Lily's diary...here's hoping all in the garden is rosy!!

Lily_rose_2

Evening. I've been lurking around this board for a while now & have decided to start my own diary:j. I'm hoping it'll help me to keep on track and get some support in my DFW journey! I've been in debt before....but am now back again....having realised that my budgeting skills weren't working.....spending on the credit card to fund 'expected' spends, such as clothing etc. I've decided that I need to get my budget right first, before I can concentrate on paying back what I owe. So that's my plan!!

Where do I stand at the moment? Well I currently owe £1800 (approx) on my credit card & £2600 to family (both currently interest free). The credit card has built up over the last year, it includes car repairs (which we hadn't expected) and I was using it for my grocery shopping - then paying it off every month. However, I've decided that, from my next pay day, I'm going to pay for my groceries from my salary, not use the credit card, and start to pay off the balance. Having funds in the bank will enable me to go back to Al*i...as they don't take credit cards, so I've not been able to use them for a while. Plus it means I can take my credit card out of my purse:T which has got to help!

I shall post more tomorrow (when I'm not quite so tired..) but am looking forward to joining in and getting some support along the way!

themarsbargirl

Hi Lily!
I have a similar problem with aldi, i start off the month in there then switch back to tesco when i'm using my credit card cuz i've run out of money! Good luck in your journey, i will subscribe and look forward to hearing more!

giblet1979

Good luck Lily and nice to see you on here. Look forward to reading more.

Gib x

Daisychain1

Hi Lily Rose.

Good luck on your debt busting mission. You can do it

Lily_rose_2

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!!

Well it's a beautiful day today....bit surprising as I thought it was meant to be raining. :rotfl:

I have a week off work this week with the children still being on holiday, but very little money to do anything:mad: The good news is that I'm not overdrawn....and we have around £45 in the account, for petrol or anything else we need....not much, but I get paid at the end of the week, so am hoping we can scrape through. If we do, this will be the first month we've not gone overdrawn for ages.....:j

So a little about me. I'm married to DH who is fab...but very much leaves all things money related to me. He's not great with money, and decided a long time ago, that he just wants some 'pocket money' each week, and for me to sort the rest! Whilst this is great, and does stop him overspending, it very much puts the pressure on me!! He knows about most of the debt, but probably thinks it's around £3400 (replacing one car, car repairs on the other)...the rest has been built up with buying clothes etc for kids, overspending on food shopping...you get the picture. We certainly don't have anything to really show for it.

We also have 3 great children. What an expense they are!! What with clothes, school trips, pocket money, mobile phones.....it's neverending! This is where my budgeting goes wrong....and I need to get a handle on it. This summer I've got the whole school uniform outlay.....DS2 starts senior school, and needs everything!!! We may have one jumper left from DS1....but that's it! DD is growing all the time, and will need new skirts, polo shirts, cardigans, and as for DS1...well, he's now taller than me....and is bound to need new trousers, jumpers, shirts, trainers....oh it's scary just thinking about it! Shoes alone for the 3 of them cost us around £140!!!!

Apart from school clothes, DS1 needs some summer clothes & DD will need some Doodles or something similar for the summer. DS2 doesn't need anything..he has so many hand-me downs!:cool:

So as you can see, budgeting for clothes is critical! DH and I also need clothes...we rarely buy any......;)

We also have a weeks holiday booked in the summer.....and need to pay the rest of the balance and save some spending money.

I'm going to sit down later and work out a budget that will work! Normally I try and scrimp on it, and put as much as I can towards the credit card...but this isn't working!! It just means I have to keep spending on the card as I haven't budgeted enough....and I've realised that's my problem!!

I am going to work to cut down my grocery bill.....we spend around £100 per week...which I don't actually think is too bad....but I need to try to get it down further.

Petrol is a huge expense for us....and there's nothing we can do about this. DH has to drive to work...no realistic public transport alternative, and I have to use my car as part of my job.....so we have to have 2 cars!

So these are my initial thoughts....I'll post later today with my plan! Other than that, DH and the boys are off out this afternoon, DD and I will probably visit family & maybe watch a film!

Have a good day everyone x

themarsbargirl

If you struggle with overspending your budgets can I suggest that you only cut down groceries by a fiver a time? Thinking would make the goal more achievable to then inspire you to do more. RE petrol-do you drive as fuel efficiently as you can? when i stopped doing 70mph and dropped to 60mph i went from using a full tank to using 3/4 of a tank a week saving me about a tenner a week.

Lily_rose_2

themarsbargirl wrote: »

If you struggle with overspending your budgets can I suggest that you only cut down groceries by a fiver a time? Thinking would make the goal more achievable to then inspire you to do more. RE petrol-do you drive as fuel efficiently as you can? when i stopped doing 70mph and dropped to 60mph i went from using a full tank to using 3/4 of a tank a week saving me about a tenner a week.

Some useful ideas there marsbargirl....thank you. Could certainly try reducing my grocery budget by £5 a week...that sounds achievable! As regards petrol - certainly something to think about. My driving is unfortunately around a busy city...lots of shorter journeys, stopping & starting, traffic jams...very rarely drive anywhere where I can get up to 70mph:rotfl: I have nothing in the boot though, no roof bars etc....so will try & drive as economically as possible!

Keep the suggestions coming! I'm currently reading Dave Ramsey's website....and can see the sense in building up an emergency fund first! I have around £100 saved.....what would be an adequate amount to aim for do you think??

themarsbargirl

Depends a bit on if you are a homeownee or not. if you rent i'd say about £500 to cover car repairs/appliance repairs and your ll should pay for house repairs, if you own probably £1000. I've decided not to build up an emergency pot now as a. my dad is an emergency pot and b. i'm going to keep a £500 buffer in my credit limit as an emergency fund once i've cleared that amount because my interest is so high it makes better sense for me to snowball as fast as i can.

Lily_rose_2

themarsbargirl wrote: »

Depends a bit on if you are a homeownee or not. if you rent i'd say about £500 to cover car repairs/appliance repairs and your ll should pay for house repairs, if you own probably £1000. I've decided not to build up an emergency pot now as a. my dad is an emergency pot and b. i'm going to keep a £500 buffer in my credit limit as an emergency fund once i've cleared that amount because my interest is so high it makes better sense for me to snowball as fast as i can.

We are homeowners....I was thinking around £1000 too.....so I have a little way to go!!

It's all food for thought.....have also thought about needing to save for optical bills, dentist etc....the list goes on:eek:

themarsbargirl

I know! I am nowhere near as efficient at saving for infrequent expenses like optical and dentis and car ins and tax, somehow they take me by surprise every year...lol...actually on that note i may go and quote shop to get some idea of what to save by sept if i don't want to go running to daddy again.

Lily_rose_2

I get the feeling if I saved enough for absolutely everything....I'll have no money to pay towards my debt:(