Facing reality 29 January 2020 at 7:43PM in Debt free diaries 766 replies 54.4K views

Sarahwithlove

DrSpendingLittle said:

Dropping by to say hi! 👋👋  Look forward to following you on your journey! 

Thank you! 

Sarahwithlove

It’s been a non spending day for me today. I even managed to get £40 off my housemate towards her share of the food shop this week which was slightly more than half so a little towards the previous stuff I had brought before I got strict on my spending. I also forgot to say that yesterday I sat in the car at lunch time whilst my housemate had a McDonald’s and didn’t get myself anything because I knew I was going out for dinner in the evening. Before I would have just got one and paid for two meals out that day. Tomorrow hopefully the only spend will be postage to send my nieces bday card to her in Germany. We video called today and it was so cute seeing them again. My nephew refers to me as auntie Sarah every time and wants to show me everything it’s so cute. My niece who is younger usually just stares at me through the screen but she was interacting with me moe today and blowing me kisses so I see that as progress. It’s also super cute when she tries to look under and behind the tablet to see if she can find me as she doesn’t understand why she can see me and hear my voice yet I’m not there in person lol. 

floorspeed_2

Hi Sarah, thanks for taking the time to check out my journey. I must say I am sorry to hear about your mum passing. You seem to be doing so well at budgeting and restricting your temptation in regards to Costa coffee, Mac Donald’s and other purchases... congrats.

I am not sure what advice I can give but if anything pops up I will chime in 👍

Sarahwithlove

floorspeed_2 said:

Hi Sarah, thanks for taking the time to check out my journey. I must say I am sorry to hear about your mum passing. You seem to be doing so well at budgeting and restricting your temptation in regards to Costa coffee, Mac Donald’s and other purchases... congrats.

I am not sure what advice I can give but if anything pops up I will chime in 👍

Thank you it's taken a lot of adjusting but I am getting there and feel like sorting this debt which has occurred as a result will be the final step to closure for me. 
Ive found that allowing myself enough that I don't miss out is what has made the difference for me. 

Sarahwithlove

A low spend day for me today, my visit for work overran today so I didn't have enough time to go home for lunch. But luckily I had enough points on my sub card for a sub so I got that, and then spent 50p cash on some crisps and £1 on two cans of Pepsi max. Much cheaper than buying it from subway I have to say. I decided to withdraw my final £20 from my food and spends budget for this week as I feel like it will be better way for me to manage it. Then I realised that I wanted to use £10 of it for football tomorrow so have put £10 cash aside for next week as I need to give it to my cousin for next weeks footy game. I have so many Tuesday and Saturday games coming up over next 6 weeks it's going to be such a tight budget, especially with hen do to attend as well which I have estimated is going to cost in region of £50. Trying to sit down and see if can work it out without going over as I'm heading for a credit card payment in region of £200 this month and I'd like to keep it if possible. 

Sarahwithlove

Spent £3 today in local shop on junk as feeling rough and totally comfort ate my way through it all. Its come from my cash budget so that's something. I was also happy to discover that the footy game I was going to pay £10 to watch tonight is being streamed for free so saved that. I worked out the budget for next month and its going to be tight to fit it all in my spends. I also put aside £400 for my season ticket renewal in June. I'd usually put this on my credit card and pay it off monthly but don't want to do this. So I have had a rejiggle of my budget and decided I am going to put away £250 a month for next 10 months to fund any big expenses and give me an EF of £1000 for any house emergencies. I will have £250 a month unbudgeted money which I can then put towards my credit cards after I've built up my £400. I've started having a sort out of some stuff I can put on buy and sell and ebay so that's a job for this week for me. Only good thing is this months expense claim is building up nicely so that will likely mean I have a good amount built up in that account by end of March to pay for my cars service. 

Sarahwithlove

It's a non spend day for me today but I've been doing some major sorting of my budget and adjusting and creating my spreadsheets so that I can start to keep track of all my different funds. It was quite helpful in sense that when I needed to replace my carbon monoxide detector today I could order it and transfer the money out of the household maintenance account. It does mean whilst I am building up so,e emergency funds that I won't be able to overpay as much as I would like on my credit card but I will feel better if I have the funds as back up and start the saving pot for car insurance etc as well. Then once They are in place I can work on the debts even more. My main concern is When all the bills increase over next few months. From 1st April my housemate is going to pay £50 a month more which will cover a lot of it and I will get a pay rise once it's been agreed on which at the moment it doesn't look like the unions are any closer to doing. Good news is it will get backdated but doesn't help me whilst we are waiting. Was end of August last time that they came to an agreement but did get backdated to April. It has made me realise that I need to reign in on my useless spending and my food shop as well. I'm being very generous at the moment with this but hoping that it's just where is early days that I will adjust over next month or so and keep spends down. In particular on days my housemate isn't here I'm having much simpler emails, last night was one of the packet pasta and sauce which cost 50p so will buy some more in next weeks shop as they are handy for lunches when I am working locally and can pop home for lunch. 
Just waiting to see what the minimum payment is going to be on my Tesco credit card as this will be my first month of having it and then can finalise the budget. 

Lemon_Tree

Hi thought I would come visiting, unfortunately I also lost my dad April '18. Sorry you've had problems with your friend not paying the increased rent this month how frustrating.when I first had my LBM I was able to start monthly savings pots for annual bills and that's been my life saver during our relapse. Recently with my second LBM I've set up pots for petrol and housekeeping, why did I never think of those before? 

Sarahwithlove

Lemon_Tree said:

Hi thought I would come visiting, unfortunately I also lost my dad April '18. Sorry you've had problems with your friend not paying the increased rent this month how frustrating.when I first had my LBM I was able to start monthly savings pots for annual bills and that's been my life saver during our relapse. Recently with my second LBM I've set up pots for petrol and housekeeping, why did I never think of those before? 

I have so many pots now that I've had to start my own spreadsheet to keep track of them. But the good thing is I now know what needs to come from what pot. Even if it means I have three current accounts and 3 savers 🙈 it's complicated but it seems like it's going to work for now. Plus it's handy for when payments are pending as i know what the true balance is. 

mark55man

Hi there, thanks for posting in my diary. I think you are all set up to succeed.  Two bits of advice

If you have a bad day accept it, but dont let it flow over into a bad week/month

Really you need to be strict on no coffees and packed lunches as it is the small things that you do often that make the most difference.  Sure you should try an dget best deal for big expenses but it's the drip drip drip vs save save save that wins the war