No-Spend-Tember

RunningLaura

Hi everyone,

I am returning to the world of being a Sensible Adult Human, I had my beautiful baby 19 months ago, and enjoyed a wonderful maternity leave with her.

Since coming back to work, I have lost grip on my finances & it's time I got them sorted out once again.

So, to kick off & get myself back into a better frame of mind - I am challenging myself not to spend anything that isn't my usual bills and grocery shopping for the whole of September.

On top of that, I want to keep my food bill down to £50 a week or less - there are two adults and one toddler in my house, so very do-able.

My debts currently stand as follows;
Credit Card - £5,656
Car - £5,800

My car balloon payment is due this month, and my dad has agreed to pay it & I will pay him back £200 a month.

I will have approximately £1,500 saved to put towards this, so the total should be £4,300.

Which makes my debt total, a very scary, £9,956.

Kicking off with September, I think that if I really put my mind to it, I should be able to get this all paid off in 12 months. I get paid quarterly bonuses that help, and I should have a decent surplus each month after my usual bills etc.

This week, on the menu at Running Laura's house we have;

- Shepherd's pie
- Chilli Con Carne
- Chicken & veg pie
- Pork Shoulder
- Fish Pie
- Dinner at Grandma & Grandpa's house

100% homemade because I love cooking!

There is a LOT of leftover Chilli - so that I will be freezing today in bags for me & my husband to have for lunches etc this week. Tonight I will make the chicken pie - although I may pop it in the slow cooker now ( chicken thigh so it wont dry out).

Happy Thrifty Thursday everyone, I hope you're all having a good start to your No-Spend-Tember!

RL xxx

Starmummy

Welcome to DFW.

I love how chirpy your post is. Good luck and congratulations on your daughter

RunningLaura

Thanks Starmummy,

I have been cursed or blessed with what my husband lovingly refers to as "relentless optimism" and most other people call "why the f**k are you so happy all the time".

From your sig it looks like you have made huge progress - any top tips?

RL xx

RunningLaura

Morning all,

I am 8 days into September and spending has been as follows;

- Fuel
- Groceries (£50 per week)
- Food - £15 on Monday as travelling

AND NOTHING ELSE!

My friend came over yesterday and wanted to go out for coffee & cake, so I baked my own and the kids played in the garden.

I also wanted to get a new bike seat for my bike as ours wouldn't fit on and I wanted to take the toddler for a bike ride - but I dug out a trailer she can sit in and I am planning on attaching that today - which will save me some fuel money for when I have to pick her up from nursery

Dinner plans for next week;

- Pork stir fry
- Chilli from last week (currently in freezer)
- Sausage & mash
- Laura-fried pork strips
- Chicken curry
- Chicken fajitas

Managed to get everything we need for breakfasts, lunches and dinners for £53, which I am very pleased with.

Getting some dividends from some shares that I bought when I worked for a large bank this month too - so putting that away. Plus I got paid £200 expenses for my drive on Monday (which cost me about £50 in fuel) - definitely going to make sure that I drive to at least one of my appointments each month just for the additional £ in expenses!!!

Next week I think that we will have to have some spending on the weekend as there is a large annual event in my town that EVERYONE goes to & it's basically the only thing that happens here (we are in rural Dorset). But a hard limit of £25 or so is fair enough.

I am honestly finding it easier not to spend at all than to try and cut down - it's taking a lot of the mental gymnastics out of it - basically unless it's non-negotiable, then it's a hard "no".

Running has gone well this week too, finally managed to get in 10k, which I did twice, but struggled with my last run of the week yesterday which is the first run I have had to cut short since I started in Feb - I don't think I ate enough beforehand because I felt quite shaky, then I came home to find that it was TOTM so that probs didn't help.

So as it currently stands;

Money;
Personal account £1,123
Savings £37
Credit Card -£5,656
House account £70
Car payment -£5,800 (approx)

I get paid next Friday (it's a weird payday I know) & I will have a surplus over the month of circa £900, bringing my total cash amount to a little over £2k. I am putting £1,500 towards the car repayment, which will leave me with £200 per month to pay to my dad. The rest will go to my card, and each month thereafter I will be looking to pay as much as possible to get the card payment down.

If I can stick to a total spending target of £250 per month (including food) then I will have £700 to put towards paying off my card, I do get quarterly bonuses - but I think that I need to give that money to pay off the debt with my Dad really. I am also counting anything I get paid as additional to fuel costs for travel expenses as spending money, and that should be around £100 per month really (our car is REALLY fuel efficient).

