Overwhelmed and ashamed

angelpye

Hi, been reading your thread and it looks like you both are making great progress! I was smiling when I read it because it sounds like you and your wife are really supporting each other which I think will make this whole journey so much easier. Really lovely to see that you are supportive of her earning less in return for her well being. You have got this!

enthusiasticsaver

So many positives in your diary OP and you and your DW seem to be working as a team which is so important when you have large amounts of debt. This is a marathon and not a sprint. No doubt you built the debt up over years so it takes time to fix. You sound as if you are on board with saving now so setting up separate pots is a good idea after your emergency fund is at a sufficient level for you.

We have four separate categories for savings (all kept within Tesco current accounts for the 3% interest). One is emergency fund. One is gifts for Christmas, birthday, gifts to our now adult daughters and baby granddaughter. One is for car and house maintenance to replace white goods/furniture, servicing cars etc and one is for holidays/weekends away/concerts/theatre trips etc. We each have a personal spend account in which a transfer is made every month so only food, fuel, and bills comes out of our current account. That works for us and has done for many years although the amounts have increased over the years as our outgoings decreased. We have separate investments for retirement.

Budgeting for all these things makes such a difference to your state of mind I have found so you don't end up juggling money. You seem as if you are getting on board with this so just think when the debt is gone how much spare income you will have every month.

enthusiasticsaver

A suggestion. Why don't you put the debt amounts in your signature and update it monthly so you can see it come down? Also each time you are tempted to splurge and return to old spending habits think to yourself - is this a want or need? If it is a need is it budgeted for and saved for? If it is a want can it wait until you have saved for it?

roomontheend

Some real positives, you should be very proud. Remember there may be times when you slip but you are already well on the road to success.

dprovan

56 days (8 weeks since my first post). How things have changed!! Financially I don't think I have ever been happier. I still have 70k approx. of debt but we are so much happier. Over the past 8 weeks we have learned more than we have in the last 25 years together.

We budget for everything now. My wife can account for every penny that is spent from our weekly food money and weekly spend money. I am reluctant to spend as I know it comes off the total and we look forward to each Friday to see what we have left- for whatever we neeed/want (I'm talking a hair colouring for my wife, a new omelette pan, a mini blender type of luxury):rotfl: or we put money into our emergency pot/savings.

Emergency fund: I am really proud to say we have reached our target of £1,000.:j We have saved that over Dec/Jan which is always our most expensive time of the year (both cars have needed to be serviced and there have been other expenses unique to this month) so I am really pleased with that. We cant remember ever having £1000 in savings.

Our plan is to continue to build the cash savings rather than paying extra into the cc. We are alreay paying £1.2k a month to the debt so my thinking is that it is better for us to see the savings increase and we can make decisions to pay cc off as 0% deals end. Seems to make sense and it is so rewarding to see the pot grow.

We have little pots going for everything that I can think of. Even a Christmas pot which we put £1 into every day.

The best thing of all is that we all (dw, me and 3 kids) seem to have moved from the old us to the new without really noticing too much! From the kids perspective we say no or not today, maybe later in week if we have money far more often than before. Guess what they have survived! In truth if I'm honest they get it and are more realistic than we were!!

Next stage is to start selling things, we are surrounded by things we don't use or need. So that will be my next project over the next few months.

Dry January: We both completed dry January which was great for us and gave us the 'head space' to tackle the money situation. We have both committed to only drinking 2 days per week which is a massive improvement from the 6/7.

Anyway, I hope everyone reading is doing ok also. I plan to keep a monthly counter of my debt (decreasing) and savings (increasing). I just need to decide the best point in the month to record that. Will be great to see it wrote down as a motivator.

Thanks all for your support and encouragement:T, as always

clearmydebts

dprovan wrote: »

56 days (8 weeks since my first post). How things have changed!! Financially I don't think I have ever been happier. I still have 70k approx. of debt but we are so much happier. Over the past 8 weeks we have learned more than we have in the last 25 years together.

We budget for everything now. My wife can account for every penny that is spent from our weekly food money and weekly spend money. I am reluctant to spend as I know it comes off the total and we look forward to each Friday to see what we have left- for whatever we neeed/want (I'm talking a hair colouring for my wife, a new omelette pan, a mini blender type of luxury):rotfl: or we put money into our emergency pot/savings.

