In need of encouragement...

IrishSean

Slow off the mark; i've been looking at monease prepays; I should have got one before hols as it doubles as a fee free euro spend card with no subscription or dormant charge & a near perfect Mastercard exchange rate: we'll get an OK rate but hit with transaction fees for using nationwide cross-border😬

Monease will be great for monthly budgeting; I can load ours & we work to say £100 each per month for personal spend on effectively what we like & once it's gone, that's it. Everything else is grocery, dds & savings. 

Anyone else do similar? I think us both throwing drink, treatments (like DW eyebrows, treats, nights out (limited I know) ) on a joint account is a hiding to nothing; ££ just evaporate. 

A new aspect to my DFW; am probably liking the concept more than the delivery😂😂😂

IrishSean

Update:

Have decided to pay off most of my 0% card leaving just £240 which is 0% until Nov 20.
Am also using July pay to clear £567 holiday cottage on DW card i'd thought of doing  BT to mine.

In the end I reckoned no: I don't want to be paying 2 cards again and it means my monthly dd would creep up which I don't like.

I can move a little over then there'll be enough in my CA to clear the £240 & the BT I did for the Mrs's card will clear @ £100 pm 0%. 

It means stumping up £1100 out of would-be July savings & using the 0% card but better I think than having ongoing debt. 

I'll put my mind to addressing the £2k hole in savings target come year end. Still my debt structure is super simple now so I can focus better on budgeting now hols are over & kids going back to school soon.

DW had school spend mostly done. The only birthday spend is a new phone for me. 😀
No gambling losses of late; i'm reckoning the relapse was triggered by wider family problems & unexpected pressure of a holiday budget. Am super mindful of that going forward.

Straight & narrow on the debt & savings plan from now to Christmas...

Also: clearscore equifax is highest it's been. No more card offers but my file must be fairly rosy. Come Aug i'll only have £240 debt against a CL of £8900.

Down from £5578 & a CL or £5900 in Feb.

TY all on forum for advice, support & most importantly encouragement. Posting here was the best debt management thing I ever did. 

💪💪💪

Sarahwithlove

You're doing great and sounds like you have got yourself back in the groove. It's good you have discovered what caused the relapse and hopefully if have same issue in future you will know how to manage it better. 

IrishSean

Sarahwithlove said:

You're doing great and sounds like you have got yourself back in the groove. It's good you have discovered what caused the relapse and hopefully if have same issue in future you will know how to manage it better. 

Ty Sarah!

Yes, in truth it was more of a gambling speed bump; spend was in the hundreds, so whereas undesirable it's not catastrophic. I have to bear in mind that those who've racked up debt or spent savings in the past through their own spending vices have had set backs too. 

I was going to be behind on the savings target but looking at it I might only be £1000 down due to holiday & other costs; not as bad as i'd hoped. Ironically I backed a few golfers in 2019 for the 4 golf majors; i've been unable to cash in the bet slips so have to let them run. This good thing is if anything comes off them Aug,Sept or Nov i'll be able to put that to the savings, recouping some of the past spend.

It's weird but having an open sports bet has never been a gateway but family stress plus casino games has been; avoiding those is key for me. 

I had no ebay sales while on hols but once I get into Aug i'll double down on the income gen ideas. Sale of late parents' estate now more complex than ever; even though it's a future nest egg which i'll be putting straight into bricks & mortar (meaning we can't spend it), it doesn't even come into my budgeting until it's sold & ££ transferred. 

Now I just have some sweating to do over the end of the football season; some of us are not Liverpool fans & have matters still to stress about til 5.45pm Sunday!😂😂😂

findingthisdifficult

Hope the loss wasn't too great, dust yourself off and climb back on!

I'm no expert so feel free to bypass my advice and wait for someone else to come along..

Mr FTD and I have 

1. Side Hustle Account
2. Joint Account 1 - wages paid in, bills paid out exc fuel and food
3. Savings 1 - small pot that I'm trying to build as an Emergency Fund
4. Joint Account 2 - food, fuel and everything else, I manually move X amount of money to this account every month.
5. Revolut Account - currently holding my Christmas savings - you could use one of these accounts to move money in to for personal spending

Turns out I'm late to the party too and was posting this as a reply to page 7, silly computer had not refreshed or maybe I hadn't?

IrishSean

findingthisdifficult said:

Hope the loss wasn't too great, dust yourself off and climb back on!

I'm no expert so feel free to bypass my advice and wait for someone else to come along..

