-£99,152 net worth - scary figure

charliedavis

Haven't managed any more NSDs.

It's my birthday on Monday so OH took me shopping in Boots and wow it felt scary just buying things I wanted in the shops - as if I might lose control if not careful! Taking back a manicure set today that I have decided I don't need.

Then spotted some dresses/a jumpsuit in the Black Friday sales on Boohoo so OH bought these as an early xmas present as we are going away for the weekend in a couple of weeks.

Now time to put the brakes on - just in time to start Christmas shopping! I find online shopping so much more "money-saving" than going to the shops!

Cannot wait until the end of the month to pay off some more debt when the direct debits come out. We have set them up for about £30 to £50 each over the minimum each month.

ImpulseSpender

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a lovely day :j

shteca

I am guilty of this too. I spend based on my best months income. I had to change this so I spend based on my worst months and live off that.

charliedavis

OH's business has taken a turn for the worse and he hasn't made any money for a few days. I hate it when it goes like this. I cannot wait until we have funds saved up to be able to weather the bad patches more easily. A few days ago things were going great and we thought he'd have extra money - then the phone stops ringing! We have very heavy advertising costs which causes the business to make a loss quickly.

Right now it panics both of us as we are so close to the edge we are at risk of not making the rent. In reality this would be unlikely to happen as we could scrape it together from savings but a few more weeks like this and next month we'd be in serious trouble.

Self employment is great but also so incredibly scary.

charliedavis

ImpulseSpender wrote: »

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a lovely day :j

Thank you!

AdventureWanted

Hope OHs business picks up soon. It's always worrying when the business slows down. We're the same as you - we definitely need to build a buffer in OHs business, but I find it hard when there are debts to pay. I've started budgeting using YNAB weekly when i know what's being invoiced and have started adding in small amounts for a business EF. Hope things pick up quickly.

charliedavis

Thanks adventurewanted! A business ef sounds like a good plan. The business has only just gone limited so now is the time to build up good habits in the new bank account.
To reassure us both he calculated the full month profit and it is actually £1000 more than he needs to take out to pay the bills - so I think it’s just a cash flow issue due to invoices being paid late, people paying by card etc.

In other news should be a NSD today, no 5 for the month.

DS still enjoying his part time job and doing well at it so feeling happy about that!

charliedavis

Sold OH's old phone on Ebay for £60 despite it having a cracked screen and dead battery, think that was a pretty good result. Also listed 2 dress suits, one brand new plus a Joules cardigan. Should get at least £100 for those 3. maybe even £150.

Also got a £112 refund from health insurance that I cancelled which I have put straight into the EF which is now up to £1125.

Time to pay ourselves on 1st, cannot wait to get the debt down further.
Groceries total for Nov currently at £470 versus budget of £433 so gone over a little here.
Eating out / misc (including child pocket money & school trips etc) currently at £288. Had to revise the budget upwards to £80 per week, £346 per month, which is still less than half of our previous budget.
Petrol currently at £100.02 so over the budget of £80 but I've been doing a lot of long trips to Reading, Nottingham etc so will get that reimbursed via my business as expenses.

In other news I've been moving what I can into OH's name, as I had his car lease under my name so we have swapped that over saving £250 per month in the process as we moved to a much smaller car (also saving over £200 per month on his petrol too).
We also cancelled his phone contract which was under my name to put it under his, his was broken and sometimes didn't let him answer it so needed to be changed.

So lots of actions being taken but when the debt goes down so slowly it still feels frustrating!

Chrystal

Just on the car alone you're saving £5400 a year! That makes a big impact on paying off your debt... as long as you don't spend it on something else...:D

You are on the right track. Don't be put off by thinking it's going too slowly. It's a marathon, not a sprint.This gives you time to get your new financial habits to become set in stone, which will be an absolute bonus in the end. If somebody cleared your debts for you overnight you'd have learned nothing that would be of use in the future.
Wishing you well and subscribing to cheer you on.

charliedavis

Yes thanks for the reminder Chrystal!

Spent all day yesterday sorting out OH's first month of accounts as a limited company ready to give to his accountant - sounds hilarious I know but they were in a right mess as he collects some by card, some cash and some bank transfer and nothing was paid off or matched. Luckily I enjoy sorting out things like this and get a real sense of satisfaction once it's all finished.
The good news is that he made around £5500 profit in his first month as a ltd company so I think that's a pretty good result. In September he made £7000, in October around £3500 so you can see how variable it is. Makes forecasting difficult. He will be super busy over December so this should be a good month, which always helps with Christmas!

After years of being the main breadwinner, it's such a great feeling to be able to rely on him to bring in so much to the household budget.

So in all, feeling like it's a great start to December and looking forward to bringing the debt down even further this month.