Snowscreamer's debt reduction efforts

snowscreamer

Hey MM,

Nice to see you back and thanks for the advice! I agree I think our towel rails are probably pointless in summer and I might see if I can isolate them on our circuit board and turn them off. No idea how or if I can control them, as ideally I'd just have them on twice a day and currently they seem to be on and quite hot 24/7. Was unbearable last year in the summer at night upstairs and they may have been the culprit.

Our central heating system seems to be really efficient - 900l of oil in 12 months for central heating most rooms (excluding bathroom and one end of living room where no radiators) and hot water - that seems pretty good to me. £325ish at today's prices; £495 last year's prices. Ideally we would get rid of all the electric heating as electricity is comparatively so expensive but it's a relatively new bathroom and once you start installing radiators you have to break tiles... maybe we should just bite the bullet. But how to source replacement tiles I have no idea. This house owning malarkey is all fun and games.

snowscreamer

Update: cat crisis - any advice gratefully received!!
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5240533

hummingbird

Just catching up snow and saying hi:hello: Just read the link to your cat dilemma - sorry I've never owned a cat so can't really advise, but sorry you're going through all the anxiety of this at the moment:o Hope you can decide what to do soon - the catrun/catio idea sounds good, even as something to work towards installing.

snowscreamer

Hi everyone

Well for those who checked out my cat thread, after a scare where our remaining cat crossed our fast road she is going to become a house cat. Mewing for outside twice a day (around mealtime) at the moment which is upsetting me but I know a near certain death / disablement awaits her if we let her roam outside again so we've made the right choice. I hope soon she learns to love her indoor life... It's certainly made things easier for me as I was spending a lot of time and energy worrying about her outside before we saw her cross the road.

On the budget front, seems to be going surprisingly well! I feel like we've spent quite a bit but YNAB tells me otherwise. Even though we've got the added cost of my counselling at £45/week (pleased to report going well and given me a lot to think about), we have spent just over £2000 so far this month. We were at £2350 this time last month. We then spent another £750 between then and the end of the month: again hopefully we can beat that this month.

Overspends so far: £234.23. This is less than last month's total of £283.15 overspend so in a way it's like recouping £50 of that so I guess that's progress! Only overspent on three categories:

• Car repairs - OH car had a flat tyre - so far so simple and relatively inexpensive. Man who comes to change the tyre discovers locking wheel nut is corroded. Cue £172.80 visit to garage to have it drilled out and £43 to Audi for a new wheel nut and key. Add to that £85.40 for the tyre change once new wheel nut was in place. Total £301.47 :eek:
  We had £173.89 in the car repairs pot so that's an overspend of £127.58. Already upped how much we allocate to car repairs from £50/month to £60/month in January after a warning light sent OH's car to the garage back then - now I'm upping to £80/month as we will need a healthy pot for when MOTs and services come round for both cars in October. Not to mention something else going wrong with OH's car in the meantime. Counting myself lucky to have a fully-functional 2009 car with only 25k on the clock and only doing 6-8k/year. OH's car is 2004 with 160k on the clock and he does 15k/year. Overspend £127.58
• Clothing - I've lost 10lb over the past few weeks and desperately needed a bra that actually fitted so used £31 of the £56.73 available for clothing for a much-needed trip to Bravissimo. OH only has two pairs of jeans that he wears all the time and one has now got rips in both knees so needed replacing. Jeans were £27.96 after a 20% online discount with Gap I managed to get by signing up to their newsletter. We did however get tempted into buying a couple of polo shirts in the sale to get up to the £50 free delivery threshold. So I'm knocking that off next month's clothing budget - he was becoming due for new polo shirts anyway. Overspend £34.19
• Other pet expenses - due to guilt about putting our darling cat under permanent house arrest we have splurged on some cat toys to see if we can stave off some of the boredom our poor kitty will inevitably suffer. Indoor cat tree, laser pen, moving ball in a bag, mechanical mouse... we'll see how we get on with that lot for now. Overspend £72.46

That's it for now!

