Put away your purse & become debt-averse

BlueJ94

foxgloves said:

That house deposit will be your big motivation, @jadewest94. re debts taking so much of your earnings. I can remember back when we were still very spendy, thinking 'Why can't we afford a camper van? It's not fair, we earn good money but we've never got anything left over for any of the big stuff we'd like to do. And we didn't, because we frittered it all! At that time, we had 2 full-time, not enormous but perfectly respectable professional salaries coming in, no savings whatsoever & around £35k of assorted loans, debts, consolidation loan (the 3rd one!!!) & 2 overdrafts. I sat at my desk & added up every debt repayment & was shocked at the amount. Because we never got into difficulty, could afford the payments, & only once had any of our borrowing capped (which was on a new joint mortgage when our debts were taken into account & deducted from the maximum amount the Building Society would lend us), we never saw our debt as a problem. We just regarded it as regular monthly payments. I just couldn't live like that now & it is very obvious from your posts that you obviously hit that same lightbulb as me (Mr F took a little bit longer). Even just getting rid of my overdraft (which I'd had from the age of 19 to my early 40s!!) was amazing because for the first time in practically my whole adult life, all the wages I had coming in to my account belonged to me. They no longer disappeared straight off down a dark hole never to be seen again! I don't even miss all the stuff I used to buy. You are going to sort this at a much younger age than I did, I reckon. Keep at it & you will defo get there. It is so worth it when you make that final payment & think 'OMG......it's GONE!!'
F

Wow! I can't wait for my debt free moment. My debt has only ever hit 6k. I've only been properly working for the last 5 nearly 6 years now and I hit the light bulb moment when I realised I was always always skint after payday and couldn't afford to put fuel in my car so just used a credit card and never paid it in full. Then I realised, when I'm maxed out that's it. I don't get to put anymore petrol in my car, I'd have to call into work sick and be embarrassed that I couldn't get to work to make money because I haven't got the money to fuel the car. That's when I seriously realised I need to do something. My first relief is when I had to pay a £227 on a CCJ over a parking ticket. I paid it, in full. That gave me a kick up the bum!

Although, I'm still skint most months all my bills are paid, I have a budget and know where the money is going. With this extra job I'll be on £1800 a month near enough. I could clear my Fluid and Barclaycard in one payment. I'm aiming to be debt free next year, for good!

The new job is only a temp position but she did say that it's more than likely permanent if I show I'm good at it.. I've got 5 years of experience so hopefully I'm good

BlueJ94

Hey @foxgloves I managed to get under the 5K mark 

foxgloves

@jadewest94 - Fantastic! You're in the 4s......which with your new job will then become the 3s...... 
F x

Deni_debt-free_dreamer

hi foxgloves and friends

Just jumping on to agree that it's an amazing feeling to be debt free - i only achieved it just over 6 months ago.  Like jadewest i did extra jobs and i still now work lots of hours as have a FT job, 2 PT jobs and some self employment.  
I enjoy reading about all your good habits foxgloves and am currently sat in the kitchen wearing an extra jumper and all the lights are off in the other rooms I havent put the heating on yet either .....

Deni x

foxgloves

Hi @Deni_debt-free_dreamer - Despite our debt-free day being a good few years ago now (tho mortgage-free much more recent). I'll never forget that feeling of euphoria & relief when the last bit of debt is paid off. It feels life changing.
I am so with you re being careful with energy use. Who knows where & when this upward trajectory in energy prices will end? Last night, Mr F told me 3 times he was 'feeling quite chilly'. I pointed out each time that he was sitting there in a T-shirt. He said 'You' ve told me that 3 times now'. I said 'Yes, because you agreed with me that's why you were cold, but two hours later, you are still saying it & still only in a T-shirt'. We will of course turn up the thermostat when needed, but atm, I do think a combination of 18, 18.5 & 19 degrees is sufficient if we are wearing a hoodie or cardi. With more rises to energy bills predicted in April, I think people who routinely sit around in T-shirts all year round & keep the thermostat high day & night are going to see some nasty bills
F x

marionmgcars

Hi, I’m loving reading everyone’s posts .  I saved to pay off my mortgage a few year ago and it meant I could reduce my hours to 3 days a week, then with careful budgeting now on 2 days a week.  Reading everyone's posts keeps me motivated.  

