Snowscreamer's debt reduction efforts

snowscreamer

Hi,

Hoping starting a thread here will discourage me from spending and encourage me to start working my way back into the black!

Here's my story: bought a house this year with a few unexpected surprises, went on an expensive holiday soon after (very poor timing!) and somehow landed with a maxed out credit card or two...

Never been in debt or really needed to budget before, just sort of ambled along roughly spending what was coming in each month. I am quite capable of living within my means but have just run amok this year after the combination of circumstances.

Even after our holiday the car insurance was due for both cars followed by an unexpected MOT failure so the spending rumbled on. And when we finally thought things were looking up we adopted two kittens without realising quite how much upfront expenditure would be required... (But they are seriously cute, I digress!

Luckily I have noticed this month that naturally we do seem to be turning a corner where our spending is getting back to a level more akin to our income - now I woud love to start clearing the debt and get back onto an even keel as quickly as I can!

As it stands:
Unsecured debt: £7,347.58
Mortgage: £196,962.30

I would love to be able to clear all the unsecured debt by summer next year if possible but remains to be seen how feasible that is! Wish me luck...

Snowscreamer

Progress report

Month / Net debt / debts / money set aside so far / debt reduction so far

2014
November / -6404.47 / -7123.58 / 0 / 0
December / -5951.04 / -6671.56 / 453.43 / 452.02 (net income £453.43!)

2015
January / -5410.91 / -6514.78 / 993.56 / 608.80 (net income £540.13!)
February / -4495.01 / -6843.05 / 1909.46 / 280.53 (net income £915.90!)
March / -3071.45 / -7122.54 / 3333.02 / 1.04 (net income £1423.56!)
April / -2457.18 / -5380.70 / 3947.29 / 1742.88 (net income £614.27!)
May / -885.78 / -4858.08 / 5514.89 / 2265.50 (net income £1567.60!)
June / +28.46 / -4079.36 / 6432.93 / 3044.22 (net income £918.04!)
July / -127.56 / -3932.21 / 6334.83 / 3191.37 (net income -£98.10 )
August / +1057.53 / -3378.00 / 7485.93 / 3745.58 (net income £1151.10!)
September / +2068.88 / -2697.48 / 8482.06 / 4426.10 (net income £996.13!)

On average, since LBM we are putting aside £848.21 each month of which £442.61 is going towards debt reduction :A

PinkPoppies

Best of luck Snowscreamer!

greensalad

Good luck! And I wanna see kitten pictures!

It sounds like you're making good progress

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary
Keep posting!

snowscreamer

Since the house purchase [where overspend is what we spent over and above our income for each month]:

April 2014
Balance: +£7528.00

May 2014
Balance: +£2608.73 (down)
Overspend: £4919.27
Main culprits:
£3600 on a new boiler + plumbing
£354 extra on the first mortgage payment to account for interest since completion

June 2014
Balance: -£1208.87 (down)
Overspend: £3817.60 (up)
Main culprits:
£1385 on a new hot water tank
£300 deposit for skiing holiday Jan 2015
£200 UK weekend away that we couldn't afford!!
£500 on hotels for our upcoming summer holiday
£150 more than we normally spend on eating out

July 2014
Balance: -£2529.93 (down)
Overspend: £1321.06 (down)
Main culprits:
£200 excess for using my medical insurance
£380 spent on holiday - hotels, meals, spending money etc

August 2014
Balance: -£4053.74 (down)
Overspend: £1523.81 (up)
Main culprits:
£615 spent on holiday - outrageous car hire unexpected extra charge (disputed but no luck) of £206 + hotels, day out at theme park, meals
£125 on new gym clothes + trainers for OH (joined a gym)
£90 on home stuff I couldn't resist... (coat hook rack + other bits and bobs)
£300 on car insurance for my car
£188 on breakdown cover for OH's car

September 2014
Balance: -£5237.90 (down)
Overspend: £1184.16 (down)
Main culprits:
£100 non-refundable deposit for OH to stand for political position
£300 on cats (adoption fee £140, £60 vet fee for jabs, £100 on buying all the gear)
£470 on service, MOT and repairs for my car

October 2014
Balance: £-6222.31 (down)
Overspend: £984.41 (down)
Note: our income went up from this month by around £1300/month some of which we had been anticipating but some of which was a lovely surprise!
Main culprits:
£1166 final balance on Jan 2015 ski holiday
£265 on cats (cat flap £75, vets £40, cat flap fitting deposit [glass patio door ] £150)

November 2014
Balance: -£6422.28 (down)
Overspend: £199.97 (down - feels like finally turning a corner)
Main culprits:
£300 drop in income due to taking a week off for DIY and OH doesn't get holiday pay at the moment
£260 on cats (£150 final payment on cat flap fitting, £110 on year's supply of worm and flea treatment)
£250 on Christmas presents and Christmas decorations
£100 overbudget on eating out
£75 on drinks out (never usually go out in the evening for drinks much at all but went out twice this month)
£100 on household goods (LED lightbulbs and new shower head)
£80 on DIY (tins of paint etc)

