Single 20 something mum - time to kick myself up the bum!

SavingAtNumberTwo

I love love love anything flamingos!!! Primark have some really cute flamingo fairy lights that I almost bought on Sunday!

I've not had the pleasure of the dating apps myself but have heard many a horror story about them (and many positive stories too to be fair, its not all bad) but I met my OH where I was working part time 5 years ago. I think I'd have bit of a shock if I became single now as my life consists of little more than home and work and I work for our family business now... :rotfl:

Glad the Hen Party went well, honestly in bed by 10 is pretty standard for me no matter what the occasion haha. About your extra day at work, time is precious and your little girl isn't young forever. Could you afford to delay the extra day for a while? Such a difficult situation, we don't have children yet but childcare is just frighteningly expensive and our family members work full time too.

Hope everything else is going well for you x

timetobefrugal

Well I'm failing horrendously at updating this diary!

Probably because old habits die hard and I've struggled money wise. Seems to be a never ending cycle with me, spend more than I have, debt goes up and get awful anxiety about my debt and swear to make a good dent in it. I think my problem is I can't seem to accept I can't live the lifestyle I like to live until I'm debt free. I resent myself because I see myself paying £350+ back on debt a month EXCLUDING my car loan and I think how have you even got here, you could live more than comfortably with that spare a month!

I started my 5 day week this week and to be honest it's not been too bad, and means I'm pushing up my debt repayments per month to £455 as of next month. Most of the debit is interest free but even with those that aren't I should still hit my 5k target in 12 months. I feel happy that I'll get a good chunk paid off but also abit sad that I'm pretty much working more to pay off debt and that I've let my debt go up since May! I also know that if I drop back down to 4 days when my daughter starts school it'll probably still take me another 2/3 years to pay off the rest but such if life.

I've looked at my figures for the next 12 months and have set a goal to get £500 in my emergency fund, I should be able to pay the £455 off debt and put £40 into my savings. This should leave me with around £140 leftover a month after all bills, repayments, food etc. I know to some that's pretty good but somehow I manage to get through it and more no problem! If anyone could offer me tips on how they save and don't spend what they have leftover that would be great!

Anyway, back to work for me! Will update again later

Singlemumwithplans

I just wanted to pop in and say how brilliantly you are doing. I've recently become a single mum and it's diaries like yours that are keeping me going with getting this debt gone! X

timetobefrugal

Thankyou singlemumwithplans we'll get there I'm sure !

I've been really poor at updating this again! Since my last update I had my holiday in Paphos/best friend's wedding! We had an absolute wonderful time and I'm glad we went as I think it'll probably be mine and my daughter's last foreign holiday for a few years while I get these finances sorted.

This month AGAIN has been expensive, beside the wedding abroad they are having a party in England this weekend for everyone who couldn't make it, which means I had to get both mine and my daughter's bridesmaid dresses dry cleaned and will need spending money for drinks. I also have 3 birthdays in November (including my daughters) then 2 in December (including a 70th) and Christmas! So safe to say I'm feeling pretty poor. It's when I have a lot on like this my anxiety about money starts, I've got 2 pays until Christmas with about £250 to spare to cover 5 birthdays and Christmas presents for everyone?! It's going to be a frugal Christmas that's for sure. I had a good clear out and sold quite abit on Ebay which helped me out this month, I still need to clear out a LOT of stuff so hopefully I can raise a little more to help towards Christmas. I also ordered an ecoball after seeing a post on someone else's diary about them (thankyou whoever you are) and some of the ecoball fabric conditioner so that's one frugal purchase

My uni course has started up again and it's safe to say I am feeling the heat from that too, I can definitely tell the difficulty level has amped up. I guess that's one way to keep me and in not spending money along with working 5 days a week.

So although I'm feeling a little stretched and stressed, my 5k in 12 month goal still feels achievable. My daughter starts school next September and although financially it would be ideal to stay full time I'm just not sure there are enough hours in the day without her having to do breakfast and after school clubs, and that brings on incredible mum-guilt! I'm not even sure if the school I'd like to send her to offer that so that's another one of my tasks - to enquire.

I need to update my signature to hold myself accountable and to help me visualise the total going down to that's my goal for the weekend.

timetobefrugal

Well I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! My best friend's wedding party was really fun, let my hair down and enjoyed a few glasses of prosecco and actually didn't spend too much money :beer:

Sunday was abit of a chilled day although I trimmed the hedges in the garden and mowed the grass for HOPEFULLY the last time until next year. I had an email from my letting agent telling me my landlord had noticed the hedges were getting a little overgrown and if I couldn't do it then they could for a small fee. What they don't appreciate is that the hedges are in fact my fence (as there isn't one) and behind my house is a field where kids play and people walk their dogs, so if it's stripped right back like they did it the last time, people can see straight in to the garden and there are gaps where people can get in. It also made me feel a little uncomfortable as I hadn't had an inspection or anything so the landlord must have poked his head round when I wasn't in.

