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

teafor2

Evening Fudge Good to hear you enjoyed your weekend away. I don't think £20 over is too bad especially considering where you went.

Good on you for telling your husband about the debt, I'm sure it must be a huge weight off your shoulders. Hopefully it means that eventually as a couple your finances will be much better, much quicker than if you'd carried on trying to pay the debt off, save and do other things while he didn't know the full situation.

It's my payday tomorrow as well :T:rotfl: I had £15 left over from last week which I'm adding to my £35 so a little bit richer this week although it's got to last me 10 days and it is school hols

Have a good week at work and keep posting. xx

beanielou

Also glad that you were able to tell your husband even if it was hard.
Onwards & downwards
Have a good week.

Fudgefund

Back for a weekly round up. It's been a week of mixed fortunes, I am pleased I managed to complete a week of overnight oats and cooked lunches which did really keep my snacking down and meant my spending at work was minimal, bar a packet of Jaffa Cakes I snaffled in one evening (50p, 460 calories).

Things fell apart somewhat from Friday onwards. I had about £35 in my purse from my £40, then spent £10 on lunch with some colleagues which I put on my card (peer pressure/trying to look young, insert embarrassed face). I spent about £25 on snacks and drink to take to see my friend which left me with about £8 which is still in my purse. The train to see her was £10.80, I panicked and put this on my card. I then drank too much, ended up spending a whole pound on a twix from a vending machine on my credit card and topped off the evening with a £4.17 drunk spend in McDonalds! Not my finest hour. It means £24.97 is on my cards, however I do still have the £8, so a weekly over spend of £17. I'm going to withdraw £30 tomorrow and see if I can stretch that out as far as possible. I didn't do anything yesterday or today bar go food shopping (budgeted from joint account) which was a thoroughly miserable experience as it has been peeing it down here all day and I was on the bus. Really there was no incentive to leave the house at all so no money spent.

The plan this week is much the same, try to make it to Friday with as much of my £38 in tact as possible. I'm owed a few pounds for food from the joint account so will make sure I get that back which should bump me back to over £40. I'm going south this weekend which could be expensive so I'm dreading it really. My sister wants to go for a meal with my Mum and halve the bill to treat my mum (which she deserves) I just hope we don't end up anywhere too expensive. I might say I'm not drinking to save a bit of money, I have no desire to tell them the truth.

I have done my oats and batch cooking this eve so onwards I plod. I hope you are enjoying the holidays Teafor2!

TravelGirl84

Hi Fudgefund

Just popping over to say hi and good luck with your journey. Well done for telling your husband, always best to be as honest as possible your husband sounds understanding and supportive so that's great!

Sounds like your doing great so far so keep it up, will be subscribing

TG

teafor2

Morning Fudge I'm enjoying the slow, lazy starts to the morning that's for sure

Spending blips happen to us all the main thing is you've acknowledged it. I'm quite impressed that after a drink you can remember exactly what you did spend. One glass of wine and I'd be lost. :rotfl: I used to find a lot of good intentions were blown at work, not so much lunch or drinks but the constant birthday/new baby/retirement collections :cool:

Have a lovely weekend with your Mum and sister. I'm not advocating silly spending, but if getting together isn't something you do very often, maybe you should go with a more open mind about what it's going to cost and properly enjoy it. Then get back straight back on that wagon when you get home. xx

Fudgefund

Needless to say, the weekend did not go well. I spent what feels like a fortune which I could not get out of without confessing to my whole family that I've messed up again so just carried on.

I did always know August was going to be impossible, worst possible time to begin a money saving journey, but at least it's better than it could have been. I possibly just stretched myself a bit too far with my first overpayment when I knew what was coming. I'm away again this weekend, so I'm now thinking just meeting my repayments next month and not getting into any debt is the best I can hope for until my very quiet September - December. As it is I'm currently £20 over my budget for this month and still 8 more days until I get paid.

I only have £80 left available, so I'm going to have to really watch myself. I've been working out my budget for going on holiday next week (I get paid the day before thank god!) and the lovely DH has agreed to use £200 of joint funds for spending money so that is good news. I suppose I just need to try my best on holiday and then recalibrate from there.

enthusiasticsaver

Good luck with the debt reducing and at least reducing the highest interest debt will help. Have you done a soa (statement of account)?

It does sound very much though as some of these weekends/trips/holidays away are the problem in terms of cost. Can you ration them and tell your DH and family you cannot afford them? Getting debt free can be boring and a bit of a slog but ultimately you will have more in your pocket to do all these things you enjoy. In the meantime maybe do a budget and save for the trips from September? I know it is tempting to throw everything at the debt but if you end up spending on the credit card again you are undoing all the good you are doing by dealing with the debt. Even worse if there is interest to pay.

Fudgefund

Hi Enthusiasticsaver! :hello:

Yep, they definitely are the problem. I don't think I could have got out of any of them without upsetting close family members though so I can but grin and bear it. Once August is over I can really get on with achieving some goals and sorting things out.

I'm hoping to make my set repayments from September onwards and save anything left over (this is likely just going to be paying off my overdraft which I'm hoping to do by Christmas). Once this is done, I will save for weekends away but the truth is I'm pretty boring for most of the year bar May-Aug. I just need to massively rein it in for that period.

I learnt a lot of lessons on here when I was desperate in 2012 so I know how to do it, and I'm pretty determined. This last few weeks is just to get my house in order and limit any damage. I've got a couple of cheap bottles of wine to take with me at the weekend and I'm hoping to just keep my head down and not spend much. My main object is to not make any overpayments until the end of the month when I know I can afford them. Obviously I failed in this regard this month but going forward it is key. I always get too itchy to pay things off and then realise I have no money. I'm just too committed. :rotfl:

teafor2

Hi Fudge I started my diary just before Christmas and I did think about leaving it until the New Year, but by the time the NY was here I was well into the swing of it so was glad I hadn't put it off.

If you know May-August will always be expensive re. trips/family visits and you want to continue with the, the best thing to do is start budgeting for them as soon as you can. As well as seeing figures go down it's nice to see money building up for fun things.

Totally agree with ES. It's tempting to pay off more than usual to see the figures coming down but better to wait until the end of the month before you do it rather than possibly having to put things on a credit card.

Hope you have a lovely weekend. xx

Fudgefund

Hey Teafor2

That is a good idea re the saving for next year - I will do this once I have built up a little bit (hopefully) for Christmas. I’m home from my weekend away, it could have been far worse money wise. I’m very fortunate to have generous in-laws who insisted on paying for meals out so I didn’t have to worry about that. Me and DH did provide dinner on Saturday night so that cost about £25 from our joint food budget last week but it was nice to contribute and a small price to pay. We won £20 on bingo (ooh) so after taking this off the spend and having divided the figure by two, I spent £32 which I am very relieved about.

I also took the time while I was away to finally call Domestic and General to cancel the £5 a month i’ve been paying for phone insurance on a phone I haven’t had for years. I was worried as I didn’t have any details but the woman on the phone was very nice, found me and cancelled the policy. She even said she would request a bit of a refund but didn’t know if it would be approved. I’m really pleased with myself for this, I hate phoning people. I know it’s only £5 a month but spending it on insurance for a phone I don’t have was ridiculous. I’ve cut my phone from £54 a month to £24 so overall i’m Up £35 a month. :T

Three days to pay day! :j