Dinah dog bites back

edwink

Hi Dinah Dog

Just wanted to wish you all the best. You have been given some really good advice so far so that should be a really good help to you.

A couple of things that jumped out at me on your SOA is your mobile phone bill which has already been mentioned.

Water rates at nearly £40 is quite high. Are you on a meter? It might be high because of the area you live in.

Electricity £35 could you chip a bit off your usage to save a bit? Make sure you turn everything off that is not being used and fit energy efficient light bulbs in the rooms you use the most. i.e. kitchen, living room & daughters bedroom etc.. Our house has 2 watt LED bulbs all over which equals to 25 watt per bulb. Every little helps remember!

Clothing £50 could you all try not to buy any clothes for a while until you at least get on top of your debts? or buy only if it is absolutely necessary?

Presents birthdays/Christmas £1,200 a year??. Could you make some of the presents maybe? Jam or chutney with pretty fabric lids on and a string tie make lovely presents. Can you knit a few of the presents maybe? Others on here will give you some ideas of what you can make to save money. Buy new items from car boot sales where you can pick up real bargains or charity shops.

Entertainment £50 What is included in this? Could you trim this down for just a year or so to help your finances?

Holiday £50 everyone loves a holiday but when you have so much debt too clear wouldn't it be better to chuck £50 at that instead even just for a while?


Shop around for pet insurance and make sure you are fully covered. i.e. for the life of the illness is normally better than insured up to a certain amount. What pets are they? I am guessing dogs as you pay £50+ a month or is that for food as well?

Anyway you sound determined which I believe is a good start. Also posting your SOA is a good thing because it takes some a while to post that and admit to the amount of debt they have and you have done that from the start so well done for that.

I'll keep following your thread to see how you are doing. Good luck!!

Edwink x

Dinah_dog

Thanks for you advice Edwink and for looking at my diary. I agree we need to take out all unnecessary spending for now until we are in a better position - clothes/holidays/entertainment totals £150 a month so that's a lot more to pay off the debts. My husband and I sat and discussed it all yesterday and are planning a year of austerity to help us see where we are going wrong and I hope that doing it together will be good.


The present part is going to be a difficult one to change but I will try. Our water is the lowest we can get it as we tried it meter but it was no lower. The electric we could try to get it lower (my daughter turning lights off would help!!)


I've never gone this far and posted and done an SOA before so hopefully this will be the start of our debt free journey.


I must find out how to do the bar at the bottom as mine looks really boring!! Very many thanks again. Also, what is the easiest way to check to see if anyone has posted? Sorry - very new to this x

Dinah_dog

P.s. I would love some chickens - planning to have them when I retire!

edwink

Dinah_dog wrote: »

I must find out how to do the bar at the bottom as mine looks really boring!! Very many thanks again. Also, what is the easiest way to check to see if anyone has posted? Sorry - very new to this x

Hi Dinah

For the bar at the bottom when you have read this you need to scroll back to the top of this page. You will see on the green bar "USER CP". Click on that and then scroll down a little and on the left hand side you will see "EDIT YOUR SIGNITURE". Click on that scroll down a little and you can put your signiture in there, scroll down when finished and save it. You can put whatever you like for your signiture as long as it is not offensive, rude or advertising. Some in your situation will put their amount of debt and change that amount as it goes down. This gives them encouragement when they see the reduced amount and also shows others how well they are doing. If you get stuck give me a shout and I can help you through it. Just send me a Private message (PM) if you would like which I will show you how to do further down this post.

I personally find the easiest way to check if I have any posts on my thread is by loading up my post and checking on the 2nd green bar down at the top of the page to see if "READ FIRST UNREAD" is displayed. If it is click on that and it will take you to the newest post. Doesn't always land on that post for me so once the page has landed I scroll up a post or two to see if I have read them or not. Another way I can find out is to scroll back up and see if I have thanked the last ones. I run a thread about hens so thats what I do anyway.

You can also suscribe to a thread if you like by going to the top of the page of any thread you are interested in following and on the 2nd green bar down click on "Thread Tools" and the drop down will say "Subscribe to this thread". Click that and everytime someone adds a post to that thread you will be notified by email. When the email arrives it will have a link in it, click the link and it will take you to that post.

And lastly to the private messaging maybe try it now whilst you are reading this. Hover over my username on the left hand side of this post and it will turn read and then display a drop down of text. There you will see "send private message" Click that and take it from there. Most on here call it a PM for short. Always happy to help Dinah no problem. We were all were new on here once even me :cool:

Hope that is some help Dinah.

All the best Edwink

Dinah_dog

Hi everyone - an update on the weekend so far.


Managed to avoid the usual "pop into town" with hubby where we usually have a Costa and spend money on things we don't need. It felt strange but was ok. Did a trip to the library instead and went to home bargains for a few things and managed to avoid all non-essentials so all in all very good.


Today my hubby and I are going to Aldi to do the shopping - the 3 of us have just sat and made a detailed list. From next week hubby is going to do it alone as he is better at sticking to a list.


Some really good news - my daughter has a job - 2 in fact! :j
One temporary one she started last Monday then a permanent part time one in the NHS and is waiting a start date for that. This means she can pay the pet expenses as both are hers and can also pay for her phone and a little towards housekeeping. She has been doing work experience in NHS since September which has really helped her mood and she is now much more positive. We are all really proud of her.


I have to take my son 60 miles to a hospital apt with a spinal surgeon tomorrow - he is 30 and out of work partly due to his back and part due to mood - I am often bailing him out of situations. Hope the apt goes well and that he gets some answers after waiting so long .


Right - now off shopping armed with list and bags and will post back on success later. Also started daily spending diary last week which is great and I think will really help us. Thanks to everyone for your support and advice :T

Dinah_dog

Just done the food shop at Aldi with other half - spent more than we meant to but did get lots to fill up cupboards - they were very low. £70 - I usually do it click and collect at Tesco so can see how much before I buy but usually back for bits and pieces in the week. Husband will do it on his own next week as he is good at sticking to lists and I'm sure it will be less. Cant wait to see what the total is by the end of the month and hope I can stick to the budget I set.

dieselv2

Dinah_dog wrote: »

Just done the food shop at Aldi with other half - spent more than we meant to but did get lots to fill up cupboards - they were very low. £70 - I usually do it click and collect at Tesco so can see how much before I buy but usually back for bits and pieces in the week. Husband will do it on his own next week as he is good at sticking to lists and I'm sure it will be less. Cant wait to see what the total is by the end of the month and hope I can stick to the budget I set.

Going to Aldi is still a saving saving if you got same food from Tesco/Asda, etc. We use Aldi & Iceland now for our shops. Save so much money

Dinah_dog

Thanks dieselv2 - I think when my husband goes with a list next week it will be less as he is much less likely to be swayed by offers than me!! Hadn't thought of Iceland - will try their too. Aldi's super 6 veg and fruit are amazing prices :T

dieselv2

At Christmas, large bag of potatoes and veg 19p each. I think they do the same at Easter (Aldi that is)

edwink

dieselv2 wrote: »

At Christmas, large bag of potatoes and veg 19p each. I think they do the same at Easter (Aldi that is)

That's useful to know thank you I will keep my eye out around Easter time.

Dinah looks like your start on your journey is taking off really well. Well done to you:) Keep up the good work.

Edwink