Newbie Kicking the debt

Trixi89

Yesterday was bad. I spent £33 on a fish tank, and also went to Mc Donalds because I was in such a rush with the kids it was easier. I did however sell a car (it's something hubby and I do to make a bit extra cash) we bought it for £300, and sold it Wednesday evening for £700. So the fish tank money came from there and not out my bank if that makes it any better?! :rotfl:
Other than that, I haven't spent a penny....


Still waiting for Bensons to repay me back what I spent -10% which will clear my barlcaycard and hopefully start this coming month positively

Siebrie

Trixi89 wrote: »

I spent £33 on a fish tank, and also went to Mc Donalds because I was in such a rush with the kids it was easier. I did however sell a car (it's something hubby and I do to make a bit extra cash) we bought it for £300, and sold it Wednesday evening for £700.:)

700 - 300 - 33 - 22(?) = 345. That's 46 to the Barclay card to pay it off, and maybe close it, and 299 to the other credit card, to bring it down to 610. Transfer it immediately, so that it doesn't linger in your wallet.....

copperman05

Your yet to have your light bulb moment, until then you'll keep spending.

Your plan is:

1.Watch Dave Ramsey on youtube (great for motivation if you can stomach the religiousness). Study his 7 baby steps. If you cant afford the £1000, do £500 or £200 anything to use as a buffer to stop you going into more debt...
2. Get yourself a budgeting app, I use YNAB (YouNeedABudget) and it pretty much stopped my frivolous spending overnight. However there are others worth looking at too.
3. Work out what exactly you need to live on, if you can cut back on your food shopping do it, the £500 a month from both of you is a lot even for a family. Be wiser about how you shop, go to Lidl if you don't already, plan meals ahead, reduce or eliminate how much you spend on eating out, work meals, alcohol, etc.
4. Resist unnecessary spending! If you find your about to buy something, dont, go home and think about it, if you think you really need it, go get it, but often you wont!
5. Put as much as you can afford to debt repayment after you have worked out the above.
6. Enjoy your road to debt freedom, set yourself some medium and long term goals, where would you like to see yourself in 1 year, 2 years, 5 or 10 years? Aim high! you can do it!

Trixi89

Siebrie wrote: »

700 - 300 - 33 - 22(?) = 345. That's 46 to the Barclay card to pay it off, and maybe close it, and 299 to the other credit card, to bring it down to 610. Transfer it immediately, so that it doesn't linger in your wallet.....

I only got £60 of the money, as hubby has his debts to pay off he had when we first met (he's just consolidated to one big loan of £9,000 - eek!) and we kind of take care of our own debts.
Mc Donalds was £12, which means I have £15 left. (It's cash, but I will just -£15 from food/petrol when I go to the ATM and use online £15 for transferring) I will put this on my Mastercard now
Minimum payment is £48 this month for my Barclaycard so I will leave paying anymore to this till Bensons have sent my money back and find out exact what is left to pay on it, so I don't over pay.

copperman05 wrote: »

Your yet to have your light bulb moment, until then you'll keep spending.

Your plan is:

1.Watch Dave Ramsay on youtube (great for motivation if you can stomach the religiousness). Study his 7 baby steps. If you cant afford the £1000, do £500 or £200 anything to use as a buffer to stop you going into more debt...
2. Get yourself a budgeting app, I use YNAB (YouNeedABudget) and it pretty much stopped my frivolous spending overnight. However there are others worth looking at too.
3. Work out what exactly you need to live on, if you can cut back on your food shopping do it, the £500 a month from both of you is a lot even for a family. Be wiser about how you shop, go to Lidl if you don't already, plan meals ahead, reduce or eliminate how much you spend on eating out, work meals, alcohol, etc.
4. Resist unnecessary spending! If you find your about to buy something, dont, go home and think about it, if you think you really need it, go get it, but often you wont!
5. Put as much as you can afford to debt repayment after you have worked out the above.
6. Enjoy your road to debt freedom, set yourself some medium and long term goals, where would you like to see yourself in 1 year, 2 years, 5 or 10 years? Aim high! you can do it!

