TravelGirl84's DFD

TravelGirl84

Hi Enthusiastic and Alicia!

I agree with you both re the grocery bill. Although it includes things like cleaning products, shower gel, shampoo etc, it is still a lot for one person. I think a big part of this is what I have always spent at work, so I am going to go over the last two or three months and see what I have actually been spending on this. @Alicia, I did a big A5da shop last weekend and filled up my cupboards and freezer and have been batch cooking, and other than my pasta disaster it's going well. I have been used to just getting what I wanted or 'needed' for meals, rather than using the cupboards. It's actually quite exciting to have all this food in, made and planned!

I am going to go back over all my finances this weekend and draw up a new SOA with everything I can possibly think of included. I am unsure how I work out things like clothes though, do I just give myself a budget?

The other thing I am not sure how to work out is the rest of this year. For 2020 I can work it out for the whole year (though if things like birthdays are split in to 12 months and lots of them are in the first 6 months, then I wouldn't have saved enough money?), but for the rest of this year I guess my SOA will be different again because I only have four or five months till Christmas, and I think my car will need servicing in Jan.

I'll look at some bits I can cancel as well and I am going to work out what it will save me over the year to spur me on!

enthusiasticsaver

I would set yourself a budget for clothes but first check what you actually already have. If you have always spent freely you are unlikely to need much. You can always save it so it is there for when you do actually need something.

TravelGirl84

Hi All

This is a loooooong post.

So after writing my first post last month and getting some feedback on here, I decided to completely sit back and re-evaluate my financial situation. I have had to give myself a massive reality check and accept how I sit financially right now, and how I am going to go about getting myself to where I want to be. I've felt rubbish about it, I've felt frustrated, I've felt restricted to live my life how I want to, I feel like it’s holding me back. I know the debt that I have is mostly due to some large and important purchases and I need to remember and be grateful for what I have that I'm paying back, however spending on credit does need to stop here and I need to be serious about paying it all off.

So what have I been doing / putting in place to help improve my financial situation:

- I have decided that I will not take on a bigger mortgage this year to clear the Help to Buy (HTB). Having done a more detailed SOA made me realise that whilst I could probably squeeze in a higher mortgage, saving myself the extra £160 a month will mean that I can build a bigger emergency fund, give myself a more realistic budget for savings pots and spends, and also pay off my other debts quicker. This area in particular for me has been a really hard pill to swallow, but I know that this is much more realistic. My aim now will be to be in a much better financial position in two years, when I can re-look at my financial position and hopefully deal with the HTB then, and also make sure I save up for the fees to sort it out. Thank you to Enthusiasticsaver for basically planting the seed in me that I need to take this much more seriously and ensure I am doing the right thing for my current financial situation.

- In terms of this year I have looked at everything I need to put money aside for and budgeted accordingly. I need to also make sure I have money for my ground rent and car service by the end of this year as I believe they are due in January. The money I had started putting aside for HTB fees is now in a savings pot called ‘Emergency Fund’, but I may need to move this around for the ground rent and car servicing and may be needed if I need to pay any fees to rearrange my mortgage rate (if I stay with the same bank do you normally pay fees? I can’t find out until early Sept).

- 2020 SOA - I have created a new SOA for January. It will probably need tweaking once I find out what my mortgage is going to be from January (when my current term ends), and once I have a few months of tracking food spends and trying to spend less I can give myself a new budget amount.

- Spending diary - I have started a new, more detailed spending diary which I am going to keep track of on a spreadsheet (I love a good spreadsheet), which I will track in categories and then work out what I am spending where. In theory it should be less than I was spending as I am being more careful now, but it could still throw up some areas for improvement.

- Cancelling subscriptions and cut downs so far - I have cancelled Amazon Prime and Music, and reduced my work coffee spending to just a Friday as a treat. After looking back at the last three months spending I am putting aside £30 a month too much for petrol (which I was doing on purpose), so I have changed my budget for this as well. These four things alone will be saving me £61.98 a month, or £735.76 a year, and these are just easy wins!!! :T I have put these down on a spreadsheet to remind myself of the savings.

- I have added up the last three months grocery spends which is for work food (money spent in the work canteen), food for home, household products and toiletries. I have been spending about £70 a month in the work canteen so this needs to come down a lot. I knew this was a problem area and this month with taking lunches in to work on most days I have so far spent £18.95. I’m about half way through the month 9 working days left till pay day, 12 working days done, so this is an improvement by about half, which I’m pleased with for month one. Over the last three months the rest of the money I have spent on food/household/toiletries has ranged from £170 to £226 a month, so I need to work on this. Some months I have taken a couple of meals out (lunches/dinners) out of this budget which I will stop doing and take out of spends instead, and also I think it might include some other bits and bobs so I need to keep track of this much more carefully. At the beginning of this month I did a massive shop and batch cooked. I have about 21 dinners left, plus some weekend bits, yoghurts, crisps etc. I’ll still need to buy some top up bits like veg for things like bolognaise and enchiladas and some salad for work, and so far I have spent £143.05 (I was quite surprised to see it was this much) on the big shop and a couple of top ups, including household and toiletries. It still seems high as I have a couple of weeks to go, but I have a lot in and this figure also includes buying in food to take in to work (though a lot less than what I was spending at work!). I may even have food left over for next month so maybe my big shop was too big. I will keep tracking and next month I think I need to actually keep receipts to see exactly what I bought and not just how much I spent. I’m not sure how much other people spend on food in a one person household. I have looked online but haven’t really found anything. If I could get down to £150 a month from £240 I would be really pleased.

