Third Time’s The Charm

enthusiasticsaver

Debt busting can be boring as a lot of people make the payments payday and nothing happens for a month but keep posting anyway if you feel like it.  Little things like resisting spending on something you would normally have splurged on like your bargain microwave and makeshift dressing table are great things to post about and shows how focused you are.  
The seafood paella sounds great and brilliant news about the £100 from your DH towards groceries.  

Moneywhizz

Pleased to hear that everything is ok and you are staying focused. It is hard mid month when it seems like not much is happening but just being around the boards is good for keeping yourself accountable. Sounds like you have been productive anyway and got yourself some new things without spending money. That's good work. 

Narola1976

Morning, finally a day when I can update the debt figures. All payments have been made, interest charges added and now I can report how much I have paid off. 

Starting balance: £35156.29
Current balance: £34392.95
Total Paid: £763.34

So looking at my “100” steps to my DFD:

1% = £351.56
2% = £703.13 

So I have paid off just over 2% of my total debt this month. I know the actual total isn't very much in the grand scheme of things, but for me it’s about the feeling of progress, accomplishment and the sense of control. 

I am looking forward to the next pay day as I will be making the last payment on my second smallest debt. I can’t wait. Just 8 more days. I just wish I could get another BT. I have quite a bit of space on one of my credit cards to transfer. I suppose the banks would rather me spend all of the credit rather than give me a 0% offer where they make nothing for a year. Well tough because I am not doing that, so they get nothing anyway.  I have never spent on any of the BT cards and have no plans to do so. 

Whilst I have been doing very well with the NSD’s - I have reached my target of 15 days, and will most likely exceed it, my grocery spend has been way over budget, even with he extra money received from OH. I knew when I set the £220 target that it was unrealistic for us but even so, I think I bought things we probably could have done without. I am going to increase the amount to £260 and see how we get on. I also think that weekly shopping can sometimes be more expensive than monthly. Growing up my mum always shopped monthly and I did too for years. It’s not the meal supplies that seem to take up the money,  it’s all the extra bits I think. So I am wondering if I should move to fortnightly. I think the freezers could accommodate that.  I also think our portions are too big, our food could stretch further if we used less. I think I am just afraid of not cooking enough for my family to feel satisfied. I once read a Facebook post where a lady was talking about how a large chicken breast did a roast dinner for 2 and I marvelled at that. I could never imagine using 1 chicken breast for 2 people. I don’t generally buy chicken breasts as I find it too dry and it’s also a lot more expensive. I think I am going to challenge myself to cook using less chicken/meat/pork, even on a low carb diet. I did do something good though. I bought a tray of pork steaks from C*stco and they are so thick I was able to slice them to create 2 thinner steaks which effectively doubled the amount and created 2 meals instead of just 1. So grocery spends /  meals definitely needs some improvement.

I had to buy the cat’s food and litter (she is an indoor cat). I was hoping to wait until the end of the month but realised if I did that she would have no food for days whilst waiting for delivery. I buy online and decided to buy double so that I would not have to buy for another 3 months or so. I had to move money around but I had enough to purchase this.  For the first time in a really long time I have money in the bank. Ok it’s all budgeted to different categories but at least I am not in the overdraft as I was 6 months ago. 

I baked biscuits yesterday, as looking to use up the flour. We have had it ages and I don’t want it to go bad. I tried to bake a loaf of bread the other day. While the bag was still unopened, the bread flour was from 2016  and it just wasn’t good. The yeast was from a year ago and the bread, well a flat rock would be a better description for it. If it had tasted ok I would not have minded, but it was awful. So into the bin it, and the flour and yeast went. So my intention is to use up all the flour and such in the house, as I don’t want to have to throw away any more. We won’t be buying more flour anyway as we need to stick to a low carb diet. So I am just using up what we have. 

A busy day at work today so I need to get ready. There are some real benefits to working from home, like it’s just a trip upstairs to get ready for a start in the next 15 min.  I shall end off here and perhaps pop in later this evening. 

Baileys_Babe

You have come so far so quickly @Narola1976 your mind st has changed and you are thinking carefully about how you spend your money.

Like you, I feel our portion sizes could be smaller without any detriment to our health.
I find shopping less often means we are less likely to slip as many extras into the trolley. I would like to get to the point where I have meal planned and shopped for the month and I only need to pick up milk, fruit, vegetables, salad in between. 

I can see the logic of other categories lending the cat budget money to enable you to buy in bulk, saving you a job. Does bulk buying have any other advantages? like free delivery? cheaper price? do you shop around to see if you are paying the best price?
Are you able to tweak your budget so you will have enough to buy in bulk again next time?

Moneywhizz

Good progress on the debt paying and very satisfying to be able to count down the percentages. You do sound so much more disciplined about your spending and it is paying off. Tweaking your budget till you find out exactly how much you need for things like food is good money management. Once you have it at the right level it should remain quite stable and allow you to budget to the last penny. I am sure other balance transfers will come along, just sit tight till they do. 