Emergency fund: I am really proud to say we have reached our target of £1,000.:j We have saved that over Dec/Jan which is always our most expensive time of the year (both cars have needed to be serviced and there have been other expenses unique to this month) so I am really pleased with that. We cant remember ever having £1000 in savings.

Our plan is to continue to build the cash savings rather than paying extra into the cc. We are alreay paying £1.2k a month to the debt so my thinking is that it is better for us to see the savings increase and we can make decisions to pay cc off as 0% deals end. Seems to make sense and it is so rewarding to see the pot grow.

We have little pots going for everything that I can think of. Even a Christmas pot which we put £1 into every day.

The best thing of all is that we all (dw, me and 3 kids) seem to have moved from the old us to the new without really noticing too much! From the kids perspective we say no or not today, maybe later in week if we have money far more often than before. Guess what they have survived! In truth if I'm honest they get it and are more realistic than we were!!

Next stage is to start selling things, we are surrounded by things we don't use or need. So that will be my next project over the next few months.

Dry January: We both completed dry January which was great for us and gave us the 'head space' to tackle the money situation. We have both committed to only drinking 2 days per week which is a massive improvement from the 6/7.

Anyway, I hope everyone reading is doing ok also. I plan to keep a monthly counter of my debt (decreasing) and savings (increasing). I just need to decide the best point in the month to record that. Will be great to see it wrote down as a motivator.

Thanks all for your support and encouragement:T, as always

Wow - well done! What an inspirational post! You are doing amazing well and huge well done on having the emergency savings as well. We are quite a distance from having €1000 saved up but I can't wait. It really is peace of mind knowing that there is something to fall back on!

Kantankrus_Mare

Well done on your change of thinking!!

I also completed dry january and feel it has changed my drinking habits.

I need to pick two or three nights a week to have a tipple and try to stick to it! It was just so easy to grab a glass of wine each night. It becomes a habit.

Im quite good with money but in Sep last year, I went from being paid weekly to being paid monthly which totally threw our finances.

Savings pots went out the window and what with Xmas spends,,car expenses, insurances all arriving in January and a big holiday needing paying last week, we have had to put a bit on the credit card.

I hate it!!!

Have got back on the straight and narrow now and all savings pots started so we have the necessary funds this time next year.

Wont be booking any treats till card paid off again which should take us three months maximum.

ChasingSunshine

Just read through and well done, especially with tackling the habit of ordering stuff after some alcohol. So easily done but just leads to collection of mainly useless things arriving (well in my case anyway!!)

clearmydebts

Kantankrus_Mare wrote: »

Well done on your change of thinking!!

I also completed dry january and feel it has changed my drinking habits.

I need to pick two or three nights a week to have a tipple and try to stick to it! It was just so easy to grab a glass of wine each night. It becomes a habit.

Im quite good with money but in Sep last year, I went from being paid weekly to being paid monthly which totally threw our finances.

Savings pots went out the window and what with Xmas spends,,car expenses, insurances all arriving in January and a big holiday needing paying last week, we have had to put a bit on the credit card.

I hate it!!!

Have got back on the straight and narrow now and all savings pots started so we have the necessary funds this time next year.

Wont be booking any treats till card paid off again which should take us three months maximum.

It really is so easy to fall into the habit of pouring a glass of wine every evening. In my case it was 'because I deserved it'. We are a long time out of the habit now and just tend to have a drink on a Fri and Sat night.

dprovan

clearmydebts wrote: »

Wow - well done! What an inspirational post! You are doing amazing well and huge well done on having the emergency savings as well. We are quite a distance from having €1000 saved up but I can't wait. It really is peace of mind knowing that there is something to fall back on!

Too true!! one om my big anxieties back 8 weeks ago was catastrophic thinking!! I went from having 3-4 years of not taking any responsibility to all of a sudden thinking... what if the worst happens... what then? Having the emergency fund helps a lot. Not only does it mean we can find surplus within the budget but we can deal with emergencies which is a weight off our heads. Good luck with that. You are making great progress also. Well done