Extracting head from sand and facing the truth

EarlyRetirement

Well done.

indigowarrior

Lydia42 wrote: »

Oh, on another positive note i have spoken to Barclaycard and they have confirmed that the card i recently cleared (credit limit of £13, 500) has been cleared and closed. So no temptation to use this for any reason - hoorah!!!! I also reduced our Santander over-draft from £4000 to £1000 too. Happy days!!!

Amazing well done :j

BabyStepper

Hi Lydia42. I've managed to find your diary and it looks like you are making great progress already. Can I just ask, what are sinking funds?

Lydia42

Hi BabyStepper. Sinking funds are basically saving pots. So if you know that Christmas is going to cost approx £200 per year for example then you divide that by 12 (months) and save that each month so that you can pay when December comes around rather than thinking 'oh cr*p' i can't afford all that this month or oh no, i hadn't budgeted for that.
I'm new to it all but wanted to set a few up - including boiler (ours is old and usually costs us once per year), xmas/birthdays, car maintenance, school trips, clothes, dentist, professional membership for hubbie, vet bills. That sort of thing. I was just going to put it all into a savings account and divide it separately on my budget spreadsheet so i knew what i had in each pot.
However someone recommended that perhaps i focus on clearing some of our debts first. Tricky to know what to do for the best as i want to develop good habits and i don't want to have to resort to putting stuff like this on credit cards any more, but also want to put as much towards debt as i can.
Does my rambling make sense? lol

Lydia42

Hmmm, budget is likely to be blown this month as exhaust looks likely to be expensive as it can't be patched. I'm hoping to pop into garage and try and get a quote from them and see if it will wait until i get paid on 25th July. That way i can try and spread it over this month and next month whereas normally i would just get the credit card out and stick it on there! Good job i asked Barclays to close the cleared card so i can't do that this time, just nervous as this is all new territory for me. Best go look at what else i can cut back on this month to help cover it.

Lydia42

Grrrrr, just found the shower has been leaking and water has been running behind the tiles and damaging the plaster. Bath panel now off to allow plaster to dry out so we can see how bad it is. Hubbie is off work next week so I'm hoping he can sort it as we can't afford to get anyone in to do it.

Car booked in to garage next week to have exhaust replaced as i will need to use hubbies car whilst he is off and mine is being repaired. May need to raid the emergency fund to sort things out. We WILL NOT resort to the credit cards or increasing the overdraft this time!!

Brookside88

Hi, just come across your diary. Your debt looks similar to mine, I'm trying to snowball it.

Best of luck, I've subscribed

Lydia42

Brookside88 wrote: »

Hi, just come across your diary. Your debt looks similar to mine, I'm trying to snowball it.

Best of luck, I've subscribed

Hi Brookside
Thanks for subscribing. Do you have a diary? Would be great to follow you if you have similar debts. Scary when you total them all up and face the truth isn't it!!
How are you finding snowballing? Have you been doing it long?

kazwookie

Good start well done.

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Brookside88

Lydia42 wrote: »

Hi Brookside
Thanks for subscribing. Do you have a diary? Would be great to follow you if you have similar debts. Scary when you total them all up and face the truth isn't it!!
How are you finding snowballing? Have you been doing it long?

Yep I do, take a peak (it's not very exciting and I'm not great at keeping up with it).
Started snowballing in January, it's good to focus your efforts in the right place. I'm chipping away at it, albeit slower than I'd hoped