Silkglade's DFW debt to debt free Diary.. Please keep me on the straight and narrow!!

scottishsuz

Just wanted to say hi and good luck

silkglade

Hi,

Well hubby has been out this afternoon and will not be home till around midnight as his best mate has taken him up to London to see a comedy show and thought it a good idea to see a film. I almost fainted when he told me The cost of the cinema ticket alone £12 and that was for the cheapest ones! :eek: that does not include the cost of the Theatre ticket. The good news is that his mate has paid for all but dinner, so can't really complain

Just got a text to say that they are now having KFC :mad: then they are off to the show too.

Well I have had a very debt free day :A , the Kids and I had..... wait for it... leftovers for dinner.... how unfair is that.

Right I am off to see what I can find to ebay - I am fed up with having a house that is splitting at the seams. got loads of baby toys that my youngest has outgrown now. and baby toys are so bulky.

barnaby-bear

silkglade wrote: »

We now have debt on a 0% credit card, most of this was needed things for the house as we have managed to not get them till everthing else was gone, but there were a couple of extravagences too, like the fact that my dad had the kids for a couple of days for us and we went to london to see a show. 1st time we have ever had time to ourselves.

Can I say thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and any advice you can offer.

Once you get back to zero debt, if it was me I'd try and work out what you need to / want to spend your money on, how to spend it most efficiently so you get as much as you can for it. Ummm if it was me I'd be thinking about how much to save for the next car each month or do you want to do the child trust/uni fund thing or perhaps focus on building up a buffer fund (savings to kick in if redundancy/illness etc hit), perhaps how much to allocate for replacing appliances over next year or two. You clearly like CD/DVDs - the quidco free trials while in debt but after maybe admitting you will buy some and saying ok but only so much/so many per month. How much will clothes, games kit, school uniform costs over the whole year? Haircuts? Kids - it's perfectly normal to buy kids presents for parties/toys/books/christmas/swimming lessons/holidays/school trips (if you know your school does a trip for your kid to an activity centre in year whatever factor it in) realistically what do you spend and is it sensible spending. But trying to smooth it over the year, so maybe charting on a calender and accepting the expensive months so you can see and be reminded when they'll hit, how much money from the cheap months is already in practice spent... a wedding to attend, the month when the car insurance/service is due/christmas etc....

Maybe break down the car budget so can work out how much repairs, new tyres (I always get hit by that one), insurance really is.

Pocket money - maybe in return for hard labour so the little b&ggers learn to budget themselves and aren't touching you money when you they are 30 :rotfl:.

The big one I find is avoiding shopping as a boredom/leisure activity - a) I don't like being dragged aimlessly round retail centres b) it's just bad we end up buying a "lovely" stainless steel bowl with pebbles in it in Matalan/Homebase or some cushions or some candles (:mad:we have bl&&dy electricity - we do not need and I don't want to go back 200 years). We bought a kite and sometimes go to the park - it's more fun trying to dive-bomb the pensioners and chavs
It's a macho-evil looking stunt kite and I feel a million feet tall when the little kids look on in envy at my prowess or at least that's my story.
If you plan a meal out a week in advance you can use print vouchers off the web, TESCO deals, go on a special deal - it's also something to look forward to so you feel less deprived and less likely to spend. If you go on the spur we find you end up at a different place because somewhere full and paying full whack and less of a treat as no anticipation.

Of course a lot of this is on hold until the debt gets dusted again.

Just some thoughts on how we try to budget, problem is working out the forward expenses like a replacement car and budgetting for non-essentials that will get bought e.g. DVDs - I can budget DDs for gas/leccy/rent, debt repayment of xxx a month, it's the other stuff we wrestle with.

silkglade

Wow that was a lenghthy and in depth reply thanks :T

1st Kids get pocket money but they do have chores to do to EARN it .

Only yeaterday my middle one was really upset as her friend got a new pair of rollerblades and she wanted some there and then, she ordered her dad to look on TRUs website and see if they had any that are cheap for her to buy.

Well they had some in the summer sale at £9.96 but she had already spent some of her pocket money (ice cream van, it's an obsession with her. She would spend her last penny there) so she did not have enough and got so upset, really sobbing (not like her at all) and I felt such a heartless B**CH saying, sorry honey you are £1.32 short as you spent some of your money for the last two weeks on ice cream.

Son also has pocket money and has been told once it has gone it's gone and don't ask for more. He is the oldest and has vowed never to get into debt, as he understands how much it has affected us as a family.

We are planning to or hoping to save around £500 a month for a new car, and the £150 a month was over estimated also includes around £45 for repairs and the such If things go wrong.

We don't know but will probably be able to cut the food and petrol budget a bit too as we have up until recently only allowed £320 which was rather tight so watch this space.

As for boredom shopping well I can count the amount of times on 1 hand that we have gone into town, and only ever with good reason....

