Here goes....

fruitloop04

Thank you for the honest answer Tim! I definitely have got in to a frivolous way of thinking which needs to stop. I need to be tough with myself!

fruitloop04

Thank you kram. This is definitely my lightbulb moment. I took lunch to work yesterday - my first victory!

tempus_fugit

fruitloop04 wrote: »

I think I have filled the SOA out wrong...I have put both our salarys in but our 'personal' money is completely separate so this is giving a false reading!

I get paid £2,200 monthly and pay £1000 a month in the joint bank account.

Out of the money I have left, I pay:
£50 per month in to my gifts account (this has nothing in it as all my friends 30th this year)
£180 in to my holiday account (The amount in this account will not be enough for upcoming holiday)
£200 into my car account for fuel, maintenance and mot (although I have had to put some on my credit card as not enough in the account to cover unexpected maintenance)
£100 in to savings account
£400 off CC2 (which isn't really paying it off much extra)
£16 - contact lenses
£27 - gym

The rest goes on beauty products (have a bit of an addiction - need to stop this!), buying luch every day, takeway coffes on the way to work and eating out, clothes etc.

Sorry did get the TV license wrong!
We could definitely get our food bill down - I buy food daily after work so need to start doing a weekly shop.

Yes, I just admit to being a little bit confused now. In the SOA you have monthly expenses of just shy of £2200, but you've now said that you pay £1000 towards these into the joint account, and the rest of your income, ie £1200, goes on your personal stuff. Adding up that comes to about £800- ish (very rough calculation in my head) so you should have about £400 left over.

In addition, it looks like you have included some of your personal spend in the monthly expenses figure (around £450-ish) and it's not clear if the rest are halved to reflect the fact that you both pay towards these. If not then it looks like your true cost for the joint monthly expenses is around £800, so it looks like on those figures that the £1000 you pay in is slightly too much, unless of course you have split it pro-rata on your relative incomes.

In any event, it looks like there should be no way that you have to use credit for everyday living costs so either a new and more accurate SOA or a spending diary (as other have suggested) will be needed here, then more suggestions can be made. I can tell you though that once you get the everyday costs down and a proper monthly budget in place then you should easily get this under control and not only that but going forward you will have the thrill of being able to save large amounts towards future needs and wants rather than having to use credit which, with your joint incomes, should not be necessary.

Mnd

To be honest £2000 a month to run a household seems resonable , we run on 1200 but no mortgage.I don't work anymore and our household income is about 2100 out of which we save fo holidays etc.I can never see the point of a couple with mortgage,holidays etc not pooling the money as it's all joint anyway, but if that is what you prefer than that's up to you. As long as you get to grips with your spending then a joint income of £4000 and relatively small debt, you should get clear and start saving as well.good luck

enthusiasticsaver

Doing a spending diary is a good idea but you have already admitted that you don't budget enough for the car maintenance so that goes on a credit card, you don't budget enough for holidays so they too go on a credit card and you fritter money on beauty products, clothes etc.

The positives are the debt is not too high and is on 0%. Your income is £2200 per year and £1000 goes into the joint account that looks like that is more than half of the joint expenses (including groceries). How did you arrive at that figure? The groceries figure is high and if you get more disciplined about your spending you should be able to clear that debt within 7 months. I would suggest you go cold turkey and stop using the credit cards altogether as it seems as if you have got into the very common mentality of thinking you are not spending when you use them. As you have found out spending on them ruins budgeting

poppasmurf_bewdley

fruitloop04 wrote: »

I think I have filled the SOA out wrong...I have put both our salarys in but our 'personal' money is completely separate so this is giving a false reading!

I get paid £2,200 monthly and pay £1000 a month in the joint bank account.

Out of the money I have left, I pay:
£50 per month in to my gifts account (this has nothing in it as all my friends 30th this year)
£180 in to my holiday account (The amount in this account will not be enough for upcoming holiday)
£200 into my car account for fuel, maintenance and mot (although I have had to put some on my credit card as not enough in the account to cover unexpected maintenance)
£100 in to savings account
£400 off CC2 (which isn't really paying it off much extra)
£16 - contact lenses
£27 - gym

The rest goes on beauty products (have a bit of an addiction - need to stop this!), buying luch every day, takeway coffes on the way to work and eating out, clothes etc.

