Some advice please!

Geworgie

Graham1982 said:

I am not debt free yet but am living within my means and am paying off ONE consolidation loan that has truly consolidated my debts, i.e. I haven't used my paid off credit accounts to make other purchases, lesson learned. Somebody said something on one of my threads prior to me sorting myself out that once you know where your money is going you can plug the gaps and have more money in your pocket, thus reducing reliance on credit (not verbatim). This is the wisest thing anybody had ever told me - I once had a Graduate Additions account with Barclays and an £800 overdraft that I reduced from £1800 in 2006 (when I graduated) to finally getting rid of it in 2017. When I conservatively estimated how much I was paying to service that overdraft, plus on average how many times I was getting returned payment notifications and associated charges, I reckon I literally threw away £5k (probably more). Now, no bank fees as I don't bounce payments (although I think they aren't allowed to charge now) and no overdraft and associated charges. 

Sorry if this is rambling but I had a similar issue with my mobile phone contracts - my wife had a Samsung S8 and me an S7 (edge) if no additional calls were made out of plan (which they often were), I would pay £90 on those phones alone.
I switched to SIM only on both handsets over a year ago and got my daughter a sim too and I pay £55 a month for all three. This is not the cheapest deal however, I have a large amount of mobile data that I distribute between my daughter and my wife so that they have it when they are out. Once again £35-40 saved per month there. 

I am by no means a paragon of virtue and I could still make some cuts, however it is possible and you can do it.

Yes, working out where we spent all our money over the last 12 months was a bit of a shock! but without doing it I would never have seen with such clarity that our priorities were so out of whack. We weren't intentional about our spending so we don't have much to show for our overspending which is a bit of a kicker. 
We are on a family plan so my contract will drop from £45 to £12 and husbands will also drop from £45 to about £30. Not such a big drop but similarly, he will have lots of data that he can share out. It could be cheaper but I'm happy just to pay 50% less at the moment! 

Geworgie

I was avoiding posting on here the last couple of days because then I would have to admit that I spent money somewhat frivolously but that's not the point of a diary.
So this month my aim is just to finish the month out without spending on the credit card and next month will be focussed on debt repayment. 
I had to spend £18.30 on a prescription on Friday (I'm waiting to receive my prescription exemption certificate). I then spent £48.46 on supplements. (3 month supply on 3 different things.) I did the food shopping on Saturday and came in under budget by about £40! So earmarked that for debt repayment ... but ordered a dominos on Sunday night. Immediately regretted it and was annoyed I'd convinced myself it was ok because I'd underspent on the food. Then remembered we had the garden waste bin to pay for so actually it would've been so much better spent there instead of pizza. 

Anyway - for now we're on track to stay on budget provided we have nothing unexpected between now and payday...!