- Driving more economically - I know I can get another half day a week out of my petrol when I drive more economically. It can be quite difficult (I tried this week and didn't get the extra) but if I can do it it would save me another £24 a month / £288 a year!

- Look at some side hustles. I have mystery shopped before and I will look back in to this. I started using receipt hog for a while but I didn't like that it basically learnt your frequent locations. Does anyone have any experience with this app and know if it is any good? I have done surveys before but never got to payout because it takes too long and you’re often screened out, but I will look back in to them. I have used cashback sites for years. I have added a couple of things to eBay but no luck yet on my current listings. Any other ideas are welcome.

The reality of the 2020 SOA once I have taken off all bills, added extra towards debts and put money in to pots, means that what I have left for general spending (socialising, if there's anything I want to buy etc), is a lot less then I thought it would be (about £142 a month, not sure if this is normal, a lot, or not a lot for other people). This does worry me but I know people have a lot less 'free cash' to do with as they please than I do, and I know I have already put money away for fun stuff (i.e. holidays) as well as things that will be planned for (i.e. car servicing, birthdays etc). I have found that I haven’t even budgeted for exercise, so if I want to go to any classes/gym/swimming then they have to be considered in my general spends/socialising money. The new SOA is going to be tough, at least whilst I get used to it, but I need to do this.

I really really need to keep focussed. I feel like I have had a much bigger lightbulb moment and it is quite frightening to know that one more trip or big thing on the card could tip me over the edge of getting in to a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation! In the past when I have set a budget and followed it (and at some points cleared debt), I have always ended up back in debt or making the debt I had worse. I need to stay aligned with my reason for doing this to achieve my debt free goal!

Signature is now updated with payments that have come out/refunds that have come in and current total debt figure updated.

Thank you if you have read this far!
TG

DebtFreeMonkey

Great to read your update. I hear you with it being hard in the short term because you can't do all that you want to do but we both have to keep thinking long term, hey?

You got this!

TravelGirl84

Alicia1804 wrote: »

Great to read your update. I hear you with it being hard in the short term because you can't do all that you want to do but we both have to keep thinking long term, hey?

You got this!

Thank you for reading my mammoth post! :rotfl:
We do have to think of the long term, we will get our debts busted, just got to keep the momentum up!

Fudgefund

Hey

Just caught up - well done for facing your situation head on and for listening to the feedback on here. I realise this is the least profound thing anyone is going to say on your diary but I freeze work meals - I take the freezer bag of chickpea curry of whatever it is and turn it out into Tupperware in the fridge overnight to defrost and then add 80g of brown rice in the morning from those microwave bags for 50p. You can make the rice last three days (make sure you don’t use open rice after 3 days in the fridge). I generally stick to bean chilis, vegetarian curry, that kind of thing. Works well.

TravelGirl84

Fudgefund wrote: »

Hey

Just caught up - well done for facing your situation head on and for listening to the feedback on here. I realise this is the least profound thing anyone is going to say on your diary but I freeze work meals - I take the freezer bag of chickpea curry of whatever it is and turn it out into Tupperware in the fridge overnight to defrost and then add 80g of brown rice in the morning from those microwave bags for 50p. You can make the rice last three days (make sure you don’t use open rice after 3 days in the fridge). I generally stick to bean chilis, vegetarian curry, that kind of thing. Works well.

Hi Fudgefund :wave:

Thank you for reading!

That's a great idea about the rice, I like that! Do you find you end up having two big meals a day though (lunch and dinner), or make a smaller portion maybe for lunch? I tried freezing some pasta but it was not good once I had defrosted it, so need to try with different pasta.

TravelGirl84

A few updates:

Cancelled Amazon Prime and as I hadn't used it since the last payment I got a refund, so £7.99 has been received from them and transferred to my Emergency fund :j

I've had a bid on one of my Ebay items, so providing they don't change their mind then that will be coming my way

Went food shopping on Monday evening and got everything I need for the rest of the week. I went to Sa1nsburys so it was a little more than A1di. Was trying to spend under £10 but spent £12.12 which isn't too bad considering I went to a more expensive supermarket. I have £50 left of my grocery budget until next Friday, so about a week. I've got a lot of what I need so I'm hoping I won't spend more than £25.

Lastly for now I washed my makeup brushes today. Usually I just buy new ones but they took 5 minutes to wash and saved me some money

Oh, also lastly, I'm really enjoying Spotify. Yes the adverts are a little annoying but they have great podcasts and music mixes, so £7.99 a month well saved! :T

DebtFreeMonkey

Yay for all those small wins. They soon add up, right?

Fudgefund

I actually cook meals on Sundays to freeze and have during the week. They aren't left overs so I can portion them all out equally and have some cheap healthy meals. I do have the gift of not being bored of 5 consecutive days of the same food though, I realise some people value variety in their lives. :rotfl:

Good work on the eBaying! I need to get on it but I just can't seem to get going.