Ready to be debt free

DD265

Today was also a spend day - had to pay to enter and look around a potential wedding venue. It was nice to go somewhere different (country house + lovely gardens) but it's not right for our wedding.

We also looked at two other wedding venues; neither suitable for different reasons. We travelled quite a way to one of them but were able to briefly catch up with a friend who lives in that area so it wasn't a wasted trip.

Cooked the huge leg of lamb I bought yesterday (hence the big food spend.. I forget lamb costs a lot more than beef where we are) and have a massive plate full left over. Reckon we'll get another 6-7 meals out of that. I think I might chop some up to make a shepherds pie.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

You'll find the right thing for your wedding, exciting times

Good deal on the lamb, if you can portion it up and freeze it, use it up in sandwiches? Haven't had shepherds pie for ages.

Pmo2
X

DD265

Thanks Purplemumof2, I think my fiance fancied lamb sandwiches so I'll put some meat to one side but with the rest I'm going to make that shepherds pie. I don't have a suitable pie dish so I'll just use the casserole dish and keep it shallow. I may have bought too many potatoes but I had no idea how many I'd need. :rotfl:

Today was another spend day from both my account and the joint account. I'd forgotten that I'd be paying towards my dentist trip, as I pay for the hygienist by direct debit, but wanted to try the airflow treatment and said I'd pay cash as a one off. It was only £23 so not the end of the world.

Sold something on eBay and I'm getting a refund for some jeans I returned. I have a lot more to list and just need to get around to it. Right now I'm halfway through the hunt for a receipt for return postage of a faulty item, so I can claim that back in addition to the purchase price.

DD265

Umm the casserole dish was far too big so a £3.50 ceramic roasting dish was purchased from Tesco late at night. By contrast that was only just big enough but I did manage to fit the mash from all four potatoes on top :rotfl:

Last night I was also looking at my fee-paying bank account. Technically I have two; Club Lloyds, but the fee is waived as my salary is over the threshold, and our joint account is a Silver account. I got the Silver account either when I was at university or just afterwards. IIRC, the reason was that I was paying £30ish a month on AA membership (you know the deal, sign up, then they renew a lot higher) and the lady at the bank was helping me cut costs. It also had other benefits like travel and phone insurance which we've never used, but they've been there.

I actually have breakdown cover with my car. And I've never needed to consider claiming on mobile phone insurance, although it's not covered on contents, both of us have older phones now and may only get £100 back after excess etc. The travel insurance is no longer going to meet our needs; a family member has moved outside of Europe so we'll need more extensive annual cover.

I did a brief comparison last night and we should be able to get annual travel insurance for well under £50. I'm not personally fussed about phone insurance and I don't need to get breakdown so the £9.95 a month is kind of wasted.

I don't plan to claim the fees back as it was NOT missold, but I'll be cancelling the added benefits.

ETA - it has occurred to me to check whether my work phone (an iPhone 6) is insured - I've asked HR but it might be worth my while insuring that one personally if it isn't. At least if something happened to my personal phone, I could go without/make do etc, but I'd have to pay work back for the 6!

illustrateddame

It sounds like you're doing really well, and getting a handle on things.

good luck x

DD265

Thanks IllustratedDame.

I'm having a bit of a rubbish week but for once money is not included in my list of things-to-wallow-in-self-pity-over.

1) I'm getting a £1k pre-tax bonus for hitting a target at work, paid at the end of September
2) I spent £157 on a pair of shoes (several months ago, long story) but have ultimately returned them for a refund
3) I'm managing to reduce my non-essential spends by carrying a small amount of cash which is my limit for the week
4) My phone contract is up tomorrow so I've changed; will go from £35.50 a month to £11 a month. Fewer calls, and not paying for the phone itself any more, but same amount of data as they helped me find a good deal when I rang. :beer:
5) The fee paying bank account is no longer fee paying.

I'm confident that at the end of September I'll be able to reduce my cards under £3k and £2k respectively which is great. :j

DD265

I thought it might be interesting to do a SOA and see where things are at the moment.

This is for the joint account - so everything flat related. OH and I pay in the same amount every month.

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 600
Partners monthly income after tax....... 600
Total monthly income.................... 1200[/b]

Monthly Expense Details
Rent.................................... 550
Council tax............................. 134
Electricity............................. 98
Water rates............................. 12
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 6.99
Internet Services....................... 45
Groceries etc. ......................... 225
Contents insurance...................... 7.1
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1090.21

So a couple of months ago we were paying £168 A MONTH for electricity. We don't have gas, and tbh £98 was around what we expected to pay I guess (2 bed flat) but when it shot up we were shocked. Estimated bills can do that for you; when we gave actual readings in July or August, which were lower than the June estimate, we got a refund and the DD reduced. Last week we had a smart meter installed so I'll be interested to see what happens.

