Third Time’s The Charm

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like the budgeting is going well if you are out of overdraft and have money in the bank still with just 4 days until payday.  £2k for a PC sounds very expensive.  

Narola1976

Morning just a wee update from me. Pleased to report that DD’s birthday present has been bought with a saving of £56. Not only was it on sale, £30 less than usual price, DD also used her staff discount which reduced the price even further. Really very happy with that. As the birthday BBQ has been cancelled, we will celebrate with a takeaway (OH is paying!), we have agreed on Nando’s, and I will get a rainbow cake which is her favourite.

OH has been much more forthcoming of late with money for groceries. I know his business has been doing well lately, so perhaps that is why.  Anyway he gave me another £80 yesterday to buy various bits and pieces at C*stco. We didn’t particularly need food, but I got a few trays of chicken, toilet rolls, fabric softener, water etc. So it means I don’t have to worry about using my grocery allowance for those things and I can just focus on the food. I resisted buying cake - recognising that the money would be best spent getting things we actually needed. And so I was pleased that the total came in just under the £80. I am getting better I think at restraining myself from frivolous spending, realising that if I go over on the groceries I have to take that overspend from one of the other pots and I am reluctant to do this. I used to do this a lot before, and while a budget should have some flex it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to constantly overspend. I am thinking more about what the money needs to accomplish so this is helping me to restrain overspending. 

As for the PC DD wants to buy, I have asked for advice on the Gaming Forum, and have had a couple of responses so I shall pass this on to DD. She has already signed up for overtime. I am a little concerned that she will overtax herself, but she can always have little breaks in between if she needs to. I am very proud of how she is just stepping up but I feel so guilty that she has to. I said as much to her and she made me even more proud, when she said this is helping her to learn and prepare her for adulthood. She has nearly £4000 in her bank account, which is fantastic. And considering she is paying for her driving lessons, and saving for a car, uni etc I think she is doing very well.  She uses her Starling for her budget, using their spaces feature to have pots for different things. I would prefer her to use YNAB but I think she is managing well so far. Perhaps when she is fully independent with bills to pay it might be more useful for her. 

Right I need to drop her at work, then pop into Iceland for some veggies. I have circa £7 in the grocery budget left. Happy Sunday

crazy_cat_lady

I am jealous of your Portuguese chicken - please have a big bite on my behalf...
Enjoy the day

Baileys_Babe

Good news on OH contributing let's hope he keeps it up.

Narola1976

Hi everyone. Just a quick pop in to say yay, it’s payday today and I made the last payment on my second smallest debt. With this paid I have swapped from snowball to avalanche paying the highest interest first and knocked a month off my DFD! Now for the long haul. The next debt is set to take 7 months. I will do my best to shorten this if possible. I will do a better update in the coming days as the debt payments go out. 

Chrystal

Well done @Narola1976 )  You are definitely on a roll. X

crazy_cat_lady

Keep going - you're doing brilliantly!

Moneywhizz

Great to hear that things are still on track and that one of your debts has gone. It is good that your OH is contributing something to the household pot. That will help to ease the strain that you are under even if it is not something you can count on. Your daughter seems to be learning good money habits from you. Not many teenagers can save up that amount of money. Well done on teaching her so well. 

foxgloves

Hi Narola, I've read your diary today because it struck me how you started your debt free journey owing about the same as we did, back at the beginning when my terribly wasteful money habits were stopped in their tracks by massive moment of clarity. I note that you already owe less than this because your debt total now starts with a '34' & not a '35'....so some fast progress there, Missis! Of course it's much easier to tackle debts as a team, with both players pulling their financial weight but I think that you are going to crack paying off this debt.
What makes me think that? Well, it was when you were talking about what you could do with £1000 a month if you weren't having to use it for servicing debt. I think this is a powerful motivating realisation. A similar train of thought actually led to my lightbulb moment. I've mentioned on my own diary that I was feeling deflated about us never having enough money to do some of the things we wanted. I really wanted a campervan, for example, but it was impossibly out of reach despite our income at the time consisting of two professional salaries. This prompted me to add up how much we were spending each month on debt repayments. And that was the match which ignited my debt free mission. I had been a shocking fritterer of money but as I saw the debts coming down, paying them off became almost addictive. As a debt-free individual (& household), I can tell you this - something I've repeated on various threads on here many times - there is simply no bag of tat I could come home with now, which could make me feel as good as being debt-free feels.
You can do this, Narola76. In fact you are already doing it & I shall be popping in to see how you are getting on. 
F x

Narola1976

Thank you all so much for your comments and support. It really means a lot. I know what you mean foxgloves about the DFJ becoming addictive. It feels so good to know that I am making progress. I just have to learn to stay the course, because that is what derailed me last time and of course not using the balance transfer deals I had properly and I had some cracking deals back then! I wasn’t using YNAB properly either so it was all a perfect storm.

Now, I use YNAB religiously and I make sure that my money allocated to debt does not go below the highest I have ever had to pay in total. That is where I went wrong before. I took advantage of the breathing room the 0% deals gave me, but it was all smoke and mirrors really because in the end I actually had made no progress and even increased the debt. So this time, my debt budget is set to £1015 every month without fail. It can go up but never down. If something comes up, I have to find the money in other parts of the budget. I am proud that I have not used any credit since September last year and I want to make sure it stays that way. I check my bank and budget multiple times per day, its the first thing I do when I wake up and have that first coffee of the day. 

So lots of payments went out yesterday and more scheduled in the coming days. I prefer to have as many bills /debts paid on the 1st of every month as I like to know all my obligations have been covered. I confess I have budgeted for the hairdresser. With the peri-menopause symptoms my hair has thinned so much you can see my scalp. Its really affected my self esteem. I am not very good at doing my hair - last couple of times I burned my neck and tops of both ears- and I find doing my hair every week is my one form of self care. My hairdresser is very kind, only charging me £10 for a wash and blow. Of course, she may change her prices and I may have to rethink going every week. I have my first post lock down session on Sunday so I will have to see. I won’t blame her if she does put prices up, as a self employed person she has lost lots of income but it may affect if I go weekly going forward. 

I had to laugh yesterday, DD was most aggrieved to discover that St8rling had reduced the interest rates and she got a measly 14p interest instead of 91p like last month. She had resisted buying a game until after the interest payment because she didn’t want to reduce the balance. Well at least it was better than my 3p I said we should look into getting a better saving account where she can transfer her longer term savings pots, which she is up for but we will wait until after her 18th next week. I will also be asking the mobile company to transfer her mobile account into her name, so that she can begin to create a credit history. Not sure if that is possible. 

Anyway must dash work in 15 minutes, have a good day