Going to dig ourselves out of this hole

enthusiasticsaver

Until you adjust to the new way of living in a life without depending on credit I think I would put £200 away for groceries each month from your DH pay (yours is allocated to direct debits). £160 each per month for personal spends (to cover clothes, entertainment and haircuts) and £60 for fuel. That is £580 to go into the monthly spends account although you might want to make it up to £600 to give a little buffer. Draw cash out to keep track of how much you are spending or check it every few days to make sure you do not go overdrawn. That would leave a massive £828 spare to go into savings for things like holidays, debt overpayments once you are used to the new way and have some emergency savings. If your DH gets paid weekly just divide by 4.

lincs1205

Hi enthusiastic, I just wanted to say thankyou for all your suggestions and advice it is so valuable and useful to me and we are acting upon it. I definitely feel calmer and a bit more in control than I did last week or the week before when I first came on here.

There are many triggers for me to start spending usually as I've said before it's when i'm stressed or upset or work has been rubbish or a yolo moment. I think the trick is that 1) don't carry any cash on me when i'm at work 2) go and have a bath or ring someone for a chat or 3) come on here so I can get a kick up the bum.

enthusiasticsaver

lincs1205 wrote: »

Hi enthusiastic, I just wanted to say thankyou for all your suggestions and advice it is so valuable and useful to me and we are acting upon it. I definitely feel calmer and a bit more in control than I did last week or the week before when I first came on here.

There are many triggers for me to start spending usually as I've said before it's when i'm stressed or upset or work has been rubbish or a yolo moment. I think the trick is that 1) don't carry any cash on me when i'm at work 2) go and have a bath or ring someone for a chat or 3) come on here so I can get a kick up the bum.

That is exactly the right mentality. Identify your triggers and put something in place to help you avoid spending. Feeling in control normally does alleviate stress. A great way of motivating you is to put your debt figures in your signature and update monthly so you can see the figures come down. Set challenges like keep within a grocery budget or have a number of NSDs (no spend days). Post on here lots for support.