£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Macey1510

Sorry to hear about the work situation. Have a lovely day!

JoJoC

Gosh, you've been busy since my last post! Unexpected credit card payment - dealt with! Extra work for the month - sorted! Top up shop – under budget! Budget for the rest of the month – nailed it.

Well done – it would’ve been so easy to use that as an excuse to revert to self-sabotage when it gets too much, but you rose to the challenge. Long may it continue!

Treadingonplaymobil

117pauline wrote: »

All I can say is wow! Such a lot has happened in your week and you have immediately dealt with it rather than thinking, I'll do it later.

Just a couple of suggestions from me

- could you put an extra couple of staple items aside each week for your holiday. Even two tins of tomatoes would be a start so you have a little leaway in your entertainment budget whilst you are away

- are you a member of your local library? Mine does 200+ magazines online plus books so would the magazine you cancelled be available?

- this is going to be a marathon not a Sprint. So if you build in some treats along the way for all of you, it will make it more sustainable. Yes that includes YOU. Even if it is only one piece of cake a month.

- keep a record of where you have come from and how that debt is reducing each month so you can remind yourself when you get down.

Both of you are responsible for the debt and both of you are dealing with it. Perhaps a post it note around your OH's debit or credit card will remind him about being careful with those thoughtless purchases made when he is tired or stressed.

I hope you have a great day
Pauline

Loads of good ideas in there, thank you! Especially about gentle stocking up for holiday. And DH is taking control of the library situation (our kids are members, but I have a feeling we have horribly overdue books, so I never go in there for fear of being mugged by a librarian. He is going to go in and find out the situation and sort it).

JoJoC wrote: »

Gosh, you've been busy since my last post! Unexpected credit card payment - dealt with! Extra work for the month - sorted! Top up shop – under budget! Budget for the rest of the month – nailed it.

Well done – it would’ve been so easy to use that as an excuse to revert to self-sabotage when it gets too much, but you rose to the challenge. Long may it continue!

I'm kind of surprised at myself, to be honest! My usual tactic when faced with all of this would be to go, "oh well, I'll try again another time when I'm earning more money, we obviously can't get out of debt yet." This time it's just making me more determined to shave off a few quid here and there. DH said to me yesterday that I was clearly bored with being in debt as he's never seen me so focused on getting rid of it. Glad he's noticed that it's different this time.

Bobarella

It's great your husband can see that difference. Although it should be a concerted effort it is a big plus when one of you really wants to go for it. I led my husband along the way. And whilst not a strategic planner like me he is just as frugal these days. He doesn't spend anything without checking with me first.

Treadingonplaymobil

I think mine is now too frightened to spend anything ever again after the stern words I've had this week every time he's wasted so much as 20p. :rotfl:

motivated

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

I think mine is now too frightened to spend anything ever again after the stern words I've had this week every time he's wasted so much as 20p. :rotfl:

I told mine off for buying 2 newspapers :rotfl: why on earth do you need 2. we did laugh about it though.
M

Treadingonplaymobil

A quiet day on the debt front - feels like a bit of an anti-climax after the rest of this week!

Got paid for another extra bit of work today, but it’s all sitting in my business account until the related expenses (travel, stock etc) are covered so I don’t end up enthusiastically overpaying on debt then finding I haven’t got enough money in the business account to cover basic expenses.

Still feeling really pleased at the £216.86 we’ve paid off since starting this budgeting lark. Going to keep celebrating that until I can add to it when I’ve figured out what my net profit is for February.

The lists...

To do today:
1. Make biscuits AND wraps within the next 3 hours (I am fairly domestic, this is not a huge ask) as we have arranged to meet friends at a local forest and would usually get cafe food and I don't have anything terribly appealing for a packed lunch. Wraps will be more happily received than cheese sarnies! And everyone loves biscuits. Done! Made cake rather than biscuits, but the wraps were the surprise hit of the day. Really soft and yummy, miles better than shop bought. Might make a batch to freeze for lunch emergencies.
2. Limit spends to a carton of juice per child and a coffee for me at nice forest cafe. Do not give in to gorgeous but ruinously expensive cake! Actually didn’t end up buying coffee or juice, but had to pay for parking, so only spent £4 today in total.
3. Spend half an hour comparing menu plan to cupboard contents and update plan/shopping list. Done! Might try a little more fine tuning at some stage before food shop.
4. Talk through new budget with DH - so much of this week's changes happened while I was away and have been communicated by text, but we haven't had a proper chat through of it all.Done! He is totally on board, and said thank you for taking responsibility for sorting out the numbers, so it’s nice he appreciates there’s some actual work involved! Have talked repeatedly about the entertainment budget limitations, which is the main thing to affect him in the immediate future.
5. Check with organised uber-mum friend to see whether the school is doing dressing up for World Book Day - need to plan frugal costumes rather than relying on usual last minute online shopping plus extortionate delivery charge. Have sent a message but no reply. Must remember to ask in school on Monday if haven’t heard before.
6. Plan weekend work time to include time to list cot on eBay (and some batch cooking if possible). Done. DH also pointed out that we can eBay the travel cot, and I have a Garmin running watch I don’t use any more, so they can all go on.

To do this week:
1. Redo our budget to ensure that even if I only earn my minimum of £250 per month, that the shortfall is gone, whether it has to come from clothes, food, entertainment or whatever. It's lovely to try to earn extra to cover it every month, but I need to get us to a position where if I don't that we're not getting further into debt. Redone on Day 5 to reflect new lower guaranteed income.
2. We are away visiting family from Monday until Thursday, so no worries about food shopping until then (DH at home, but can make do with what's in the house, there is loads), but I'm going to challenge myself to make Thursday's top up shop to get us through until the following Tuesday (normal food shopping day) come in at under £30. Well the £30 got reduced to £18.60 thanks to DH's random extra food shop for himself, but we did it for only £14.09 in the end. Yay!
3. List child 3's old cot on eBay
4. Menu plan for next week and use MySupermarket to keep the cost down to <£60 for the week. As long as we can get almost all of it in Aldi/Lidl, it will come in under £60. Would have liked to have gone slightly lower to allow for any top up shop, but have menu planned for 8 days rather than 7 (to get into March) and it’s due to be around £55 in Aldi. I actually have £100 available in the budget, I just want to come in as low as possible so there is more spare for dept overpayment.
5. DH - water meter reading to make sure our direct debit is accurate. Done, and direct debit reduced by £9. Not much, but better than nothing.
6. DH - gas and electricity readings, to make sure direct debit is accurate. Done, and we are all of £3 in debit. That's fine, as it's the end of the coldest part of the year so our usage will drop, but I was hoping we'd be in credit. However, we were at zero in September, so we managed the coldest part of the year on the £104 combined DD, so hopefully in another month or two we'll see usage drop slightly and we can reduce DD a little and still accrue some credit ready for next winter. Not the big win I was hoping for but better than a huge bill. Will still try to make our usage more efficient though - a plan to make next week when the children are back at school.

boxofpaws

I found this, the first few days were a whirlwind and felt brilliant and then suddenly...quiet. I'd picked all the low hanging fruit. I guess the trick now is to sustain it even when it's not obvious we're making progress...keeping posting...we ARE making progress even when we don't realise it

[Deleted User]

Hi Top, you've done really well this week. I'm very impressed with how you've coped this week

X

[Deleted User]

boxofpaws wrote: »

I found this, the first few days were a whirlwind and felt brilliant and then suddenly...quiet. I'd picked all the low hanging fruit. I guess the trick now is to sustain it even when it's not obvious we're making progress...keeping posting...we ARE making progress even when we don't realise it

Totally agree Paws x