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

System

I love your diary it's inspiring . I am on the same page as you , my philosophy is as long as you are not adding to your debt and the amount comes down each month then that's it . You pay it off at your own speed . My debt only drops about £150 a month but that's better than nothing at all . Have a good work trip .

armchairexpert

TOPM, we started at the same time and it's like reading my own posts! I found myself lying in bed last night having one of those silent conversations to an imaginary judgey person about how actually, if you look at the numbers, I'm quite frugal on some things and so it's unreasonable to expect me to...etc., etc., and who am I actually convincing? I think these first few months have been invaluable for you, you're in control now, you know what the numbers are doing and you have a much better sense of where your priorities lie. That's huge, and it's a lot more than most people could claim.

Treadingonplaymobil

CocteauTwin wrote: »

It is great that you are facing your debt challenges. However, you must make serious adjustments to your lifestyle. We would all love to shop a Waitrose but YOU CANNOT HAVE CHAMPAIGNE on A LEMONADE BUDGET!!

As others have commented, it is perhaps not helpful to teach your children that there is endless funds or Toys available on shopping visits.
It all depends on your approach.

Good Clothes can come from charity shops. Or recycled if you prefer. (Make mend and do)

Shopping bill can be reduced although you may have to sacrifice your 'ethical dilemma' and by a normal piece of meat like most people do. You can buy just veg if your conscience is bothered.

It needs to be a collaborative effort from everyone and become quite fun. It will also act as an exemplar for your children teaching them the advantages of good budgeting.

I'm glad you are dealing with it and wish you success.

All the ethical food/toys on shopping trips was the low hanging fruit! :rotfl:

Now it's a question of what next steps, if any, we want to make to cut the budget further.

Bobarella wrote: »

Hope the work trip goes ok. You are right about how it does feel more difficult when the 'low hanging fruit's are picked. Something tells me you are not a person to fear difficult though. Please don't beat yourself up. You are here. Working at it, & the level of planning you go to is inspirational. And even if you ended up being that man dressed as a gorilla crawling the marathon on his hands and knees, I know you'd get to the end!

So I'm now running a marathon, wearing a gorilla suit, pausing every now and again to use my teaspoon to empty a little more of my lake. Excellent! :cool:

Cumbria_lass wrote: »

I love your diary it's inspiring . I am on the same page as you , my philosophy is as long as you are not adding to your debt and the amount comes down each month then that's it . You pay it off at your own speed . My debt only drops about £150 a month but that's better than nothing at all . Have a good work trip .

Yes. It's dropping. It would be nice if it dropped faster, and there's still a few things to cut, but I'm not interested in punishing our children (or, indeed, ourselves to an excessive degree) for previous mistakes. That probably means I don't win any :money: awards, but we'll definitely be happier.

Treadingonplaymobil

armchairexpert wrote: »

TOPM, we started at the same time and it's like reading my own posts! I found myself lying in bed last night having one of those silent conversations to an imaginary judgey person about how actually, if you look at the numbers, I'm quite frugal on some things and so it's unreasonable to expect me to...etc., etc., and who am I actually convincing? I think these first few months have been invaluable for you, you're in control now, you know what the numbers are doing and you have a much better sense of where your priorities lie. That's huge, and it's a lot more than most people could claim.

Those imaginary conversations are very familiar! Sometimes I come out of them resolved to make another change, sometimes I feel happy with where we are.

Treadingonplaymobil

Week 12: Day 4

I'm away with work this week, so nothing wildly exciting to report, but thought I'd check in to keep myself on track.

Ended up buying a load of fruit to make a lovely big fruit salad to the people I stayed with last night (instead of wine, as I always take wine) and it ended up costing about 3x the price of a bottle of wine. Sigh. Healthy 'treat' food is not cheap.

Got paid £590 for April's work yesterday, so was able to refill my 'envelopes' to stay 3 months ahead with business expenses and salary, cover recent clothes shopping and add a little to my 'new tablet' fund (badly needed for work, but holding off buying until I've saved enough. Almost at £100).

I am still waiting for a few of my refunds to come through, have chased the offending parties, but thankfully thanks to several months sensible work we have enough of a buffer in our account to cover it. I realise this was another CC error I used to make - ordering lots on the CC knowing I would return 80%, because there wasn't enough available in the current account, but then not paying off the 20% that I kept, even though I could afford it at the point of ordering.

To do today:
1. balance budgets in YNAB. Already done!
2. buy some cheap healthy-ish snacks to take to training day today (ie NOT CHOCOLATE).
3. plan out entertainment budget to try to make it last a little more effectively.

