Help to keep me honest

glass_half_full

Morning diary and all,
Off on holiday tomorrow in the early hours. We are taking all our money in cash so budgeting the old fashioned way for a week. Ordered currency on line and collected at the PO. Not sure if the bestest deal out there but seemed pretty good to me from what I could see. Last night caught up with some of the OHs relatives who were passing through, really nice to see them.
Spends from yesterday
* £10 ish(!) on drinks in the evening
Goals for today
* Pack and get ready
I have found posting more regularly is helping me stay focused and to try to sustain better habits. I'm going to have a break whilst away. Normal service will resume.
Hope you all have a great day!

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
Got back from a week away on Sunday. Good to have some time away and really recharge. Especially good to see OH completely relax for a few days. We dearly love DS but it did us all good to have some time out from each other. He is off on his own adventures for two weeks in about a week’s time. We have another week off at home, pottering about, visiting my Mum and doing not very much.
We managed to stay within our budget on holiday just about for the week. On return I found I did get paid after all for the freelance piece of work. To be honest I only really believe it when I see the money in the account. Anyway, used all that to make an overpayment on the debt. I really have go the bug of paying this down, thanks to being on here a bit more regularly, it seems to keep me focused in a good way. I’ve run the numbers and I can realistically see it being gone by April next year. So funny last night looking through the many spreadsheets dating back to 2012 with so many plans and predictions of the DFD, much of it a bit unrealistic really. Much of the credit goes to OH who has gone full time at work since last September. To be honest no amount of juggling ever seemed to do it before.
Spends from yesterday
• Groceries £56
Goals for today/this week
• Go for a long walk today
• Book car in for MOT (check engine light is on, please be something simple!)
• Keep the holiday feeling going
Have a great day all.

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
Quiet day today, on holiday at home. DS asked me yesterday, the student maintenance loan, can I spend it on a laptop? Well, yes in theory you can spend it on whatever you want, but in fact you need the maintenance loan to live on. I need to spend some time with him explaining the finances again and how it all works. To be fair, at his age I was pretty clueless about money and budgeting.
Spends from yesterday
* Araldite £7 to glue on the fridge door handle back on. I am getting a lot from make do and mend at the moment, how exciting is my life!
Goals for today
* I need to go to the tip since I forgot to put the bins out. Missed the one and only chore I really needed to do.
* May go for a run later.
Have a great day all!

glass_half_full

Evening diary and all,
Had a nice day visiting my Mum who lives 3 hours away so we made a day trip of it.
Spends over the last 48 hours
Yesterday
* Door handle for fridge - £26 - gluing repair will only last a while...
* Groceries £22.98 needed to buy some extras
Today
* Petrol £42.17
* Meal out with family and Mum £45
Looking forward to spending some time with DS in the morning mooching about in town

glass_half_full

Evening diary and all,
Last day of holiday at home before back to work on Monday.
Spends from today
* Haircut £22.50 - could probably get this cheaper but like going to this place. Not sure I agree with Mrs. Frugalwoods who recommends couples to cut each others hair! Too hardcore for me.
* MOT £35. So pleased it passed with 140,000 miles on the clock. Engine light turned out to be nothing in the end. I wonder how long I can keep it on the road. I like the thought of reaching 200,000.
Hope to go on a long country walk tomorrow to blow away the cobwebs.

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
I find using this space to think out loud really useful, so please don’t read any of this as advice or me thinking I know best etc etc. It just helps me to think stuff through and work my way through some of the muddled thinking. Much of this clearing debt business for me is working through various issues and I find this daily diary a really useful way to do that.
I started using YNAB in November 2015 when I started to get to grips with my finances. I use an old version (version 4) which was before they moved to the subscription model they use now. This old version works fine for me. Since then, I spend about 15 to 30 mins each day on the budget. I find this helps me stay on track with spending and budgeting. One of the big breakthroughs with any type of budgeting is the concept of allocating income to future expenditure. It seems so simple once you start doing it, but it is actually the profound mindshift change required to get out of debt and to start living within your means. So when expenses come along you already have the money put aside, you don’t need to reach for the credit card or the overdraft. It takes time to get used to it, because in effect to begin with you need to accept that you actually have less disposable income than you thought you had. I have budget items like car repairs because I have an older car which from time to time will require money spent on it. The problem is, with a category like this, it is unpredictable because there is no real historical data to go on, although you can estimate it, so I put £100 per month aside for this. One quirk this leads to, at least for me, is that periodically, I find I have more money in the current account than I thought I did. This is because the money I had budgeted for various purposes has not yet been spent so it is sitting there. In the past I have been moving this money across to savings so I don’t end up spending it instead. Recently, I have been getting more focused on paying down the debt and so my approach has been to say keep £1000 in the emergency fund and use the remainder to pay off the debt. So this month I found a bit extra which I have used on the debt.
So the debt figure has dipped below £10,000 and is now £9.773 which is a psychological moment for me!
It might seem like a small thing, but I’m changing my signature to just read the remaining debt and the target debt free day. I don’t care about the original level of debt or the % paid off. I feel like I have turned a corner on that and it feels to me like that is backward looking. I just want to focus on the goal now.
Spends from yesterday
• Cinema - £20 – with OH
Goals for today
• Do some exercise

