Silly student debt diary

greensalad

I'm going to try to get back into regularly writing up where I am based on the month, the year, and the week. This month's spending according to YNAB though only started 5th Aug so lots missing).

General info

I am worth -£1646.96
I have £1800 on overdraft
I have £1361.19 on credit card

August

August was a month with lots of income due to freelance work. Most of which went to paying off over £500 worth of debt. I removed my overdraft on my current account and paid off a decent chunk on my credit card.

I also stashed away £344.98 in savings accounts for various categories (Christmas, holidays etc)

Of my spending, my highest category was Personal Food & Drink (that's food outside of my grocery budget with BF) which came to a staggering £104.04, mainly due to a takeaway I bought for two of us, and lots of coffees. My plan is to reduce my coffees out and instead treat myself to a nice bagel or cake from Sainsburys and take it home to enjoy with our nice Nespresso machine! I am going to purchase some syrups on Amazon when I get Quidco vouchers so I can recreate tasty coffees at home.

I also spent a lot this month on make-up and beauty. I got my nails done, bought hair dye and replenished my make-up (£106.65). This shouldn't be as high next month as I'm all stocked up. I am testing a new at-home hairdresser who is half the price of my normal cut, and would work out at £11 a month instead of £22 so that will really help. I am also going to use beauty as my new treat, by getting cheap massages at the Chinese herbal shop twice a month. It is £5 a massage, and is a much cheaper way to indulge myself when I need a break at the weekend than what I currently end up buying.

Other than that, I've been fairly within budget on hobbies, events, days out, travel and things for the house totalling £75.92 across all five of those, not a grand spend.

This week

Looking forward this week, I will aim to make it as cheap as possible in order to save my budget for Saturday night with BF's Dad and partner. So no coffee out, just Asda lunches and two fast days (Wednesday and Friday).

In the future

My computer is dying, and I'm really struggling to keep up with client design and build work because of it. I'm going to have to get a new computer. I'm probably going to put a computer on finance but I want to wait until after Christmas as I believe they sometimes do deals. I am going to save as much as I can to put a good deposit down on a suitable machine. BF is going to try and breath some life into my old desktop with some more RAM and a defrag in the meantime.

Plans for next month / when money comes in:

£46.50 from healthcare
£30 sewing, £16.50 credit card

£40 OnePoll straight to credit card

£1470
£802.13 utilities, £175 joint, £66 car, £180 holiday, £40 work lunches, £40 personal food, £30 restaurants, £10 beauty, £40 home things, £30 sewing savings, £42.25 credit card, £14.62 misc

£500
£120 tax, £30 christmas, £150 credit card, £50 laptop fund, £80 phone, £30 holiday, £10 health, £10 birthday, £50 misc, £30 sewing, £30 days out, £30 beauty

£306 from client straight to credit card

£411 from client straight to credit card

£210 from client straight to credit card

Bobarella

Great update Green Salad! I'm geeky about numbers and love how much detail you go into!

One thing we tend to do is get coffee from costalot but buy take away treats from Mr S. This shaves several £s of a visit. And the two are in the same retail park in the area were in. So as you suggest, a good idea

greensalad

Bobarella wrote: »

One thing we tend to do is get coffee from costalot but buy take away treats from Mr S. This shaves several £s of a visit. And the two are in the same retail park in the area were in. So as you suggest, a good idea

We have a nespresso which is nicer coffee than some of the big chains I think, so I think I will aim to make coffee at home, but treat myself to a bottle of the proper Monin syrup (£10 for a litre) so I can recreate tasty coffees at home but for 30p + milk instead of £3.50!

greensalad

Ugh this whole laptop thing has been whirling round my head all day.

First of all, I planned to buy it on finance. I know that's silly after just working on getting out of debt, but I know I can be trusted with that sort of deb. I set up the payment as a direct debit, and I record on my spreadsheet that it's coming out. I always pay my bills, so I'm not concerned about 'forgetting' it... I did fine with my bicycle.

But I've realised that I'd be unlikely to even get the finance on account of my poor credit. But my credit WILL improve if I pay off my debt.

I do have savings, I make savings every month. However these are small savings intended to be spent within the next few months, therefore there is no point in paying them off my debt total. For example, things like Christmas are going to happen anyway so I have to save.

