Trying to be back in black, in the words of ACDC

Fudgefund

Hi all

I used to post on here a long time ago (I've just been given a 6 year anniversary badge as a helpful time guide). I managed to not quite get out of debt back then but very nearly and have since managed to get myself firmly back in it again and thus I am back here again.

My debts are currently:

Barclaycard - £4060 (21.9%)
First Direct - £1940 (0% for 12 months)
O/D - £500 (very minimal interest - 80p or thereabouts)

A bit about me, I have recently got married, and due to my poor attitude to money/keeping track of spending somehow spent a lot in the lead up which which didn't get joint accounted.:think: I have not told my husband the extent of my debts as it would blow his mind but he is aware I am in some debt and has worked with me to draw up a spreadsheet of incomings and outgoings to try and pin down what exactly I am doing each month.

I get paid tomorrow but I get a little extra this month which throws things a bit (the amounts about reflect this month's payments as I've just worked them out). Moving forwards I will be snowballing my two credit cards and paying off a minimum of £280 per month. I'm treating this as something I'm in for the long haul with so don't want to over commit myself until it settles down (I'm hoping I'll have less commitments once the summer is over and I can spend my days wholesomely preparing healthy meals and apple crumbles, you know, like the type of people on Escape to the Country.

It's frustrating I'm back here again, but I was 'saving' £200 per month for my wedding for two years which was basically going onto a credit card every time I had to book a train ticket or any other irregular spend came up, so it was inevitable really.

I'm planning to record every penny I spend in a notebook, aim for NSD's during the week, never be caught without lunch for work and resist the urge to buy family bags of Revels for the bus home.

I have changed my phone contract from £52 down to £24. I really need to work out how to cancel this £5 I have been paying for phone insurance for years - they seem to make it deliberately hard to work out what to do.

This is going to be a very dull diary I'm afraid, but I am determined. I want to lose weight so that will be a frequent theme.

DFD is apparently October 2021, surely this can be improved...

teafor2

Morning FF Firstly, Congratulations on your marriage :beer: I've been on here since just before Christmas and can honestly say I've gone from not knowing where any of my money was going to being able to account for every penny of it. I'm also able to do much more with it since starting my diary.

I reckon once you're into the swing of things you'll be able to shave some time off your debt free date but agree about taking things easy to start with until you properly find your feet.

I could probably pip you for most boring diary on here :rotfl: but hey, if we all get to where we're heading who cares

I'm subscribing to cheer you on from the sidelines and look forward to your updates. Have a great day. xx

Fudgefund

Hi teafor2 :wave: thank you for saying hello and cheering me on. I will subscribe to your thread, although I wouldn't be taking advice from me if I were you! I'm sure my key to success does lie in recording everything, so I have done so today.

I have withdrawn my weekly allowance of £40 in cash today so I can track what I am spending without waving my card at things. I've blown all the cobwebs out of my purse and will be keeping
every penny. I have got to go to Blackpool at the weekend which is going to be hard so I'm going to try and keep as much of this as possible for then.

I cashed in my spare change jar today and have a princely sum of £20.72! I'm going to pay for me and DH's train journey there with that and hopefully have a few pounds left over for a bag of chips (I told you I am dull).

I got paid today so have paid off my credit cards to reflect the figures on my signature. I've got the payday itch to pay off more than I can afford, but I'm sitting on my hands until I've made it to the end of the month at least.

I'll be really glad when the summer is over (so expensive!), but then my DH is expecting me to start saving again. A lot of this trouble started when I was servicing a much smaller debt but was trying to save on top of that for the wedding. There's a chat coming. Ugh.

teafor2

I have a similar amount of weekly spends as you do. But I don't go out to work or go out much at all in fact so find it quite easy to hold onto my cash - mostly anyway.

My downfall is or rather was, the children - not so little, one a teen and one at Uni and I was always automatically dipping my hand into my pocket to treat them or pay for anything we did anything as a family or needed a top up shop etc. Not that hubby wouldn't have paid for things. I just managed my money badly and everything would come out of my spends rather than the joint account. No wonder I never had anything, but after just a few months on here I've managed to get rid of all those bad habits and have become very self centred :rotfl: not really.

Is your husband expecting you to save for something specific and will he also be saving? Do you think you'll work your way up to telling him what your debt is. I'm not technically minded at all but if he's going to help you set up a spreadsheet won't he be able to see your figures?

My only advice is try to come on here as much as you can. Even when you think you've nothing to say, it really does help focus the mind. xx

beanielou

Hello :wave:
Happy shiny new diary.
Break it down into baby steps.
Anything you could sell to help you along?

beanielou

Oh & my diary is very boring :rotfl:

Fudgefund

Hi Beanielou! I remember you (and I'm a poet and I don't know it). Thanks for stopping by. I don't have much to sell, I do have clothes but when I see people selling dresses for £3 on eBay I'm not sure it's worth it. I do need to try and sell the underskirt from my wedding dress and my veil, they were both expensive and I doubt I'll be wearing them again. I hope not anyway. :rotfl:

Teafor2 - I am exactly the same as you were regarding casual spending. I am always topping up the weekly shop, never write it down anywhere and then forget about it. Me and DH do have a joint account for such things but I always seem to end up paying. I also manage my money badly and can't account for it, but not anymore.

