Mini meltdown and light bulb moment

AleMrsT

Hi Enthusiastic. The DMP is in my name only, the CC's, car finance and the bills account are all in OH's name. He wanted me to help clear the CC balance which is fair enough, but I'm not the one using it, even though the initial amount on it was used to buy a washing machine and stuff for the house, that balance was then transferred to a 0% card with a view to us both paying it off. As the 0% transfer didnt cover the full balance of the existing one, there was still a balance on it to pay, the initial idea was, I'd pay towards 0% card, he'd clear balance of existing card. That didnt happen because he used the existing CC to pay the deposit for the car, and the car insurance and so on, then used it for food shopping, and petrol. So I'm not paying any extra towards paying either of them off, because he keeps spending on it and its getting us nowhere.

The idea of the loan was so that the amount per month is fixed, the CC can be cancelled completely, and he can't keep using it top up usual spends.

AleMrsT

I live within my income, pay my amount to the bills account, if I want a treat, I budget for it and buy it myself. He carries on regardless, buys whatever and moans that we're skint all the time. I can't change the habit of a lifetime so we'll forever have separate finances because he is utterly useless at managing money and living within his means.

enthusiasticsaver

AleMrsT wrote: »

I live within my income, pay my amount to the bills account, if I want a treat, I budget for it and buy it myself. He carries on regardless, buys whatever and moans that we're skint all the time. I can't change the habit of a lifetime so we'll forever have separate finances because he is utterly useless at managing money and living within his means.

How frustrating when one partner refuses to live within budget when the other is scrimping and scraping. I agree separate finances are best in that case.

Re the loan I guess if you cancel the credit card once it is cleared that may work better as he then cannot be tempted to spend on it otherwise he will have a loan and a credit card debt which will make the money situation worse. The headline rate though is often not available to everybody but he could give it a go. What is the rate on the car finance?

AleMrsT

Wow its been a long time since I last posted! I can't remember what my last post was, I think it was deciding whether to take out a loan. That didnt happen. OH signed up for another 0% CC so he now has 2 CC's at 0% and a very very tiny balance on the original one which will be cleared in 2 months, so ALL debt apart from the car is now at 0% until August next year. He has also had a small pay rise, which will go into the bills account.

In other news, the loan part of my DMP is CLEARED!! :j:beer: It is so nice to look at the DMP statement and see one of the debts with a £0 balance. The overdraft is now less thank £500 to pay, H CC is less than £1400 and N CC is just over £1600 to pay. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have had to submit my annual budget review and my payment has decreased by £12 a month, this is because I didnt add the rent increase on at the last review and our insurance premium also went up by £2 per month, so its added 5 months onto by DFD, but for the sake of 5 months, having that little extra in my account each month will cover bus fare so I will be better off (if only slightly).

In all I'm feeling positive, despite a couple of health issues at the moment, one of which is a severe case of RSI which I an recovering from, but work are being fantastic and things are really looking up at the moment.

I am still dreaming of the lottery win or a lucky windfall, but we are doing ok. I've stopped trying to keep up with and compare our life to others, its good to dream but I don't want to spend too much time dreaming that I forget to actually be in the moment enjoying our reality.

Anyway, enough philosophical musings for one evening, I'm off to bed as I'm too tired to wait up for OH getting in from work.

Will pop in again soon.

Mrs T x

AleMrsT

Hello!!

I'm back. 6 months later, I've remember I have this DFW diary, have dusted off the log in details and have signed back in.

In all honesty, I don't think anything significant has happened since my last post :rotfl:

I have updated my signature with some new savings goals for 2019, christmas savings and the elusive emergency fund. Will we ever save for an emergency?!?!


DMP is currently at £3064.49 owed

N CC £1480.50
H CC (now Lowell) £1222.82
Overdraft £361.17

I have finally paid off more than I owe!! :T

Brief update of the past 6 months:
* I'm still trying to lose the same 2 stone since the start of my diary in 2014. I have lost 7lb so far, HOWEVER, the progress photos show a marked change, so pretty much ignoring the scales as a measure of my success.

