Hopefully lightbulb moment...

2020Lightbulb

MallyGirl said:

£150 pcm is £1,800 a year on presents. Nearly an entire month's take home pay. That is simply too much. If you have lots of family other than your child that you buy presents for then it is time to stop. Some years ago we, as a family, set a maximum budget for anyone apart from our daughter. Everyone felt quite liberated as they could just buy something quirky/silly and not feel like they were in some sort of present buying arms race.

Yes, I think the spending is probably excessive. It's a tough habit to break. 

-taff

2020Lightbulb said:

Hello, that is per year... Lots of family. 

If it's per year then that's divisible by 12 to get your monthly figure, so you have to tweak your SOA.

2020Lightbulb

Sorry, was not concentrating - that is per month, not year. 

Galloglass

2020Lightbulb said:

Sorry, was not concentrating - that is per month, not year. 

If you are still suggesting £1800 per year on presents a) your lightbulb is broken and b) I doubt any creditor would believe you if you had to do a SOA for them.

Creditors are very astute in assessing people who are out of touch with mainstream spending patterns - they pay a lot of money to get the data and can work out to a few pounds what the average "normal" person spends. You'll have an uphill task trying to convince them.

a_silver_lining

Thank you for getting back to me. You are spending more on gifts then you are on money for food for both yourself and your child. Who are you buying gifts for? How many people and what kind of spend per person?

Also you show £50 per month on a holiday. Where does this get saved? 

-taff

Your lightbulb moment may happen a bit more forcefully when you realise you're putting yourself and your family in debt by giving your money away to other people.

You could say, look , we're having a spot of bother at the moment so we're cutting right back on presents this ear and it'll be cards only, and we'll be happy if you do the same. If you really want to give us presents, make something for us, jar of jam, etc, or we can get together and go on a family walk....

monetxchange

I agree on the no presents except for a much reduced amount for your child. Let's be honest, most presents are opened, looked at, smile and thanked for and then put aside and lost in the piles of other stuff. What a waste of your hard earned money just to keep up appearances. Your child won't look back on their childhood and fondly remember all the presents - what they'll value more is having a parent that's free of debt and not constantly stressed all the time. It's a great money lesson to manage expectations at an early age. I know it's hard to get started, but you can do this and it's absolutely within your grasp to get sorted.

a_silver_lining

I just want to add that it does look like we are coming in here and just bombarding you about present buying.

It can look negative, but I think it's actually exciting for you that you have an area you can easily reduce spending on, to say £20 a month by agreeing with friends and family that you will stop or reduce buying. That would leave £130 a month to throw at the debts

I'd then take you holiday money and save that as an emergency fund, in case day the washing machine breaks.

I'm guessing you have been bought £150 a month worth of presents in return for your kindness, some of which you may not need. So I would look through the house and see if you have things you could sell to chip off the debt more

2020Lightbulb

Thank you all your replies. I do appreciate that the present buying definitely sticks out as something to address. It's a little late to do for birthday's, for various reasons, but I will do something about Christmas before it comes around.

  And the fact is , there is plenty of things at home which could be sold, it's just finding the time to do it!! What sites to people find are the most efficient and effective for this ? 

-taff

I use FB marketplace/gumtree quite a lot but you do have to put up with chancers or people who dont turn up fo the former. Ebay takes a cut so factor that in. Vintage websites for vintage stuff. It al dpends on what yo have nd what you want for it.