I think you're right, I try and justify everything. I have fish and they've had babies and that's an excuse to get another tank (well actually it was second hand and I got two *smacks head off table*


1. I will watch that on youtube now
2. I saw YNAB mentioned but it's not free is it?
3. We try and meal plan but somehow end up spending a fortune on food and usually put more on the overdraft as well as the cash we take out. I do shop between lidl and Tesco and Iceland, I don't eat snacks and the kids have the odd cheaper brand crisps now and again. I think I just need to find some meals online to make it easier to plan and cheaper meals too.
4. I'm staying at home during the day now to avoiding shops and spending easier...
5. Just had £300 come through so I am going to put that on my mastercard as well as the £15 mentioned above RIGHT NOW :P
6. We have a goal of getting a mortgage at some point (the sooner the better) but our lives are so up in arms and stress I think we are finding it harder to set goals. Hubby is in the military but leaves in October, which means we lose our accommodation and income - eek! we plan to move away from the area and rent, to eventually buying My main goal is to get out of debt and save as much as I can before the end of this year which is more than possible.


Thanks for the replies and a bit of a kick up the bum

Trixi89

WAS


Overdraft - £1,652/£2700
MasterCard - £909/£2200
BarclayCard - £1936/£2600


Total - £4,497/£7,500


NOW


Overdraft - £1575.05 (bills to come out shortly as well as £50 for my little boy's MMA lessons)
MasterCard - £594.21 (Paid £315.00)
BarclayCard - £1936 (£48 min payment to be paid in 2 days)


Total - £4,105.26


Total paid - £391.74

JoJoC

Hi, welcome to the board! I've been hanging around for a few months paying off debt and getting my finances in order.

In terms of getting your account out of the overdraft, I had that issue that the account was so high usage, it was so difficult to have a clear picture of what was happening between bills coming out, spending day to day between my husband and I.

I tried so many different ways but it was just too much to keep on top of.

The thing that really turned it around for me was setting up a separate account for spends - every month I transfer grocery budget, fuel budget and spending money into this account, leaving the other account to be self sufficient in terms of bills. I make sure that enough money is left in there for bills and extra as a buffer but also to pay ourselves out of the overdraft .

We've been out o the overdraft completely for the last two months, £1000 paid off and £30 per month overdraft fees saved

Might it be worth considering doing something similar?

Trixi89

JoJoC wrote: »

Hi, welcome to the board! I've been hanging around for a few months paying off debt and getting my finances in order.

In terms of getting your account out of the overdraft, I had that issue that the account was so high usage, it was so difficult to have a clear picture of what was happening between bills coming out, spending day to day between my husband and I.

I tried so many different ways but it was just too much to keep on top of.

The thing that really turned it around for me was setting up a separate account for spends - every month I transfer grocery budget, fuel budget and spending money into this account, leaving the other account to be self sufficient in terms of bills. I make sure that enough money is left in there for bills and extra as a buffer but also to pay ourselves out of the overdraft .

We've been out o the overdraft completely for the last two months, £1000 paid off and £30 per month overdraft fees saved

Might it be worth considering doing something similar?

Hey JoJo, I found that really hard as well so i decided that this coming month i will be taking out my petrol and food money out in cash from the ATM, that way i can leave my cards at home and just take the cash to the shop. If i haven't got it i can't spend it.
Congrats on being overdraft free i can't wait till mine is in the clear

JoJoC

Thanks for the congrats; unfortunately I've still a way to go with my debts but it's at least one less debt to worry about!

Your cash thing sounds like a plan - it wouldn't work for me because there's always things that crop up that we need to order online but if you don't have that necessity then fingers crossed it'll work! It's worth trying it and seeing how it works for you and you can tweak it along the way.

Good luck!

Trixi89

one debt at a time good luck with the next one


I very rarely order anything online and when i do it's things i shouldn't be buying such as amazon wish lists, and clothes etc... I'm staying well clear of that. Then i know everything leaving is a debt.
I already have a spreadsheet with all my ins and outs how much comes out and what date, how much i have left over and where my debt lies.. very organised but can't stop the spending to actually back up my organisation skills *sad face*
I'm going to rock this coming month though. First one as a DFW and a non-smoker... eeek!

JoJoC

Stay positive and have confidence in yourself. It's all for the greater good and although we all have blips, its what we learn from those blips that's of the most value (i.e. don't do it again! )

Good luck with stopping smoking too - my husband stopped when I was pregnant with DS1 after numerous failed attempts over the years and he'll be five years smoke free come September. It's hard for the first six weeks but the rewards are massive.