Six Chickens and a Goat

SixChickensandaGoat

Hello!

We are Jane and John, a couple in our late twenties/early thirties, happily married and parents to a beautiful miniature long haired dachshund.

Through some difficult personal circumstances, a live-now/pay-later attitude and plenty of bad decisions we find ourselves in a reasonable amount of debt in credit cards, store cards and loans. Incomings cover outgoings but there is not a lot leftover to reduce debts.

In summary, between us, we have one loan which has 5 years to run, 6 credit cards all with balances close to the limit (many of them being used again each month once the payment is made and statement generated so balance isn’t currently reducing) and one store card with a small amount outstanding on it. The majority of our monthly outgoings are mandatory and we have already negotiated down our various insurance premiums at the last renewal date early this year.

We own our flat with a mortgage, having lived here for six years, but we want to start a family soon and move to a house, preferably one in a less urban location than where we currently live. One day we want to have six chickens and a pygmy goat in our garden of our home in a (somewhat) rural location. Jane has named them already, at some point she may let you in on the secret. Don’t get us wrong, we don’t aspire to a country mansion, just somewhere that is ours, ideally with some peace and quiet where we can have some animals and live happily!

The most crucial thing financially is for us now is to manage and reduce our debts over the coming years and this blog is the record and story of how we are planning to get there, how we are getting there and eventually how we got there. We are aiming to do this through spending less, earning more and maybe getting some freebies along the way!

We have already been making steps towards turning around our current situation but this is the start of a more focused and determined path. We know it will be a difficult road at times and there will be difficult decisions to be made but by keeping our goal in mind and having fun along the way we know we will get there in the end. We are relishing the challenge of improving the situation whilst living as well as possible, we don’t want to make ourselves totally miserable!

We are looking forward to sharing our journey and hope you enjoy reading, maybe you will pick up something that helps you and of course we would be delighted to hear the thoughts, ideas and tips of others that can help us along the way.

Jane & John xx

SixChickensandaGoat

Sunday 13th July

We started off as we mean to continue...

1) Cancelled Sky Subscription £32 per month
2) Cancelled Netflix Subscription £6.99 per month
3) Cancelled Amazon LoveFilm Subscription £6.99 per month

Total £45.98 saved per month - need to decide how best to use this (will put up a separate post with our financial targets and strategy!)

We used coupons won on the Higgidy Catch A Quiche website to save £10.49 off (spent £1.08) our shop for Sunday lunch and some items for a midweek meal and we got the rest of our week's shopping in Aldi spending £21.20.

All in all a productive day on Sunday!!

Monday 14th & Tuesday 15th were no spend days, which we are looking to keep up until Friday at least.

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary.
Why dont you pop up a SOA when you get a mo & people may be able to help you reduce your outgoings further?

SixChickensandaGoat

Hi beanielou,

Thanks for your reply!

We have pretty much sorted out our financials as we have been users of the site for quite some time but haven't actively posted in the past. Here is a summary:

Household Bills
Mortgage (variable deal - low interest but risky at the moment we know, we think our credit cards & loans may hamper a fixed rate deal though so a bit of a pickle)
Factors - we live in a flat so no choice at the moment, we started to pay monthly this year to avoid big bills every quarter
Gas & Electricity - switched to SSE Hydro, tied in to fixed deal
Council tax - checked and in correct band
Phone & Broadband - switched to BT a few months ago, reduced price deal
TV - Sky cancelled, ends mid August
Mobile Phone - Sim only deal - ends September - may cancel


Borrowing
Overdraft - used for working capital intra month - free of interest
Loan - Running until 2019
Credit Card 1 - Payment set above minimum - card open
Credit Card 2 - Payment set above minimum - card open
Credit Card 3 - Payment set above minimum - card open
Credit Card 4 - Payment set above minimum - card closed
Credit Card 5 - Payment set above minimum - card open
Credit Card 6 - Payment set above minimum - card closed
Store Card - Payment set above minimum - card open

Insurance
Car Insurance - negotiated down - expires Feb 2015
Home Insurance - negotiated down - expires Mar 2015
Pet Insurance - negotiated down - expires Jan 2015
Boiler Cover - reduced deal just starting - we have been stung by bills before so trying to avoid!
Mortgage Insurance - cannot do without!
Fridge/Freezer - extended warranty, again stung a few times in the past so pay a few pounds a month for cover - may cancel
Bank Account Fee - Provide mobile phone, travel insurance & breakdown cover + free overdraft - may cancel

Other
Football Season Ticket - Paid monthly, an essential for a Glaswegian ;-)
Football Pools - Small payment each month - may cancel
Charity Donations - Small payment each month

Our main aim is to be debt free first and then lead on to saving money to help us to move house. We have worked out that by paying the value we currently pay each month to our credit cards and loan, we will have the credit cards clear by December 2017 and the loan clear by August 2018, this is without paying anything extra, so we are hoping to close them out ahead of these targets if possible.

We also think that as we reduce our debts there will be opportunities to transfer balances and therefore reduce the interest rates and bring in the debt free timescale.

We budget the rest of our income each month for food, a small amount for other things such as social events/gifts and anything left over is paid onto our credit cards where possible. We have a comparison spreadsheet to compare the things we buy at the supermarket and where is cheapest to get it from, the bulk of our shopping is from Aldi and we use the £5 off £45 voucher each month and stock up on non-perishables, using vouchers and coupons wherever we can and getting reduced items that can be frozen where possible. This month we are looking likely to come in £20 under budget which would be great, and we still have a lot of stock from last month's big Aldi shop.

We love Aldi!!

Jane & John x

SixChickensandaGoat

Wednesday 16th July
Spent £1.45 on loaf of bread for lunches rest of week

Thursday 17th & Friday 18th July
No Spend!

Saturday 19th July
Weekly shopping bought, used some coupons and ended up with total of £19.87 spent - overall for July we came in £15.09 under budget - assuming we don't spend anymore before payday on Friday, we will be paying this to a credit card.

Sunday 20th July
Day at home - no spend!