Pay off debts before Baby number 2!!

MrsSmith2013

Hi Crunchy! Just read through your diary and I am loving how positive and motivated you sound... I hope that by subscribing, some of your positivity rubs off on me!! I started out with a similar total to you at the beginning of the year, so hope we can spur each other on! I'm on a total MSE mission just now to kick this debt in the butt because like you I would like to move.

Having a new baby on the way is super exciting, and I just said to my hubby earlier, that I'm sad that I spent most of my maternity leave with both ours fretty over money, and not being able to do things while I was off work. Its good that you're getting things sorted before you're on leave.

A few things I do that might help you are things like, ebaying. I sell on ebay, and even if I only have £4 or £5 in paypal, I pay it off the debt. It mounts up!

I also use Qudico for online purchases and offers that I think I can benefit from, I've just done a william hill bingo one tonight. It was £30 cashback if you deposit and play £10. I did that, and got a message saying once I'd spent my initial £10 I would get £40 credited to the account, and I then won £24 (which I have withdrawn!) on a "Who wants to be a millionaire" game, so a little bit of profit for my evening online!!

Do you shop at Asda or Tescos, or do you use the cheaper supermarkets? I used to be Asda all the way, but have discovered the wonders that are Lidl and Aldi - and am saving LOADS each week. I also meal plan most of the time which helps!

Anyway, I am rambling and taking over your thread, but I have subscribed to your diary and will keep popping back!

Good Luck on your Journey!
Mrs S x

t2rry

crunch_time wrote: »

Does anyone else feel they have to rein their partners in all the time? He says he wants to get out of debt yet........

Crunchy that is exactly how I feel! My OH has never been any good with money, there's a long story behind why money is my responsibility which I won't go into but now I give him a monthly allowance (a lot more than I allow myself as I recognise he has more of a social life with weekly sporting antics & so that he has that bit of freedom!) and I worry every day what he does with it. If he used it all he wouldn't tell me, he'd just take money out of his OD I have worked hard to clear (at least twice!). He has no awareness of what money is in his account nor what payments are pending so inevitably it costs us money when DDs fail. If I try to talk to him about money he clams up. It's so upsetting I could cry just typing this!! I'm such a worrier generally and because he hates me worrying, he hides things from me...which means I'm always worried about what he might be hiding!! We also have cash budgets now for food & petrol. I sent him on Friday to get milk & he somehow spent £20! I don't even know what he bought!! I don't know what else I can do...unless I literally take it all off him & give him an appropriate amount of money every time he needs/wants some. He doesn't understand that budgets are there for a reason and the intention is, once your spending money is gone, it's gone

Sorry for the long one...sometimes I feel so alone in it all!

crunch_time

Mrs S - welcome to the journey! Thanks for joining and your kind comments!


I have actually ebayed the hell out of my house!! I had a huge declutter while I was on mat leave and used the money to either support us or pay things off. Our debt situation used to be much worse in terms of number of creditors.


I take your point about lidl and aldi but im finding it hard to jump out of the security of sainsburys. I like higher welfare meat and recycled paper toilet paper and eco friendly cleaning products and organic milk. Recently I haven't had time to consider shopping around for things but after our holiday I will devise a plan to really sort out where we get our food etc from to make sure we get the most from our money.


I will look up your threads as well for some tips!!


T2rry - I wish there was something I could suggest that will help your situation with your other half. I know how horrible it is to be fighting a cause for 2 people when only 1 of you I totally engaged.


After having toddler we sort of naturally painted a picture of what we wanted our family life to look like and therefore what we wanted to spend or not spend out money on. Perhaps you could do this for when you have your family? I have thought about putting it together as a collage so would have pictures of me and him and the children and a house in the country and a dog and then annotate it with what you need to get there i.e. putting figures and notes on those things you want. so for the dog for us, we need to have moved so we have a bigger house and allow for an extra £50-£100 in our budget to pay for estimated monthly costs. We also want to get a bigger car to have the space for 2 kids, dog, camping and kite surfing stuff for husband so we can take off whenever we want but will need to pay off my loan first etc etc. Its not rocket science. I have all this already on a spreadsheet but I am hoping a visual will help for when husband has his moments to see the pay off if he resists.


Looking on this forum it seems it is a lot of women reining in their men!! You are definitely not alone!! Keep talking and keep working hard!


