only ONE credit card left + mortgage. current mood: content

fru-girl

Happy Monday everyone!

So YNAB online seems much better than the classic version - for my purposes anyway. I managed to set up my accounts on it and budgeted everything that I had. Will do the next round of budgeting when I get any money in, I think that's how it works - budget whatever money you have coming in.

Yesterday was NSD, today not (work lunch £4.50) and tomorrow it will be NSD.

fru-girl

Spendy day today. Got a film ticket for Fri evening (I'm going on my own, as nobody else wanted to join me and I couldn't bear the thought of staying at home on Fri). Also bought a pair of tennis shoes... I sprained my ankle several weeks ago and looks like my running shoes are not providing enough protection. I paid £14.99 for them, they were heavily discounted at Sports direct.

I'm still on budget, YNAB is all green happy at the moment. Planning for 4 NSDs this week - Tue, Wed, Fri, and Sun. Next week is a real NSD test, my aunt and my cousin are visiting. We shall see.

Weight: stable. At the mom I can use about 3 out of 4 clothing items in my wardrobe. If I lose another 10lb I can use them all, how MSE.

Dating life: None. Nada. Rien.

Current mood: the glass is half full.

fru-girl

PS. Proud moment earlier today (even though I shouldn't have spent at all): when I purchased the tennis shoes I sorted by price in ascending order and bought the cheapest pair. It's a good brand (Dunlop) so shouldn't be that bad, right? A couple of months ago I would have sorted in reverse order...

MistyMountainTop

3 out of 4 is great, fru-girl! I'm about 1 in 5, :eek: if I can get 1-2 stone off then I should be able to wear it all!

Do you happen to know how much the monthly cost of YNAB is for the online version once the trial is finished? I don't want to set up more monthly payments, but if it is only a teeny amount and is much better than the other version, I might look into it.

fru-girl

@Misty: 6 months ago I was at 1 out of 2 so massive improvement You can do it!

I believe YNAB online is $5 (USD) per month or $50 per year. Because I purchased YNAB 4 a while ago I get a lifetime 10% discount on the annual sub... so $45 for me. I still have 275 days left on my free trial though so I'm not sure what I will do at the end of it. It would be cool to pay off my debt by then but that looks very optimistic

fru-girl

PPS. How could I forget.. Today it's been 2 weeks since I've stopped using my credit card(s). :beer:

Sincerely yours,
Creditcard-less wannabe

ani*fan

fru-girl wrote: »

PPS. How could I forget.. Today it's been 2 weeks since I've stopped using my credit card(s). :beer:

Sincerely yours,
Creditcard-less wannabe

Hi there

Just read your diary, very inspiring so thanks for that.

As for the credit cards, I think this was such an important moment for me, realising I need to just not use them anymore or they would never go down. Well done on the 2 weeks CC free. :j

fru-girl

@ani*fan: thanks. Lots of ups and downs... I have tried before, when I was approaching the 10K limit, to budget and get rid of CC debt, but failed. I didn't have a diary so this is supposed to help me.

Credit cards are - in theory - great. They give access to short term credit at a low or even no cost, if used carefully. However, in practice, most of us are neither disciplined enough nor savvy enough to use them like that. We end up paying some low fees, then a lot of fees, then some of us drown in it and end up in a DMP or bankruptcy. I used to be a big fan of transfer cards and 0% APR, it's very luring to use these offers... but in I got sucked into it. I still make us of the 0% cards, most of my debt is on them, but I already paid various transfer fees or even interest on some cards. Banks always win so yes I think for me personally the answer is no more credit cards otherwise I'll never get out of this.

Long term, I might sell my place and move somewhere mortgage free but it will take a while. I have a lot of equity in my flat (~50% LTV at London SW suburb prices) and if price levels stay the same I should be able to sell and move outside of the M25 in about 2-3 years, but let's see... for now I need to kill this 13K. One thing at a time!

PS. Your signature gives me great hope

MistyMountainTop

Any ideas where you would like to live? Being mortgage free must be a wonderful feeling, I'll bet you're looking forward to it. It's my goal to by something outright, even if it's just a garden shed.

It's funny how my thinking changed when I stopped using credit cards - before my buying was much more indiscriminate. As long as I had credit left on the card, I thought I could afford it. Now that I pay cash, there has been a big change in my buying. I find it much harder to part with the money, and have a different idea on my needs vs wants. In all honesty, I have very few needs.

Thanks for the help with YNAB - I think I may be getting the hang of it!

EssexHebridean

It took me somewhere around 10 - 15 years after I got myself into trouble with CC's at 18 and paid it off to trust myself with one again. Every since then, with the exception of 0% cards which have been specifically used for a single budgeted for big-ticket item (usually camera gear!) and then the card cut up, and the money set to repay over the period of the 0% rate, I've always set the DD to clear the balance completely each month. (On the 0% cards, the money has always been there for the item BEFORE I've bought it - I've used the CC either for the Section 75 protection, or because it made more sense to leave the money sitting in my account earning interest). For me I think the biggest change in my attitude when we started getting our finances sorted, the one that made the biggest change overall, was the point where I went from seeing myself as someone who was a bit scatty and disorganised, and generally "not good with money" to someone who IS good with money, and can keep their affairs in order. I suspect I almost used the "not good with money" thing as a shield, if I'm honest. Sort of "It's not my fault" if you like.

I'd always say the same thing to anyone - if you don't trust yourself to use a CC purely for budgeted spends, to an amount where you can clear it without incurring interest, then the safest route is simply not to have one.

Misty kind of hits the nail on the head I think - that credit limit can all too easily become "the amount I have that I can spend" rather than you remembering that it's someone else's money you're spending!