Crunchy's Final Debt Free Diary!

crunch_time

Homegrown0 wrote: »

Glad the car situ wasn't too painful - there's always something unexpected that crops up, so i'm glad it wasn't as bad as you thought and that you had savings to cover it. It's a nice feeling.

I'll join you on the monthly struggle with food budgeting. Although for me, it's not just the food. It's popping into B&Ms and stocking up on toiletries, cleaning things and that all adds up. My food shop doesn't normally come to more than £60-70 per week. It's the random £60 in B&M on top of that (which i always forget/ can't forecast the cost) that scuppers me.

Anyway, if you find some miraculous solution, do share!

Im starting to think about upping the budget again but yes if I find a solution I shall share!!

crunch_time

Morning all!

Woohoo! Another payday today - £1000 off the holiday and £120 off the debt.

Feels so good! I've also received my 5 year anniversary of being on here. 5 years ago one father's day I was pregnant with my daughter who is now 4.5 and about to start school! We were on a walk and husband and I were chatting about money and how we really needed to get a grip on our finances. When I got home I started a diary on here. Hopefully I won't be here in 5 years time! Except maybe on the mortgage free wannabe boards!!

Crunchy x

crunch_time

Morning all

Husband got news of his annual pay rise yesterday. He was expecting 5% but actually got 10%!! He worked out that this will be an extra £400 ish a month which is awesome!! I'm not sure whether this will take effect from his pay next week or the week after

We then had an interesting conversation/argument last night over a bottle of wine about what to do with the extra money. I'm not exactly sure what the outcome was but I think it was along the lines of we have to look at our budgeting again and agree on some priorities. He's gone back to not being very involved again and needs to be. Or perhaps not and I give him an allowance every month. Does anybody else do this with their partners??

We also reflected on the time in our lives about 6 years ago before I started this diary and we were in nearly £30k in debt and the debts cost us rather a lot each month. After every bill and a small amount of spending money, we had about £10-£50 every month. Fast forward 6 years and that amount is around £1k.

Relatively quiet weekend planned here this weekend. I have school reports to write and the weeks are so busy that we just like chilling at the end of the week now.

Right, better go walk the dog and then get ready for our appointment at the travel clinic this morning!!

Crunch xx

enthusiasticsaver

Good news on the pay rise for your husband and the bonus.

Something about husbands today and not wanting to get involved in budgeting or paying down debt/planning for the future. Yellow mango said the same this morning.

Both my husband and I get a personal allowance each. That is the only interest my DH takes in finances. I make him listen to me every month or so about where our money is in case I go under a bus and we discuss priorities each year for house, holidays, cars etc.

crunch_time

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Good news on the pay rise for your husband and the bonus.

Something about husbands today and not wanting to get involved in budgeting or paying down debt/planning for the future. Yellow mango said the same this morning.

Both my husband and I get a personal allowance each. That is the only interest my DH takes in finances. I make him listen to me every month or so about where our money is in case I go under a bus and we discuss priorities each year for house, holidays, cars etc.

Thanks for the insight - always lovely to hear how other people manage their finances!!

crunch_time

Evening all

Got our final ever nursery bill today!! It was £50 less than I budget for as I over budget for it so I have paid off £50 of the overdraft. Since the overdraft is because we were wrongly told by HMRC that we could claim child benefit and then they demanded the money back over a year later, I have decided to use overbudgeted childcare money to pay it off. I won't be paying for childcare for the autumn term and would normally pay about £300 a month so I will use this to slush the overdraft away. I can't remember if I have told you guys that already.

The other thing we have decided is to pay for food in arrears. SO put it on cc's and then pay it off at the end of the month. I'm sure there will be people out there horrified at this but it will work for us for the time being. After the holiday we are going to have a good look at the finances and properly figure out the direction we are heading in.

Crunchy

crunch_time

Morning!

Forgot to say yesterday that I’ve upped the holiday balance by £1k. Reason is we have just paid for for our travel down to the airport and back as well as two excursions while we are there. All that is left to pay for now is our spending money and the hotel at the airport for the first night. That will come out of husbands pay rise money at the end of this month.

I’m starting to think about life and budgets for beyond the holiday now since we have about 5 weeks to go. We have landscaping and bathrooms to tile and floor in the house as well as loads more decorating to do. The first big job will be retiling the en-suite including the floor. Husband reckons he could do it himself but I’m going to get a a few quotes as well.

The next era of this journey is to balance debt busting with home improvements.

My daughter has her first morning at school today! She wasn’t born when we started the original journey. We are going to buy some seeds for plants for the garden as our reward for getting through it! Ha ha!!

Husband is away for the rest of the week so going to eat out of the freezer and get lots of jobs done in the evenings. I’m aiming for a weekend spending budget of £25. This weekend all we have planned is the school fete for a few hours. Other than that - lots of family time.

One of my jobs is to publish my category budget on here. I’ll have to re jig the numbers since husbands pay rise though.

Husband is also asking me to investigate Munzo or monzo as a budgeting tool - anybody’s out there tried this?? Would be grateful for some insight.

Crunch x

enthusiasticsaver

Good you have managed to save for the holiday in full and you should have lots of spare money going forward especially if your nursery costs are finished. It will be interesting to see how you balance debt busting with living and spending on home improvements/holidays and presumably longer term savings. We just did a three way split on savings. One third short term for annual holiday, decorating, car expenses. Medium term for bigger holidays and home improvement projects, car replacement and one third to long term savings to overpay mortgage and save for retirement/university costs etc. We had no debt though apart from a mortgage. When do your 0% deals expire and is the overdraft free of charges?

enthusiasticsaver

Monzo and Starling are digital banking apps. I have never used them but I think you can preload a card and set up categories and see your current balance at any time. They are popular so I guess a lot of people to find them useful. We actually do the same as you and put supermarket and fuel spends on a cashback credit card then repay in full. As the card only has food and petrol on it we find it easy to see if we are spending over our limits.

t2rry

Hi Crunchy!


Remember me!? I haven't been on here in so long I've just had the quickest catch up, how much happens in the course of 5 years?! Congrats on the house move!!!