A Ditherer's Diary (again)

EssexHebridean

Hopefully you're feeling a bit better by now Naomi!

Naomim

Thanks L & EH. It was very odd, I felt awful Friday evening, nose streaming, couldn't stop sneezing but Saturday morning I felt fine.

I took myself off to the library to study for a couple of hours, picked up 10yo from Grandparents and we went back to the library for an hour.

Today I have transferred some money over to Monzo piggies. MrM gets paid on Friday and the rest will transfer over then.

I had two £2 coins for my pot at the weekend and my item listed on Ebay finishes tonight and has a bid.

£19.61 sitting in Prolific with a couple more £ in pending. I'll cash out on 31st.

Naomim

Naomim

Couple of MSE things this week:

Prolific cashed out at £20.61 for the month. I'm really happy with this.
Ebay item sold for £6.20 inc postage. Have sent it off, cost me £3 postage so worked out kind of right.
Two NSD's this week. I did buy a tub of soup for lunch on Tuesday for £2 which has provided two lunches, yesterday was free lunch at work with the leftovers from a meeting and today was free pizza left over at work from an after work gathering last night.
I'm going to transfer my food groceries money to a Monzo pot. I'm excellent shopping on-line and under budget every week, but I know I do top up shops and not keeping such a close eye on them and want a clearer idea of the spending as I could potentially be going over.

I'm also starting to put a bit by for days out with the kids. Half term is coming up so need a little something in here. Both my kids are really good and rarely ask for much as they know we are trying to save money but the odd cinema trip is expensive!

I have had the letter from the bank about the overdraft interest going up. I'm not entirely sure what date it will be. 1st April? I'm worrying about what to do. I have a two 0% offers but not very much credit, however I should also be getting a bonus in March although I don't know how much and I doubt it would be enough to clear the overdraft. I think I'm sceptical about moving the OD to credit cards as this is what's happened before. I've transferred it then it's built up again. I know I'm in a much better place now with my budget and pots but still feel panicked by the idea of adding to the debt. I know the OD is a debt but I've never really counted it as one and I need to shift my mindset to thinking of it as one.

Naomim

EssexHebridean

How are you doing generally with sticking to a budget and within your means? Does it help to redo your SOA as current and post in here so people can make further suggestions? That's the key to knowing what to do about the OD really isn't it - if you've cracked that then transferring to 0% money transfer cards if you can get them is the way forwards, then reduce the OD limit right down to just a safety net amount to avoid temptation. Of not though then I agree that would not be the right path for you.

Naomim

EssexHebridean wrote: »

How are you doing generally with sticking to a budget and within your means? Does it help to redo your SOA as current and post in here so people can make further suggestions? That's the key to knowing what to do about the OD really isn't it - if you've cracked that then transferring to 0% money transfer cards if you can get them is the way forwards, then reduce the OD limit right down to just a safety net amount to avoid temptation. Of not though then I agree that would not be the right path for you.

I'm doing ok with the budget and by moving the groceries to a Monzo pot I think that will tighten it up more. I have 13 different pots for things I'm budgeting for!!! :rotfl: It's just the budget is new AND I have MrM to deal with. I've mentioned before, he's all for us saving money as long as it doesn't impact him too much. I'd be happy with just netflix and free to view channels but he watches a LOT of sports so we have the top Virgin package. We moved because we did get a better deal than with SKY and he spent a good hour or more on the phone getting the price down and the broadband speed increased. I did have a chat with him this week to say that after all the bills are paid and the pots budgeted for, we are left with about £60 to bring down the OD to try and make it sink in. This is why I don't want to post an SOA. I know where the changes need to be made and I'm doing my best to work to a zero budget. I'm almost there.

On money saving efforts, I have shuffled some credit card money as I was offered a 0% interest until August 2021 on my Barclaycard.

I have moved my MBNA £1,939.00 which was in persistent debt and at 20.93% and the majority of my Tesco Credit Card £6,589 which was charging at 15.75% This will leave approx £800 on here.

I still have £5,749.00 on my Barclaycard charging at 21.04% :eek: just waiting for some more BT offers to possibly come through now.

I've also done MrM's car insurance. It's due for renewal at the end of Feb and I had already budgeted £300 as this is roughly what it was last year. However, last year we had his sister as a named driver as she used the car during the day to get to her previous job. She's now in another job and not using it, removed her and it dropped by £95 :T So £205 paid and waiting for £35 cashback from Quidco.:T

Forgot I'd arranged to meet two old work colleagues tomorrow night, have decided to have a couple of non-alcoholic beers so I can public transport and then drive home and not have a banging head for Tuesday.

That's all for now

Naomim x

EssexHebridean

Good work grabbing that 0% offer - it all helps doesn't it! Is the evil MBNA now closed?

I think I must have about 13 or so different budgeting pots as well - I like to have everything separate so I know exactly where I stand at any given time so everything from food, to holiday savings, to the spending money we each save monthly for the Good Food Show weekend in December gets set aside in separate savings accounts.

Sounds like you are definitely making good progress with the budget though - well done on that - and that's a great incentive to nail spends down even further to see the impact on the overdraft isn't it!

