LullaBelle's long road to being debt free!

LullaBelle

Good morning,


Half way through the week already!


2 more weeks until payday and so far so good this month. We still have a good bit left in the account. I'm hoping not to go to zero at the end of the month and hopefully have a bit left over. Any left over I will split between Christmas fund and the loan. I have only overpaid this by £20 so far this month. if I even just pay another £30 off it that will be a big help.


I joined a walking club last night (totally free of course). Way better than the gym. I'm on a real weight loss mission. This will help me save so much money too!

LullaBelle

Lonire wrote: »

Hi there, happy bank holiday weekend! Just came across your diary. Keep up the great work!

I will be doing some meal prepping today

Thanks Lonire!


Meal prepping really makes a difference. It saves me so much time in the long run and saves a fortune too! Well worth doing!

Homegrown0

Hi LullaBelle,

I've just read through your whole diary - you have had quite the journey! Lovely news about your much-longer-for daughter arriving. I bet that seems like a lifetime ago now!

You seem to have your hear screwed on with debt overpayments and trying to get your savings on track. We're in a similar situation, trying to pay down the debt, bring the DFD forward and build up a little savings. Every time we get some savings behind us, something massive comes up and we're wiped out again.

You've inspired me with the selling actually! I'm going to root around and see what's sellable to make a bit of extra cash.

Hope your Christmas fund is coming along well! For my Christmas savings, I set up a standing order to a credit union account and split it 50/50 between the generic savings account and the Christmas saver. This pays out in the second week in November which means that I have Christmas cash there to finish my shopping (as i start picking up bits around September time when I can afford to). Might be worth looking into? £50p/m goes into there so i have £600 come November and the other £600 is just savings that are not so accessible (takes 3 days to transfer) and I often forget about the balance. Savings for a rainy day...

LullaBelle

Hi Homegrown,


thanks for stopping by. You are right about how hard it is to build up savings. We are exactly the same. Once we think we are getting somewhere something knocks us back! Definitely going to take your advice and start my saving for Christmas in January next year. Great idea about your credit union account. I keep meaning to get round to opening a credit union account. must put that on my list for this week!




Just paid £30 off the loan today. So that's an overpayment of £50 so far this month. So total paid off the loan this month is £405.64. I also transferred £80 into my savings account. This now stands at £210.


I am hoping to do a car boot sale over the next few weeks. I have so much junk in our attic. I'm sure someone could make use of it!


Happy Monday everyone!

LullaBelle

Hi Everyone,


Not much to report with me. Payday is on Friday so that will be another chunk off the debt. I am working on Friday - this will be an extra days work so will get the extra money for that in October's pay. I am also working an extra 4 days in October so will get that money in November. All in time for Christmas. I should end up with at least £400 extra so that will be Christmas covered. Delighted with that.


All my bills are out for the month and I still have £40 left. I need to get some essentials like milk and bread today but other than that I should have some left over at the end of the month. So that is no more additional debt since April. We are really getting ourselves sorted!

LullaBelle

Good morning,


Payday was on Friday so some more paid off the debts. The total debt now stands at £26761.68. So we have made it below the £27k mark. Still a massive amount of debt but it's slowly going down.


Current debts are:
Loan: £15462.48
Virgin: £4630
DH Virgin: £5883.20
Sofa: £786


The loan is still a priority here. I am still trying to make overpayments to this every month.


My car is due for MOT next month so I am going to book that today. Most of the bills are out this month already so at least I can see what we are left with.


I worked on Friday so that's an extra days pay in October. That will cover my car tax that is due in October too.


Off to update my signature. Here's to month 6 of debt busting!

LullaBelle

Hello everyone,


I have just done a little bit of Christmas shopping. I used the 3 for 2 offer in boots. I also had some advantage card points so managed to get 6 presents for a total of £11. Delighted with that. I have actually made a great start on Christmas presents this year. I'm really enjoying looking for the bargains too!

