Starting again ... again

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Hi all,
Welcome to my brand new DFD! I used to frequent this forum under another name but decided to delete that account and all its threads because I realised I had posted some information that would make it easy for people who know me to identify me. So I planned on starting again, but left it for months and months, and you can guess the rest. 
Fell off track with the debt busting and the debt went back up a little. Not by too much though, so I am here to rectify the situation and fully focus on debt busting again!

A little about me - I am in my mid-late thirties, have 2 DSs, aged 1 and 6. Racked up debt through financial ignorance in our 20s and we're now trying to dig ourselves out of our hole with the goal of paying off the debt, saving up for a deposit and eventually buying a house. 
We started with around £26k debt, all in maxed out high-interest credit cards and overdrafts a few years ago. We made some huge changes including getting rid of our car and made quite a bit of progress. 
We've currently got just under £17k left - a big loan and a single credit card which was at 0 but has crept back up to £3k through maternity leave and subsequent high childcare costs and lockdown frustration spending haha!

So this is it, my new diary. Please feel free to comment with any suggestions/criticism/encouragement whenever you like.

Will post my SOA etc in separate post below. 

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Right, so let's get into the nitty gritty, here is our current SOA:

Household Information

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household......... 2

Number of cars owned.................... 0

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax................ 1984

Partner's monthly income after tax....... 1200 

Child benefit................................ 140

Universal Credit (childcare element)............................ 500 (varies between 0 and 600 based on the month)

Total monthly income.................... 3824 (average)

Monthly Expense Details

Rent.................................... 775

Council tax............................. 139

Electricity............................. 70

Gas..................................... 76

Water rates............................. 46

Mobile phone............................ 35

TV Licence.............................. 13

Internet Services....................... 36

Groceries etc. ......................... 400

Clothing................................ 50

Childcare/nursery....................... 1370

Other child related expenses............ 50

Haircuts................................ 10

Entertainment........................... 50

Total monthly expenses.................. 3120

Assets

Lifetime ISA.................................... 340

Emergency fund..................... 120

Other savings........................ 30

Total Assets............................ 490

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Tesco Loan.....................13846.....323.......0

Barclaycard....................3137......78........17

Total unsecured debts..........16983.....401.......

Monthly Budget Summary

Total monthly income.................... 3,824

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 3,120

Available for debt repayments........... 704

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 401

Amount left after debt repayments....... 303

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own)........... 490

Total HP & Secured debt................. -0

Total Unsecured debt.................... -16,983

Net Assets.............................. -16,493

So a few notes about this SOA:
This SOA is purely based on my part of the budget. My husband earns a smidge more than the £1200 he pays me, but he keeps that in his account to pay his own bills like his mobile phone and a couple of other expenses and £50 personal spending money, but all other bills come out of my account and this is how we manage things. It works for us. 

The Tesco loan isn't 0% APR, it's actually 3%, however, Tesco show you the balance with all interest over the time period of the loan already included, so there is no monthly interest on top of this total balance. However, if I overpaid say £100, it would actually take more than £100 off the balance as they would account for the extra interest saved. Hope that makes sense. 

Yes, we pay over £1300 a month in childcare - we don't have anyone to help out with this and both work full time, so it is what it is. DS2 will get his 30 free hours by January 2023, so we have to make do until then. We get Universal Credit to help with the childcare costs, but it's hit and miss. For example, in February, DS2's bubble had to isolate for 10 days, so we didn't have to pay for that. So his nursery bill was only £800 instead of the usual £1200. This meant though that we then got £0 Universal Credit in March (because it's paid retrospectively depending on how high your childcare costs were). We had to pay the usual £1200 for nursery in March though, so this left us short in that month. 
When we get the normal £500, the budget works out ok, but it just fluctuates a lot. It's no wonder people who solely rely on UC really struggle - the system makes no sense really! 

Also, I realise our energy costs are high, but we are both WFH full time now with a lot of technical gear, so we use a lot more electricity than usual. And of course we have the heating on a whole lot more too. But on the plus side, we're not currently paying anything for buses etc. 