So in 12 months time, I should be back in the black baby.

Apologies for the rambling, but I had a DFD before and it helped massively, it's so good to have a place to dump all my thoughts and plans!

Happy Sunday everyone
RL xxx

RunningLaura

Morning all,

Another day in September & no more spending

I've paid childcare today which was £260 for the month (through tax-free childcare). Which means that before I get paid on Friday, I am carrying over a total of £1,045 from August.

I get paid some dividends this week, and my actual pay on Friday. We should be able to get to a total sum leftover at the end of Sept of £1,300 - which combined with the leftover from August should bring my total to £2,345. I do need to MOT the car, which we should be able to get £1,500 down for the car and then anything left over will go to paying off my credit card.

I have also inherited some jewellery with my sister, and we are hoping to sell a piece this month and that should give me circa £2k to pay towards my dad or card. So it's going down nice and quickly.

If I can get £2k paid off my credit card, and I manage a half decent bonus in November, I might be able to get it all paid off before the end of the year?!?!

Fingers crossed!

LB xx

RunningLaura

Hello everyone/anyone,

Got to book the car in for an MOT & service tomorrow, which is a bit of a bummer and will mean I dont get to pay off quite as much off of my credit card as I had hoped. It does need a full service too, as I do use it to travel for work and that is often a fair old bit of driving. So that's £200 less than I had hoped but hey ho.

None of this is including any money that my husband manages to save in no-spend-tember. He is very much an all-or-nothing kind of man, so a whole month spending nothing is a great way to motivate him to save! So I am hoping that maybe he will have a couple of hundred pounds to pop in.

Having said that, our other car does need to go to the mechanic as well, so it's pretty likely that will be another few hundred pounds

Either way, the fact that none of this car stuff is going onto my credit card is a win, so I am focused on that for the time being!!

We had a lovely chicken and veg curry for dinner last night, and we will probably have Laura Fried Chicken tonight, yummy!

RL xxx

Iwantanewlife

wow seems you have made a brilliant start! Good Luck on your journey, ill be looking forward to reading! x

RunningLaura

Hello everyone!

No-spend-tember has been SUCH a valuable exercise, I have saved so much money & found it so much easier than just trying to nebulously "cut down".

In terms of spending, my total amount spent so far this month is £481 - that includes £243 on food shopping, £108 on fuel. I have also made several donations to charity in that total, and a few paid runs. So all-in-all I am feeling really pleased.

Not to mention that I got paid £202 in expenses for a trip, so the actual amount spent for the last 25 days is £279. Which I am actually pretty proud of.

So here are my running totals;

Credit card - £5,726.24
Car - Approx £5,800

Personal Account - £119.08
Savings - £44.61
House Account - £1,267

My husband has about £200 left to pay in as well - he would have more, but he got an unexpected deduction from his wages of £220 last pay-day which was rubbish.

So, next month, we have the car to pay for, which I want to pay £1500 off of - this should be past my payday (15th) so we will have the funds. Both me and husband are keen to carry on with our little spending experiment - we are calling it Stop(spending)tober.

If we are successful in keeping our spending levels similar, we should have circa £1,000 left at the end of October - which can go off of the credit card.

No(spending)vember is also on the horizon - I get paid my bonus then & I should get an extra £500 for referring my friend for a job where I work. Additional Christmas spending will be included in that budget, but I am going to need to get my thinking cap on for some really thoughtful but inexpensive gifts. I am thinking of getting a calendar made up for my in-laws with our baby's pictures & maybe the same for my parents. Secret Santa with my sisters & then I have SEVEN nieces & nephews to worry about. Oh well, there is no sense borrowing trouble from tomorrow.

I have some more work travel at the beginning of October - so that should help me keep my spending nice & low. Lots of travel coming up in November too, so I will be making the most of that & hopefully, by the end of the year, we will be down a fair whack!

Running is going ok, had a migraine on Monday that kept me up half the night, so missed running club & my usual Tuesday run. Off out for a 10k this morning though and booked one at the weekend with my sister.

Hope you are all having a good week -
LB

enthusiasticsaver

Well done on the no spends. I think it is a great idea to go cold turkey and really think before spending. That credit card will soon be gone. Good idea to pay off the car too rather than get sucked into new pcp deal.

[Deleted User]

Wow, sounds like you did really well, you should be proud of yourself!

twiggy86

You are doing brilliantly! Wish I had your willpower!!!

I did notice that your CC amount has gone up so assuming you've paid interest? Have you thought about looking into a balance transfer to cut/ reduce interest?