Our internet includes the landline and line rental. OH insists on good internet - personally I can't tell the difference since we upgraded but whatever. :cool:

The grocery bill is food, household shopping (cleaning stuff etc) and then any household items that come out of the joint account, like curtains or kitchen utensils. It's an average of the year so far but the spikes tend to be a household item rather than food.

We don't specifically put money aside in the joint account, with an exception of an electricity bill which I think I've already posted about in here. Any leftovers basically stays in the account. I do assign it to categories in the budget, but I'm trying to get to the point where we have a month's worth of expenses in there.

DD265

And now for the really interesting one...

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2500
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2500

Monthly Expense Details
To joint account.................................... 600
Mobile phone............................ 11
Clothing................................ 100
Petrol/diesel........................... 130
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 50.6
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 60
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 25
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 50
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 50
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 50
Horse misc.............................. 100
Physio/chiro............................ 32
Spending money.......................... 408
Charitable.............................. 4.5
Gym membership.......................... 38
MS Office Subscription.................. 7.99
Horse - treatments...................... 40
Horse - rent............................ 303
Total monthly expenses.................. 2100.09


Assets
Cash.................................... 343.59
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 6500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 6843.59

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
MBNA...........................3211.54...35........0
BarclayCard....................2370.61...55........0
Car (PCP)......................8590.6....270.......6.9
Total unsecured debts..........14172.75..360.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,500
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,100.09
Available for debt repayments........... 399.91
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 360
Amount left after debt repayments....... 39.91

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 6,843.59
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -14,172.75
Net Assets.............................. -7,329.16

Working from the top down: clothing is high. TBH I don't realise how high it is until I look at the reports in YNAB (which look way better than the SOA). It's mostly because I've lost about 3 stone, so I've needed to replace clothing. I do buy some stuff from eBay but sometimes I just want to try it on in a shop and make sure it fits.

Fuel and insurance are what they are. I have a 35 or 70mile commute 2-3 days a week. I do claim some expenses but again the amount is variable. Car is zero tax. It's 2 years old (the valuation came from we buy any car just now, whatever) and I bought a servicing plan but this service I got new brakes and had the air con regassed and it was quite a large bill. Plus it had new tyres at it's first service (Nissan standard ones must be crap) so I figured budgeting for this is a good idea. It can always go towards the next car.

Medical includes dentist and a PPC; I have two sets of eye drops a month. Hair is pricey I know - I try to go every three months to keep the cost down as I have a cut and colour but I can't bring myself to DIY (I'm going grey at 28, can you believe that?!) or go elsewhere. Chiro and physio I go monthly, been working through some issues.

Presents, it feels a little high but I took OH to Europe for his birthday. We tend to limit Christmas and splurge on birthdays. On the gym front, I'm debating whether at-home can work for me. It won't cost me anything to set up as I can get all the gear from my parents, so I plan to do that and see.

There are two big ones.
Spending money - the catch all. This is my downfall to be honest; the little bits and pieces I spend here and there, or some bigger purchases but I can't think of a recent example. It's basically all unnecessary spending BUT it's in addition to the unnecessary spending I racked up on the MBNA card. This is the category I'm trying to control by withdrawing cash on a weekly basis.

Horse - averages about £500 a month this year (ignoring all the gear bought on the MBNA card...).

On the debt front, I pay £100 a month off the Barclaycard and minimum off the MBNA card as standard (they won't let you do a fixed amount) then I'm overpaying as and when too.

When I look over the figures, cutting my phone bill or saving a £9.95 account fee feels like small fry. Still it's interesting and helps me focus! What I want is in 3 months time, to say I reduced that "spending money" category and increased my debt repayments.

Dewdrop.ja

Good luck. I'm starting my own debt-free journey - will be subscribing for inspiration (no pressure!!) x

DD265

Thanks Dewdrop.


Well there's one way to stop any unnecessary spending; go to work 35 miles away and leave your handbag at home. :doh:


Luckily I never leave for the office without having more than enough miles in the tank for the full commute both ways, I like to have at least 50 miles "spare". I also bring my lunch with me - it's very rare that I don't and lunches out are almost always pre-planned - but I have a food stash in my desk anyway; currently contains a pasta pot and several tins of soup.


It does remind me that a) I want to keep change in the car for parking and b) I need to hide a few emergency tenners.


This lunch time I would've bought fizzy drinks and snacks so I've saved £3-5 out of my "allowance".