A new debt free journey

lcc86

Monday wasn't a NSD in the end, I forgot I had yoga to pay for. £4.50 for an hours class which is cheaper than I've ever paid in the past so I'm happy with that. I really enjoyed the class too, more importantly! :rotfl:

Yesterday I spent £1 on a slice of cake. Very naughty and stopped me having another NSD but hey, it's £1 which I don't spend every day.

Tomorrow I have another gym session using a free pass. I'm seeing results already with my new exercise regime and healthy eating, so I'm motivated to carry on!

I've been looking at future budgets since my little mini-LMB that things were getting a bit lax. Now that I've got my new job I do actually have a lot of disposable income, and I need to be smarter and make the most of it. My electricity tariff and internet tariff both run out soon so I can cut some costs there hopefully. But in reality, I have about £650 left after everything is accounted for. That's a lot of money left to pay for horse riding, holidays, birthdays, Christmas, days out, just..... Everything!! No excuses!!

hedgesparrow

Hi lcc, I've read, I've subscribed!

I'm suffering from exactly the same end of month blues. I made payments on my debts at the beginning of the month and then the last week I'm just desperately waiting for payday so I can pay off some more.

I think the reality is if you are an active person you want to actively be solving the problem, but a lot of the solution with money saving is passive - i.e. not spending! I've joined a bunch of challenges on here to do with not spending on certain items so I'm hoping that makes me feel less frustrated.

I look forward to reading your next installment!

lcc86

Thanks hedgesparrow, you're absolutely right, a big part of debt busting is also being passive as you say!

lcc86

Argh I've just found one of my guinea pigs is ill again, so I need to get back to the vet tomorrow. I'm annoyed because I think they misdiagnosed her in the first place as I had my suspicions as to what it was and they went down a different route, so I feel like I've been ignored, she's been left to suffer and I've paid for a wasted appointment and medication.

I might find a different vet following tomorrow, this isn't the first time this vet has 'upset' me. Perhaps I should've been a bit more savvy beforehand but it's too late now.

I had thought I had the money situation under control, and I have £155 in a vet fund, but am now concerned that it'll all disappear. I should be okay but I have a tendency to panic and think the worst. Hopefully all will be okay.

crazy_cat_lady

Aw no - hope she's better soon. And definitely get another vet - that's someone you need to be happy with. I go to a cat only vet with my furballs and I absolutely love it. Makes a world of difference knowing that you're important to them (or at least you're made to feel like you are).

lcc86

crazy_cat_lady wrote: »

Aw no - hope she's better soon. And definitely get another vet - that's someone you need to be happy with. I go to a cat only vet with my furballs and I absolutely love it. Makes a world of difference knowing that you're important to them (or at least you're made to feel like you are).

I completely agree. I had a brilliant vet when I still lived at home (long time ago now) and used them for a few years after I first moved out, but I just live too far away from them now so wouldn't be able to get there during opening hours! I may have found one I like the look of, so I'll check it out.

I'll amend February's budget to put some more money back in the vet fund, I need to have money put aside for things like this. I don't think I'll have any more pets for a while after these ones if I'm honest, but while they're here I need to make sure I'm not scrambling around desperately for money should they need trips to the vet. I've actually just logged into my online banking account and have seen that my old employer has paid me today £176. Today is their regular payday, however I didn't think they still owed me anything. I'll wait and see if they send me a payslip, I'm loathe to query it because of all the hassle they've caused me to date! Anyway, for now, that money is being transferred into my 'vet fees' account. That takes a bit of the pressure off!

lcc86

The vet has cost me £33 today with a further appt on Saturday. However, I've come home to more issues. Got my six monthly service charge bill through and somehow the water bill for my entire block has gone up by 900% from £330 to £3,300 (ish). Clearly there's an error here but it just irritates me that my freeholder just issues the bill to me (and others) without questioning it. Grrrrrr. Have just emailed him to tell him clearly there's an error, I won't be paying my portion of it until he sorts it out!

lcc86

So, I have a water-related update! :rotfl:it's not good... apparently the last three bills have all been estimated, and this bill was based on ACTUAL usage as they did a reading of the meter... Which has come as another shock as I had NO IDEA we were on a meter. This sounds really stupid of me, but when we had a previous freeholder, she would just take £25 a month and said it was for the rates, not a meter. The new freeholder does things differently and bills twice a year, and has sent a much better breakdown than the previous freeholder. I was a little naïve as this was my first property so I assumed (I know, never assume!) that what the first freeholder was doing was 'right'. Now I know otherwise!!!