* The fridge freezer had to be replaced in November. We defrosted the old one, plugged it back in in the garage IT STILL WORKS! We now have two fridge freezers :rotfl:

* OH used his substantial work bonus to buy us a new mattress which we desperately needed, we have both been sleeping better and have not had any back or neck pain.

* OH also bought a second PS4 with said work bonus.... history just repeats itself!

* We have had confirmation that our rent is not increasing this year.


Today has been payday so I thought today was as good a day as any to start doing a budget again:

BALANCE OF ACCOUNT: £25.04
WAGES IN: £1044.04
SAVINGS ACCOUNT: £150.06

TOTAL: £1219.14

Outgoings:

£800 to bills account
£86 to Stepchange
£25 pension payment
£19 bus ticket
£118 hair (the money in savings is set aside for this)

Balance = £171.08 for the month:eek:

Spends: £2.92 in home bargains on toiletries and lunch yesterday

Budget for the rest of the month

£5 additional gift for niece 1's birthday
£12 for parking at NEC for crufts
£25 for drinks and raffle tickets at charity event in 2 weeks
£15 drink with friend tomorrow night
£20 xmas savings
£20 emergency fund

Leaves £71.22 for the rest of the month, with nothing to pay for or buy.


I've spent the last 3 days reading back through my diary from start to finish, and I did start to develop some excellent habits, some of them I still do now and didn't realise I haven't always done (meal planning! I do this every single week now, it makes life so much easier), and some things I used to do that I need to do again; putting a monthly budget down on paper (or here) instead of a rough one in my head, and getting back into the habit of doing surveys!

I still have opinion outpost and prolific, but really fell out with qmee as I got blocked out of so many. Will get back into them then come back and post next week!

Thats all for today as its quite late.

Mrs T

AleMrsT

Morning.

Today will not be a NSD. I have paid £1 for a phone app this morning, and have to nip and get something extra to go with niece's birthday present (budgeted £5 for this), I also need to buy some party supplies for the event in 2 weeks but I'll claim this back so I won't be out of pocket, then I'm meeting my friend at 4 for a drink in town, I've budgeted £15 for this which is probably too generous but better to overestimate and have change.

Then this evening we've got friends round so we'll check the bills account and see if we can afford to split a takeaway, if not I'll make us something from what we've got in the freezer.

We've really tried to cut down our meat consumption so we have a lot of quorn pieces in the freezer, its so easy to cook with so I can use that if we don't have funds for a takeaway.

Tomorrow is nieces birthday party but shouldn't need to spend anything.

I think thats all for now, will check in again next week

AleMrsT

So yesterday's spends were under budget
Additional present for niece £1.50, birthday card £1.50 the additional present was a book from tesco, originally priced at £6 but it scanned through at£1.50 so happy with that.

I then spent £5.30 on two hot chocolates for me and my friend, and she game me the £20 she owed me for a ticket.

OH then spent £33 on wholesale sweets and £24 on takeaway pizza and cider for last night.

Sweets were an unnecessary spend but buying in bulk means that when we go to the cinema or on car journeys we can take a pick n mix from home instead of paying petrol station/cinema prices so the three 3kg bags he got should last us for at least this year! I dread to think what the retail price would be on those sweets.

Today is nieces birthday party then a chilled afternoon at home.

Hope you're all having a good weekend.

GlendaSugarbean

You must have serious willpower - if I had 3 kg of sweets in the house, they wouldn't last a year!

I've really enjoyed your diary - subscribing

AleMrsT

So health wise things are plodding along relatively easily. In November last year I had a hearing aid fitted because the surgery that I had to fit a titanium implant failed. I honestly don't know why I didnt just opt for the hearing aid sooner, I wouldnt be being dramatic to say that its actually been life-changing.

Still very much happy at work, got lots of things planned in for this year and life is good!

misstara

Great to see you back posting