Less skint and more skinny!

skinnylove

Welcome to my diary and thanks for popping by. I need to drop pounds in every sense of the word and I’m hoping one might encourage the other.

A little bit of background about me: I’ve always been more of a saver than a spender, and debt makes me feel uncomfortable. My husband on the other hand is the other way around and he’s had numerous loans in the past, which are now thankfully all paid off. I’ve managed to reign him in and he’s mostly good at sticking to a budget now, but I think his ways have rubbed off a little with me.

We are in debt at the moment and I suppose things changed for me when I bought my house with my husband. Our family loaned us £20,000 interest-free to help towards things, so that was our first official debt. I repaid them £8,000 and then I took out a £10,000 loan a couple of years later (a bit mad on my part) to help pay some more of the money back to our family, but I only ended up giving them £6,000 of it. The other £4,000 helped sustain us for nearly a year as I left my job due to health issues. We also built up some debt on an interest-free credit card, and this continued until recently. I’ve now got a handle on things and can see what’s causing us to overspend.

I’ve been back in work nearly a year part-time, and although I now have a budget all sorted, there’s no real room in it to save any money or pay off the remaining outstanding amount to our family or the credit card. Not without severely cutting back on our quality of life anyway (and I’d like to think I’m not that extravagant anyway!)

Fortunately, I’ve managed to get extra hours at work. It’s currently a temporary change but is likely to lead to a permanent change if things go well. This should give us an extra £300 per month which I intend to put towards an emergency fund and debt repayments. Obviously if I revert back to my original hours, I will have to reconsider things and perhaps look for a different job.

Current debts

£2738.61 Credit Card - 0% until October 2018. Currently just making minimum payment.
£6000 Family Loan - 0%. Not currently paying anything.
£6539.09 Loan - 3.6%. Payment of £182 per month, due to finish in July 2020.

= £15,277.70 :shocked:

Okay, so my first goal is to build up an emergency fund of £1000. I already have £100 so hopefully by the beginning of August I will have managed to save my 3 x £300, as long as nothing has cropped up. (We do need a new bed and mattress fairly desperately but I’ll try and hold out as long as possible!)

Then I want to start on reducing the credit card debt. I know you’re meant to pay down the highest interest debts first, but at the moment I know I am making regular payments against my loan and that it will be paid off. I cannot say the same about the credit card or family loan and so I want to focus on those first.

If I can also become more savvy with grocery shopping, and make food from scratch again, this should help with money & weight.

My goals by the time I turn 30 (which is 15 months away) are to have:

• An emergency fund of £1000
• Paid off the credit card
• Lost 5 stone in weight

Well done if you’ve read all of that! *offers you a cookie*

skinnylove xo

Florence_J

I am also in debt and need to drop some weighty pounds so I wish you the best. You will get a lot of support on here.

Bobarella

Good luck with your goals Skinny.

Lumanous

Good luck on your journey I hope that's a protein cookie Sound like great goals and a good timeline - look forward to seeing your updates! x

BonfireBelle

Hi Skinny I'm with you about having weight pounds to lose and money pounds to gain. Good luck - sounds like you've got a great plan together.

Hope your health is on the mend too.

skinnylove

Florence_J wrote: »

I am also in debt and need to drop some weighty pounds so I wish you the best. You will get a lot of support on here.

Thank you very much. I hope your weight loss goes well, if that's the route you're choosing! x

Bobarella wrote: »

Good luck with your goals Skinny.

Thank you kindly!

skinnylove

Lumanous wrote: »

Good luck on your journey I hope that's a protein cookie Sound like great goals and a good timeline - look forward to seeing your updates! x

Thanks! Haha, yes... a protein cookie...
Now I just have to get started!

BonfireBelle wrote: »

Hi Skinny I'm with you about having weight pounds to lose and money pounds to gain. Good luck - sounds like you've got a great plan together.

Hope your health is on the mend too.

Thank you very much. I hope we both manage to get slimmer, whilst our wallets get fatter!