Mr FTD and I have 

1. Side Hustle Account
2. Joint Account 1 - wages paid in, bills paid out exc fuel and food
3. Savings 1 - small pot that I'm trying to build as an Emergency Fund
4. Joint Account 2 - food, fuel and everything else, I manually move X amount of money to this account every month.
5. Revolut Account - currently holding my Christmas savings - you could use one of these accounts to move money in to for personal spending

Turns out I'm late to the party too and was posting this as a reply to page 7, silly computer had not refreshed or maybe I hadn't?

TYVM! 

I'm picking brains here for budgeting ideas as my savings from end Aug onwards will leave circa £700 for groceries & household after dds. Should be more than enough as long as we can separate out personal spend (which I think should include booze, socialising, treats, hobbies etc.)

I'm going to plagiarize ideas as above; i'm liking the monease card tho for casual spend as it will be so useful for Euros too. Being somewhat disorganised I think we racked up £8 - £10 in N'wide charges for using debit in RoI.  

findingthisdifficult

I only ended up with a Revolut card at the last minute before going to America in 2018, we took barely any cash and just used our card everywhere, I'm guessing it's similar to a monease card.

I agree personal spend should include socialising, treats, hobbies, hair cuts etc.  I don't drink so I don't mind adding Mr FTD's odd bottle of whisky every few months to the grocery budget. I think £700 is enough, we move a little bit more than that across but we're not very stringent on grocery shopping considering it's just the 2 of us.

IrishSean

£267 off the holiday cottage total; awaiting to see if my BT is renewed (no reason to think it won't i'm 90% more paid off since 2 months ago!).

If so i'll do the switch-aroo & bring £300 onto my card from DW & chip away. My goal is to keep a bit back for DIY or car service in Aug. If there's no offer from Virgin 01/08 then i'll pay the last £300.

I'm planning to let savings sit til Aug & balance CA without using OD, even though it's 0%. I know investing the 0% OD makes sense but weirdly it still feels like debt; I want to cancel the OD when safe to do so; will mean we spend on groceries, transfer personal spend, move ££ to savings on payday & leave remainder for dds. DW has kept the OD 'pings' going from n'wide: even though OD is 0% til Nov. Not only is it pointless (updates @7am text alerts for EVERY DD!), it would do my dome in, but she doesn't want to cancel it😂

That will remove my temptation for any impulse spends; I might even go as far as only using my barclays basic for groceries so the joint account is 'ring fenced' for dd's & savings only from Sept onwards. 

The £1200 I shifted to DW 0% card already feels separate; I just need that same mentality with remaining budget. 

DFW inches closer; any windfalls i'll prob put straight to savings as the small remaining debt will all clear @ 0% anyway.

Parent's house sale & land sale inches closer but as said i'm counting nothing til there are figures physically (well, electronically) in an account, post sale (still not expect to see completion til 2021; commenced Jan 19! FGS!).

IrishSean

Sweet offer from Virgin today: BT til oct 21. Money transfer offered too but not needed. 
I moved the holiday let remainder from DW CC to mine: only cost £16.. I can nibble at this @ around £40 pm in 2021. 
Hopefully come end of Aug I can get back on savings track again. 
I scratched a £50 win on a lotto card she bought so a wee bonus; she'll use that to cover going out funds this month. Hopefully my attic sales on e-bay will prop the grocery bill as well. 
Shared house creeps closer to market; I was shocked it can take 8-12 weeks to complete sale even if straightforward; on the financial long finger in my head. 
Added interest in next weeks golf, given the 2019 bet slips that are live but 'uncashable'... a bonus towards savings or debt from '2019 me' if anything comes off them... my friend gave me a matched bet for the FA cup final 2-1 correct score; sadly I had it in Chelsea's favour😂
Kind of demonstrates why spending money punting wasn't entirely my bag. 
Enough on the budgeting & saving front to keep busy with in Aug... 
👌

IrishSean

Bored with savings; had a chat with DW and have decided to plough half of would be savings into house stuff. Have spent 19 years only doing basics so maybe the time to spend some ££ as it comes in on a nice home environment. Won't mean debt though. 
Am going to continue to pay off DW card (£1100 left) @ the £100 pm & nibble at mine until secondary house sale completes (0% no interest until sept next year), at which point I can clear the few hundred balance. 
I cashed in shares, although I missed out on a few hundred as one stock went up 17% the 2 hours after I sold. Still it's £700 extra towards house stuff & with interest rates where they are how long would it have taken £2k to make that?!
I've halved my year end savings target as I reckon there's no point scrimping to buy a pension house til prices fall back a bit and focusing on a mini refurb here will be a psychological boost too. That aside even though Ernie has seemingly misplaced by premium bonds every month i'm loathed to clear my 0% CCs until I absolutely have to. 
I'm not sure if my DFW motivation is waning or i'm just more realistic about savings and stoic about the small debt remaining. Feel free to kick me in the assets if it all reads like 'mission drift' lol.