Working Hard Debt Diary - Here goes

WorkingHardDFW

Thanks for all your comments much appreciated.

We've paid a stack off which is fantastic. It will be so good to have paid off over £20k by the end of the year. Keeping focused is the key.

OH and I went out last night for a meal with some friends. I cant remember the last time we went out together which is a little sad. The evening cost us £70 of which £50 is my own spending money for the month and the rest will have to come from extra earnings. The trouble is we both felt so guilty for going out which is wrong...

Sold another book on green metrolpolis :rolleyes:

Two mystery shops this week :rolleyes:

Aim for the coming week:

• List some things on ebay
• Organise the budget account and if necessary spilt the pots of money up further
• Review the spending diary and budget to ensure all spending is accounted for (and maybe open up some more savings accounts for my little pots of money) - I know it would make more sense to have all pots together but we work better with little pots of money. The clothing budget is struggling - £15pm for 3 kids and 2 adults is tight I think. I don't spend recklessly but shoes, uniform, clothes for growing kids and essentials for us when really necessary. I'll work it out.
• Organise and buy my DS's phone
• Working an extra day this week but for some daft reason reason agreed to take a day in lieu rather than the money. Need to take the money!

Heres to another fun packed week:cool:

WorkingHardDFW

Sold another book on GM - Another £1 or so off the debt - Yippee

hypno06

I know what you mean about having to take the money and not the day in lieu - it is too easy to take what you think is the easy option for a quiet life, or whatever! I don't get the chance of overtime, or days in lieu or anything in my job - you are expected to work extra hours for the sheer love and dedication to the cause :rolleyes:

But another £1 off the debt is another £1 don't have to find again :T

WorkingHardDFW

I'm lucky that I do get the choice. I think I have brian disengaged when I opted to take the day in lieu rather than the dosh!

And yes I have to think about our debt in bitesized chunks - a £1 really does make a difference. No one is going to give us the cash to clear the debts so its all down to hard work....:p

WorkingHardDFW

Second attempt :mad:

My budget account. As I said in an earlier post at the 7 month point of my spending diary I wanted to review what we spend from our budget account, how we spend from it and how much. Our budget account is for variable spending as below:

Childcare: Pre School childminder, Afterschool childcare, Nursery (although I get Busy Bee vouchers so I don't have to actually pay nusery bills very often and I've only got 4.5 months to go) and holiday childcare
Childrens & adults Activities: Cubs, Guides, Cricket subs, School Clubs, Swimming, School Swimming, Riding lessons, School Trips, Football, Music, School Milk Money & Judo
Household: Toiletries, Medical, Garden, Dentist , Dog food, Haircuts, Cleaning stuff, Dog costs, Household costs, window cleaning

This account has a budget of £390 pm but the actual spending of:

Childcare £200 pm
Kids Activities £200 pm
Household bills £120 pm

Leaving a massive shortfall of £130 pm

I'm not sure which I more shocked about the £200 per month spent on activities or the shortfall of £130 pm:eek: particularly since we've been watch our spending for the last 12 months.

Its brought me up short and made me reflect back on how we got into £52k of debt. In the past that £130 pm would have been absorbed by the joint accoutn overdraft or the credits cards. Being very positive now I have to adjust the budget (again!!) stay focused and appreciate that although our debt reduction will reduce pm we'll continue to reduce the debt each month.

On the positive our childcare costs will remain pretty static.

hypno06

Budgets need constant tweaking, and reorganising.....I know it is my area of weakness, and my "actuals" compared with my "budgets" are often way out, yet I don't feel as though I am "wasting" money on extras!

WorkingHardDFW

Thats so true - I think its the fact that we've been pretty careful for the past year.

But I rather been staying within our budget and not overspending that spending on cc's or overdraft!

WorkingHardDFW

Just checked the CC bill with the overspending from holiday and it wasn't as bad as I thought. . It pushes our debt total for £35,825

Recieved my very first Quidco payment £122 :T so that was paid straight off the target CC. Lovely.

lucielle

Those totals are coming down fast. Can you ditch the window cleaner for a while and put the money in the childrens activities account?
L

firesidemaid

i have to say we don't notice if our windows are cleaned - we clean the downstairs ones outside every so often ourselves, and that's it.