6 years.....

Working_Mum

Hi Penguin8410
I have just caught up on your diary - seems like things are moving in the right direction for you!!

I have a little book that I write all of my spends in - I find it a very mindful exercise but it has shown me so much and helped me save money. I hi-lite the amount in yellow when I spend using a card and then hi-lite across it in pink when it is paid from my current account BUT if I have used my credit cad I leave it yellow and hi-lite in BLUE when I have paid the money across.

It helps me make sure that I repay any of little amounts I put on my credit cards and keeps me on track to being debt free.

AS I always remind myself it the cumulative impact of these everyday little actions which will take me to my debt free destination!!

Penguin8410

Thanks working mum thats a great idea! i have so many little notebooks at home whihc are kids i could do with having one in my bag to do just that!


Its the small amounts which you don't realise add up so much!


good luck with your journey too!

Penguin8410

So this weekend was lovely and didn't spend much money either.


saturday took the kids to the park after the wedding and we had an ice cream.


sunday we went to the sealife centre (we have merlin passes) and we had an ice cream on the beach afterwards. i did have to pay for the small train which was £7.50 for 2 of us!!! i hadn't bought the buggy as thought we could park close but the road was closed off! will make sure i always have the buggy in the boot from now on!


we also go some good news the last couple of days....firstly i will have my overtime paid in from march in my pay on friday which is an extra £100 and even better my partner has been promoted recently and had had confirmation that he will be getting a £13k payrise! this will make a huge diffence, as it would do to anyone!


he's agreed to pay more into the joint account which covers most of the food and frees me up an extra £200 a month! I've allocated this to debt payments and savings for our wedding.


currently i'm saving £500 a month for the wedding and £200 towards debts. from December after the wedding i will be paying all of that off debts. when i look at it like this is really makes me wonder how i've got into this situation in the first place.......careful thinking about my money for the future is the only way i'm going to be able to make sure this doesn't happen ever again......

enthusiasticsaver

I use a spending app tracker on my phone to keep track of the small spends. Once you are paying £700 towards your debts that will really help. I strongly urge you to sort out that interest only mortgage asap when you are in a position to even if you have to go to a very long term mortgage. You can get 30 year mortgages. I agree that SE house prices are ridiculous though.

Penguin8410

So its been a while since i commented on this post.


just last month my other half finally had his payrise come through, so he has put some away for our wedding and is now paying even more into the joint account, although everytime we seem to sort it out and end up on track some extra cost happens, such a the service charge rising by £60 a month and the mortgage rising with the base rate change by £40 a month, so thats another £100 a month!


Once the kids are all back at school i will be looking into the options we have on repayment mortgages and see what route we can go down here as we really need to sort this out or start overpaying.


still doing my best to pay things off and spend as little as possible. started doing my weekly shop at Lidl which has saved between £20-30 a week depending on what i need to buy. we also haven't needed to do any top up shops apart from 1 to buy washing powder and milk and bread. we would normally have done about 3!


anyway things seem to be moving in the right direction still and i've done my budgets and plans for the next 18 months so no excuses!