Everything Must Go!

princessmoo

Hi all.
I'm 19 years old and my partner and I have found ourselves with debts of between 5 and 10 thousand. I have serious mental health issues that prevent me from working and I also suffer from chronic pain, so all in all I'm a bit of a miserable cow. :rotfl: So far we have no SOA or really any idea what's going on, but I have started this thread as something of a motivation tool for us to actually keep up with the "cutting down" we've been telling ourselves we'd do.

I'm a long term lurker on the Old Style boards as I have something of a fetish for all things vintage housewife, which I'm using as motivation to develop my thrifty, homemaking skills.

In all honesty, our real weakness is convenience. My partner works full time and my mental health problems mean most days are write offs. The last thing he wants to do after a day at work is cook a meal while his fiancee weeps about how she's failing as a homemaker. Ergo, Mr Kebab and Mr Pizza are called upon to bring us out of our funk. Now I'm a chubby girl and I enjoy my food, but I can admit that even one takeaway a week would be pushing our budget, so you can imagine what 4 or 5 are doing to it. We've certainly gotten better recently, only caving when we really need it and minimising what we spend, but in all honesty there's still a hell of a lot of room for improvement - £40 on one night's pizza could pay our whole week's groceries if I'm careful enough.

We have four guinea pigs (Aretha, Honey, Dandy and Lion) who we love to death and spoil rotten whenever we can. We buy them a high end food which I recently found in bulk works out cheaper than the supermarket own brand I used to use! Result! :T Their hay comes from Pets at Home - we recently tried to switch to a cheaper brand and found four very grumpy little fluff balls refusing to touch it. They live on fleeces rather than sawdust, which saves us a lot of money on bedding in the long run. Their veggies could be bought in bulk and stored better, but in our stuffy top floor flat, we find that they go off a lot quicker than we would like them to and stick to "medium" sized bags of carrots.

We do like a drink and he smokes and frankly this is unlikely to change for now. I've been going through hell and had to leave the job I loved and it's not been easy on either of us. If small concessions are what it takes to keep us from tipping over the edge, then for now this is what we do. Hopefully it won't always be like this, but I'm not causing unnecessary upset by trying to change this too quickly.

We do have one final splurge - two gym memberships. The gym in question runs as a charity and donates any spare profits not invested into the running of the gym to local hospices, and it's within walking/jogging distance which minimises travel costs. They cost us £30 a month each and are not currently getting the use that they should. Most people would say to cancel them, but I am determined to get more use out of this as exercise (not cardio, never cardio, ugh!) is something which makes me feel a lot better - something that motivated my darling OH to sign us up for a tough mudder in July. :eek:

SOA and budget details will follow when we get a chance to sit down and work it out while my head is in the right place. For now, it's just a case of cutting down where we can and remembering our motivation - pay off our debts, and save enough for a deposit on a flat of our own. (And keeping a stash of leftovers in the freezer.)

moneycantbuyyouhappiness

Good luck Moo! You will get there. When you are having a good day i think the best thing to do would be to economize on it and do a big bulk cook. Then you can just blitz in the microwave. Takeaways are not good for your bank balance or your health and I am a huge believer in food have a serious affect on how we feel.

Anyway best of luck with it all! You are taking a really good step!

milocat

Good luck lovely, I'll be around to cheer you on! I think a large portion of my debts can be blamed on mental health problems too, so if you need a chat feel free. Baby steps, and try not to overwhelm yourself. It took me 3 attempts to actually start paying my debts back after I said I would do it. But now I've started and its a fabulous feeling
(I have 2 cats, a dog and a baby, and they all get spoiled rotten too!)

princessmoo

Thanks guys!

moneycantbuyyouhappiness - that's a really good idea, it's just a case of finding a day where I feel productive enough. Last time I tried to bulk cook lentil soup for my lunches, I ended up leaving the soaked lentils in a pot for two weeks to go rotten, then spilled the foul glue-like sludge all over my bloody armchair. Lesson learnt - no room for procrastination with lentils.
milocat - thank you for the offer darling, I may take you up on it one day. I'm a complete perfectionist and I struggle to see anything as worth doing if I can't do it all in one go. Got to learn that life is a serious of baby steps for my own sake.

I've never had a loan or a credit card in my life; this is OH's debt, mostly from before he even met me. I struggle to see these as our debts, I still see them as his - that's not me being mean or trying to shift the responsibility, it's just that in my head I'm still his little teenage friend who doesn't know anything about money and I don't feel that it's my place to talk about it with him. It was only when we started discussing joint finances and I realised that I even had a credit rating that it twigged that I am "real" grown up now, and this really is my responsibility too.