My DH is not saving for anything specific, it's just something he thinks we should be doing. He has quite a lot of excess at the end of the month so would like to save, which is fair enough. I'm still mulling over my options in terms of telling him the extent of my debts. We did get some money for the wedding which I could use to halve my Barclaycard debt and reduce the interest, but I haven't got up the nerve to broach the subject yet. When we did the spreadsheet I said, "I'm not going to tell you how much I owe but I will tell you how much I want to repay per month" and we went from there.

Today was going well until my colleague suggested we get a thank you gift for another colleague and I was the only one free to go out and buy it. I had to put £14 on my card, and I've now got to recoup £2 from each of my colleagues in cash, whilst contributing £4 myself as I didn't want to ask everyone for £2.33 recurring. Hopefully I'll get the £10 back in cash and keep it for next week. Was annoying, but I didn't want to explain why I didn't want to go or seem awkward.

Good news though - I have made a bean chilli very cheaply which could feed the 5000 and I took it to work today, with overnight oats. Didn't spend anything on myself or chocolate and I have the same again tomorrow already in the fridge. I can already feel my halo coming back. :A

Fudgefund

Another fascinating day in my life today. I recouped my £2 from all of my colleagues for the gift I bought, one of my colleagues gave me £3 because he didn't see why I should pay £4 and I nearly hugged him.

My manager returned to work after a 15 month absence and suggested we go for lunch. I couldn't very well say no so went along with it, the world's smuggest bean chilli left uneaten in the work fridge. Lunch did only cost me £5.90 though thank god and I have paid for it out of the fiver DH's Nan gave me for my birthday. Adulthood. :rotfl:

That is all my spending for today, fear not the novelty of this diary will soon wear off and I won't be itemising my spending everyday. I'm off to Blackpool tomorrow so won't be back until at least Saturday. So much scope for things to go wrong, but I have at least still got my weekly spends. DH pointed out two tram tickets is going to cost us £20 before we pay for anything else which was a bit depressing. Hopefully I'll win big on the 2p machines.

beanielou

Blimey, that must be hard to return to work after 15 months of for your boss.
Enjoy Blackpool.

teafor2

Morning Fudge I started off listing everything I spent and it got me into some really good habits and helped me to analyse why and what I was doing. As the weeks went on I eased off on doing that but I think it's a good way to start.

Glad you recouped the money. If I were cheeky enough, which I'm not, I'd have been inclined to round it up to £2.50 then treat myself to a bar of chocolate for being the one who went and got the gift :rotfl:

If your DH has a fair bit left over every month I can understand why he wants to, and is able to save. But you'd be better paying off your debts really and then saving. Maybe eventually telling him the figures would help him fully understand you're situation. He's got half the story already if he knows how much you want to pay each month, I guess he just doesn't know for how long

Hope you both have a lovely time in Blackpool. I'm sure you'll come back raring to get yourself sorted out. xx

Fudgefund

Annnd, I am back from the Golden Mile. I won't bore you with a breakdown of the spending, but I ended up £20 over my weekly spend budget, which I don't think is too bad for a weekend away. I usually pump at least £20 into machines and I walked away after £5 in Coral Island so that was some supreme will power. It's all on the spreadsheet.

I decided I had to have "the chat" with DH whilst we were away. I did my usual of saying deadly seriously "we need to talk" so he automatically assumed the worse and was relieved when it was about money. He was actually wonderful, and we agreed I could use £3000 of out savings to reduce my interest from approx £90 a month to £17. DH still wanted a bit in the bank which is obviously totally understandable. I am so relieved to have told him, it means he won't be on at me to save and it also means I'll be debt free a lot sooner. I explained that if I don't sort this out now our finances as a married couple will always be a mess, and he agreed. I do feel back for holding him back but I plan to make up for this by sorting our house out over the next few months as I won't be going out anywhere! I didn't tell DH about my other card, which is bad of me. He was so shocked about the £4k I didn't want to finish him off.

So, the plan is £250 per month for 16 months, and £60 to my other credit card which is 0%. I'm hoping to get this down and overpay some months, but August is going to be horrific for me financially (two UK holidays) so I'm trying to be realistic.

I get my next £40 spends tomorrow, I have got to go out for lunch with work on Friday, hopefully I'll keep that to around £10 at most. I was planning to meet my friend for a drink on Friday but I suggested instead we stay in at her house and drink some of my wedding booze and she went for that, so that is good. I just need to buy a few snacks and pay for train fare (about £6.40 I think).

I've made lunches for the week and I'm about to do my overnight oats, so I shouldn't need to spend anything this week. Hopefully I won't find an excuse to do so anyway.