Debt free before 35

MrsSave

I have been writing in another diary on here, but it's getting a bit messy so I've decided to start afresh. I've also just taken out a loan to consolidate (alarm bells will be ringing for anyone reading this now!!) and I think it was the correct move for us.

We had our lbm last August, and have since been working at paying off the debt. It has been very difficult to even make a dent as I have only been able to make minimum payments (work was very quiet up until Feb/March this year - I brought home less than £6k during the last tax year), and the 0%'s were coming to an end so would have fees moving them all about. With the ridiculously low income, I am very pleased to say that we have not been spending on the credit cards. For these reason, and a few others, the loan was the way forward. It is 3.2% over 60 months.

In theory I will be 36 1/2 when it will be paid off, but there are no penalties for over payments, so aiming to do that once I've built up enough of an emergency fund. I need the emergency fund, as work can be so up and down (I am a supply teacher) So I need to be sure we can live a couple of months on next to no income (well, just hubby's).

Our emergency fund currently stands at £587. We do owe the inlaws £1100 (our car died just after having our ds so they lent us money for a car interest free and no rush to pay it off). We have paid off £500 to date. Our loan is just over £15,000.

That's basically where we stand at the moment.

I follow these challenges on here:
1. £1000 emergency fund
2. Grocery challenge.

I try to be as frugal as possible in most ways. I do spend at Christmas and birthdays, but everything I buy is reduced. We do go away from time to time (never at full holiday time price). We do eat out from time to time (budgeted for). We do watch Sky TV :eek: (£21.50 per month, it's our little luxury). I use YNAB and budget money into every category if I can (there will be months when that won't be happening, and we will go without - we've done it before).

Sorry for the long starting post They definitely won't all be like this!!

MrsSave

Well it's the last week of term before the Summer holidays :j:beer: I've been working today, but have the day off tomorrow. It's a quietish week this week (2 full days and half a day planning for my September job). I've been pretty much full time since Easter, and the couple of months before that weren't too bad either.

I love having the say off with my son. Just the 2 of us It's all about chores tomorrow. Shopping actually!! :eek: most are click and collects to collect. A mothercare order from the sale for ds for Christmas, an Argos order to collect (£1.99 fireman Sam slippers - another Christmas gift for him), a strapless bra for me :cool: came out of my own personal money, I haven't worn one since having my ds almost 2 years ago and don't have any that fit (oh, and it was reduced). Oh, and popping to Mr T's to do the weekly shop. I have a budget of £26 this week for food. Hoping to spend under £15 tomorrow. I do a big monthly shop at the beginning of the month, and then top up on fruit, milk, yoghurts, etc once a week with what's left. Oooooh, and I'm putting the final bit on the Christmas clubcard saver account to bring it to £100 which means I get a £6 bonus added to it. :rudolf:

Uh oh, I promised my posts weren't going to be long! Right, I'm off to bed to read my library book :money: (The girl on the train, so far so good!!).

MrsSave

A nice sit down whilst my ds is having is afternoon nap. I think we've had a successful morning shopping.

The grocery shop came to £15.79, which is slightly over the £15 I aimed for today, but still leaves £10.21 to last until Sunday night.

We popped into Wilkinsons, and I found loads of craft things in the clearance. I got quite a few different bits for under £2, which will make ideal stocking fillers. They were around 25p-35p each. Bargain!! :money:

We also called into the Card Factory to stock up on cards. I love their 10 for a £1, and they have some lovely ones.

I've now just popped onto the George at Asda site to have a look at their sale clothes. I have ordered 8 t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a coat, swimming shorts and 2 hoodies for my ds for £31. All the next age ready for when he grows! The best thing is, that with YNAB, I have had all the money budgeted already. I paid for Asda with my Tesco credit card, and the money has been transferred already to pay for it. I love seeing my points go up!!

Talking about Tesco clubcard, I added the final £25 to my Christmas saver account. It means that we now have £100 ready for Christmas food shopping as well as £6 top up bonus :T

belleandthebudget

Sounds like you're on a roll, MrsSave! Right now I'm just using my Tesco credit card for the 0% balance transfer but I can't wait to pay it off so I can spend on it to get the clubcard points!

MrsSave

I've decided to buy as many gifts as I can for Christmas using the boost, so I'm Doing all I can to build up the points! Good luck on paying your card off And good luck on paying your debt off by the time you're 30 I wish I'd done that!

MrsSave

I was supposed to be in work this afternoon, but had a call this morning that the person I was supposed to be seeing wasn't available so it has resulted in a day off :j

It has been a successful one, too. After a phone call from BT yesterday reminding me that my contract was coming to an end and they basically wanted me to sign up for another 12 months, I decided to have a look around to see whether I could save money on our phone/broadband. I currently pay £35-£40 a month for unlimited broadband and unlimited calls. I have switched this to Talktalk, which is going to be £16.70 a month for 18 months, and then £21.70 afterwards. I am getting a £75 voucher with this as well. This won't include unlimited calls, but I'm going to see how much the calls will be using 18185 and figure out if it is worth adding on the calls for an extra £7.50. It will still be much cheaper than BT. :money:

The changeover date is 30/7, and apparently it will only take minutes, so I shouldn't even notice it. Fingers crossed it all goes through smoothly :cool:

Otherwise, I've done a little planning work for my new class in September, read and browsed the web A lazy day!