Anyway, I nearly got it all done and then ended up cutting through the wire :rotfl: the electrics to the garage tripped out as they should, but when I put them back on my lawnmower wouldn't work so not sure if it's blown the extension lead, will have to test the mower on a different socket. I hope I haven't broken it :o

Woke up this morning and didn't feel good in myself, it's 3 years since my dad passed away on Wednesday and although I'm not sat thinking about it, subconsciously I always get a down period around this time of year. I called a sicky in at work (which means I've just broken my 0% sickness absence record ) and taken a day to chill with my DD. So my jobs for today are:

- Pop to post office to pick up parcel and post card
- Pop to Tesco and use coin machine to get rid of change
- While at Tesco exchange DD craft kit which had bits missing
- Take the dry washing off the airer and hang up the next load
- Dust upstairs and downstairs
- Do some ironing so DD has enough clothes for the week
- Cook thai green curry


I also fancy changing my hair to a nice auburn for autumn. I currently have dark brown to blonde ombre so I'm just going to dye the lighter bits. Depending on how much I get from all the coins depends on whether I'll grab the hair dye today as I definitely cannot afford a hairdresser visit until after Christmas!

I spotted wilkos own lego the other day and the price is pretty reasonable (compared to actual lego which is :eek:) does anyone know if it's any good? If it is I think that'll be DDs Christmas present sorted! Hope everyone has a good week.

timetobefrugal

Ok so I did it, I faced reality and updated my signature! Honestly I feel sick that my debt has increased so much in the last year, just proves that my attitude toward spending hadn't changed.

I think it's time for me to face that until my financial situation changes ie I get a new job and a decent pay rise, I'm in this for the long haul. So my goal is to get it under 20k by Christmas - as there are 3 paydays until this I think it's doable! Anyway, back to work I go.

Makinglemonade

Hey! Thought I'd pop over to say hello on your diary as you took the time to come onto mine :-)

I definitely feel you on that moment when you realise the debts increased; I had hit £15k a couple of years before I hit £23k and at the time I was freaking out at £15k! But I still had credit available and it was 'managable'.... so I didn't hit my rock bottom that made me wake up and realise this was madness. That happened 2 years later when my bank card was declined in the hairdressers and after a quick run to the bank in panic I found out they'd pulled my £3000 overdraft - I'd been ignoring the letters. Never been so ashamed in my life. And terrified because I had nothing in the bank and no credit left to use. Still it turned out to be the biggest wake up call from the universe!

You are doing amazingly and its not easy taking all the responsibility on your own, but us mums are made of tough stuff and you're changing your financial path for your future and your daughter.

Look forward to cheering you on! x

timetobefrugal

Thankyou Makinglemonade! I hope I can get there, it's nice to see someone in a similar position who has so that gives me hope.

Not much to report this week, I think I made Tuesday and Wednesday as NSD however I took my daughter to a local fair last night and spent the money I had gotten from trading in the coins. Today I had forgotten lunch and needed petrol so £20 went on petrol and £10 in As*a. I had to buy some laundry softener as although the ecoball is cleaning my clothes I need some scent on them lol! Then picked up some little halloween bits for a party I'm taking my daughter to next Friday.

Won't be doing much this weekend as have a load of uni work to catch up on and will catch up with the housework as my DD is with her dad Saturday night/Sunday day so hopefully both days with be NSD!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

timetobefrugal

So this morning I decided to do a snowball calculator to give me an idea of how long everything will take to pay off………..safe to say it wasn’t a great way to start my Monday morning! According to the calculator under my current circumstances my DFD is Jan 2024!!!!!!!! Over 6 years?!!? I would also pay almost 8k in interest! :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Safe to say that’s a kick up the bum to change if I ever met one. I am going to go with the snowball calculator recommendations which means switching my payment amounts to pay off the higher interest CC first which is currently a 0% balance transfer that I did. So as this would be paid off first and my general debt should be down so I’m hoping they’ll offer me another 0% deal so I can do some shifting and avoid this 8k of interest.

I literally feel sick looking at the figures as I know it’s not sustainable for me to be paying off debt to that long (I’ll lose my mind), I want it gone in 4 years max while my daughter is still young enough to not be affected. The fact that she’ll probably be at least 8 before I get it paid off is a horrible thought. My frustration is I literally cannot see where else I can strip down my budget, I budget £100 per month for food for the 2 of us, I barely eat out or have nights out, my car takes up about £230 per month but is a necessity as I live 10+ miles away from work and there is no direct bus route. So I’m at a loss as to where else I can cut down, only option I feel I have is to look for another job with a higher salary.

I think I’m just a little stressed in general, I’m not connecting with my uni work at all, I feel like I work just to pay bills and CC debt and have nothing to show for the debt and I’m just happily paying off someone else’s mortgage. To say I’m in debt I’m really not money orientated at all. Once all this debt is gone I’m saving for my plot of land so I can go live in my micro home (as mentioned in my previous post) dropping my hours to work part time (I’ll HOPEFULLY be a qualified solicitor by then) with as many rescue animals as I please!

Pity party over, I’ve picked up all of my daughter’s birthday presents for her birthday in November. Usually I go mad on her but this year I have spent no more than £60 I even stopped myself from buying a present to go with one I’d already gotten and asked a family member to get it as they were asking what she wanted. Her party is also booked and cake ordered and luckily the grandparents are paying for it. I have already done my budget for next month and after the other 4 birthday’s I have (I have budgeted £30 for gifts), I should have £80 leftover. Me and my DDs dad are going to take her for some food and to build a bear on her actual birthday so I’m hoping to spend no more than £40 for this. This gives me £40 leftover which will probably go towards Christmas presents!

Anyway I better go and do some actual work seeing as I’m here

Bythelight

Hey Timetobe,

I just wanted to pop on to offer some support. It sounds like you are taking ownership of your situation - as well as being a single mum to a DD, and working and studying (and from your diary - doing well at all of these!). You can do this - look at everything else you do.

I wonder if a fresh SOA and a spending diary might be a good place to start. What are you actually spending your money on?