Crunchy xxx

crunch_time

Dear diary


Payday today!!!


Positives


- signature update of my credit card finally! Paid off all of the maternity clothes now so that's brought it down to £513. There will be more once husband gets paid next way.
- squirrelled away £200 towards our holiday, £200 towards a stag that husband is going on and £120 left after I had subtracted all my outgoings from what I was paid. That will go towards debt but will wait till we come back from holiday first.
- had a panic yesterday about the roof - to cut a long story short thought I might have to pay for more work to be done but I don't. Have a man booked to do it after we get back from holiday -£350.
- Mortgage valuation is booked for next week - £173 paid for it with what we had saved!!
- adding most of the admin fee to the mortgage only increases it by £2 a month leaving about another £250 to go on debt!!
- Going to save our august overpayment and Sept overpayment towards paying off the overdraft but wont until the first new mortgage payment goes out - hopefully 1st Sept!!
- I haven't had to buy any petrol yet before payday and probably have enough for one more trip to work next week. Hopefully will be able to slush some of the £100 towards the £63 petrol that is sitting on my credit card when we get back from our holiday.
- I have a £20 cheque from home insurance change to pay in today which can be slushed towards debt!!
- I am changing breakdown cover providers today to get a cheaper deal hopefully saving me over £100 a year.


challenges
- first one continues to be staying under budget for food. I'm only going to buy what we need for the next week before hols and then work hard on addressing this afterwards - thanks Mrs S for the lidl and aldi reminder!!!
- continuing to keep husband under control. Going to try a vision board... Any other tips are very welcome!!


Keep up the hard work everyone!!
Crunchyxxx

Seasidegal58

Going great guns on the positives crunchy and good luck with the challenges. Haven't got a hubby so I'm not much help there but there's bound to be a few partnered up posters with some good ideas!

crunch_time

Thanks seasidegal58!!


Did a bit of banking and spread sheeting this morning and pleased to announce a signature change!! Overdraft reduced from £2200 to £2000 thanks to spreading the cost of mortgage admin fee over the 2 year fixed rate!!


Hopefully will reduce by another £200 once husband gets paid on Friday!! Happy days!!


I also worked out that we will be able to pay off the whole overdraft by the end of the year!! This wont be before baby comes but will at least get rid of the big rock that is the overdraft that has been in our lives since I met husband 10 years ago!! We also may not have quite paid off our credit cards but will be well on the way to.


I gave husband a stern talking to about this only being possible if we stick to our budgets!! He cant go over the £200 stag do fund I am paying for and I have over budgeted for the wedding we are going to in sept so hopefully we will bring some money back with us.


All in all happy times! Hope everyone is having lovely weekend!!


Crunchyxx

fed_up_of_debt

Well done with the overdraft reduction, will be great to pay less charges:j Wow! You have so much to look forward to

Thanks for subscribing:T Hopefully we can motivate each other to a new zero interest life :beer:

mum2one

Thats a good dent in the overdraft and some good planning ahead xx

crunch_time

Dear diary


Husbands pay day today!!


Positives


- Just done some playing around between accounts moving money and highlighting things off spreadsheet and have shaved off a few more hundreds off the total amount!!


- have paid off another £200 of the overdraft! Hurrah!! Feels good to have that under £2000 - I cant remember the last time it was!!


- husbands loan is now under £11k and it will be under £10k by Christmas.


- we have £500 s spending money for our holiday!!


Challenges


- Husbands car needed some work doing to the engine this week at the grand total of £300 so I have had to use our slush money, this months car maintenance money and the extra money from the mortgage overpayment towards this. A pot of car maintenance money is crucial now so we need to start saving this up.

- We also don't have a slush fund for August which is a bit worrying but hey ho there is nothing I can do about it apart from try and stay in budget.


- We have got to stay in budget for our holiday i.e. not going mad!!! Wish me luck with this!!


Got lots of packing to start now so this is me over and out for a week!! Hope everyone has good weeks!! See you when I get back!!


Crunchy xx

t2rry

Wow Crunchy You have really made some good dents...last month I was secretly trying to match your pay-off amount (you were just over £600 and I knew I could get there) but now you're storming ahead! Well done!

Enjoy your hols...you deserve it! xx