£16,000 debt, turning regret into positive action.

Cherryfudge

If you have eco-minded friends and family, you could consider this Japanese method of gift-wrapping. There is a list of possible sources of fabrics down the page.

LadyP01

This is what I want to move on to. Lush do them and that's what made me realise the waste from paper. We currently have enough gift wrap to last two years I feel so I aim to get rid of all of that first as otherwise it would be costing me extra money and then hopefully moving forward next year I can start on the eco stuff

LadyP01

Well... the time has come to merge our finances.
I desperately wanted to be debt free by now but I'm so close and I know I will get there.
Budget is stricter than ever now but I feel happy and comfortable in it. We're a team and we will smash it together.

No further progress on this months debt. Helped oh pay a bill while we wait for some money to clear then that can go to debt

LadyP01

End of the month with 8 days till pay day. Money is limited but mainly due to a party at the end. Planned free travel and lots of soft drinks to keep it cheap. There will also be some free drinks available aswell.

Feeling pretty organised today. As previously stated we have now merged all of our money and to be honest we did it in the Knick of time as The oh had run out of money from an unexpected bill. I'm really excited about the merge as we can start moving forwards as a team now. Things will be tight going forward as even though I'm due to be debt free there lots of things that we need to start saving for so it's not really debt freedom for a while yet.

My £600 although I will be chipping away at it. It's interest free where as the oh has interest on his so collectively we will be throwing more money at his then what we will that £600. Overall though he o my has a card at £1400 and then a loan that's pretty high but we can tackle it. It's all manageable and we will get there on all of it.

I'll do a new statement of affairs soon as we go into this joint debt. For myself and my own happiness though I will still be chucking money at the £600 I know it's interest free and it's not a priority compared to the others but it was my own journey and I want that journey complete. A few months of £150 will soon pay that off.

So for anyone who's tuning into my journey, it is just about to take a different path and a path with a lot of debt and money worries and I'm sure arguments to come but it's the next stage to hitting that debt free life.

I'm also reading a lot more about how young people these days are opting for more life experiences rather than things and possessions like houses etc. Although I want a beautiful house one day I'm sort of with them on the whole do we need it wagon? I just feel we all grow up in this consumer society and actually we don't even use all our gifts etc. I have a bathroom of cosmetics that will take this household a year to use up. I think I like the minimalist ideas.
People are working less and loving life more and I'm all for it... maybe one day ay.

LadyP01

Rainy bank holiday weekend. Feeling gloomy.

We did a finance check. OH has about £6 left and I have £111 so we've been working on distributing that around.

Our items as have for sale have gone well we should reach £100 by the end of it all so that's all to go to debt. Hopefully by Christmas we will have paid off any of his cards that we are paying interest on leaving the 0% ones.

Freebie day today we're off for a swim and then come home for a chill out together. Money saving at its best.

I saved a lot of money on my night out. In the end I think I earned more money on the night then I actually spent so I would call that a saving win.

Hope everyone else is having a good bank holiday weekend

LadyP01

Income £1455

Car- £272.50
Gym - £55
Rent - £273
Christmas - £40
Car maintenance - £150
Petrol - £130
Phone - £17
Credit card - £150 .........£600 left to go!
Social together pot - £50
Social - £150 (this is our own spending each)
I break mine Into:
Clothes and hair - £40
Slimming world - £30
Food - £30
Socialising £50

All left over money goes into one pot and we decide what debt we need to smash first. Unfortunately my small 0% interest isn't a priority Iv kept it at £150 to get it gone this year as a personal promise to myself but overall it's not our priority.

We will be working as a team as we move forward to bring the overall debt down. Those figures are a lot more scarier but I know from my journey that I have been there and don't it so I know we can smash this out together aswell.

My new social budget altho it's a little bit bigger there really is no room for movement so I have to save up for things that I want like hair cuts etc and I will be going without a lot more so that I have money for the harder months.

LadyP01

Good week so far. Iv spent some money, around £5 of the food money.

