Diary of a reformed shopaholic (I hope)

shoppingobsessed2020

Just dropped the £14.40 a month to contract to £8 a month with sky.  Max 8gb of data so will have to watch my data usage but £6 a month saving is £72 a year so small steps  

Drawingaline

Well done on the savings, esp with the Chinese delivery. A friend of mine did similar with a delivery from a garden centre. Delivered to her driveway and then arranged a time to go and pick it up. 

shoppingobsessed2020

£50.05 planned for Saturday shopping from supermarket less £16.95 in vouchers for returned products so grocery spend is standing at a reasonable £33.10 and if I’m honest a lot of that is topping up the cupboard plus £9 for a friends birthday on Sunday (huge drop as pre budget would have been a £30 bottle of gin so very happy with that reduction).

now I’ve actually seen the £33.10 im
off to amend the shop, I don’t need 4 packs of Pringles as they are half price.  One is enough of a treat to have in the cupboard, instant £3.75 saving!  Friends birthday has been reduced even further to £4 plus I’ll make
some brownies or cookies (I’m learning, I don’t need to be so generous, a little thoughtful present is better than the over the top one)

ok amended shop is now £29 less vouchers so £12.05.  wont always have so many vouchers to use though so will bear that in mind.

speculative grocery total stands at £113.19/£250 which is looking so much better and much more reasonable.  Ill have a more accurate figure Saturday once everything has been delivered. 

I have a delivery pass (paid in August for the year) so as long as I spend £40 it’s free delivery.  I have added a neighbours shop with mine to ensure i have met the minimum delivery spend.

Going forward I know this is a luxury that can go, but it’s not a luxury that I’m willing to give up.  It’s £60 for the year which is £5 a month.  I think the time saving alone is worth it for us to continue with this pass when renewal time comes.  I work 8 - 4 Monday to Friday, we leave the house at 7.15 every morning to get to school and work on time, get monkey boy from school anytime between 4.15 - 4.30 traffic dependant and then we are out every weeknight bar Wednesday and Friday (occasionally I do an exercise class).  Saturday morning i have an exercise class (a very generous friend gave me a years pass to any of her classes as my Christmas present, she’s honestly the best friend anyone could ask for as a 4 week pass is £40, which id actually happily pay for) Saturday afternoon is football and then Sunday morning we have swimming lessons.  There isn’t one day where we don’t have something on bar a Wednesday and I’m loathe to make that shopping night as at the moment I tend to get a shop delivered on a Friday evening and anything that isn’t delivered that we need we pick up at the weekend when we are out.

I run my month dh pay day to dh pay day, so he usually gets paid the last Thursday of the month.  This is a bit scary as it’s looking like I have 2 weeks shopping money left when it’s just me.  Scary in a good way as I’ve no monkey boy next week onwards so I’m cautiously optimistic that given how little I can actually eat that I won’t actually need to do a shop and just eat from the freezer.

i think I need to change how we budget slightly so instead of dh pay day to dh pay day I run from the 1st to the end of the month.  That will help with my 4 weekly pay days as well!  Just need to move 1 direct debit and everything will then be taken by dd within the first 5 days of the month.  Will make that a priority on Monday.

i know I ramble so much but honestly just writing down my musings is helping me focus and see that although we are in a huge mess there’s actually light at the end of the tunnel and with a few tweaks like sorting out a lower phone deal, working out exactly what is needed to spread parent pay over 12 months etc is making a bigger difference to our budget than I thought.

im itching to do my going forward soa taking into account these changes but I’m holding off.  Next months pay for me is still going to be rubbish but I can absorb that cost through lack of child activities and hopefully a lower grocery spend than budgeted for this and next month.  

enthusiasticsaver

Just caught up on your last few posts and I honestly don't think it is worth overpaying the mortgage when you have high unsecured debts. I would redirect that monthly  £250 elsewhere until you have cleared it and got your finances on a more secure footing especially with high interest to pay on the debts and a remortgage coming up. If the debt is still high then sticking with the same provider may be better than applying elsewhere. 

Re the delivery pass, I am with you that it is worth keeping. We do not normally do food shops online but to minimise supermarket exposure at the moment we are doing a mix of click and collect or home delivery. I am having to pay up to £5 for a Morrison's slot but it is worth it to not have to queue outside for 30-45 minutes. We have the time but I am just trying to avoid catching COVID. Good saving on the Chinese.

shoppingobsessed2020

Thanks @enthusiasticsaver.  The mortgage overpayment is really sticking in my throat as I can see we have saved so much in interest and our goal was always to be mortgage free by 2025 when dh turns 40.  

poor financial planning in other areas however have lead to that not happening with our current incomes.  The thing is we have such a small mortgage in comparison for his income that it’s really eye opening to see how rubbish we have been as we’ve always been confident we can meet that mortgage goal date.  

i know it needs to go in other areas as that’s (taking into account mortgage payment reduction) £330 a month to throw at something else plus the £115 parent pay saving and mobile phone saving is £450 a month without even making drastic changes!!!!  That’s £5400 a year that can go on a card.  That would pay his Barclay card off in 1 yr (just an example, that card is interest free so it’s getting paid last).  It’s insane that just a few tweaks will free up that kind of money.