Anyway, the goal is to try and make things work without the UC as much as possible, and use the UC to pay off the credit card asap, ideally in the next 6 months. Then I want to rebuild my £1000 emergency fund, and then start overpaying the loan if at all possible. I will try and get back into surveys etc to help with paying off extra bits here and there. 

I think my first port of call is to try and reduce grocery bills as much as possible and see if there's anything worth selling in the house (doubt it!)

I will try and post regularly for accountability. 

Any feedback welcome! Wish me luck!

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

I've also just realised there wasn't a field for insurance. We pay £21 a month for life insurance, and £65ish a year for basic contents insurance for our house (buildings insurance covered by the landlord). 

WinterWarrior

Good luck. Do you have a plan or a timeline for driving it down and saving a deposit?
I'm sure you’ll do great!

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Thanks WinterWarrior!
We had a timeline once, but we found we never hit any of the dates so we've relaxed on it for now. 
Ideally, I'd like to 
- pay off credit card in 6 months or less

- pay off loan within 18 months or so

- then save up asap. 
Originally, I wanted to have a mortgage by the time I turn 40, but I'm 37 this August and we currently paying all that money for childcare, so it's not realistic unless we suddenly get huge pay increases. 

WinterWarrior

That’s fair, slow and steady can win the race and any progress is good progress.
high childcare costs are hard, but they aren’t forever ⭐️

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Yes exactly. I think while we are paying the childcare, it's about muddling through as best as we can. Then hopefully, by the time the costs reduce, we'll be used to making do with less and able to use the money we no longer pay for childcare for debt busting and saving. That's how I'm envisaging it anyway haha. 

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

I have sorted out my Prolific account tonight and will get back to doing the surveys regularly. I managed to do a survey for £5 tonight, so that's a good start!

WinterWarrior

Well done, I’ve only managed to bag a 50p one today 😬

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Wednesday already!

So a few things I did last night to try and help matters along:
- cancelled Amazon Prime membership
- removed my credit card from Amazon account and several others
- deleted all food delivery apps - takeaway is definitely one of the biggest unnecessary expenses for us!

I've ordered a food shop for delivery tonight. My Tesco delivery saver runs out tomorrow, so got a last shop in before it expires. I only ordered Aldi price match items and it came to £62 which should last us until early next week hopefully. We needed a restock of lots of cupboard essentials having run out of tea, baked beans and sugar - the horror!
I do have to frequently top up fruit and tomatoes between main shops as the kids are like locusts with these!

This leaves me with £184 left in my grocery budget for the month which should be ok as I get paid on the 26th, so only 3 weeks to cover (and one week of that should be covered with tonight's shop). 

The plan going forward is to get a big Tesco shop delivered once a month with all the heavy things like cans, potatoes, milk etc and then go to Aldi the rest of the month. It's a 20 minute walk each way, so a good workout as well. We've been too lazy with this the last few months and had all our shopping delivered, which just isn't necessary. 

One of the things that leads to us ordering takeaways is lack of meal planning. We just get to 5pm with hungry kids and a million things to sort out like homework and it's sometimes easier to just order something. So I've made a plan for the next few days, trying to use up what we already have in. 

Tonight - Tofu fried rice with (vegan) hoisin duck pancakes and pak choi
Tomorrow - Tacos with lentil chilli and salad
Friday - Spaghetti bolognese (with any veg odds and ends grated into the sauce)

Having a plan is a start, isn't it! Next step will be to do some breakfast and snack prep, but one step at a time!

Right, best get on with my work, hope everyone has a good day!

Debt_Me_Out_Of_Here

Another update from me - can you tell I'm raring to go? 
I've just applied and been approved for a balance transfer card with Virgin. I don't think it's for the full £3k I've got on the Barclaycard at the moment, but every little helps as the Barclaycard is currently at 17%.
I'm not too worried about the impact on my credit rating as I don't want to borrow anything else, and it'll be years before we can realistically apply for a mortgage. 
In the meantime, this will save a few bob on interest while we clear the card debt. 

I've also remembered I have 2 dresses to return, will look into that at lunchtime to see if I can still do that or if the timeframe has expired.