So, essentially, we're on one meter for eight flats, and I'm paying for part of everyone's water usage as well as my own. The water company have offered to come and do a leak test anyway just to make sure. Anyway, I've emailed the freeholder to ask if he has any objections to me getting a single meter. I would never have let it go on this long if I'd been more clued up. We'll wait and see what he says.

Either way, this leaves me in a tricky position. I have £560 in my 'service charge' account, and I owe £800. I might ask OH to borrow some money and pay him back, which isn't the end of the world. Ah well, at least it's Friday!

lcc86

Finally home at the end of a long week. I'm officially worrying about money again now. I have £1,023 to pay my freeholder, and only have £560. OH has been fine and said he'll give me the money but I don't want this situation to occur again in 6 months' time. I'm hoping that now the water bill has caught up with itself, so to speak, it should even it out.

I spoke to my freeholder. He said they asked about individual meters when he bought the freehold and was told that it would cost about £1,000 per flat because the water company would have to dig up the ground outside... They didn't tell me that so I might ask them to do a survey just so I know for sure.

Now I'm going to be spending the next two months paying OH back. We're not at the stage where we're sharing all of the finances yet - I bought this flat alone and as such, felt it would be unfair when he moved in for him to pay towards MY service charge. So this is a burden I'm going to have to take on myself. Plus I earn more than OH apart from when he does his own work of a weekend. We've always agreed that it'll be 50/50 when we go in on a place together.

It's got me thinking though, I'm going to need to focus on my savings for a while because, while I do put money aside for my service charge, this has shown that I don't have enough contingency. I'd planned to throw every spare penny at my debts this year to try and be debt free by June next year, but I might need to just spend this year plodding along slowly but surely while adding to my savings instead. I can't have this worry every six months when the bill comes in!! It might be that I service my minimum card payment for a couple of months and use my money to help build up an emergency fund.... That would make sense. I know it's far from ideal but we have to make adjustments when needed.

I got a payslip through from my old employer, the money they've given me is an income tax overpayment. I'm a little confused but will check it out with HMRC at the end of the financial year. I just don't have the energy to worry about it right now!!

Anyway, onto this weekend... I just did a cheap topup shop in Iceland. There's some cheap meat in there which I've bought for OH. I might try buying meat in there for a while, see if it makes any difference to the overall budget.

Tomorrow I have to take my little pig to the vet for her tests. I'm not taking the money I've recently had out of my vet fund to pay my service charge bill as it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul. I might as well leave it where it is and sort out my finances another way. I'm going to go horse riding, I should probably cancel and save the money but I just need to relax and take my mind off things for an hour or so... Then I'm looking after someone's dog for a few hours. Again, that should help take my mind off things. Sunday is much calmer, just a trip to my potential volunteer place.

Right, off to rethink February's budget and see what I can come up with!

lcc86

Okay, so I sat down last night and went through February's budget and changed some things around. I'll pay OH back half of what I owe him this month and half in March. I'm also going to put £150 into my emergency fund, £25 into my regular saver. I've still got £200 to put towards my car service and £100 towards my course fees. My credit card is the area taking the biggest hit as I'll be paying £70 instead of £275.

It's really disheartening to see my savings completely obliterated in one fell swoop I have to say. It's the long term repercussions that are a kick in the teeth as well, knowing it delays my debt free date. But at least it's made me evaluate my situation. All too often I've had to rely on credit for emergencies. Even this time,I've had to borrow from OH for part of it. So with that in mind, I've decided to cut down my debt repayments for a few months (perhaps not as low as £70 like I've had to for Feb) and aim to have a £1,000 emergency fund by June this year. I've updated my signature to reflect my new goal

Being in debt seriously sucks. I already know this but this just brings it back to the forefront of my mind. I just thought if I didn't have debt none of this would be an issue. It's such a long road ahead still and it's daunting/depressing sometimes. But I can't use this as an excuse to bury my head in the sand, just have to keep plodding on. It'll happen one day, it doesn't matter when, I know it'll happen!