I’m taking control of my life, now.

boxofpaws

@EssexHebridean stop superfluous spends. Clear overdraft, build up,EF. That’s what I need to do, absolutely. Re the round ups, I just opened a stocks and shares ISA funded by roundups, let’s see where that goes

boxofpaws

I have been musing on the changes in spending habits in the last 3 or 4 years

• No longer have a window cleaner
• Work from home so no coffees, lunches, commuting
• I had a hysterectomy in June. Apart from being relieved of pain and no longer being confined to the house one week in three, not being hospitalised due to my haemoglobin levels (this happened),  I save around £15 in painkillers and other supplies per month 
• Down to 1 bottle wine per week 
• Fewer takeaways - once a fortnight? 
• No gym membership 
• New boiler - gas bill should go down
• Ninja foodie (barely use our stupid, big inefficient oven any more)
• January, got rid of sky

Things I need to review. 

We have 3 tv subscriptions. This is Netflix, sky and Amazon. We don’t use Amazon that much but we do use the prime for deliveries. We both have a prime account, it’s so that at Christmas we can’t see what each other are buying. I don’t know if there is a way of having two separate people on the same account.
national trust - we don’t get use out of it, but I don’t want to stop supporting. But maybe should for a while
cats - I pay for a care package for the tiny one but don’t get our money’s worth. It’s £12 per month, I should just cancel 

EssexHebridean

Fibroids? If so, I heartily sympathise - what a pain in the….well, not a$$ obviously, but close…they are! You have also found yourself a twin to hospitalisation due to acute anaemia - that’s not fun either is it. Haemoglobin down to 45 (4.5), ferritin at 3 in my case apparently - my GP said “you were unconscious, yes?” Errr…Nope, upright, walking, and turned up at work that same morning albeit felt so rough I needed collecting by MrEH mid morning… 

We have the Prime dilemma too - don’t watch “that” much but do use the free delivery thing enough to justify it. Probably, ish. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

boxofpaws

Adenomyosis, endometriosis, some big fibroids. Is it weird I asked the surgeon for a photo? It was like a bowling ball…

Anyway my haemoglobin was 71. So double yours, not to brag. I had to lie down after walking upstairs. Gosh you must have felt terrible! What do we put up with?

Spends 
£59.16 - vets - tiny cat. Hopefully this will help with her leaky bottom. 

girlatplay

Hi Paws

I have spent some time today reading through your whole diary.  Bit of a rollercoaster!  I have bookmarked you and will be popping in 🙂

boxofpaws

Thank you @girlatplay. The last few months have been a test of my endurance for sure. I think my Dad would be hugely relieved to see me doing normal things again. He would definitely like to see me get on top of this situation. 

His death has really made me think about things differently. I want to be more like him. He lived a reasonably simple life, he didn't have fancy things, he liked his dog and his family and his allotment, beer and good company. He left my mum well off. We have lamented that he left money in the bank and didn't get to spend it, but, on reflection, I think he liked living the way he did. 

Even though he could have afforded whatever he wanted, he loved a bargain. I was inspired by him to cancel sky, cut down on wine and takeaways and add to the mortgage payment. I have also started to learn to play the piano, I hope he is watching me. 

I want him to be as proud of me as I am of him.

boxofpaws

Good Things

• £80 refund has come from naked wines and subscription ended
• Refused takeaway last night
• Tidied the garage
• On top of washing and ironing (love wfh)
• Tiny cat has had the once over and hopefully she will feel a bit better soon
• Expense claim approved (£30)

Bad Things 

• Still haven't plucked up the courage to do the Forbidden Thing
• Calculate that we will go a further £500 overdrawn before Jan payday. Bad times. It's unavoidable unless I didn't pay the credit card off in full. But the overdraft is the lesser of the two evils because Mr Paws can see it, and he can't see the CC so he might forget there is a problem. 
• Can't decide if this is a good thing or bad thing but on tidying the garage, counted 50 bottles of wine. This is out of control. it will take a long time to drink this, especially since i mainly drink prosecco these days. 

Spends £59.16 vet, £28 washing powder from Amazon

Saintliness 8/10

savingholmes

I know it probably goes against other's advice but given that your latest debt was partly due to having to spend £3.7K on a new boiler - I would try and do a money transfer from a 0% credit card to stop paying £20 a month interest. Or balance transfer the existing CC balance and do it that way. Sometimes you can even do free transfers for 6 months or more. I've had a few of them. 

Look on the MSE Credit Club for eligibility.

The other thing you could look at it is bank account switching. FD pay £100 in 28 days... I've done 2 switches to help my money out...

Glad you're back posting. You have been going through an incredibly tough time and I suspect still are with the advice from your surgeon about holidays. Be kind to yourself. It you have decent life insurance between you - I would be tempted to not push so hard on overpaying your mortgage... so you have a little more £ to live...

Food - I found getting online deliveries really helps reduce overspending as I don't see all the new and shiny stuff - and can check my cupboards and freezers to see if I already have whatever it was I was thinking of getting.

GeorgianaCavendish

Welcome back! 

I’m so sorry to hear about your dad, this must be a difficult time. But it is lovely that he is inspiring you with his love of the simple life.

I just wanted to add that you can definitely have two adults on one Amazon Prime membership, as this is what I do with my husband. You need to create an Amazon Household and IIRC you need to “agree to share payment methods” (but in reality, the payment methods do not appear in each others wallet, I think there is an extra step involved to do that ); we still have privacy about our purchases etc but we can share the cost of Prime membership. Another good thing is being able to share Kindle books, if one of us buys a kindle book we can both download it. 

boxofpaws

@savingholmes. Thank you for your thoughtful post

Credit card - I just can’t do it. It would feel like another consolidation. We just need to fight back on it, and pay it off and look at it every day until we do. We both hate it. We need it to motivate us to get rid of it.

Bank switching - I did bank switching to FD a few years ago. I thought the customer service was truly excellent. But I like Halifax’s app and having the mortgage and cc and current accounts in one place is really handy. So I wouldn’t want to take £100 off FD knowing I won’t stay. That’s probably a bit crackers, I know

Re food. I’ll carry on the online shopping but stop topping up the larder, let that run down a bit. Im also going to try a fortnightly trip to Lidl for some bits, some stuff is better value from Lidl. 

Thank you for your insightfulness about the surgeon’s comments. Yes, i need to get this right, for Mr Paws. At present, we need to carry on as normal. But plan to let Mr P retire early if we can. Maybe.