Painting a better picture for the financial future.

Paintyourbox

I've been a long time lurker on these boards and I've finally decided to take the bold step of starting a debt free diary.

Here's a little about me to get started. I'm a mum of one (2.5 year old) and live with my husband. We both earn decent wages however we've been stuck in the habit of "if it's spare then lets just spend it."

I was off work through illness for nearly 4 months earlier this year. I've gone back now but had to reduce my hours permanently to recover from my health problems which are likely to be long term.

While I was off work, I was receiving SSP. Our savings were used up to meet our day-to-day living costs. A series of expensive bills (involving cars) occurred. In short: we've run up some debt.

The stress is keeping me awake at night, we aren't in a bankruptcy type situation but when we pay all of the bills (inc. food), there's not much left. I've haven't been in this position since my student days so it's scary to be here once again and with a small child.

I feel ashamed that actually we earn a good wage as a household but we've been irresponsible with our spending and wasted money on "stuff" like clothes (when our wardrobes are full), takeaways (because we are too tired to cook some nights) and treats like coffee and cakes out.

The current situation along with my health problems has really made me see that life is too short to spend it mindlessly accumulating material things and wasting money on rubbish. It's shocked me that the buffer of savings we previously had (not much, about £1500) was eaten away so quickly and the fear from waking up at 3am thinking "What am I going to do?" will never leave me.

The situation is this:

Debt 1 (Interest free Barclaycard): £2328.00
Debt 2 (Overdraught on current account): £360.00
Debt 3 (Bank loan taken to pay car bills): £948.00
Debt 4 (Sofa on interest free credit): £850.00
Debt 5 (Wedding expenses): £700.00

Total £5186

How am I going to tackle this? Well I've already done a "money makeover" and I've managed to shave about £150 a month off our expenses by switching energy supplier, cancelling direct debits (bye bye diet plan that I stuck to for about 3 weeks) and claiming childcare vouchers. We're now shopping in A*di and I've reduced the weekly food spend to about £50 (inc. nappies and cleaning products.)

So far so good BUT here are my demons: feeling too tired to make lunch to take for work (wasting £3 a day on a crap sandwich and packet of crisps), buying a magazine because I've had a hard day and I deserve it, and (worst of all) going to the shop and buying lots of junk food which I then binge on and takeaways (at least once per week). The resulting feeling of being both fat and poor horrifies me and then the cycle starts again.

I am determined to change my spending habits forever and once this debt is gone, I'll be putting as much as I can into my savings and making extra mortgage payments.

Hope that you'll join me on the journey and share any tips you can think of to help me reach my goals!

Paint x

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary
Keep posting.

Paintyourbox

Thanks Beanie!

Today has been good so far, had a walk into town and back (4 miles) as I had an optician appointment. Sight test was free and no changes so I can stick to the glasses and lenses I have now. It's incredibly cold today though so I do look a bit like Michelin woman as I have many layers on to keep me warm.

I spent last night meal planning and went to Al*i armed with my £50 weekly shopping budget. This weeks shop came to £41.60. The question is what do I do with the balance? Do I just put it back for next week or do I make an extra payment to one of the debts? Any advice greatly appreciated.

Tonights' dinner is a beef casserole which is bubbling away in the slow cooker as I type, the house smells yummy already and its got another few hours to cook!

Should be able to squeeze an NSD out of today. Bad news is that the iron keeps cutting out and I constantly have to switch it on and off. I don't really want to buy another one yet as I've got a gift voucher coming from doing online surveys so need to just persist with the dodgy iron until that arrives.

Now all I need is for little person to sleep through tonight (currently she seems to think that sleep is for wimps and that I very much enjoy being woken up 3 times a night!)

Paint x

monz

Hey paint your box, just keep it the now, you never know what you will need to buy or forgotten x

Paintyourbox

Yesterday was an LSD- bought some lucozade from the supermarkey for husband as he is in the grips of terrible man flu and is currently taking up the entire sofa and watching back to back episodes of Game of Thrones (I was actually glad to go to work this morning!)

And, drum roll please, today was an NSD. Yay!

My friend has invited me to hers for dinner tomorrow night so that means I've got a "spare" meal on the meal plan. It was going to be pasta bake tomorrow so the ingredients can be saved for next week. One less meal to buy for.

Aiming for an NSD tomorrow and I am working overtime on Saturday so should have another NSD then. Sunday will be a little spendy as I need to get a few final xmas bits after an order I placed weeks ago was cancelled (grrr, thought I had all the shopping done.)

I have a grand list of plans for Sunday, write the Christmas cards, put the tree up, wrap the rest of the presents, clean the house. We'll see how much gets done!

Paintyourbox

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

I am proud to say I've had 3 NSDs in a row.

Work was awful on Friday, I had a meeting with my manager who hasn't really been very supportive since I was poorly earlier this year. She's still unsupportive and I told her today that I feel really unconfident since I became ill and her reply was: "Yes, well you have made some mistakes since you came back." Confidence now destroyed! I really wanted to treat myself to a takeaway coffee afterwards but my lovely work colleague bought one for me as a treat.

On Saturday, instead of going out and buying a real tree, we pulled the old artificial tree out of the loft. It's in perfect condition and is now fully decorated, taking pride of place in the living room.

We've stuck rigidly to the meal plan, tonight was roast chicken with all the trimmings and there's enough left over to use it for tomorrows dinner too. After that, I shall use the bones to make stock for Scotch Broth (my mum gave me the recipe which has been passed down through her family, it's one of my favorite winter foods!

I didn't brave the shops today, I have some time off during the week this week so I will go then. As a family we've really reigned in the spending this year, I've spent £25 each on my mum, dad and sister and £40 on husband. I was organised and had put some cash away a few months beforehand which has helped lessen the shock.

The list of things to do today was way too ambitious, I did clean the house and am going to make a start on the Christmas cards tonight but they won't be finished this evening. I did do some exercise though so it's not all bad. Determined that this time next year I'll have reduced the debt and be fit and healthy too!

Going to spend the evening reading Mr Money Moustaches blog which I recently discovered and am now in love with!