living the 'high' life: £100 per week

bellevie

Good luck on your journey Fieldend, I've subscribed

fieldend

Thank you all, so glad I have some company!

I'm planning to post daily until my debt is paid off, so I will probably talking to myself a lot, but I need to stay focused so that's fine.

Today's summary:

• Money: £8 spent on credit card (last purchase... fingers crossed). Envelope holding ALL credit cards sealed, this will be a tough one long term. No more spending until 25th.
• Meals:
  breakfast: yoghurt & dried fruit (leftovers in my desk at work )
  lunch: cheese sandwich (made by me) and an apple
  dinner: baked courgettes with tomatoes and parmesan
• Activity level: low. Walked ~ 45 mins.
• Dating progress: stalling, nothing happening. Someone I dated for 3 months (he dumped me) is pestering me to * try * again. Thanks, but no thanks.

fieldend

Hello dear diary. Today was a good day - I worked from home today and managed to do laundry and cook at lunchtime. I don't expect to do much in the evening either, working until 6ish then pick up my DD and her friend from after-school, they're having a playdate at ours.

Other than that, I've just switched energy suppliers, our council offered one of those collective energy deals fixed rate - and it's telling me I'm saving at least £110 per year (but will prob need to switch again when this ends, as the new supplier is SSE).

Summary of the day:

• Money: £0 spent, and it will stay like that. Enveloped sealed yesterday. I'm trying to forget where it is :-)
• Food:
  - breakfast: home made latte and some almonds
  - lunch: salad & smoked mackerel, one apple, black coffee
  - dinner: will be making fish and chips; fruit salad for desert (this just for the girls, I'm cutting on sugar)
• Activity level: got lazy and did laundry at lunchtime instead of going to the park. This isn't working as planned.
• Dating: nothing to report, I've been ignoring my newly created Tinder and OK cupid accounts, and I'm not going out today. How am I supposed to meet anyone?

I'm now pondering whether I should cancel my overdraft facilities, given that I'm not using credit cards any more... I don't want to be tempted to OD. There's a £1000 limit on my main card, and a £300 limit on my 2nd card, currently none of them in overdraft (however, I still only have £1.65 in my bank account to last until Thursday :-)). I've never gone over £300, which is the agreed interest-free limit (anything over that attracts interest). But, I was always using the £300, up until December last year.

Would you cancel your overdraft? I mean, I still have the credit cards to fall back on if anything bad happens, otherwise they're staying out of reach.

bellevie

I think overdrafts are dangerous - for me anyway. I closed mine down a few years ago and wont have one again.

I do have minimum alert balance though if it goes below £100 and I keep check on my spreadsheet so I usually know way in advance if Im going to dip into my minimum balance.

If you are not tempted fine, but any risk that you may be, I'd definitely cancel the big one!

reality_check

Hey Fieldend!

Had a read of your diary there, I just started my own recently, I really think it will help motivate us and stay on track.

Good move about the credit cards in the envelope, I previously froze mine and then defrosted them with a kettle, so that theory of 'freeze it and then when you really need it, you need to wait until it has defrosted and in that time you will be able to evaluate if this is really a need or want' - didn't quite work out for me!

I have a £2500 overdraft, with £25 interest free - which is pathetic! I have forever been in my overdraft paying ridiculous charges, but robbed Peter to pay Paul a few weeks ago and cleared it off and I am no longer in it.... Have you considered moving banks? I think I will as Nationwide offer £125 if you switch over! Or M&S bank give you £10 vouchers per month for a year if you stay with them.

I recently joined Tinder too :eek: much to my daughters disgust! Not had much luck, I really do attract all the wrong ones! And I went a run (10% run 90% walk, but I am sticking with run) today for the first time in ages and felt great, so stick with lunch times in the fresh air when working from home if you can...easier said than done I know!

Sorry about the essay of a reply! Good luck with your diary, I've subscribed xx

fieldend

@bellevie I decided to reduce the £1000 to £300 which is the fee-free amount, so at least I don't get charged anything. I have an irrational fear of closing credit cards and lowering limits, I'm always thinking 'what if something happens'.

