“Debt is normal. Be weird.”

twiggy86

I'm a terrible at lurking but thought I'd comment to say hi! And also that I'm envious of your emergency fund all from surveys etc!

Blackcats

Hello and welcome. I've been gradually sorting through the stuff in my garage. it started as a daunting task but I think "little and often" is the best way. One box at a time. If you haven't missed the stuff in 2 years you probably don't really need it. I've made a good amount by selling some of the treasures, freecycle others and most of the rest to charity. I've also got some boxes ready for a boot sale which I've labelled with a list of contents to save having to re-sort the boxes.
If I can do it then anyone can. It's such a nice feeling to have taken control of the stuff and even better to have made money from it.
Good luck

browneyed_girl

Thank you everyone for posting and reading - it really helps to keep me motivated

Have managed to achieve a NSD :T, which are fairly rare in our household. I’d like to have more of them but we always seem to need something (currently it’s milk - we get through 18 pints a week!!). DH did main grocery shop yesterday, which came to £54, but forgot a couple of items that I persuaded him could wait until tomorrow. Our grocery budget for the week is £70 (including cleaning stuff, nappies etc) which we probably manage 50% of the time. The rest of the time, we still manage less than £80 but I like to set a strict budget as I know whatever budget I set, I will spend at least that much. If I set the budget at £80, I’d probably spend £90 half the time.

Though I don’t regularly compare food spending, I think our spend is pretty low for a family of six. We are all vegetarian (which is definitely cheaper), I don’t drink alcohol and DH will only have alcohol when it’s given to him as a gift. DH also works in the food industry and will often bring home free food on the 2 nights a week that he works. We aren’t the most green-fingered of couples, but do have raspberries and lots of herbs growing in the garden that are probably under-utilised. Note to self: use more of freely available herbs - fresh herbs in the supermarket are ridiculously over-priced! Luckily, MIL is a wonderful gardener and regularly gifts us items from her greenhouse.

Today, kids had a veggie pasta bolognese made with HM ‘hidden veg’ pasta sauce that I had prepped a large batch of yesterday (and included tomatoes and peppers courtesy of MIL ). Once I add in some chilli flakes and smoked paprika, I can use a second batch in a bean chilli later in the week. DH and I used up some pesto I found lurking in the fridge with our pasta and roasted veg. I really love the challenge of making meals from what we have leftover in the cupboards

Am back to work tomorrow - hoping I can keep up this momentum after an inevitably tiring day!

Night all!

browneyed_girl

I had hoped that this diary would highlight where we were over-spending and how we might be able to channel these funds into over-paying on debts instead. I’m not sure I expected to identify issues so early on!

DH popped off to Mr T to pick up a few items he’d forgotten and came back with a spend of £30.35 :eek: The originally planned items only came to £3.35! Turns out that DD1 has been invited last-minute to a surprise party after school today and so DH picked up a present for her to take. I thought it was a known fact in our house that the budget for such presents is £10, but obviously not as he spent £15 on 2 gifts! Am I crazy? Why not just buy the gift for £10?! I think DH worries a lot about the girls being liked and invited to events, which then results in extra spending on other people’s children :doh:

Normally, I’m the one in control of the gift buying for such occasions. I have a ‘present cupboard’ in typically mum style and add to it through the year with items I find cheap or in the sales. I also keep a spreadsheet (not sure how I’d survive without them!) of all gift spends and give as many HM gifts as possible (usually candles, fudge or chocolates), adding any spend on raw ingredients/materials to the spreadsheet to make sure that it is actually cost-effective. This year so far, I’ve spent £353.71 on gifts with an average spend of £9.83 per person. This includes birthday gifts for our children - we don’t buy expensive items because they get so many things from the wider family and I don’t like to spoil them. I often make use of secondhand items as well because the kids are too young to know or care anyway. As an example, DD1 had a handheld games console for Xmas last year which was an old version and we got secondhand for £30. Did she care that it wasn’t the latest £400 one? Of course not! Then she had a game for it as one of her birthday presents, which was £2.90 secondhand. Works perfectly and she loves it!

Anyway, back to today...The other item DH had bought was a pack of rechargeable batteries for £12. I can see his reasoning for this, but we’re supposed to be discussing any non-urgent purchases over £10 and there always seems to be spending on the joint account that I know nothing about. Have given DH another gentle reminder, whilst internally screaming and pulling my hair out :mad:

I’m wondering if I should keep a running total of unplanned and unnecessary spending over a month, and then show this to DH as a motivation tool....

DebtFreeMonkey

Just had a catch up of your diary whilst eating my breakfast/lunch.

It's good that you're identifying things so early on. The quicker you notice, the quicker you can rectify but I get that it can be frustrating.

I'm very much a fan of getting things second hand if possible and also reusing or basically doing anything I can to avoid shoving things in a landfill so kudos for you on that front.

The meals you cooked sound very delicious. I'm a vegan so I can get with some of that

Hope you're well and this day is a good one.

Starmummy

Hi and welcome.

i really like the flow of your diary so far. best of luck on your journey.

SM

browneyed_girl

Have just been looking over and updating my spreadsheets. This can sometimes be a minor addiction for me as I do different calculations to see how quickly I could pay off the debts, the increase in disposable income that would give us and how much we could be saving towards a house.

What I have noticed on this occasion is that our debt at its highest totalled £62,842.59 in December 2018. This means we’ve already paid off around £9,000 in the past 10 months :T

This has been without loan overpayments - imagine what could be achieved if I could find that missing £1000 a month and use it to attack the remaining debt!! Feeling positive

Baileys_Babe

Browneyed_girl is it worth considering upping your grocery budget slightly to say £150 per fortnight but any savings made save towards the new freezer?

browneyed_girl

Baileys_Babe wrote: »

Browneyed_girl is it worth considering upping your grocery budget slightly to say £150 per fortnight but any savings made save towards the new freezer?

Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that! That sounds like a fab idea!

browneyed_girl

So readers, I may have just identified the problem...

After talking to DH this morning about stopping unnecessary and impulsive spending, I find that this afternoon he stopped at the local shop to buy sweets for the kids and snacks for himself. Total spend? “Around £7” shrugs DH, clearly unaware of the problem.

“Did you get a receipt?” I enquire politely, knowing all too well what the answer will be.

“Nah. Why bother? I was just using up the cash I had in my wallet.” DH is clearly oblivious to my feelings on this because he appears surprised at my response.

“I wasn’t aware we had cash that needed ‘using up’, my darling,” I reply with only a hint of sarcasm (OK, a lot of sarcasm). “It seems I’ve been labouring under the misapprehension that money does not have a best before date. How ridiculous do I feel?”

I think it was at this point that DH realised I was not best pleased and at least had the decency to look sheepish.

I think I’m going to go ahead with my previous plan to log all the unnecessary and impulsive spending on this diary and count up the total after a month. I’m sure some of it will be my fault, but for now DH is responsible for £24 in a single day and I’m feeling frustrated, but also smug.

Rant over!