Snowscreamer

snowscreamer

OK, so here starts the payday / end of month countdown... every month I have to restrain myself from entering salaries on YNAB before they hit the bank so I can see how much progress we've made. Must wait another 10 days, must wait another 10 days...

snowscreamer

If anyone is interested you may have noticed I've added a little progress report to the first post of this thread. Idea is shamelessly stolen from another diary I was reading. I can't fit this all into my signature but it's very motivating!

Worked out over the last five months our average monthly net income (ie. income - expenditure) is almost £800! Almost £350/month off the debt and £450/month untouched earmarked for future expenditure :A

Looking at past statements as our YNAB history goes back to end of 2013, we first went into the red June 2014, and over the next 5 months, even though we were already in the red we were spending on average £1038.92 more than we were bringing in. Absolute madness. So glad it was short lived and LBM arrived promptly. Not to mention our income has increased since then which is very handy. Can't believe how much this forum and YNAB has turned my life around financially.

snowscreamer

Oh, and no more overspends! Doing amazingly well on groceries this month for no apparent reason except cumulative learning over the past few months how to manage costs.

Budgeted £230, spend £122.18 so far. And that's including an Ocado shop I have arriving tonight so will last the next 1-2 weeks with only the odd pint of milk bought separately. I have found we are getting big shops less often lately, once every 10-14 days rather than once every 7-10 days. I think it's mainly just shopping more wisely - don't feel like we've been missing out or putting any more effort into the shopping.

Since LBM, average grocery spend (supermarket + toiletries + veg boxes) has been £272.38.
Previously, we averaged £292.48 so saving £20/month Soon adds up!! That average will come down again, significantly, at the end of this month assume we don't have a grocery splurge in the next 10 days. Let's hope this month isn't a blip and it continues!!

snowscreamer

Quick update:

Cat crisis: After 10 days of our cat climbing the walls, yowling and horribly bored and frustrated, we have made the difficult decision to rehome her with my parents. The indoor life was not suiting her, or us. Everyone was unhappy! It's very sad to see her go but we will still be able to see her frequently (my parents live 6 miles away and we already see them most weekends). They live on a quiet cul-de-sac with good visibility and even the surrounding roads are quite quiet, 30mph and good visibility. Our road had poor visibility and was 40mph but with cars often whipping round the blind corner at 60mph. They also have a large garden and few other cats around so she should be able to easily establish a safe territory.

Debtbusting: Due to last month's overspend and my counselling (which is going so well that the counsellor thinks we can drop the frequency) we will only manage to pay down about £200 off the debt this month. But it still feels like a low-spending month at this point. I guess it's the categories where we are hoarding money for the future that mean we can't pay more off the debt. The main thing is we will still be reducing the debt and not adding to it.

Scores on the doors so far with 6 days of May left (hopefully no major spends!)
Income: £3863.28
Expenditure: £2344.71 (down from £3116.01 in April)
Overspend: £155.12 (down from £283.15 in April)
Saved for future expenses / debt repayment: £1518.57 (up from £627.27 in April)

Net debt: £925.61 (down from £2444.18 at the end of April)

beanielou

Figures looking good.

snowscreamer

Gah, our mobile phone bill tipped us over so the net debt remains in four figures (currently £1041.68)... it was a little much to hope for. Next month...! If we are able to squirrel away enough and delay a few spends next month then there is a tiny chance once we are paid we might be in or at least very near the black for a few days can you believe! :j:j

Although we are going on holibobs next month with a spending budget of £250ish. And we will probably be booking our November holiday then too before all the air miles seats are taken - can pay for half of it (£600) in air miles so that is very MSE :money:
Anyway definitely feels like light at the end of the tunnel.Still cannot believe YNAB tells me we have earnt £5460.76 more than we have spent over the last 6 months: honestly wouldn't have thought that was possible before.