work a box of Oatiflakes that I already had at home and a banana and had these for breakfast with the firm’s free milk and free instant coffee. I must say I did enjoy the cereal – the coffee not so much! Still it saved me £3.60!


I also brought in a cheese and marmite sandwich (which I really like!) instead of buying a Pret bagette. However, my lovely boss came back today from holiday and ended up taking me for lunch to catch up. I brought the sandwich home and had it for supper with some tomatoes as I was still quite full from lunch! So will have my omelette and saut! potatoes tomorrow night instead.

Total spend today – newspaper – 60p!:D


I’m going to carry on with my spending app and record everything on my spreadsheet at home.


I get paid on Friday and am going to take this weekend to sort out food/household items budget. I waste so much money here on ready meals and not planning properly. I am going to visit Aldi for the first time as I’ve heard such good things about it. It’s got to be cheaper than keep popping into M&S on my way home from work! I have a book voucher that was a gift and I think I will spend it on “A Girl Called Jack” which has had such rave reviews.


I’m still struggling with the SOA – It only seems to be downloading three-quarters of the statement! :eek:

Chrysalis1976

Yay to free lunches, and another marmite and cheese fan here especially on crumpets!

Your plans sound great, well done on your low cost spends.

C x

tootallulah

Great start, definitely get Jack's cook book, I also like a bog standard one Delia Smith's One is Fun which is very cheap i.e. 1p second hand on Amazon. Are you moving what you save straight to the debts or are you seeing how you go so as not to be overdrawn? some people here pay small amounts to their debts every day and it really mounts up.

apple_muncher

Go seasidegal!

As well as noting what I spend, I also like to note what I DON'T spend, so I can feel smug about it!

Yay to free coffee, but boo hiss to it being instant. I'd be tempted to keep to Pr3t's 99p good stuff...

Good luck on your journey to debt freedom and to beating the credit card companies.

in_need_of_direction

You're doing well and don't worry, your homemade sandwich is safe from me. You put the dreaded dark stuff on it! Yuck.

tizerbelle

Hello seasidegal, good on you facing up to your situation - that really is the hardest part - its so easy to be an ostrich when creditors aren't baying at your door and you are making minimum payments but not making progress.

I had my true LBM (had a few flickers over the decades, but this time the bulb is bright and steady) at the end of last year and have made quite a few financial changes since then and my goal is to be debt free by July 2015 (14k) and mortgage free (65k) by Dec 2020 plus have some savings (15-20k) in the bank when we hit 2021.

I am budgeting £5 per day for all food, groceries, household goods and toiletries and I'm managing that easily. I used to be a ready meal, sandwiches and junk type of eater with just a bottle of vodka in the freezer - now its full of home-made meals! I also allow upto £30 a month, splurge funds - that can be spent on anything I like without guilt. TBH I rarely use it all and anything not spent gets sent to the debt.

Ignoring the hair and nails the only other area that screamed at me was your gifts and christmas budgets - do you really need £1320 a year to cover all that?

Is your gift giving because you truly want to or is it that darn gift guilt obligation - they get you something, so you have to get them something? Think objectively about this, are the gifts you give and even receive, something they/you actually need/want or are they predominantly food/drink/smellies/etc? I'm not trying to be harsh or argumentative, just want you to cast a truly critical eye over the spending. If there is any of that, you could prune your gift list - you may find some friends/family are relieved to have less to buy if you broach the subject with them in advance - the I don't really need/want anything for xmas/birthday etc, why don't we just stop doing gifts conversation. It doesn't mean you have to tell them you are in debt at all. If you do review this and decide yes, I do need that amount and I'm not reducing it then good, you will have made a conscious decision about your budget priorities rather than just doing something because you always have / feel it is expected.