Sorry did get the TV license wrong!
We could definitely get our food bill down - I buy food daily after work so need to start doing a weekly shop.

Face it. You can't really afford to go on holiday, can you?

I would stop paying all the other items I have outlined in bold.

You are paying less than one quarter of your income on mortgage and council tax. Many people who manage are paying half of their income for the same thing.

You have a good income. You are just overspending.

Jon_B_2

This whole thread just doesn't add up.

We are the same age, both turning 30 in the next 6 months and have a not quite so expensive joint holiday planned. Our mortgage is the same per month, our council tax is more. I pay £300/month off a loan, we have two kids, pay £7-900/month childcare, raise two kids.

We earn smack bang the same jointly and yet we have £1k+/month to squirrel away.

We have a joint account, but do keep £400/month each (£800 total) for fun stuff. Completely frivolous but YOLO.

tempus_fugit

Jon_B wrote: »

We have a joint account, but do keep £400/month each (£800 total) for fun stuff. Completely frivolous but YOLO.

And the important thing is, you can afford it without going into debt.

fruitloop04

Thanks for everyone's comments, I am going to try and answer as much as I can.

The money we both put in our joint account is proportionate to our wages so I put in more. CC1 comes out of the joint bank account and is a money transfer card to pay for house renovations. This card will be paid off before the 0% period ends as I worked out monthly payments and budgeted for this so I am not worried about this one (although paying it off earlier would be great). We are happy having our own bank accounts, it is how we have always down it and just our preference

This leaves me with £1200 a month. I got CC2 and promptly put christmas and a long weekend away in London and a hen do on it which caused the initial big balance. Since then I have struggled with my spending and as someone in earlier post, generally didn't see it as real money. I bought a fitbit, paid £150 for Joe Wick's programme, bought a whole new outfit for a friend's wedding, bought make up and expensive beauty items from QVC because they were such good value...but just sitting in a cupboard. I often buy breakfast and lunch during the day rather than eating breakfast at home and taking my own lunch. I must spend £200+ monthly on this! We also eat out A LOT...and I tend to put this on my 'reward' card and don't ask my OH for part of the money. It has got out of hand and using this as my moment to stop it!!! I have only just started piggy banking my money so I have had to put major car repairs, friends birthday presents (just worked out that I have spent £200 on birthday presents JUST for friends alone this year so far, then there is the money on each celebration night!!!) etc on the credit card but hopefully next year this will all be available in the allocated bank account where needed.

We can't cancel this holiday as we would lose so much money and as others have pointed out - I can claw this back. We have set a daily budget for the holiday and I am going to make sure we stick to it! I have some money in our holiday account and then I have told my boyfriend it is austerity when we get back until everything is paid back (I haven't told him that this is a long term change although I will loosen up slightly when we have no credit cards and an emergency pot). I would like to start paying extra towards our mortgage to help get a better loan to value when we remortgage. I am going to make this my focus!!

I am going to do a spending diary and see where I can cut back. I am not getting involved in my other halves finances - that's up to him. I may send him a monthly invoice though if we do have the odd meal out

Again, thank you for the advice. I need to be tough with myself and say no, organise and plan meals for home and at work. I know that quite a lot of my spending is making myself feel better when I have a cr*p day so need more positive methods of cheering myself up.

tempus_fugit

Well done on taking this on and resolving to nail it. I understand what you say about making yourself feel better after a bad day, I think most of us have been in that situation, but after a while it doesn't work so well, especially if it starts causing other problems, and it becomes less satisfying. What I can tell you is that, once you have it all under control and paid off, you will eventually be able to have some of the things you really want, without having to go into debt for them. When you get to that point, the feeling of control and satisfaction is worth all the hard work. In fact, it can become a good feeling NOT to spend money.

All the best and maybe it would be an idea to start a DFW diary to keep us up to date with how it goes.