Yes, I'm much improved now, thank you for your kind words.

skinnylove

Okay, so this week we spent 3 nights in London, sightseeing and seeing the Harry Potter play - this was absolutely amazing, even though the tickets cost us £260!! These were paid back in October 2015 though so it's not too painful now haha. I had already budgeted £350 for meals and spending money and came in at £353 so I am very pleased with that! That just leaves me with £100 in our "Holiday" fund, which gets £100 added to it each month.

I have a stay in Manchester booked for the end of June which will cost £225 for the hotel & then money for food will be needed. I'm waiting on my reward card of £150 to come from BT, plus £120 cashback. So that £270, plus the £200 which will be in the holiday fund will be more than enough to cover everything. I also have some Clubcard points, so I think I'll boost them 4x for a restaurant voucher which will help with budgeting too, as I've got more expenditure on the horizon, which I'll explain in another update...

My new hours start at work tomorrow. Looking forward to the extra money but not so much working 9-5! I used to work 10-2. I am however, looking forward to having Friday's off though because... I've decided to join Slimming World on Friday! I've been a member before... a few times. Last year I lost 2.5 stone on it. It does work when I stick to it but I do get a bit complacent. I have £300 set aside for the year for "Health" so that will include SW & maybe a gym or something. I know when I do Slimming World that I eat much better and cook the majority of food from scratch, which is helpful to the food budget. I'm looking forward to getting started again. I find I have to reach the point where I'm so sick of how I look that I get motivated. Otherwise I find I just can't be bothered to care.

Today should be a NSD for me. My parents are visiting and they are taking me out for lunch and paying which I'm very grateful for

In other news, I caught a cold the day before we went to London and now have a barking cough and a blocked nose. Delightful! It always happens to me!

Thanks everyone for reading my ramblings x

skinnylove

So Sunday didn't really stay a NSD unfortunately as I ended up spending £60 on a pre-booked whisky tour for our holiday in July/August. Hubby will pay £40 of it (as it's for him!) and the other £20 comes out the present fund as a gift for my father.

First week of four full days didn't go too badly but I'd forgotten how tired it makes me feel, and how quick the evening flies over when you finish at 5pm! Still the extra £300 will be good, although I have a horrible feeling that HR won't put the adjustment through in time and I'll be left with my normal wages. Not major if that happens I guess as I'll just get extra the following month.

Tomorrow is D-Day with regards to my weight, though I'm doing that second guessing thing where I know I should go, but I also wanna eat all the junk food in the world and put it off another week... Story of my life haha. Guess I'll see how I feel in the morning.

Still waiting on my £120 cashback to be paid. Nothing much else to update. I think I'm going to have a mosey on over to the challenges board and see if that gets me in the mood.

another_casualty

Good luck on your journey

skinnylove

Thanks another casualty!

Can't believe it's been a month since I updated. Whoops! So I got paid for my extra hours - £300 which has gone straight into the emergency fund. Currently stands at £400. We also got given just shy of £500 from very kind relatives for our wedding anniversary. We desperately need a new bed and mattress so the £500 is going to be put towards that.

I spent a bit too much last month on the credit card and now the balance is just over £3000. Oops! Trying not to spend anything else on it this month, or indeed at all really until the balance starts decreasing, which should hopefully be about September time. I know where I overspend - eating out and grocery shopping. Buuuut I finally joined SW last week. First weigh in was last night and I lost 5lb! Very happy with that. Now just need to keep it up for the next year haha. This should help curb the frivolous eating out and grocery shopping.

My Fitbit broke, but as I was in warranty, I'm being sent a new one for free. Hopefully it will arrive today. They did offer me 50% off a newer model but I was good and thought, well I've already paid £100 for this one, I'd like it to last longer than a year! Hoping this gets me moving more again as well.

I received my £120 Quidco cashback and my £150 BT Reward card. £120 has already gone into the holiday fund to help with our weekend away to Manchester. The £150 is going to be used for a food shop for our other holiday at the end of July.