This time I'm sticking to it!

Homegrown0

Welcome to the boards. Just caught up on your progress and plans so far. Definitely a good idea to tackle it now before it spirals. 

I was in a similar boat a couple of years ago and brought the debt down from around £25k to around £7k (where I'm at now). It feels so much better to make progress and I really got engaged with monthly updates on here. It really helped. 

Something that really transformed the way that our monthly budget works is having a separate account for spending. Because my husband is paid weekly and I'm paid monthly, it was always a nightmare trying to juggle when money was coming in and out because it changed every month. And sometimes i'd think we had enough in the account but all it took was my husband to fill up with fuel and we didn't have enough in the account for a major bill because he needed fuel before he got paid. It was way too complicated and precarious. 

Now, on the 1st of the month (after my pay day), i transfer a set amount into our spends account and that's the only account we spend money from. The other account is where our incomes both go in and all our bills come out of. The spending account is for everything including food, fuel, days out, any purchases etc. and it won't be topped up again until the 1st of the next month. 

I also have a couple of savings accounts - one for gifts and clothes (I've got two kids) because there always seems to be a birthday or the kids need new trainers and it always sneaks up on me! I pay a set amount every month into there. Some months it adds up, other months it's cleared out because of a birthday or someone needs something. And the other is a slightly longer-term, emergency fund style savings account that we don't dip into unless it's needed (and by that, i don't mean overspends ). 

It's taken us a long while to get the point where I've found a setup that works for us, but honestly, this is the only way I've managed to keep a handle on our spending. That, and regularly reconciling the online banking with my budget spreadsheet for the month to make sure we're on track. 

Anyway, this may not work for you but it might at least cast some inspiration your way to find what might work for your family. 

All the best. 

rdone

@shoppingobsessed2020 I'm glad I'm not the only one with this type of book!  Hadn't thought to put anything extra like you have in it but I might start, not that we have children but I can think of a few things already.
@Homegrown0 I'd been toying with the idea of having another account for spending as I tend to feel a bit lost between DH getting paid on the 21st and the last bill going out on the 8th.  DH has an old TSB account that we don't use so I may look at switching that and then changing it to a join account.  You've inspired me thank you

Homegrown0

Glad to help. As i said, it might not work for you but I just decided we wouldn't use the bills account for spends anymore and made sure we both had cards for the separate account and away we went. It has totally transformed how we manage out money. It's the same amount of money, but just a lot more clarify on what is where and for what purpose. Hope it helps and happy to talk  about it if you want

PurpleFairy26

We do that and it changed the way we manage money too. We put all the money for bills in to one account and just never use it for anything else and then spend out of a separate joint account. Works well. 

Baileys_Babe

We also have a bills account, it's so easy once a month we put in enough money to cover all the outgoings and then it just ticks along, I check once a week there have been no blips.

savingholmes

Death book is a good idea. I have started to pull together pension and life insurance info but plan to do the rest too to make it easier for any executor of the will if and when something happens to one of us. 

Mumoffourkids

I too have two current accounts, one for bills and one for spending. I get money in at various times in the month, but my tax credits I get weekly, so this money gets transferred weekly to my spending account and covers food, petrol, general spending and pocket money. 

I also like the idea of a death book. I think I may have to start one of them. If anything happened to me, I would want to make it easier for my kids.

rdone

I'm glad lots of you are finding the death book a good idea, although I'm pretty sure we should come up with a more positive name for it!

This week has been tough, we've gone into our overdraft for the first time ever and won't come out until DH gets paid on the 21st... literally counting down the days!  I arranged it with the bank so no charges thanks to the government saying banks can't charge for the first £500 (or whatever the technical term for that is).  Still hurts though.  Have budgeted it into next month and we still have over a £1000 surplus which is nice, we'll be splitting that money between CC payments and savings.

So trying to concentrate on how good I'll feel next month, this month was tough - lots of big put payments which we've now budgeted for each month and can use this when the annual payment comes around.

savingholmes

It's good that you now have a plan to stop OD repeats and that this one was planned. A great surplus to have next month to put towards debt too.

rdone

I've tracked all our spend this month and we've done well - being in lock down and both working full time at home has certainly helped out finances!  We'll have over £1000 spare once we both get paid (in the next few days) and all our bills have gone out so I'm really pleased. 

Question is - what do I do with this £1000? 

My original plan was to put £500 into savings and split £500 between the two biggest CCs, but reading a few diaries I've learnt about the snowball effect.  So now I'm wondering whether I put that £500 towards the smallest of the CCs, which will bring it down to around £600.  The thought of this one being paid off in a few months is really motivating and as they're all on 0% I'm starting to think that whatever will feel best is the best thing to do.  I have some time to think about it so will keep reading and researching.

Have spent quite a bit of money on our garden recently, my parents gifted us decking so my DH has put that together and obviously I wanted to make the area pretty.  So now we have solar lights, cushions, blankets and lanterns.  Luckily he's made a bench and table out of pallets/old tiles so that saved a fortune.  Hoping not to have any extra spends like this next month and can have more than £1000 left.