To do this week:
Such a busy week with work ahead that I’m not setting any goals here, I’ll take each day as it comes. Main aim is to keep spends to a minimum while I'm away from home.

JoJoC

It infuriates me that buying healthy food can be so expensive, that's when the likes of Aldi comes in handy! I did notice that a melon was £1.79 in Aldi at the weekend and a multipack of 24 packs of crisps was £1.59... go figure! No wonder people choose junk.

Hope your week away with work is productive! I'm lucky that when I go away for work, everything goes on the work credit card but you won't have that luxury being self-employed. Hope you can make it as frugal a week as possible, despite being away from home.

Cherryfudge

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

So I'm now running a marathon, wearing a gorilla suit, pausing every now and again to use my teaspoon to empty a little more of my lake. Excellent! :cool:

And I'm cheering from the sidelines in between taking photos!

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Yes. It's dropping. It would be nice if it dropped faster, and there's still a few things to cut, but I'm not interested in punishing our children (or, indeed, ourselves to an excessive degree) for previous mistakes. That probably means I don't win any :money: awards, but we'll definitely be happier.

In the end, it's you and the children that really matter. All the money stuff, that's only there to support you all. Yes, it's good to have it in order and protect your future as much as possible but if you can do it without undue misery, that's 100% better.

motivated

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Yes. It's dropping. It would be nice if it dropped faster, and there's still a few things to cut, but I'm not interested in punishing our children (or, indeed, ourselves to an excessive degree) for previous mistakes. That probably means I don't win any :money: awards, but we'll definitely be happier.

Hi TOPM

I have to keep looking at things in this way also I am beginning to accept that this journey is not a quick one for us but at least we are heading in the right direction. The debt is decreasing every month so its got to be a positive.

One day your teaspoon will be a desert spoon and then a ladle and so on

lionheartedgirl

Hi TOPM,

I started reading as your initial number was so big and so was mine. It is a very long haul, and I'm also not someone who has been able to whittle every last thing down and exist on fresh air and the smell of the finish line. There are so many big horrible decisions to make, and so much letting go of what other people think, and so much trying to maintain some sort of outward facade that everything is hunkydory on the pennies front.

So, hang on in there, you can totally do it. I'm a runner too, and I've found learning that I could train and make difficult decisions and achieve things over a long period of time has helped many other aspects of my life including the debt situation.

I still buy coffee some days (because I really, really enjoy it). I don't spend much on clothes but I spend on running kit when I need to (bargaintastic stuff although I have the occasional dip). I don't have fancy holidays so that I can afford to do all the other stuff I love. And when I do hit that debt-free finish line, I know that it will all have been worth it and my life will be cheaper to fund and more secure in the future.

Now... in the mean time please don't let me near Space NK!

Lots of love
LHG

Paiditalloff

Hi there TOPM

This thread interested me as my income is very similar and my debt level was similar before I took action. I owed £56k on credit cards back in 2011. Since then, I have been on a Debt Management Plan with PayPlan and I currently have two payments left before I am totally debt free. (Please excuse my username "paiditalloff" as it will actually be 26th June before it is actually all paid off!)

Despite having a reasonable income, there is no way I ever would have got this far without going into a DMP. The scariest part was actually at the start when all of my credit cards were cancelled and I had to cut them up and throw them away. I was then forced to actually live within my means with NO EXCUSES. I had £2k in a building society account as an "emergency fund" and no loans from parents, or any chance of getting one! (The £2k was a refund of pension contributions from a previous job, and i had just left it sitting in the account for years with the intention of paying it into my new pension one day. I am happy to report there is still £1k in that account today).

From my experience, I think you have already made the important first step, which is to admit it is your own fault you are in debt, and resolve to do something about it. The second step is to resolve to live entirely within your means and stick to it. I stopped expensive mobile phone contracts, bought a second hand iphone and put it on a £7.50 a month contract. I still had a nice phone and a decent amount of usage allowance, but at a vastly reduced cost. I stopped wasting money on things like satellite TV. Our entertainment budget was cut to almost nothing. I am currently driving a 12 year old car.

The only way to get out of such a high level of debt it to cut everything back to the bare minimum.

Personally, I will never use credit cards again. When I started on the DMP one of my friends said to me "But what about your credit score!" His advice was not do do it, or I would not be able to get credit for several years. But the point is, I DO NOT WANT CREDIT. If you have an income of over £3k a month, there is no reason you need credit in the first place.

Not lecturing anyone, but hopefully this might inspire you to stick with it. From July onwards, I will have more than £1000 a month disposable income to spend on whatever I want, with no interest going to a bank or credit card company.