Facing up and time for action

mark55man

@dasdachs - its entirely your journey.  I've done most of the earning in our house, and a lot of the overspending was on me so I quite understand self reliance.  You just get into the habit of shaping the conversation into a direction that results in less family spending rather than appearing critical of your OH

reading other's diaries is a great way to get perspectives without exposing yourself to criticism.  may I recommend the diary written by @alt80 (link https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6190158/first-steps-to-solvency).  Warning it is a real roller coaster and quite long but you will need some cheap hobbies to pass the time, and whilst the journey is as yet incomplete its in a good place at the moment.  He is also newly (a few months) into his journey so may resonate more than mine, which is an older person's view and nearly at the end and frankly a but dull - but still helps me keep accountable to my targets 

DasDachs

Thanks @mark55man - duly bookmarked 

A really good day today; got out for a run first thing, then walked to the glass recycling in the village and this afternoon went for a lovely walk through the local woods with my daughter. In total, over 18000 steps today! I was intending to have a NSD but felt in a baking mood, so popped into the village shop for some cheats pastry, milk and butter (and an ice cream for DD for the last leg of the walk home). £7.38 spent but I then made some pastel de nata - Portuguese custard tarts - which went down very well. Dinner was paella which I cooked outside on the camping bbq. Two portions leftover from that, so that’s a couple of lunches this week. 

I’ve started to plan my budget for next month - there are a few things still to pick up for DD and DS ahead of school restarting, but in the main I have got everything they need. The biggest single expense remaining is a blazer for DD at £30. We’re also trying to find out if my son needs one - school changed uniform just as COVID hit and was having a phased introduction- it’s still not entirely clear if his year group need them or not. Hopefully not as this is his final year there and it will get very little use as they finish early for GCSEs. 

I do have one major expense this month to get DS’ bike fixed. He’s absolutely mashed the derailleur and bottom bracket both of which need to be replaced alongside other items. All up it’s going to be about £150 to put right so I will factor that into my plans. Previously I’d have defaulted to it going on a cc so the very fact that I’m planning for it is positive and very much down to the MSE influence! 

Day out with DD tomorrow for her to get a sailing taster lesson - I’m really looking forwards to that. I’ve planned a lunch budget for us, but that’s the only spend now before payday on Tuesday.

I hope everyone else has a lovely bank holiday 

DasDachs

A new month and I've gone through the budget and plan for September. Today I was back in work after an extended long weekend - it was actually a day on client site, which was really nice rather than working from home. I'm also with actual humans tomorrow as well, so it's a good week! Today was a NSD which was good - took a coffee with me rather than a Costa drive thru, and resisted the temptation on the way back!

The majority of Direct debits have left my account today (I'm using discretionary spending as my NSD marker rather than planned DD/SO commitments) and my debt at the end of Aug was £58198.98. As of today it is £57760.87, but I have not taken into account cc payments until the interest charges are applied - the Tesco cc isn't paid until the middle of the month, and the RBS cc at the end, so the tally will fall further. I've also carried over grocery and other savings into a Christmas fund and added £150 to that today. The aim is to have that at £600 by Christmas.

All of the back to school shopping is complete less some new pencils and pens, and the only large non-recurring bill for this month is for my son's bike repairs. I've set myself a weekly spends limit of £65. I'm not sure whether that's going to be sufficient or not, but it's making me think before I do anything - witness the coffee decision today!

I'm pleased with progress so far, there's a huge distance to go, but compared to where I was in June and now, I really feel like there is tangible progress and that my mindset has changed a bit and I can see a way through.

DasDachs

Working from company offices again today which was really good. It was so nice to be with some colleagues again and much more creative as a collective rather than over teams! 

I was on track for an NSD today having taken lunch with me and a coffee for the journey. However, on the way home my wife messaged me to pick up some wine and chocolate for her, so £8.79 spent. 

She’s going out on Saturday with work and decided she needed a new outfit so £87 has just gone on my next account.  Although that doesn’t have to be paid until next month, I’m going to cover from this months spends budget. Not a great day in that respect as that now means I’ll need to have be pretty frugal this weekend and next week to stay within the budget I’d allowed this month. 

BellaLasagna2018

You buy her clothes as well? 

DasDachs

BellaLasagna2018 said:

You buy her clothes as well? 

Pretty much. She sometimes buys some stuff herself but if she uses Next it’s always on an ‘I’ll pay you back” but it never happens. Once it goes on there it’s me who clears it. 

LittleMissDetermined

As you have some of your cc’s cleared, is there any opportunity for a 0% balance transfer? Just thinking the less interest paid the more you can reduce the balances. 

DasDachs

LittleMissDetermined said:

As you have some of your cc’s cleared, is there any opportunity for a 0% balance transfer? Just thinking the less interest paid the more you can reduce the balances. 

Hi LMD - yes that’s definitely something I’d like to do as I hate the dead money aspect of the interest I’m paying. I think that was a major factor in my Lightbulb moment! 

I’ll wait until the £0 balances report on my credit reports - I’ve got a mix of credit scores across Experian, TransUnion and Equifax spanning poor, fair and very good respectively. As a result I don’t think I’d get many 0% transfer offers at present - certainly not longer term offers. The total amount owed and CC utilisation isn’t showing what I’ve repaid yet, so hopefully that will improve over the coming months - there’s nothing adverse apart from that on my credit history. 

TheAble

DasDachs said:

BellaLasagna2018 said:

You buy her clothes as well? 

Pretty much. She sometimes buys some stuff herself but if she uses Next it’s always on an ‘I’ll pay you back” but it never happens. Once it goes on there it’s me who clears it. 

You're going to struggle to get on top of the situation with this kind of thing going on. Making cutbacks on coffee etc is a good thing but it blows all your efforts out of the water if your wife suddenly drops £100 on wine, chocolate and a new outfit. She really does earn enough to cover all her own "fun" spending. Take her off the joint accounts would be the call..!

DasDachs

TheAble said:

You're going to struggle to get on top of the situation with this kind of thing going on. Making cutbacks on coffee etc is a good thing but it blows all your efforts out of the water if your wife suddenly drops £100 on wine, chocolate and a new outfit. She really does earn enough to cover all her own "fun" spending. Take her off the joint accounts would be the call..!

Yes it’s a PITA - always has been and makes budgeting really challenging if I’m honest. We don’t have a joint account but the continued expectation is that I will pay. Taking over physically doing the weekly shopping is something that I’m pleased with as previously this would be done by her online using my card, so I had very little control. I could give budget guidance but that was all and it was seldom adhered to. Similarly if she was going out with the kids for haircuts or clothing, she would just take and use my debit card rather than her own money.

I’ve had plenty of conversations about it which end up with me feeling guilty and emotionally drained with it coming back to the ‘you earn more’ argument. When the children were young and we only had one income then it was fine, but as the kids are now both in their teens and she has been working for years it seems increasingly unfair that the expectation that I should pay for everything remains. 

I think that I feel more comfortable now that I have started the DFW journey; at least I have a plan and am taking ownership of both the state of my finances and the recovery plan. The approach and attitude from my wife is going to continue to be problematic and I just have to deal with that