Things I did yesterday:
-Brought up finances with OH without crying/shouting/panicking. Big deal for me!
-Distinct lack of appetising leftovers in freezer so OH nipped to S's after work to raid the reduced counter - lovely picky tea with samosas and mushroom rice. Cost about £4-5 which is not ideal and certainly not an everyday thing, but compare that to the £20 we'd regularly spend on takeaways and I see this as a victory.
-Scrubbed kitchen to within an inch of it's life - there's something about a clean, well maintained home that feels luxurious without spending anything. Had a proper housewifely glow afterwards.
-Got dressed to shoes (thanks flylady). TBH I don't have a problem wearing shoes, it's bras I have a problem wearing. It's no mean feat when you're a 34J, but it does make me feel productive. Was that tmi? Ah well.
-Sorted a big pile of clothes I never wear to be ebayed when I'm having a good weekend.
-Bought OH's Christmas presents - good quality clothes I know he'll love, and something to cheer him up.
-Burnt my scented candle from Aldi - spiced apple scent, £1.49 and a really nice treat. I think OH has appreciated the break from the ubiquitous incense stick. ("Why does the house smell like old hippies again, Moo?")

Tradcob

Good luck princessmoo, all I can say is take baby steps, dont try and do everything at once, this is about changing habits which is not an easy thing to do at all!

We will be here cheering you on, I've started a little diary too- feel free to visit whenever :-)

I love animals too :-)

princessmoo

Quick update - OH is taking me to the local retail park for a little shop while we still have our hire car (long story, will tell another time). Making a shopping list but not being too rigid as this was a last minute thing and haven't had time to go over it.Last thought on shopping lists - thinking I should keep a pad handy in the kitchen so I can keeping a running list of things we need. That way it's always on hand for last minute trips such as this one. Three things are definitely on the list though:
-Microfibre cloths as I'm getting through paper towels at a rate of knots which is not keeping with my green attitude to everything else.
-Stardrops - been hearing great things and OH is complaining of vinegar smells everywhere. Shouldn't be marrying a thrifty gal then, should he?!
-Pyjamas - both me and OH are in dire need of some new ones - we've had four pairs go at the crotch in the last month alone. Too many takeaways, methinks...

Keeping my kitchen (/shoebox) spotless is really helping me keep on top of things. Today I found myself cooking without really realising how I got there. Suddenly, dinner was all prepped and cooking and it was only two o'clock. Result! Starting to see the benefit of keeping a clean home - now time to focus on the other five rooms...

LE3

one thing to bear in mind is that Mr Freezer-Pizza will be cooked in just as quick a time as Mr Delivery-Pizza but will cost much, much less
Indeed, if you spend £40 on pizza delivery, you should be able to do it for about £4 just for the effort of opening the freezer, opening the packet & shoving it in the oven - seriously, even when you don't want to cook it's as quick as picking up the phone or going to the takeaway!

princessmoo

OH is refusing to sit down and budget with me. Apparently we've tried it before and it doesn't work. What he means is that we've talked about a budget, and we've maybe written some vague figures down but we've never actually implemented anything. I've made a rough budget this afternoon from what I understand of our finances, but it's very vague as a lot of it has had to be guesswork.
There was a time when I thought we'd have this all paid off in a few years, ready to start saving for a home together. I was very naive. The amount we would have left over each month is so minuscule that even if we were on bare bones, sackcloth and ashes stuff we'd only just be within our means. I'm starting to wonder whether there's much point to this at all.
Nope. That's depression talking. Flip that right up its bum. I'm going to put on a nice skirt and clean my kitchen. Frozen pizzas tonight as a treat.

Tradcob

Of course there is a point to it princess moo, but you already know that. I do think that you would benefit from sitting down and working out exactly what you owe so you know what you are dealing with. Once you have this information sit down with your OH and make a plan as to what you need to do. Once you have all the information in front of you, however scary that may be, you can plan and feel a bit more in control. Keep updating your diary on here and have a little read of the challenges see what inspires you. Keep it up, but just remember, small changes can make a big difference! Keep smiling ☺

milocat

My husband is the same. He says there isn't any point in doing a budget because we never stick to it. *ahem* I STICK TO IT FINE THANK YOU.
He drives me nuts. Hurrah for pizza night - can I recommend co-op ones? They are so good I think I might be slightly addicted. But cheaper than takeaways still!

Sackcloth and ashes sounds like what I should be doing but December makes me too miserable to focus on anything so I just spend an inordinate amount of time playing with imaginary numbers... Imagine if I paid x then y percentage would be paid and z could occur.

That and I sit and dream about owning a nice handbag.

I said to my OH the other day that I missed when we didn't pay our bills, because we had loads of cool stuff. But that is the thinking that got us into this pickle to begin with! So its back to the grindstone and another 20 years of paying debts (unless I overpay!). But at least if I spend anything, it will be because I have saved for it!

Tradcob

Hi princess moo, hope things are going well, sending positive thoughts your way!