A thought re MrM - would it help to actually add together everything you are paying in interest in a month, multiply that out to an annual spend and then present him with that far bigger figure to really bring home the impact and why you ALL need to be working to bring that figure down?

Naomim

No I haven't closed the card. I should although I wouldn't spend on it as I only had them for BT's in the first place and cut the cards up as they arrived! This is two credit cards I have now with 0 balance. I've held onto them in case they offer me 0% deals further down the line.

I'm loving the pots. I was showing a friend the other day. Although the account shows a balance of £1,200 it also shows I only have £50 to spend for the rest of the month as the balance is squirrelled away into all the pots for various things. When it's not showing as available to spend, I don't think of it as being there. Does that make sense? Out of sight out of mind

Already I have £160 in my car maintenance pot. We have two cars, both 10+ years old. MrM's is due for it's MOT in March so fingers crossed there's enough in there to get it through.

It's a good thought about doing that for MrM, however... he doesn't know the extent of the credit card debt... doof doof doof (Eastenders theme). It's probably about £10k more than he thinks it is. It built up as I used to food shop using the credit card and pay it off in full, then I stopped paying in full and only paying the minimum as we didn't have the money... and when I was smoking, I also put quite a bit on it (very stupid, I know). I know people will say I should tell him, but in all honesty, I'm happy not to rock the boat.

Naomim

EssexHebridean

I understand your thinking on not telling MrM the full extent of things - but I'm just going to say two things (before shutting up about it, I promise) - these are both from personal experience of being the one who didn't know about the extent of a debt until things blew up too much to hide.

Firstly - if it was the other way round, and HE was the one struggling to sort things out - would you want to know, or not? I know I felt as though there must be a bigger problem - as in a lack of trust. I also felt HUGELY guilty afterwards as I'd been happily accepting trips out, Christmas and birthday presents etc that I subsequently realised really couldn't be afforded. It's over 15 years on now and I STILL feel bad about the part I - albeit entirely innocently - played in things not improving as fast as they should have done.

Secondly - what if the worst should happen, and something very suddenly happened to you, and Mr M found out about the debt that way. it's massively unlikely, I know - but still worth bearing in mind as that's probably not something any of us would like to think about - from either side.



Great work on getting that money set aside in the car account already - it's immensely reassuring to know that you have a pot of savings behind you for things like that isn't it. And yes - the "out of sight out of mind" thing totally makes sense - as does hanging onto the MBNA card in case of further 0% offers - although only if you are confident that it's not affecting your credit file in terms of availability of other offers, I guess!

Naomim

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I understand your thinking on not telling MrM the full extent of things - but I'm just going to say two things (before shutting up about it, I promise) - these are both from personal experience of being the one who didn't know about the extent of a debt until things blew up too much to hide.

Firstly - if it was the other way round, and HE was the one struggling to sort things out - would you want to know, or not? I know I felt as though there must be a bigger problem - as in a lack of trust. I also felt HUGELY guilty afterwards as I'd been happily accepting trips out, Christmas and birthday presents etc that I subsequently realised really couldn't be afforded. It's over 15 years on now and I STILL feel bad about the part I - albeit entirely innocently - played in things not improving as fast as they should have done.

Secondly - what if the worst should happen, and something very suddenly happened to you, and Mr M found out about the debt that way. it's massively unlikely, I know - but still worth bearing in mind as that's probably not something any of us would like to think about - from either side.

I get it and generally, I don't think we have secrets from one another apart from this. But, for now I think I'll carry on with this as we are and review it a few months down the line.

Great work on getting that money set aside in the car account already - it's immensely reassuring to know that you have a pot of savings behind you for things like that isn't it. And yes - the "out of sight out of mind" thing totally makes sense - as does hanging onto the MBNA card in case of further 0% offers - although only if you are confident that it's not affecting your credit file in terms of availability of other offers, I guess!

This is where the "Ditherer's Diary" bit comes in. I'm never quite sure what to do for the best hang on to the card accounts in case I get further offers or get rid and then hope I'll be offered something later on in the year by someone else?

I was chatting again with my friend this afternoon, she's in a pickle with money. Her bank did withdraw her overdraft overnight without any warning then put her on a payment plan whilst she was crying down the phone as they had taken her whole salary and couldn't pay the rent. She's now under the impression she can't open an account with anyone else. ie Monzo. She works full time and taken a 2nd job to help pay the bills but she does fritter money on rubbish. I keep telling her off about the spending but I think it's a double edged sword in that it makes her happy to spend and upsets her at the same time. I also think she should open a basic account where she can't get an overdraft and just start paying the old OD off at a rate to suit her. I think i'm going to have to talk to her some more.

Naomim

EssexHebridean

Hmmm...yes, I get that it's a quandary about the card accounts. I've personally got a bit of a down on MBNA because of the way their cards so often seem to rocket to higher than average rates when a 0% period ends - if it were me then I'd probably close it I think but I do appreciate that what's right for me isn't going to be right for everyone!

Can you point your friend to those forums or would you feel awkward about her potentially "recognising" you and your situation becoming more public than you'd like? Regardless, she definitely needs to switch her banking to a basic account somewhere that she has no debt and start having her salary paid in / bills paid out from there.

You could maybe show her the SOA calculator that we use on here and suggest to her that filling that in might be a helpful first step?