money saving amateur, expert wannabe

financially_exposed

Hi all, I've been reading this forum for months now... I'm struggling to get rid of my debt and - while I managed to reduce it by a couple of thousands over the past months - I'm still far from being debt free. That is mostly because I don't set budgets and I don't track expenses - except for direct debits. I get paid on the 25th of each month and my plan is to start tracking every single expense (with the aid of the mobile app Spending Tracker). The other problem is that I seem to be unable to save... I have no savings and no emergency fund.

I will fill out a full SOA soon, meanwhile - for one adult, one 6-yr old child:

Net income (salary, child benefit, maintenance from ex): £2820
Outgoings rounded up:

• mortgage £1020
• unemployment insurance £35
• contents insurance £8
• service charge, ground rent, building insurance £104
• council tax £100
• water £20
• gas & electricity £65
• TV license £12
• bundle Internet, TV, home phone £45 (contract until Nov 2014)
• web hosting £5
• mobile phone £25 (contract until April 2015)
• tube pass £104
• bank account fee £7
• Tesco delivery plan £3

TOTAL ~ £1550

On top of this, after school, holiday clubs and activities come to another £250 per month. This is all year round as I just added all invoices and divided by 12. School meals are free for all as of this September, but only for this year as my child is yr 2. I am not currently using childcare vouchers but apparently my employer will start offering them Jan 2015.

Tesco groceries including cleaning items and some toiletries: ~ £300 per month. Trying to keep this one under £70 weekly but to be honest I'm not tracking it properly and I'm probably exceeding it.

The rest of the expenses.. work meals, dining out, clothes, cosmetics, entertainment, holidays, presents... who knows? That's where I need to reduce the most.

Debt:

• £230 overdraft on Barclays account! - yes I'm in overdraft this month, I tried to pay more on my Santander credit card only to find myself in OD It's true I don't pay interest and fees as long as it's kept under £300 but still..
• £900 on Santander at 0% (7 months left at 0%)
• £6740 on a Tesco credit card at 0% (30 months left at 0%, I got this card last month to group all my debt on one card)

My plan is to track every single expense from now on. By the end of this year I hope to fully pay off Barclays OD and Santander. I will close the Santander card and I intend to stop using CCs altogether (I know it's easy to say...). And hopefully come up with a budget for everything and stick to it.. and start saving a bit.

Any comments and suggestions highly appreciated. Thanks!

asparagus1968

hi, well you've come to the right place:)
here is a link for the SOA


http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php you will need to format it for mse.


spending tracker is great, and read martins "de-motivator"
it looks like you know what to cut back on at least.
so are you going to snowball,pay minimums to Santander and Tesco, pay off OD. then pay minimum to Tesco whilst getting rid of Santander before 0% finishes, then finally pay off Tesco?
good luck,keep posting

financially_exposed

My plan is to fully pay off Barclays OD now on the 25th and budget to stop getting into OD.

For Tesco and Santander I set up minimum payments by direct debit but I've been paying more on the Santander card in Aug and Sep.

That is the plan, to try and pay Santander in full by the end of this year, then start tackling Tesco - pay as much as I can, not only minimum.

Christmas won't be a big affair this year, my mother is coming over for two weeks and everyone we know is going away, so between the three of us it should not be expensive. Last year it was a blow to finances, not only that we traveled to see family but also I spent a ton of money in gifts. The summer was also hard on expenses, I overspent on holiday - money that I didn't have.

longtermplanner

When you are drawing up your budget, include in it an Emergency Fund amount, say £25 a month. Pay this into a savings account on the day you get paid by standing order, don't just hope that money is there at the end of the month.

Can I suggest you try to kick-start your new campaign by determining not to spend any money on clothes for yourself or make-up for the next 6 months? Sort though your wardrobe, you probably have stuff you have hardly worn. Ditto your cosmetics bags.

Also think ahead for what your child is going to need over the next year and ask your mum to get some of it for Xmas.

re budgeting, I am a big fan of YNAB. It is software you have to pay for, but you can try it for free for a month and you can usually get it 'cheap' on the Steam site http://steamcommunity.com/app/227320.

CheesyWiggles

I was advised to give this a go, and I am so glad I did! You get a free trial too. Really helps you 'see' where your money goes and helps you to plan really well for the months ahead. It's a 'eyes forward; budget planner rather than obsessing over historic stuff. http://www.youneedabudget.com/

EDIT: Beaten to it above!

financially_exposed

Thanks, I'll try YNAB but I'm hesitant to pay for anything right now so between the Spending Tracker and Excel I think I should be fine.

I did pay £1.99 one off for the Spending Tracker to be able to back it up on Dropbox, as I've had bad experiences with mobile data before. Dropbox basic is free.

@longtermplanner thanks those are sensible suggestions. I also have to make a list of things I must cut back on. Work meals and dining out are at the top of my list for sure. I also know that I spend too much on gifts and entertainment (music, theatre, film, etc). And holidays.

A long way to go...

CheesyWiggles

financially_exposed wrote: »

Thanks, I'll try YNAB but I'm hesitant to pay for anything right now so between the Spending Tracker and Excel I think I should be fine.

EXACTLY what I said (ok, not word for word).

You get a 34 day free trial so you don't have anything to lose. I'd be very surprised if the savings don't pay for itself.

At the end of the day, for me any, I can see it being the difference between a laborious fad (such as spreadsheets) and something that is maintainable long term. Even my wife loves it.

That being said some people use the YNAB method with paper and spreadsheets etc.

Tommelise

I recommend www.goodbudget.com it has a free option and is based on the envelope system like YNAB

financially_exposed

Thanks, I've been looking at these paid tools tonight and I'm staying with Excel. Really trying not to spend ANY money right now...

I've actually created an Excel spreadsheet to input every single expense from now on, and I've already added all direct debits to it. I'm using the same format that Spending Tracker uses when you export data from the tool to a CSV format. So I will be essentially using the Spending tracker on my smartphone to track all non-direct debit expenses, then simply export and copy periodically to the Excel spreadsheet.

Also checked accounts, my Barclays overdraft is actually £264, the Santander CC balance is £855 and the Tesco CC balance is £6740, so that brings me to a grand total of £7860 debt as of today :mad:

Next short term plans:
- don't buy anything except bread until Friday (bring lunch to work)
- keep the Tesco online basket for this week under £50
- update spreadsheet on Sunday evening

financially_exposed

Oh yes and I forgot. Santander is at 0% promo rate until mid-2015 (which is somewhat irrelevant as I'm [STRIKE]hoping[/STRIKE] determined to pay it off by end of December and cancel the account).

The Tesco card has 32 months left at 0%, not 30, however I'm hoping to pay it off much sooner.

Still working on my monthly budget... hope to have a realistic version in place soon.

Armorica

I suspect it's a long shot as you're somewhere around London, but is there no way to get that mortgage payment down?