foxgloves

It's lovely when sensible money behaviour pays off, isn't it, @marionmgcars? I would never have been able to go part-time (Round 1 of the austerity cuts at work) followed by taking VR (that was further job cuts in Round 2) if I hadn't fixed my appalling attitude to money & already made very significant inroads into paying off our debts. The thing that constantly surprises both me & Mr F is that there really hasn't had to be a massive cutting back of our lifestyle. All we've really done is learn to budget well & cut out money wasting. As our income did in fact see a 50% reduction, I think that shows just how much money we used to waste in the bad old days. The equivalent of my salary must have been wasted one way or another - that's quite a sobering thought. 
F x

foxgloves

Hello Comrades,
Pouring with rain now. I did get the laundry almost dry. It's on the heated airer now but I will check it in a couple of hours & switch off. Builders arrived at 8 am & they have made good progress with the remedial sub dpc brickwork. They did uncover a little bit of a problem but this will be patched up & sorted properly in the next tranche of work, so I am not going to worry about it. 
I have to hold my guilty little mitts up today & admit that I have spent really quite a lot of money. It was planned spending & from the Home Improvements Budget, but I still felt a sort of 'mental gulp' if there is such a thing, when I was inputting my card details for the 3rd time! I had to hold off ordering a sofa & chair until the redecoration was at a suitable point to take delivery. In the meantime, the ones we wanted have gone in & out of stock and I felt I needed to make some decisions. Today's variant on the stock issue was that the sofa was available, but not the matching chair. There was no indication of when it might be available so as I like quite an eclectic look, I decided to look at sourcing a contrasting chair instead. I found one  - quite a funky mid-century style in vivid bright plum velvet - Mr F was not averse to it (!!!) so I ordered it & also the original leather sofa. Neither item is going to arrive anytime soon. 'Delivery to your address from tomorrow' turned out to mean the end of September for the sofa, & the chair is unlikely to be until after Christmas. There are some in stock, so I expect the delay is down to some joyous brexitty driver/delivery reason. I saved £200 on the new lounge curtains (our current ones are faded & fretted by pesky cat claws) by going for my 2nd choice rather than some very expensive made-to-measure ones. I decided I couldn't justify that. I'd have ordered all that back in the Spendy Decades without a thought, telling myself it was the best deal ever, etc, etc, but I do always find myself spending more mindfully now & always with a budget in place to cover the expenditure.
Having said that, there was a modest top-up shop this morning. I'd written a note in my diary reminding me to bake a cake tomorrow, but had forgotten to buy extra eggs, butter & icing sugar. Grrrr. I used to do so many top-up shops in the past, but now I regard every one as a failure of my meal planning system! Ah well, if you want perfect, this is probably the wrong diary, lol.
Mr F says he'll cook tonight - only need to heat up leftover slow cooked BBQ beef & make some jacket wedges - so I think I'll read & do some sock knitting.
Take care m'dears,
F x

Jellytotts

Love the sound of the plum velvet chair!  But I'm with you on the guilt feeling of spending after being in debt and saving.

We downsized in 2019 and our debt was gone in 2010 so we had 9 years of overpaying the mortgage and saving. When we moved here we needed a teeny tiny mortgage to allow the savings to be used to refurbish as we wanted but every single purchase has been researched, thought out and agonised over.  We only have one room left to do (bathroom) and have a savings pot maturing this time next year to cover it but we've already talked ourselves out of several things we felt we wanted and are opting for a basic bathroom (seeing as they seem to need replacing so often nowadays) and I will do the work myself (have fitted a bathroom before with DH's  invaluable help, his disability means he can't do the heavy work but he can do the measuring, the ordering and the telling me how to...). It will mean there's more savings at the end (which a big chunk of will go towards the mortgage) and I'll feel that we've done the best we can with the limited funds we have.

but plum velvet....sigh....I wish! With 3 cats, one of which is ginger, it would end up every other colour than plum.

foxgloves

Great idea, @Jellytotts, if you can do bathroom fitting yourself.
I may come to regret the bright plum velvet. We are without a fur friend atm, having lost our dear old cat to illness last year. We will definitely adopt another though, or a pair, as soon as all our internal home improvements projects have finished.
F