Chrystal

LullaBelle wrote: »

Updated SOA


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1183
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1900
Benefits................................ 82.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3165.8
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 627 This is less than your previous morgage + rent?
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 100.45
Electricity............................. 41
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 60
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 60 Is it possible to reduce this?
TV Licence.............................. 13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 64 (includes sky, phone and broadband)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 160
Clothing................................ 30 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Petrol/diesel........................... 100
Road tax................................ 22 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Car Insurance........................... 36 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 54 (Bus journeys for DH to get to work)
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 20
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0 Don't you need to put anything aside for the puppy you have ?
Buildings insurance..................... 12
Contents insurance...................... 12
Life assurance ......................... 75.07 (is this too high??) Well done on getting this reduced.
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Haircuts................................ 20 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Entertainment........................... 60 Are you actually saving this in a separate pot?
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50
Total monthly expenses.................. 1666.52

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 180000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 7000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 187000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 157000...(627)......0 (not sure of APR)
Total secured & HP debts...... 157000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Loan...........................16587.8...355.6.....10.2
Virgin.........................4430.05...45........0
Barclaycard....................340.......12........18.9
sofa...........................974.8.....31.44.....0
Total unsecured debts..........22332.65..444.04....-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,165.8
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,666.52
Available for debt repayments........... 1,499.28
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 444.04
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,055.24 Have you actually worked out where this money is being spent?
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 187,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -157,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -22,332.65
Net Assets.............................. 7,667.35
Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.

Hi LulllaBelle, hope you don't mind me popping in.
I've just read through your Diary, and the first thing to say is Congratulations on your little girl.:j
You seem to be having problems with making the money stretch to meet the month and I wondered if perhaps you would be better off to budget weekly. A lot of people on here have found that it works wonders for them ie dividing the money by the amount of weeks in the month and putting it in envelopes to be spent weekly. That way you won't have too much month left with zero cash! If you do a big monthly shop make sure you have meal planned to the nth degree so that you aren't buying what you don't need, and then split the food money that's left into envelopes. Using cash makes you realise what you're spending - and whats left!
For meal planning have a look at the Old Style boards, and also it's well worth while having a look at ' A girl called Jack' online - really cheap recipes that are also healthy.

I think you may need to re'evaluate your SOA, because it doesn't seem that what you have written down is what is actually happening... I've put a few Question marks there ..:D It's no good writhing down 'wishful thinking' you need to be truthful with yourself... for example you've put down £60 a month for Entertainment, then mentioned that you took £40 to spend in ! DAY for a local event. Does the £60 cover you & OH ie do you take your Slimming world money from this and does OH ever take from it for entertainment, or does it just cover meals out, cinema etc.
Did OH ever sell his car?
Hope this is of some help, and I'm subscribing to cheer you on, and wishing good things your way.

LullaBelle

Hi Chrystal,


Thank you so much for stopping by and for your comments. That SOA is from a while ago now so I should probably update it again as we have made some changes to bills. ( I'll try and get this updated today)


Our mortgage payment is less now than it was for our previous house. We used to own 75% and rent 25% of our old house. Our combined total came to more than we are paying now for a bigger house. We had to increase the term of our mortgage in order to keep the cost down but once I get this debt paid off then I can start paying more off the mortgage.


Mobile phone - We are tied into contracts on this. My husband's is due to expire in June next year and mine in November next year. once these expire we will be moving to sim only.


I haven't been saving all the other things in a separate pot. The car insurance is paid by monthly direct debit so this is the amount that comes out of the account. At the start of the year I started an envelope system to save for other expenses: Car tax, car insurance, home insurance etc. so I have been able to pay these in full. DH car insurance is due next month so we have the money ready for that. I haven't been so good with savings pots for everything else. This is definitely something I need to address. I feel like I have made a good start but there are definitely things I could improve on.


Thanks so much for the tips Chrystal. They have definitely got me thinking. I am going to start separate pots for the other things you have mentioned. I think that will really help.


I really appreciate you stopping by! I sometimes feel like I am doing this alone. I had a row with my husband last night over an emergency fund. He seems to think that we shouldn't have any savings while we are in debt. He cannot understand that we NEED an emergency fund incase something happens like the cooker breaks etc. So we went to bed on an argument last night. I just feel like he isn't on the same page as me. I am the one that does all the worrying and the one who makes all the cuts and tries to be as frugal as possible. He really annoyed me. I have £300 saved in the emergency fund and I was feeling chuffed with myself that I had made a good effort.


Anyway, I am going to carry on with my emergency fund and he will thank me one day!

LullaBelle

Some more Christmas shopping has been done (all within my budget) I bought my daughter 2 board games that were on offer - 2 for £10. I always buy my auntie shortbread from M & S. These are on offer, reduced from £10 to £5, so I bought a tin. My sister picked up tickets for a show for my mum and dad so I said I would go halfers on them so I owe her £28. But that's another lot of presents done. The only big thing I need to get is a bike for my daughter. I have the money saved for that but I'm just waiting on a sale happening so I can save a bit more money!