dh is due a pay rise imminently, although imminently in this situation that we live in is a how long is a piece of string type answer as his usual 2 month away has already been extended to 4 months (I’m glad as he’s safe as they are not letting anyone join or leave ship) so he is now not back till mid June at the the earliest and probably will be extended again so hopefully I can get things settled and sorted with the mortgage and budget so he can just deal with getting to grips with not popping to the local shop every day and spending minimum £5 a day.  I’ve already decided when he is back the budget will need tweaking again as luckily I have lockdown to get to grips with all I have to do.  When he’s back I’m going to allocate him £100 cash and that’s his for his popping to the shops and any games he wants money.  I know it’s a lot of money to give someone for fun but I feel it will help preserve the budget and plan going forward if he knows that’s all he can spend given her hasn’t yet had his lbm.

although I don’t actually think I’ve truly had mine yet either.  This is me wanting to move house as the perfect house for us recently came into the market and it means us loosing out on it as we can’t afford the house yet we should be able to have that house no issues at all.  On the plus side well at least it’s a partial lbm as it’s making me attack everything with a vengeance.

enthusiasticsaver

Have you actually calculated the total amount of interest you have paid over one year on your unsecured debts as I think that may bring it home how overpaying your mortgage by £3k per year at 2.49% interest is crazy when you have unsecured debts of almost £60k some of which you are paying at 30% interest. £10k at 30% interest  at that rate is £3k so all the good you are doing by overpaying the mortgage is being more than wiped out by paying extortionate rates of almost £60k of unsecured debt. I reckon you must be paying almost £8-£10k interest per year by high rates on both your cards and your loans. Work out the interest and show it to your husband just how much this debt is costing you. You have managed to ignore it because you have a high income but that money should surely have been put to better use? That might help him with a LBM.

enthusiasticsaver

shoppingobsessed2020 said:

Secured & HP Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 67715....(321.4)....2.79

Secured Debt.................. 11346....(146)......3.79

Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 12088....(336)......0<

Car 2..........................5367.....(211)......0[b]

Total secured & HP debts...... 96516.....-.........-   [/b]

[b]Unsecured Debts[/b]

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Next...........................2000......120.......30

Debenhams .....................2200......120.......30

TSB ...........................970.......30........30

Mbna...........................10000.....150.......25

Capital 1......................775.......25........30

Very - interest free ..........300.......0.........0

Loan 2.........................16250.....450.......17

Loan 1.........................15100.....362.......13

Barclays his 0%................5345......120.......0

Barclays mine .................6200......150.......30[b]

Total unsecured debts..........59140.....1527......-  [/b]

[b]

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 5,062

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,961.4

Available for debt repayments........... 2,100.6

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,527[b]

Amount left after debt repayments....... 573.6[/b]

[b]Personal Balance Sheet Summary[/b]

Total assets (things you own)........... 130,200

Total HP & Secured debt................. -96,516

Total Unsecured debt.................... -59,140[b]

Net Assets.............................. -25,456[/b]

[i]Created using the SOA calculator at www.stoozing.com. 

Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using other browser.[/i][/font]

OK as I am a bit of a maths geek I have worked it out for you just how much interest you are paying every month (notwithstanding that obviously you are making £1500 monthly payments) so that will reduce as the monthly payments are being made . 

The highest charging debts  at 30% ( TSB, Next, Debenhams, Capital One and your Barclays (card or loan?). They total £12145 so the monthly average interest on these should be just over £303 each month on these combined debts.  The repayments are £445 so only £142 of this is going on repaying that £12145. 


£10000 is being charged at 25% (MBNA) so just over £208 in interest being charged on that each month so I  cannot understand why the monthly repayment is only £150 as that looks like it is not even covering the interest.  Surely the balance is going up on that one unless some of that £10000 is on 0% or a lower interest rate? 

Loans usually have interest calculated differently (daily) and some are front loaded so the interest on these should be taken with a pinch of salt but on your husbands loan £16250 at 17% the interest each month should be around £230 so the £450 monthly repayment is covering that and reducing the capital by £220 each month. Your loan of £15100 is better (still not great though) at 13% the interest is around £163 per month and the capital reduction just under £200 per month.  

By my calculations though you are paying around £900 each month in interest so of the £1500 only £600 is actually reducing the debt.  

I suggest you check that MBNA as I don't think you are even covering the interest. 
I suggest you look for a snowball calculator on here (  I will see if I can find one) and input the debts and interest rates and it will tell you how much you are paying in interest (accounting for repayments) and when they will be repaid.  It is quite eye opening things like moving balances to interest free deals or upping repayments by relatively small amounts can knock years off the terms. 

enthusiasticsaver

http://www.whatsthecost.com/creditCard.aspx

shoppingobsessed2020

Thanks, the mbna dd is actually £250 so a possible typo by myself.  I know the Lloyds loan is approx £40 a month in interest so on the plus side £400 is going to capital payment on that one.

im going to have a play with the soa caluculator again.  I need next month sorted on paper with the couple of changes I can make.  

Some of the interest rates are just guesses as I don’t have the info to hand and I wanted to get things down on paper.  They are all high though which isn’t great.

Once I’ve done the amended soa I will have a separate post just detailing what is getting paid when.  I have tried a snowball calculator and it shows dfd as March 2024!  I have no clue if that’s feasible or not but I’d love it to be true.

Drawingaline

I know you said £100 money for your dh seems a lot, but when you average it out over a year, considering he spends little to nothing when off shore I imagine it averages out to a lot less. Maybe open a 'pot' and put in the average each month so it's there when he comes home doesn't feel like the budget suddenly jumps up.

If you get use out of the delivery pass then it's worth the money. I have never needed one, probably because as a family of six doing fortnightly deliveries I have never paid a charge! 😂

But it's about priorities for your family. If that small amount a year means you are not stressed out food shopping on a week night it's worth it. It's why we won't cancel Netflix, amazon prime or Disney plus. To us these are important and worth a sacrifice in other areas.