December 2014
Balance: -£7347.58 (before any income)
Hoping for a surplus this month rather than an overspend

monz

subscribed x

Paintyourbox

Best of luck! Subscribed.

snowscreamer

I have set of budget of £3585.09 for December, our income is around £3600 so if we stick to it then there will only be a small surplus but December is probably the most expensive month of the year!! We already spent £250 on Christmas last month (£100 on decorations and £150 on gifts) so I've allowed another £250 this month which will make £500 in total. So this amount should be saved in other months. I've also upped our 'entertaining' budget to £50 as we are having two Xmas parties at our place at the end of the month. I'm baking all the mince pies myself and have asked people to bring bottles of red which I will turn into mulled wine so hopefully that should keep the costs reasonable.

Here's the budget (and this month I will actually keep track for once):

Leisure: £200 (gym membership £110, music lessons £50, other incl days out £40)

Holidays: £425 (this will not be spent this month but accumulated to be spent when we do go on holidays - we like our holidays!! We are going skiing at the beginning of January for a week and expect to spend around £900 out there [based on last year] so this can be covered by Dec and Jan budgets. Already paid for the flights and accommodation)

Spending money: £50 (this is an average of what we take out in cash and don't account for each month, hoping to stick to this in December)

Subscriptions: £25 (this is roughly what it works out per month for our Telegraph, Surrey Advertiser, Which? and National Trust subscriptions)

Travel: £247 (car parking £7 - average of previous months, fuel £220 - average of previous months, trains £20 - we only use the train to go into London for leisure and are trying to cut this down to one trip every 2 months)

Occasions: £320 (Xmas £250, entertaining £50, birthdays £20)

Meals & drinks: £275 (takeaways £50, work lunch £100, eating out £100, drinks out £25)

Groceries: £380 (vegetable deliveries £90, supermarket £200, cat food £40, wine club £50)

Car expenses: £110 (breakdown cover £10, car insurance £50 [saving up for next August!], car repairs £50 [saving up...])

Taxes (:mad:): £264.12 (car tax £20 [although this is due for OH car this month, whoops], TV licence £12.12, council tax £232)

Utilities: £312 (drainage £50 [it's around £100 every two months to have our cesspit emptied], Sky £50, Water £12, Mobile phone £85, Electricity £50, Heating oil £50 [although our boiler seems to be very efficient and we have over 750 litres in our tank so no fill needed this month - let's see how cold it gets!], fuel for open fire £15)

House expenses: £777.23 (mortgage £647.23, household goods £20 [must restrain myself], home maintenance £100 [saving for unexpected surprises], DIY £10 - we have done a large chunk of the decorating we had planned when we moved in so this expense should be decreasing)

"Stuff": £80 (medical £10 [saving in case we need to use medical insurance again and pay another excess, or buy medication hope not], clothing £20 [this is a luxury at the moment, in reality we have plenty of clothes in good condition so new clothing is frivilous - but oh so nice!], iTunes £10 - we do like our apps and renting films at the weekend, beauty £40 - haircuts and beauty treatments, this figure is an average of previous months

Insurance: £89.74 (life and critical illness insurance - £57.24, travel insurance £10, home insurance £22.50 [saving for next year March])

Savings: £30 (I put £30/month into Zopa to try to generate a return...)

snowscreamer

Category: £budgeted £spent £remaining



Leisure £200 £110 £90

Holidays £425 £0 £425

Spending money £50 £0 £50

Subscriptions £25 £10.75 £14.25

Travel £247 £0 £247

Occasions £320 £41.94 £278.06

Meals & Drinks £275 £130.18 £144.82

Groceries £380 £88.11 £291.89

Car expenses £110 £0 £110

Taxes £264.12 £232 £32.12

Utilities £312 £17.89 £294.11

House expenses £777.23 £647.23 £130

"Stuff" £80 £36 £44

Insurances £89.74 £10.70 £79.04

Savings £30 £0 £30

Other £0 £5 -£5
I gave an unbudgeted £5 to charity... must be the Xmas spirit?!

TOTAL £3585.09 £1329.80 £2255.29

snowscreamer

Thank you for all the good luck everyone! I have recorded spending for December up until this weekend as above and will probably update a couple of times a week as I'm trying really hard to keep on track. Although OH only updates his spends once a week or so when I remind him... At least half of our spending is through the joint account so I keep that all up-to-date with the budget and I'd say his only accounts for probably 15%!! The other 35% being me...

snowscreamer

Today's non-scheduled spending (by me):

£5.50 for lunch at work (I know this can come down but I am addicted to Thai Express... If the work lunch budget starts to get low I'll economise)

£2.83 shop for milk and juice

£9.99 SodaStream gas cylinder refill (We have had the SodaStream for 4 years and have have already got back its purchase cost through savings in bottled fizzy mineral water so I don't feel guilty about this one! £10 makes 60 litres of fizzy water compared to £1.75 for 6 500ml bottles of supermarket own brand fizzy water)