Feeling fed up 30 October 2015 at 12:20PM edited 20 June 2016 at 10:45AM in Debt-free wannabe 3 replies 1.1K views

JessyRM

Hi all,

This is my first post, However I have been a long time lurker of this forum. I am a 27 year old women with a semi-professional job and a bit of debt and I'm desperate to save.

I currently owe

Very account - £150 on BNPL (Laptop I purchased) till May 2016
Study bank loan - £920.36 Paid at £103.49 a month till July 2016
Car bank load - £849.24 Paid at £47.18 a month till April 2017
Overdraft - About £1000 at the end of each month.

I earn £1,321 after tax each month and my essential costs are around £800 a month. With fixed repayments & fees on my overdraft this comes to £960 a month.

This means I should have £361 a month for frivolous spending and to save up. But I'm not feeling like I get anywhere.

I know one of my problems is spending money on food, I am constantly buying food and waste so much. I really struggle with this as I do home visits for work all day I find it hard to pack a lunch.

I want to use a diary to keep track of my spending and remind myself what I need to save for. As soon as I clear my overdraft I can afford to move out.

Jessy

Stacemel

With food I tend to make a few recipes from scratch per week and make a big batch so that the food can be frozen or used for a few days. The ingredients are normally cheap it's for a pasta bake etc. I tend to make a pasta bake for my lunches and a casserole/curry dish for the evening. The best way to save money is to plan each week of work in regards to food. Do one big food shop to last you the week and use everything rather than buy little bits. This should help with frivalous spending. Also give yourself a budget per week you can spend on doing things, for example my budget is £40 so this could be 2 meals out with my friends or going for drinks etc. I found doing a spreadsheet on the computer helped and constantly keeping a track of what you're spending.

asparagus1968

welcome, sometimes it does feel a bit like a merry go round.
It's a bit like dieting- your mindset needs to adapt as well as your spending. eg- " This means I should have £361 a month for frivolous spending and to save up. But I'm not feeling like I get anywhere. " but you haven't really, if you are using your OD to a tune of £1000.
I'd treat your OD as another debt and pay it off bit by bit- I opened a new bank account to do this , shifted wages and direct debits to the new account, and watched what I spent from the old one with the OD attached to it.
you could fill out a complete SOA ( www.stoozing.com has a good one) and also may be try the "envelope method" of budgeting?.
could you pay off the laptop this month and not do the "frivolous spends" for a couple of weeks? that'd be one less debt and the money you usually pay to that, you could put that towards the OD?

National_Debtline

Hi Jessy, thanks for posting.


I think it would help you to fix some specific targets e.g. a date by which you want to be debt-free, rather than very general goals that are harder to measure. You'll see that numerous forumites here have running totals in their signatures which seem to work as motivational aids for them.


I'd certainly second asparagus's suggestion that you open a new bank account altogether and then treat the existing overdraft simply as another debt to be paid off. As long as you have access to that OD facility on a regular basis it will remain a habit, and not a good one.


If you want to pop a Statement of Affairs up here (see link above) I'm sure there'll be no end of suggestions - some will be more radical than others but you can take them on board as you see fit.


Good luck


Dennis
@natdebtline