My next sale slot starts at 7pm. I have written down a couple of things I'm after. Mainly for the hallway (randomly). Our walls are so grubby in the hallway (due to a toddler mainly), so I've decided I want to paint them. I want to move away from the beige/cream/magnolia that seems to take over the house so I'm going for grey Going to pop a couple of white frames/nice white decor items up on the walls, as well as canvas prints of our handprints (white canvas with grey handprints - possibly different shades of grey for dh, me and ds??). I can't believe how excited I am about painting our hallway!! It is all being budgeted for :money: I'm also after a couple of scarves from Next for Christmas gifts. There are some nice ones down to £4.

MrsSave

I'm pleased to say that only £23 was spent on the next sale! The money has been moved so that it's ready to pay off!

I'm not sure why I'm awake! It's 5:50am and I've been awake almost an hour already. Guess who'll be tired later!

It's my last day in work today before we break for the Summer. :j:beer: Yay!! I am going to treat myself to a Wrap from Tesco for lunch (and a bottle of diet coke - living on the edge :cool: ).

MrsSave

Well I didn't need to treat myself to a Tesco special, there was a buffet provided at work today! Fab! Until I went to weigh in and gained 2 lbs.....oooos! I'm still within my target range, so it's ok so far! need to sort myself out and started adding more fruit/salad to the food shop!

I have finished work for the Summer. That is such an amazing feeling! I know the next 6 weeks are going to fly quicker than any other 6 weeks ever!

My ds is going on a trip to the beach tomorrow with nursery. They're not asking for a penny towards it, so all good there!!

Right, time for bed!!!

MrsSave

Another middle of the night post :mad:

I've been looking over July, and it has been an expensive month. I have bought a lot of gifts this month, which all adds up. They have all been on the sale, but it still adds up. The gifts I have left to buy for Christmas will be coming from clubcard vouchers in the Christmas boost, and a £75 voucher I'm getting for changing broadband and phone.

We've eaten out more than we should this month so that will need to be pulled back again.

Today will be food shopping day. I'm usually pretty good at keeping the weekly shop low, but then spend a fortune topping up on things that we don't really need. They are definitely more wants than needs. I'm aiming to keep the weekly shop down below £15 this week and the only other money that I will be spending today will be £4 on toast and a drink for me and ds, and a little on flowers for a couple of birthdays (supermarket prices, so not bad). aiming to bring today's spends in under £25.

Right I'm going to try for another couple of hours sleep.

MrsSave

Oooooh, I did forget to mention, though, I phoned up to cancel my Bank of Scotland and M&S credit cards today. M&S tried to offer all sorts of 0% offers, but eventually managed to get them both cancelled. :money:

MrsSave

I've managed to increase my emergency fund to £663.94. :money: I'm really wanting to get that up to £1000 ASAP, and then after that keep increasing in until we have around 3 months of my pay in there (it's my work that's most unstable!).

I had an email from Asda offering £6 off a £60 online shop. I always do a big shop at the beginning of the month, so have decided to use that instead of go to Tesco. That's being delivered next week as I've already been paid and everything will be in place for the beginning of the month.

I've also taken out £80 cash and put it into an envelope. As well as the big shop, there will be 4 top up shops next month. I'm budgeting £20 each for them. There is also a little buffer money left in the account as there are always those quick supermarket visits. I figured by doing it this way, even if we spend all the extra money early on in the month, we still have our shopping money so will always have money for our milk, bread, fruit, etc.

We've also got a few things on next month that we can't say no to. A birthday meal for my brother's big birthday, as well as 2 other on the calendar events. We have worked out a budget for these, taken it out in cash and then we'll take this money out on these days/nights out. As with the food budget, there is a little extra in the entertainment pot, as realistically there will be some point within the month where we have chips for tea. Rather than pretend we won't do it and then pull the money from elsewhere when it happens, the money is there for a couple of treats. Like the food, if we spend the extra within the first fortnight, it's tough for the rest of the month, but we still have our cash in envelopes for the planned events.

The summer is such a busy time! It will all quieten back down in September! I'm managing to keep to low spend activities with my son. He loves going to the library, despite not even being 2, so we go there once a week. There's the park which we haven't been to for a few weeks, we have annual tickets for a local zoo (we get them every Christmas) and there are plenty of beaches/other lovely places around here. I'm going to be making a list of them so that we have lots to do at very low cost during my holidays!

I'm home alone today, as my son is in nursery so I've spent this morning sorting out our August budget (as you can see above!), moved the money into the correct accounts and updated YNAB. I think I must be a real nerd, but I love days doing this!

Ooooooooh, on a real positive note, I've got my dh to download the YNAB app on to his phone. :j He keeps letting me deal with the money but then says he can't arrange for us to have a takeaway/meal out because he doesn't know how much spare money we have, etc. after discussing it a couple of weeks ago he said he'd download it. Still hadn't by the other night, so we chatted again and he now has it. Spent time showing him how to add transactions, also made him see that if he was buying a birthday present for example, it wouldn't show what, etc. Think he is quite proud of himself now :rotfl: He text me yesterday to let me know that he was keeping an eye and could see that I hadn't bought anything!! :T