Looking into more ways to save money and be more thrifty. Rewore my clothes for another day. Trying to see where I can cut back on washing. My clothes will last longer the less they get washed. I didn't notice any difference at all so might be worth trying this more often.

Working_Mum

Hi LadyP01 - have you checked out some of the threads in the Old Style forum?? There are some lovely ideas you can accommodate easily into your daily life to reduce resources and therefore the pennies!

I have a brick in each of the loo's to reduce the flushes by 1 litre! I don't always flush the loos upstairs (downstairs is used by guests lol).

I hang u my clothes and wear shirts etc a couple of times - I tend to get into my pj's if I know I am at home in an evening and not expecting visitors!!

I strive to have 6 showers a week rather than showering every day - I feel I need to wash my hair every day but actually I can cope with going an extra day without a shower every few days.

I looked at my home a few years ago with brand new eyes (and not just how I have always lived) and thought how could I switch things around a bit to be more frugal?? I converted a space in my airing cupboard so I could hang up clothes etc on an airier so I wasn't dependent on good weather or radiators to get my washing dry.

There are loads of things you can uncover if you are open to it!

LadyP01

Ideal! I'm getting lots of tips from other places aswell. My house is a gold mine atm in regards to things we have purchased that I would just be so wasteful about discarding.
Our loo is already set at a minimum flush eco system. We have a man who fixed all that up for us. (Probs has a brick in it��)

Items are selling very well on ebay so stage one is complete and all together we are two weeks in and we have gained around £250 extra to chuck at debt. I'm really pleased with that.

The oh is finding it all a bit extreme but that's because he just wants to spend money all the time. He knows we can't and considering everything he is doing really well. He had a very cheap night out with friends which I was impressed about. It's just the communication piece that is missing. He likes to ignore the problems and hope hey go away and I'm shinning a light on them saying look at this! Let's get this gone and it's very confronting for him but he's still pretty positive. In two weeks time when he's spent all his money I'm sure I will be writing a very different post about how he's coping.

For me Iv only spent £7 this weekend and that was us jointly purchasing yesterdays food so very happy so far.
I'm in week 2 of my pay and I have lots of money left. I have a big weekend at the end of the month and I want as much money for that as possible so I'm being extra cautious on purpose.

Hopefully I will be posting with some news of debts being paid at the end of today, fingers crossed.

LadyP01

Paid all my bills today. Only bill left is my phone bill which won't be due till the end of the month.

I have the expected £167 roughly left that will be going to the joint funds pot.

Paid another £150! To my debt!!!! Bringing my personal debt down to £450!!!!!!!!! Soooo close and would be just that little bit closer if we hadn't started our joint journey but it's good and it's positive.

Not so great news that I know will receive a bad reaction on here with people screaming at their screens why god why have your joined your finances etc. I'd like to say that it's positive because we need to get on this journey together and clear all of our debts so we can move forward with our lives and my OH just can't do that alone. Also we have no joint accounts we are using the accounts we already have so my personal credit will be fine. Lastly and I havnt mentioned this here yet as I wanted to get my debt gone before we started talking about this but we are getting married so his debt will be my debt so I want t smashed into the smallest little bite size chunks before I become his mrs.

So with those disclosures all out the way here goes...

Our new joint debt total all added up is....

Drum rollllllllllllsssssssss

£6,950

With the wedding

£18,550
The wedding debt isn't actual debt it's what we have budgeted to spend but we obviously need that to pay for stuff before the wedding.

I did £16,000 of debt in over a year. We have two incomes and the OH earns more than me so I'm confident with the same structure etc we can smash this debt just as well as I did independently.
Since starting my journey I have had several holidays that have held my savings back. We however have no holidays planned as we have a honeymoon to save for.

We have got this the debt is small fry and the wedding will soon all start adding up.

Our main focus is shifting the debt he has with interest across to interest free and we are working on that already with big chunks already going.

Wish us luck on this new joint venture.

:beer: