Getting out of the vicious circle

outoftheviciouscircle

savingholmes said:

Hi - thanks for sharing your SOA. I've been where you are - so just want to make a few  suggestions

• What can you do to reduce your mobile bill as that seems very high? Could you go sim only for a while? If you halved your current spend that would free up close to £500 per year
• Holidays are great but with the amount of debt you are in - I would trade the £400 pcm for more like £100 a month and throw and extra £3.6K a year at debt
• What are you spending your entertainment money on? Could you halve that for a bit? If you did you could save yourself £1.2K per year
• Could you sell your car(s) and get cheaper ones? This could reduce your debt burden. We got a really good run around car for £750. We did keep one nice one TBF but its paid off.
• Can you get a balance transfer for virgin as that is a really high rate?

I am assuming you don't currently have an emergency fund. If that is the case that is a definite priority. After you have £1K though, I would be tempted to throw the extra at the Virgin card for a while if you can't move it. If you did just those simple things you could potentially be down to just your mortgage and your loan to your mother within about 18 months. What do you think?

Thank you for taking the time to look into this for me. 
We have both just got new mobile phones, we had had our old ones for a few years and they were starting to slow down. I wish we didn’t get them at the same time but we are now locked for 2 years. 
With regards to the holiday money, the £400 a month was what we needed to save, we didn’t actually do it which is one of the main things that has got us in this mess in the first place. We were due to go to Orlando in August but have decided whether travel is permitted or not we are not going, if our holiday is cancelled we are looking at getting £1000 back or a credit note if we choose to postpone. 
Entertainment im including eating out, if lockdown has taught us anything, it’s that this is really not needed and ideally I’d like to take this below £50. I’m pretty confident we can do this now. 
I own my car outright and I have absolutely no chance of getting my DH to get an older, cheaper car.
The virgin card is what we put all our daily spends on, purely to earn air miles for flights. We used to manage to pay this off in full every month but after a few expensive months, not budgeting for Christmas and holidays etc it has not happened. I may look into shifting some of it just so the interest isn’t as high on what we can’t pay every month. I’ll put that onto today’s to do list.

I definitely hope to have this tackled with 18 months. Thank you for your input 

outoftheviciouscircle

I’ve done it. Managed to get it transferred for 20 months at 0%

outoftheviciouscircle

So today has been a positive day so far. 
I transfered all the debt I was paying interest on and now all my debt is at 0% for at least 20 months. Hopefully at the end of 20 months there won’t even be any debt. 
As much as I want to clear the debt as quickly as possible, I am keen to build up a savings pot so that should the worst happen I won’t need to rely on credit cards. I have no plans for any holidays while all this is going on so to build a little nest egg is going to stand high on my list of priorities. I think to have a 3-6 month savings pot will be essential with the current way of the world. There is close to £6k on credit cards that I need to pay within 20 months so I have factored £300 into my direct debits to ensure these are all gone within this time. Don’t get me wrong I know saving isn’t the best thing to do while in debt but with these not costing me anything in interest, it’s what feels right to me at the moment. I may well change my mind further down the line. 

Also cancelled tesco Clubcard plus subscription. I have found online shopping at Asda a lot cheaper since lockdown. I only used Tesco as it was near and convenient but shopping bills are definitely down not walking past all the temptations .

savingholmes

Some really positive results there already. You are off to a flying start.

outoftheviciouscircle

I’m aware that I’m warbling on but it’s really helping me to right it all down. Feels like I’ll be more accountable in a way. With tomorrow being a new month there’s never been a better time to start a fresh. I quit the new year thing a few years ago as it just doesn’t work for me. 

So I have a list of things to do or achieve in May, that will help me both financially and mentally 
1- only have 1 takeaway 
2-Meal Plan (I have taken stock of the freezer today so next on my list)
3-Take lunch to work everyday
4- swap my Pepsi adddiction to squash
5-walk 120 miles in may
6- 15 no spend days (joined the challenge today)
7- Pay off 5% of my total debt
8- no buying carrier bags
9- set up new accounts split wages into them how I want to budget
10- move all direct debits to the same account

outoftheviciouscircle

I have worked out that buying lunch in work everyday cost me and DH around £160 a month. We both work in food retail and buying a meal deal everyday doesn’t get a second thought. I still have another week at home but I have prepared DH lunch for the next 2 days. 
I have a massive Pepsi max addiction. I don’t know exactly how much it costs but a minimum of £10 a week. If I swap that to squash, I could easily save £9 a week. 
Between them 2 simple measures it could save me up to £2000.

We are terrible for wasting food as well. We buy things and they go out of date before we remember to put them in the freezer. That is one of the main things I need to stop 

outoftheviciouscircle

Good morning everyone and a very good morning it is. 

I’ve woken up to some good news today. Myself and DH are getting a 6.54% bonus in our wages next week. 

Bit of background here. We are both store managers for a convenience food store here. Different branches obviously. I could never work with him day in day out. We were both only promoted last October so didn’t think that we be allegeable for a bonus this year but it turns out we are. That’s an extra 3k next week we were not expecting at all. 

That’s set me up for the day now  

elly68

fab bonus and well deserved with the current crisis x

outoftheviciouscircle

Elly68
it was a welcome email to wake up to.  Thank you 

savingholmes

What fabulous news. So pleased for you.