I only look on ebay now when there is something we NEED or am looking to see how much the stuff we want to sell goes for. It used to be a huge downfall of mine and an obsession for a while though.

The last thing is xmas, birthdays, presents, parties etc... well the plan is to start saving the maintenance money as it goes into a seperate account anyway. That then gives us £66 4 weekly for those sort of things.

tigzem

Good luck.... you sound very motivated and I'm sure you'll be debt free sooner than you think xx

barnaby-bear

silkglade wrote: »

Hi,

Well hubby has been out this afternoon and will not be home till around midnight as his best mate has taken him up to London to see a comedy show and thought it a good idea to see a film. I almost fainted when he told me The cost of the cinema ticket alone £12 and that was for the cheapest ones! :eek: that does not include the cost of the Theatre ticket. The good news is that his mate has paid for all but dinner, so can't really complain

Just got a text to say that they are now having KFC :mad: then they are off to the show too.

Well I have had a very debt free day :A , the Kids and I had..... wait for it... leftovers for dinner.... how unfair is that.

Right I am off to see what I can find to ebay - I am fed up with having a house that is splitting at the seams. got loads of baby toys that my youngest has outgrown now. and baby toys are so bulky.

Umm just trying to throw ideas into pot - I'm realising more and more it's very personal how people handle/budget money, like food. Errrm I'd find it hard being a house-husband and contributing labour but not cash even though both essential and equally worthwhile. If you had no debt the occassional night out with adults sounds very reasonable - students spend more down the union day in day out. Is it worth considering a stay-at-home parent budget giving him the chance to take responsibility for some of the budget and perhaps a little to fritter on himself on the odd night out once in a blue moon without justification useful. I know we both keep a bit out the joint pot because occassionally a must have is a necessary to one or to buy his mate a pint without justifying. No idea if you do this, don't need to know just throwing an idea that might make budgeting smoother. Do you need time to be adults without the debt would budgeting a babysitter once in a while be a good use of money? I know we are trying to focus on positive spending so what we spend goes on stuff that we can look forward to not resent scrimping elsewhere. Packed lunches to save are boring, packed lunches and a nice meal out in return or a day out seem more attractive.
Mrs BB finds reasons to not want to waste money, fat-cat credit card directors bonus pay articles in the sunday papers, articles on how bad plastic tat from china is for kiddy labour, chavs surrounded by lots of tat (Jordan), articles on people who've started from nothing been really smart with money and been successful - it's a kind of psychological victory..

barnaby-bear

silkglade wrote: »

I felt such a heartless B**CH saying, sorry honey you are £1.32 short as you spent some of your money for the last two weeks on ice cream.

I'd have lent her it at 50% interest a week :rotfl: she'll soon learn

Anyway if you find the answer to the perfect maintenance budget and having a healthy but not f&cked relationship with money, I'll sign up and buy the ebook.

silkglade

barnaby-bear wrote: »

Is it worth considering a stay-at-home parent budget giving him the chance to take responsibility for some of the budget and perhaps a little to fritter on himself on the odd night out once in a blue moon without justification useful. ..

That is an AMAZING IDEA and I am so grateful to you. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I got a text not long after i logged off here to go hunting through the house for TAT we no longer want or need (got alot of listings to do on ebay :rolleyes: ) and my wonderful hubby said that he was feeling really bad as we were at home and he had dared to spend money on a KFC!!!! I really think that your idea is a perfect solution as then he would feel it was HIS money to spend and that it was not taking anything away from us. :T (to be honest I am the same too though )

As I said earlier we have never even had a treat budget before :mad: (it starts payday this month though

I am not saing that we NEVER go out though (just not usually together) we both have our cinema cards and we go out with our friends there and then it costs nothing extra :j I am out on thursday to see 2 films and can't wait.

silkglade

barnaby-bear wrote: »

I'd have lent her it at 50% interest a week :rotfl: she'll soon learn

LOL It is not that bad that I said no really, (honest I am doing her a favour) it is her birthday on Saturday and she has asked everone for money to get a nintendo Wii. so she won't bl**dy use them after sat anyway

Included in the debt on the credit card IS the nintendo Wii and she has a total of 8 games (we got some mega bargains) (I got a brand new and sealed Pirates 3 game for 23pence from amazon!! also some other mega bargains, and we have worked out that we have saved her more than £100. actually alot more than £100. and we know from family etc that we will be getting back a minimum of around £130 on saturday towards it. Will be paid into the bank on Monday)

Also My son has his birthday in a few months and we already have his Xbox 360 ellite at a mega bargain price by pre ordering it, and got a brand new game with it free.

Please note that this is a one off and that they will never get expensive presents like this again. It is just that they have gone without so much that we decided to make this year totally special. I know my son's is alot more expensive than my daughters, but his dad will be contributing too.:T

elantan

those cinema cards are great we had them years ago but gave them up ...when your on a tight budget however they cant be beaten ..(our nearest one is in glasgow though thats why i gave it up otherwise i would still be using it)