glass_half_full

Good morning diary and all,
Just wanted to take stock of July. Overall it has gone pretty well. Paid off £1935 of the debt this month.
Areas I am pleased with :
Groceries : £443. This is way down on our traditional spend. Still room for improvement, mainly due to top up spends every few days. Will aim to keep Groceries under £400 for August.
Support for DS. DS goes to Uni in September. We have sorted out his finances for this. I have explained to him that regarding the driving lessons, he needs to take this on from now on, earn some money to pay for it. We have supported him a lot on this and now he will take this on. He has been good about this.
Areas to focus on for August
Daily spending money : I have joined the August Bring Your Lunch To Work Challenge on the Challenges board. Aim to see if I can avoid daily spends as much as possible.
Back to work on Monday, so many other distractions will start now! Need to maintain this focus.
Have a great Sunday all!

glass_half_full

Evening Diary and all,
Took a half day today to help DS with final last preparations before he heads off tomorrow for 2 weeks with his girlfriend travelling in Europe. Sorted him out a rucksack and a few other bits and pieces including helping him buy his Euros. Spent a bit on a few items, but I had anticipated this so no major problems there. They fly out tomorrow evening so hope they have a great time. I have a payment going out on Monday towards the debt, can’t wait to update the signature, it’s become a bit of an obsession! Made a sale on Ebay, first one for ages, only made £20 but it all helps. ‘Take your lunch to work in August challenge’ is keeping me focused on keeping the daily spend under control. It’s interesting, I only went to the cashpoint once this week, used to be nearly every day when I was buying coffees and lunches.

enthusiasticsaver

So at the end of 2015 the debt was over £17,000 and now it is less than £10,000. I think you have done really well and taken a lot of advice on board. I still spend some time every day or so looking at my budget and seeing if we are on track so I thoroughly get that. When you are debt free using ynab to save for home improvements, new car, holidays or long term savings to supplement pensions etc is useful.

glass_half_full

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

So at the end of 2015 the debt was over £17,000 and now it is less than £10,000. I think you have done really well and taken a lot of advice on board. I still spend some time every day or so looking at my budget and seeing if we are on track so I thoroughly get that. When you are debt free using ynab to save for home improvements, new car, holidays or long term savings to supplement pensions etc is useful.

Good morning diary and all,
Thanks Enthusiastic for your comments and encouraging words. :T I think you have a good way of getting to the real point in your comments on diaries by the way which is really helpful to people. Yes, I have made some progress overall since I started on here, thanks to the many ideas and suggestions I have read about. In fact, I think the last two months I have really started to get somewhere. Posting more regularly and staying focused. As you say, when I have paid off this debt, my goal will be to save up, for example, I want to buy our next car with cash and not use finance. In fact, when I get debt free, I fully intend never to borrow again.
Yesterday, took DS and his girlfriend to the airport and waved them off for their two week trip around Europe. They are spending the first few days with my DB so that way they can get settled and used to things before they spend some time travelling independently. It is the first time abroad for DS’ girlfriend. She is definitely the sensible one and will keep them organised. The day was not without its dramas. DS and I had booked the flights some time ago and had used the wrong name for his girlfriend (her name is a bit unusual so is different on the passport). We had a bit of a panic doing online check-in because there is a charge of £110 to change the name with this famous discount airline. Luckily we spotted on line that if you contact the airline via Twitter they will charge it for £10. In the end they did it free of charge:j , and were really helpful, which surprised me given the bad press they generally get.
Have a great Sunday all !