@reality_check: thanks for stopping by, I'll be visiting too. I'm not applying for any new accounts now, as I need to renew my mortgage deal (or remortgage) in July, and I don't want any recent applications.

So did the cards work after you put them in the kettle?

As for Tinder, it's a jungle. The only thing that infuriates me is the amount of married men looking for fun on the side... There was a guy who even had a wedding photo on his account, what was he thinking?

fieldend

Hi again, it's me. Nothing major to report, just that there's £0.37 left in my main bank account until tomorrow when it's pay day. I survived with not going into overdraft and credit cards are out of my sight :-)

Quick summary then.

• Money: £3.40 spent today on lunch, some change I had in a drawer at work, plus £1.28 from my bank account.
• Food:

- breakfast: yoghurt and coffee.
- lunch: salmon sandwich (bought, but it was discounted as I went to eat at almost 2pm) and a banana. I must stop eating bread!
- dinner: steak & salad (home-made)

• Activity level: ~ 45-min walk (this is my daily journey from home -> school -> train station -> work place and return)
• Dating: Exchanged smiles with a guy in the train :-) I need to spice thing up, my life's so boring.

fieldend

Good morning. Just stopping by to say my credit card debt is £259 lighter, which leaves me with £9000 on two credit cards, both at 0% currently. I don't expect to make any more payments in February but in March I hope to pay at least £1000 (so double my regular payment of £500) as I'm due a bonus from work.

Other than that, end of March/early April will see me spending more, as my mum is coming over for Easter. I'm paying for her plane ticket and food and everything else, as she's looking after my DD during the Easter break. This is not cheaper than holiday clubs but we get to have her here with us for 3 weeks. And most of my childcare vouchers are used for before/after-school care anyway...

Have a fantastic day everyone, it's sunny! :-)

fieldend

Here goes 2nd post of the day. My manager approved working from home every Tue & Fri, woo-hoo! Now I only need to get into a jogging routine at lunchtime (instead of doing laundry/cooking).

In other news, I've just changed the name of my diary. As the new name says, the £100 a week is my goal for the rest of the year. I hope to pay off ALL my debt until Christmas and I'm not really good at setting long term goals so here's my thinking. IF I manage to live on £100 each week - this is AFTER all bills, other regular expenses, and groceries are paid - I'll reach my goal to be debt free by Christmas. (NB: with the help of work bonuses).

My idea is simple, hopefully feasible too: pay all bills/regular stuff, set aside £250 for groceries every month, pay £500 to CCs, then... every single week do NOT exceed £100 spend. If underspent - then it gets credited to next week. If overspent - well, that cannot happen, right? As I'm not using credit cards any more.

So, this would be my budget until Christmas:

• £1900 REGULAR (mortgage, insurances, council tax, service charge, utilities, phone, mobile, TV, childcare, school lunches, school clubs, kids savings, Oyster card). Total is actually around £1875, but I'm putting a buffer on it.
• £500 CC PAYMENTS: pay every month without fail
• £250 ASDA groceries. That's ~ £55-60 each week so it should be doable!

This leaves me with £450 each month, which would be the "£100/week" spending money. There is a buffer on this one as well... I'm being generous (knowing myself...).

I'm not sure how to separate the £450 from the rest though. I could probably use cash, so take out £100 each week? And a savings account where I can park the underspent money?

Or, I could use my 2nd bank account for this? Right now I'm using my Barclays account for regular bills, but everything else is on the HSBC bank account. So perhaps I can just use the HSBC account for the "£100 a week budget", and everything else goes on Barclays?

Need to decide soon.

reality_check

Do you have a Lidl close by? I really notice a difference in how much I am spending compared to Morrisons and Tesco, and I think the quality of fresh fish, chicken and fruit and vegetables is fantastic!

Your new plan sounds good! I would try living on cash in hand and see how it works out, I am going to do this for my food budget next month in the hope that seeing how much I have will make a difference....who knows, I'm just starting out at life on a budget..or a life living within my means!