Staying debt free

steveouk

Am I being unreasonable to say to my other half that she does not need a new phone? around £35 a month. She says I want a new one its up to me. I said why not get a sim only deal as its a lot cheaper and she has a good phone. She just wants the latest thing.


The thing is she made a good point the other week when we were thinking of getting a new sofa. She said stop lets keep this one as we keep buying new things once we have finished paying for the ones we have when sometimes we can stick with what we have got.


I am willing to say to her that I will curb all my silly little spending etc but it just annoys me how she says oh its fine to get me to buy her a big easter egg and go out for lots of nice meals yes they are all nice things. But then she moans at me when I don't have much money saved up. She earns more than me like I said so its me that suffers when I am encouraged to buy her little things here and there and pay half of meals etc. I have no problem paying half but would rather it was less often so that the overall bill is a little lower!

Red-Squirrel_2

It sounds like your wife hasn't had debt problems, and manages to save each month.

Put yourself in her shoes for a minute, having seen you get into trouble several times with your spending can you see why she might start to get a touch resentful if you are seen to be suddenly 'nagging' over how she manages her money?

It does sound like you might need to sit down and come up with a new jointly agreed approach to both household expenses and 'fun money', what purchases should be joint decisions etc. but be careful that you don't come on too strong as a newly converted money saver!

You're married, so she shouldn't be better off than you every month with a nicer lifestyle, you should be sharing. However, she should be able to get a new phone if its easily affordable and she wants one!

steveouk

Thank you. Good points.


She used to owe money but that was a number of years ago.


I am trying to compete with her to get my savings to the amount she has at the moment! Think she has around 5.5k and I have 3.4 so a fair way to go to catch up but when I work away I do well with savings and her pay is heading closer to mine as she starts to put more into her pension!

steveouk

We have separate accounts etc and have an agreed amount of money go into the joint account. We have got to a position where there is enough left over in the joint account for emergencies and to cover all car costs when they arise each year - service tax and insurance. We are saving an agreed amount into two different accounts one for a house and one to squirrel away as a baby fund. So I suppose the only cost that it is reasonable to tackle is the joint credit card bill. We use this only for food and petrol but also for eating out! (Santander 123 card) So I suppose it would be reasonable to agree a limit on how much can be afforded on this card each month. When I am at home I do all the shopping and filling the car up with petrol so I guess its an opportunity to show I can be disciplined with the joint card spending.

andyfromotley

Phones are a funny thing.

Almost everyone (including me) who posts an SOA on the forum because they are skint or in trouble has a mobile phone contract circa £40. So i'm guessing the latest iPhone or samsung!!

Its a fair indication of how we got into debt, because i bet nearly all of use got that when we got to the end of our last contract for our previous perfectly good phone!! When this one runs out i really will be going onto sim only and keeping this phone until it is an antique!!!

Scritti

steveouk wrote: »

Thank you. Good points.

She used to owe money but that was a number of years ago.

I am trying to compete with her to get my savings to the amount she has at the moment! Think she has around 5.5k and I have 3.4 so a fair way to go to catch up but when I work away I do well with savings and her pay is heading closer to mine as she starts to put more into her pension!

I think you're doing really well, mate. Over 3k in savings is a decent amount, certainly you'd need a total reversal in attitude and have to go on a mental spending spree to blow that lot.

I was up to 26K in debt for over 15 years and finally got debt-free last summer thanks to this incredible website. I went bananas with overtime and scrimping for nearly 2 years and was able to gradually clear the cards and overdraft until it was all gone.

I was so exhausted at the end of it all that I kind of decided to give myself a little break for 6 months or so. So the second half of last year, I was only saving small amounts and decided to concentrate on savings once I'd gotten Christmas out of the way.

I've managed to get about 3.5k saved so far too. I've been spurred on by a young girl in work. She's only 22 but has almost 10k in savings. Her family were very poor so she doesn't have that spend spend spend mindset and has inspired me quite a bit over the past few months. Especially as everyone else I work with is in debt to various degrees.

I love the idea of competing with someone else to get the same or more savings as them. Makes it more fun (well, less horrible) and gives you extra inspiration not to spend as much.

Thanks for your interesting posts and well done for doing so well. I'm confident you can do this so hang in there and keep heading in the right direction. And please do keep us all posted!

RedGoose

Your savings sound pretty good to me- mine only ever seem to get to a certain level before something expensive happens (car, boiler etc).

If you're working in cash then the savings jar is a really satisfying and visible way of building up funds- make sure you stick it in the bank regularly though as it's more secure and can earn you interest while it's there! I'd consider having a going out/treats jar as well though (I'm trying out having a separate purse for trips to the coffee shop at work- any leftovers get saved up for something more satisfying). I have a small (made out of paper- oh yes, I'm old-school) notebook that I record my spending in- keeping it in my bag means I'm more likely to do it.

My friends and I used to have a kitty for going out (everyone put a certain amount in e.g. a tenner at a time and the most responsible (!) person looked after it). It saved us money (and misplaced guilt/resentment) in the long run as you didn't get into the cycle of buying rounds.

Good luck- you've done the hard bit already!

indesisiv

Why not class your savings goal as a debt to be paid. If you managed to pay off your debts and you only have issues without that target then give yourself that target!

fermi

I somehow missed this. Excellant thread.

triple_choc_chip

Having a credit card and using it wisely will help with a mortgage application. As will a phone contract.

Since being debt free I have kept my Tesco credit card and use it instead of cash to gain the points which I can double up at Xmas and use for presents. Last Xmas I bought a DAB radio and PS4 controller and PS4 games 'free' with points. Just recently I used their offer of a railcard for £5 of points for my son - aka 'free' /£30 saved, as an extra benefit. I can swop £2.50 of points for a £10 voucher (and use up to four at a time) to spend at loads of restaurants, eg Zizzi, Prezzo, Pizza Xpress etc. meaning you can eat out at a lower cost.

Each weekend I pay off the card in full of everything I have spent so that I don't have debt.

I also use topcashback for as many purchases as possible and draw down the earnings into my Xmas savings a/c. It's stuff I'm going to buy anyway, so a few quid back is a bonus.

Before Easter, Thorntons had an offer on chocs from their website, approx £60 worth for £22, it was advertised on this site. So you could have pigged out on that, having ordered through TCB for % cashback and paid with a Tesco card for more points. :rotfl:

EDT to say that they have 1/2 price eggs on their site at the moment including £15 ones for £7.50 and other 1/2 price offers too.