However, the laptop is not a definite. So why am I saving for it? I need to put all of the laptop savings towards debt, pay off as much as possible, and THEN I'll be more likely to get the finance deal.

So I'm going to stop saving for a laptop and a phone and plough all of those savings into debt repayment. If it comes to it, and I pay off all my credit card, then I'll be more likely to be able to get finance or a contract to buy a product at a good rate. Also I'll have more spare cash in the bank every month because it won't be going to debt, it'll be available to spend on something like a finance plan.

So there we have it. I have moved all my phone and laptop savings so far (not much) to my credit card and I'll continue to do so. It should still mean I can pay off my credit card by the end of the year, which is my target.

greensalad

Wahoo! Just paid another £150 or so off my credit card. I'm now over 60% of my target!!

:rotfl:

Client has got back to me saying they want to launch the site I'm building by next week, which means they have to pay me. This could get my CC bill below the thousands! But I never hold my breath on these things, this particular client wanted their site complete in June! Ha!

Bobarella

Horray that's great Gs

AleMrsT

Hi Green Salad. Just wondered how you're getting on, you've not posted in a while, hope things are going ok. MrsT.

greensalad

Oh wow, where do I begin with where I've been!

So, I guess I'll start with this: I quit my job.

I was feeling really peeved that I had talked to my boss about a promotion and he'd basically said "yep! but no extra pay". I haven't had a pay-rise since I started working after graduation April 2014 and I just thought... this is not on.

So I spoke to a friend of mine who is a contractor and he is making really excellent money. He asked me why I wasn't doing it too, it was a no-brainer! I said I was afraid I wouldn't be taken seriously and wouldn't be able to command the wage that I would be asking form. Typical womanly underselling myself.

But then I thought about it. So I put my CV out at the weekend and... on Monday... got 75 different calls. It was pretty amazing. People were really in demand of my skillset.

To cut a long story short, I quit. I spent a week curled up in my bed watching bad TV and crying about what I had done, because I had no work to go to. It wasn't a case of quitting with a new job to go to, I was literally 'unemployed'. My friends made fun of me suggesting I go on the dole. I drank a bottle of wine one Tuesday and thought "who cares! I'm unemployed!"

Then I got a call forward for a 3 week contract at a really big company. They wanted me to start tomorrow. No interview, just turn up. Great!

I've nearly come to the end of my 3 weeks and I've already got another contract starting immediately, as soon as I'm done here, running until January, with a week and a half off at Christmas. And the crazy thing is I'm making so much money. Four times my previous salary. It's insane.

My plan is to ride this train out until around March time, where I'll take a few weeks off to pack the house up, find us somewhere new to live in sunny Gloucestershire (which seems scarily so far away from London now!) and find a new job there. My pay will go down significantly, so I need to make the most of it while I can. But I'll be debt free and have time to find a job without worry. And we'll finally be able to start saving for a house. I hadn't planned to be debt-free before we moved, and I hadn't planned to have some great company names on my CV either.

So, that does mean one thing and that's that my debt has jumped UP. Not good. But I had to buy a laptop as part of the job (they require me to bring my own equipment) and my bills needed to come out before I actually had been paid, so I ended up having to put some stuff on my credit card. I've just been paid my first invoiced for 7 days, and have managed to clear a tonne. This is only the first paycheque, I reckon I should have nearly all my debt cleared by February and that's with enjoying a nice Christmas and a birthday break too.

So there we have it!

greensalad

So I have been really quiet but I'm giving myself a bit of grace period pre-Christmas.

Not getting a regular pay packet makes things really complex to handle! What with starting a new contract next week I'm not entirely sure how my payments will sort out. I get paid weekly but PAYE so tax already deducted which is good for managing things.

I'm going to look into starting afresh in January. Get back on YNAB, work out my monthly budget based on what and when I get paid etc. I'll be getting about £800 per week. My monthly outgoings (bills, rent, travel and groceries) are £1430 so really I should have plenty enough leftover to pay off debt as quickly as I can!

Bobarella

HI green salad
I wondered where you'd been. Sounds like you've been through a bit of a time of it. How amazing to feel so in demand. Wishing you All the best with the move.

Bob