I want it all...and I want it now..

BalanceBy50

I have always wanted everything now, had zero interest in saving for things and as a result ended up with up lots of credit cards and a couple of loans.

I love reading other peoples diaries and find them so inspirational so I thought I would give one a go to see if it helped!

I will be 50 in 3 years, I have a lovely husband, who has always trusted me to manage the bills and our finances and 2 small children. We should be in a better position than we are considering our ages and income and I am worried that if we don't get on top of things we will still be in debt when we retire.

Hence I want a better balance by the time I am 50!

Love BB50 xx

BalanceBy50

So some goal setting by me!

Our debt currently stands at £56,285 and the majority is under a DMP however there are some bits owed to family members to cover some borrowing and a couple are still charging interest so i want to tackle those two.

1. Continue to pay £400 to debts
2. Build up savings so I don't have to borrow from family members when things go wrong. Also I would like an F&F pot to take advantage of offers when they come through.
3. No more bounced direct debits going forward. We have 3 really large ones come out in the same week and sometimes due to me not keeping a tight rein on our joint account the mortgage tends to bounce and then gets collected 10 days later. I want this to stop. On paper we should have enough to cover all our bills.
4. Continue to work harder to make more money through 'side hustles' - this includes my expenses from work, surveys, eBay selling and other ways I use to make extra money. I would like this to be £500 plus each month.
5. Have some NSD - this is a holy grail for me. I have a strong urge to spend all the time. I buy breakfast out on my working days (usually 3 a week), am addicted to Paper cup coffee (to quote another DFW mser) and buy lots all the time. My husband probably has 6 NSD a week!!!
6. Keep my little 'savings' pots intact and not dip into them. These cover beauty/health, Christmas, birthdays, car, holidays & savings.

I also want to lose weight, a lot of weight! And have fun as a family, Having recently attended 3 funerals of relatively young people and had a friend diagnosed with terminal cancer with 2 young children I want a balance of having fun with my family, saving some money and paying those debts off.

At the moment I am happy with our debt payments and have a 5 year plan to pay them off. I want to continue making £500 a month for holidays and doing stuff to the house and to contribute to savings.

Think that's enough goals for now.

Love BB50 xx

PurpleUnicorn

Hello,

Sounds like a good plan, good luck.x

dimsumdimple

Good luck with your debt busting! Seems like you have a good plan in place.

BalanceBy50

PurpleUnicorn wrote: »

Hello,

Sounds like a good plan, good luck.x

Thank you very much PurpleUnicorn xx

BalanceBy50

dimsumdimple wrote: »

Good luck with your debt busting! Seems like you have a good plan in place.

Thanks dimsumdimple - lovely of you to reply xx

System

Great to see you have started with your own diary . I used to buy coffee , sandwiches for lunch it all adds up. I now take breakfast and lunch to work, it has saved me a fortune this last 2 years. I occasionally have a treat and have lunch with a colleague in our work cafe .

I am subscribing.

System

Can you not change the date of your mortgage direct debit so it comes out on a better date ?

BalanceBy50

Cumbria_lass wrote: »

Can you not change the date of your mortgage direct debit so it comes out on a better date ?

Hi Cumbria, Lovely to see you and thank you for subscribing!

I think I need to change the date or even cancel it and pay by bank transfer. It is currently set at the 29th but maybe I need to move it to the 21st? I get paid monthly on the 21st and probably 2/3 of our DD's come out in the week following my pay day however I don't earn enough to cover all these DD's. DH gets paid weekly (all my little saving pots get topped up weekly as its easier to do this on his pay day) however I am [STRIKE]not very good[/STRIKE] rubbish at saving any money left from his pay week towards our direct debits at the start of our financial month (runs from the 21st to the 20th cos of my pay date!), I know its accounted for because we earn enough between us to cover all our DD's/bills but I just see it as spare money that needs spending!

I am hoping this diary will help me become more accountable in my spending habits and help my hit my savings targets quicker.

xx

BalanceBy50

Cumbria_lass wrote: »

Great to see you have started with your own diary . I used to buy coffee , sandwiches for lunch it all adds up. I now take breakfast and lunch to work, it has saved me a fortune this last 2 years. I occasionally have a treat and have lunch with a colleague in our work cafe .

I am subscribing.

Thanks Cumbria you are right it does all add up and I think DH would have a fit if he knew how much I spent. He takes his lunch and breakfast to work and does have a couple of drinks out the coffee machine at work but they are 10p each so hardly breaks the bank. Dread to think what it tastes like though :rotfl:

I am self-employed and work from home a lot and often just don't fancy what we have in so maybe I need to start buying some food that i will fancy for lunch? Today i have spent £3.60 on a bacon sandwich and a packet of crisps I called for on my way home from the school run this morning. We have bacon, bread and crisps in - so i could have made my own. :mad:

xx

Homegrown0

Hey, just stopping by to wish you well.

RE: the spending your husband's wages instead of saving them for DDs.

I had this issue a couple of years back- I'm paid monthly and my husband is paid weekly (and rarely on time!). We often thought 'wahay, we've still got plenty of money' so would go out for dinner etc then the following week, £600+ of DDs would come out and we'd plunge into our overdraft. When it said 'available balance' i took that to mean it was available for spending! I had the loosest of reins in terms of keeping track of our money so it was always a surprise to me and I never learned.

I decided we needed to separate bills and spending money to keep us on track and although it's not 100% effective, it's definitely at least 85% effective so really is working for us.

Every month on my pay day, i send cash to cover fuel, groceries and spending money for the month into our spending account. Theoretically we shouldn't need to touch the other account but sometimes we run out and need to pilfer from the bills account. Most of the time it works great for us, especially for my husband who doesn't take much to do with the finances so would just see money available at the cashpoint and assume we could spend it. When in actual fact, it should've been entirely earmarked for bills.

It has made a massive difference to us and how we spend.

Might be something that can work for you?