Nearly debt free diary

jemreading

Hi Florence. Thanks for that that is what I thought, so at this moment in time he has opened a new savings account to put overdraft money into, once he’s paid off the overdraft he will then switch.

The overdraft he has is currently 0% with no fees (he has a student bank account still!)

enthusiasticsaver

Just caught up on your diary as not read it since July. You seemed to fall off the wagon a bit in the summer but are back on track now. Just a few thoughts.

If you are getting married next year where are the savings for this as you don't seem to allocate anything or are you concentrating on this once the credit card is paid off?

You pay a fair amount of your income to entertainment proportionately which is fine as you don't have a mortgage or a car but if you ever did go that way you may need to reevaluate. I would call football and gym entertainment. You also do quite a few holidays so you definitely need a holiday savings pot.

Your salary is ok but not huge so ideally you would not be using credit cards at all. They throw budgets out and it is too tempting to just stick a purchase on it thinking you will deal with it next month but then the next month is just as tight plus you have debt to deal with too. It is a slippery slope so I think you are doing the right thing by addressing it now.

Treat yourself to a laptop the month after you are debt free.

Well done for dealing with the debt before it got unmanageable though. I think your OH also could do with some financial discipline. How come he still has a student overdraft if he now working? If he wants to switch banks he needs to clear the overdraft the same way you are clearing your credit card. A 0% money transfer card is another option.

jemreading

Hello, thank you for your feedback enthusiastic. I will address your points below.

We are getting married in October 2019, so we are a good 2 years away from that point. Our view is pay debt then save for wedding. We have deposits on all the ‘big’ things: venue, photographer and registrar. My parents have already purchased bridesmaids dresses (x3) and flower girl dress (x1). My parents are contrbuting to half of the costs. The cost of living (East Midlands) is fairly reasonable so we don’t have the additional costs of living in the South, even if we have a “big” wedding, we are looking at costs of £14,000 for the wedding and honeymoon with my parents contributing half. So we are looking at £7,000 for our share. I have a wedding budget already but have added several hundred pounds to each category to counter balance the living costs going up! We managed to get all the deposits at a 2017 price with a guarantee that the costs won’t go up in line with 2019 wedding prices!!

Yes, my entertainment budget is quite high. My football season ticket is cheaper to do on a annual basis (plus you can’t get home tickets anymore as there is a membership system) so I’m basically getting 19 games for the price of 9! I’m looking at lowering my entertainment budget going into the new year. I’m also going to try and get better at saying no to things and I’ve cut out alcohol completely, which says a lot of money when out with my friends as a lot of socials are just drinking in the pub..

My salary is quite low, I’m at the start of my career, so as I progress or look for a new job my salary could go up by 10K, however, in my current job role I get good holiday, no evening or weekend work. I also get flexi time and a good amount of holiday. Also, to get the pay rise I would have to relocate to another part of the country.

I have learnt that I cannot continue to do as you say, stick it on the credit card and then hope to pay it off the next month.

Regarding the laptop situation, I don’t use it enough to justify buying a new one. My OH has a computer that he is fine with me using, he has set me up my own user account, failing that, I can use my mobile phone.

He’s been in work for the past 3 years, and out of uni for 4. I’m not sure how his bank hasn’t picked up on it yet. I’m trying to drill in the money saving ways but getting him to listen is the hard bit!!

Sorry for the rather long post, but it helps to put it all out there.

jemreading

I cashed out my prolific money (£10.28 before fees) and I need to check in on my £1 coins. I will see if I have enough to exchange and then stick in my savings account. I would like to be at £100 by the end of the month. I’m currently at £59.01.

jemreading

I managed to do an hour in the gym plus a 30 minute walk home! Just waiting for my dinner to cook (scampi and chips) so I’ve shifted my gym habits but not my food habits one small step at a time, right??

I also got the rest of my money out for my envelopes. I’m expecting the majority of my direct debits to go out tomorrow. I will then get to paying some off my credit card (need to consult with my spreadsheet to see the amount - think it was £200)

jemreading

Turns out I got £80 too much out of my account for envelope allocation so I’m popping into the bank on my way home at lunch time to put it back. Normally I would have left it out and spent it but not this time.

Been doing more surveys on prolific, they all seem to appear during my work hours. I just done three in 15 minutes and earnt £2.49.

I only have a half day today, so I’m going to have a window shop round town, go back home and make my pasta and sauce and read some diaries - was going to fit in a resistance band training but have injured my ankle on Wednesday so need to rest!

We have our weekly shopping tomorrow and I have a feeling it may be a big one. I need to do a stock check! Me and my OH are going to try and put together our own ‘supermarket meal deals’ and see how much it costs for: a sandwich/or pasta, two snacks and a drink.

jemreading

Coming to the end of my Christmas shopping now.

I did pick up the chocolate stocking fillers for my family as I was in town. I got them in the 3 for £6 deal from M&S (Got cherry liquors, Turkish delights and Operetta) which is great considering I was going to Thornton's and probably would have spent twice as much, so I put £70 back to my bank and used £10 to get the chocolate. I have the £4 left over which should get the chocolates for my niece and nephew.

Just need to pick up: main presents for my niece and nephew, one more present for my mum and dad, a secret santa work present (£5 budget) and something for my work colleague.. she has her eye on a ceramic R2 D2 mug as she's a massive Star Wars fan. I can buy both work secret santa and mug on Amazon and get free next day delivery as my OH has Prime..

jemreading

I now have a grand total of £68.87 in my savings, slowly rising is fine. I got the money from the prolific surveys (£9.79 after fees) which has been transferred straight into my savings account.

I still need to work out how many £1 coins I have. I think it should be above £20

I'm waiting for my final direct debits to go out so I can allocate money to my debt and savings - just need to figure out how much to each. Just got my phone bill to go out and will need to sit with OH and figure out how much the electricity bill will be.

jemreading

We went shopping this evening, have had a really big shop and it came to £80.97. This should eliminate all the small spends that me and my OH do during the week. We always do a big shop when we get paid and then the next two shops will be a good £30 cheaper.

I’ve been saving the shopping receipts to see what our actual week in week out buys are, once next week is over I’ll have 6 weeks worth of receipts and will then go through and categorise them further (breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks and toiletries spends)

We are doing our Christmas shopping tomorrow now instead so it will be a mad rush round as I have football at 3.

fay66

ooh cherry liquors think a trip to m and s is this deal still on