Narola1976

Thanks Baileys_babe and Moneywhizz, appreciate the support. Yes I do think my mindset has changed in the sense that I have realised that the short term gains have only caused long term pain for myself. Last night I tried to picture myself popping into B&M for bits to make the house nicer like so many are doing and imagining how the money I have so carefully managed to save take a sharp nose dive and I positively cringed at the idea. I am sure that I have enough stuff in the attic to change the decor if I need to, and the reality is the house whilst needing so much work, is just going to have to stay that way until I have saved up enough money to buy a tin of paint or rather several tins as there is lots to paint. 
Just keeping the place clean would be a huge win for me right now, never mind painting. I have found that when I am stressed about money or my work, every other area is affected, this includes my diet and household chores. Coming onto MSE, getting involved in threads and starting an honest diary about how things really are for me, and being determined to get out of this debt, is slowly helping me. I am not by nature a person who has to be on the go all the time, and I am very good at doing nothing. My job is incredibly stressful and comes with a lot of responsibility and scrutiny that I just let other parts of my life slide when stressed. I want to change that behaviour. But I also need to take things slow so that I can bed in the changes, and not focus on too many things at once. Progress, not perfection is what I am aiming for. Good news though, I just cleaned the kitchen, washed all the dishes and wiped the counters and cleaned the cooker top. Just need to pack the dishes away which have drained dry but that is for later. OH usually washes the dishes but doesn’t actually clean the kitchen so it always looks a mess.  But I am grateful he tends to take the lead on that. We have a table top dishwasher as no space for a proper one,  and its helpful but doesn’t take much. However, today I just decided to wash the dishes by hand and there was a lot. But job done. 

So I have been thinking more and more about pensions. Someone recommended a book on another thread about DIY pensions. Luckily the book is on Kindle Unlimited so I was able to download and read it. Currently I am on a reduced membership rate for Kindle. I tried to cancel, they offered me 3 months @ 99p. So I jumped at it, still saved £7 but will cancel when its up. Anyway back to the book. I read it and while I got the gist of it, it was still above my little brain. What I took from it was just how much I would need for a retirement pot and how I so am nowhere near that figure. In fact what I have is a pittance. By my calculations according to the book, I should be paying in about £900 per month (this includes the employer contribution) but I am about £700 short, ouch! I created a category in YNAB so I can start saving and hopefully save a small sum to invest as a starting point but I think I have about a fiver in it. Of course if I wasn’t paying £1000 per month in debt payments this would be no problem. So it looks like for the next 5 years I am not going to be able to open a SIPP and thus lose 5 years when I could be paying into a personal pension and presumably the amount I will need to put in will be that much higher to combat this loss. I still have 24 years before retirement. I am told by the time I need to retire they will have moved retirement age to 68. Yikes. Anyway nothing I can really do about this, I just need to keep focused on what is currently within my power to work on. It is funny though, because I started a pension for DD a few years ago, only a tenner mind, but still something and she isn’t even 18 yet, well not for another 3 weeks!

Re the cat food, thanks for the comments BB, as it made me think, and I realised I would need to save up £10 a month for the next 6 months to do another bulk buy. I also think I feed her more than she needs to so I shall be strictly by the book. Surprisingly the stuff was delivered today and given its coming from Germany, I was surprised at how quickly it came. I haven’t actually shopped around as Z00plus has been quite reasonable with free delivery over £35. Although because the weight was over 34kg I did have to pay an extra £2.99 as it was 2 parcels. I don’t usually do so, but I wanted to get 2 bags of litter as it’s time to completely empty and clean the tray so I needed 1 full bag and then 1 for topping up as it goes down.  The litter is heavy and there were 2 bags. Given that her Maj is an indoor cat I do have a good quality litter which is very good value and which lasts for absolutely ages. Her food is Pro Plan which if bought from the vet is quite pricey. But I will look around to see if I can get the same products for cheaper. If not, at least I know what I need to save up each month. If all goes well, I should not need to buy any food until December. 

Anyway must dash, need to collect DD from work,  bye for now.

Narola1976

Morning, not really much to say as just waiting for payday which is in 4 days. Looking forward to making payments to my debts. At the moment,  feeling really good about things. I am not in overdraft, there is money in the bank, I am saving for Christmas, my trip home next year and lots of everyday expenses. The pots aren’t very big but at least it is a start. I am lucky that I do earn a very good salary which is enough on the whole to pay all the bills. I was reviewing my interest rates and it occurred to me that my savings would be better moved from Starling to my Paragon account. Starling only pays 0.05% and Paragon pays 0.75%. I realised this when I saw that Paragon paid me 23p interest for a balance of £280 and Starling only 12p for a balance of a lot more than £280. So I am moving the longer term savings over there. Of course I decided to do a test run by sending over only a £5 but then realised I did not put my account reference so they probably have no idea where the money needs to go. Thank goodness I only did a £5 to test instead of the whole £600! So I have left a secure message and hope they will find my money. 

DD has decided she wants to buy herself a PC, but one that is suitable for gaming and her college course. I hear the budget is £2000! So she intends to work overtime and once she is 18 (in a couple of weeks) she can work up to 40 hours. Her college is closed now for the summer so she will have lots of time on her hands. I am proud of her and I will get her a desk (better start saving for this). I have to say the thought of paying that amount for a PC is just mind boggling and as I know nothing of these matters I can’t really give much input. 

Anyway, that’s it for now, bye.

Baileys_Babe

We have bought ds a gaming pc this week for his birthday. We spent less than £400   We choose a desktop to keep the costs down and we already have a suitable screen. The graphics card has a high enough spec for even graphic hungry games.

Narola1976

Baileys_Babe said:

We have bought ds a gaming pc this week for his birthday. We spent less than £400   We choose a desktop to keep the costs down and we already have a suitable screen. The graphics card has a high enough spec for even graphic hungry games.

@Baileys_Babe can you tell more about the graphics card. She intends to buy a desktop PC, will need a monitor and tower, but I have no idea what is needed in terms of specs. Surely if you can manage to pay £400 we can surely get something for £1000. Which feels better than 2K. 

Baileys_Babe

What do you want to know about the graphics card?

OH, deals with most of our tech, I can relay questions if that works.

I agree spending £1k  instead of £2k would be brilliant.