Head Up, Keep Positive, Eye on the Prize

ThisLife

Thanks for stopping by and commenting @enthusiasticsaver

I really liked the 'save £1000 emergency fund' and laser focus on one debt at a time that DR recommends. No, I never paused my pension contributions thank goodness. I'm putting everthing spare on the virgin card at the moment and hopefully when it is due to end, I will be able to find a good deal to transfer. I have an empty card free, just in case, but deals on existing cards are never as good, or as long.

I look back to my paperwork from 2007 and see that my overdraft was -£4,500 before my salary went in each month and that 2 years after I did my second consolidation onto my mortgage I had 3 loans where the payments totalled £657 each month + card payments again. I just never got the 'You need to do a budget' message and so I just carried on. 

I'm in a much better place now, budget, pots etc, but it's been a long road and I try not to think how much better I would be now financially if I had had my LBM 20 years ago. It's not perfect, making sure the pots build to the right amounts is a work in progress, but I am where I am now (the past is gone) and really, really, really just want to get it done. Once and for all!

ThisLife

A good money week last week. All my £10 emergency spending money ended up in the piggy bank. I want to get as close to £10 as possible each week.

I balance transferred from my M@S 'Wedding card' to a NatWest card. £6,605.99 with a £198.18 fee, so new total is £6,804.17 on that card 0% for a year. I'm not counting this in my personal debt, as it is the remaining of the cost of our wedding, so we both contribute to that each month.

Just need to keep an eye on my Virgin card now, the 0% ends in June. There's just over £6000 on that, so it won't be paid off in time, but it will help to get it down as much as possible.

Diet wise, not good last week. Too many sugary treats. Need to be better.

bigbeff

Well done on the £10 - £8.50 of mine went in. Spent on an emergency snack. Just going shopping and planning to buy some chewy bars to keep in my desk drawer so I don't do that again! 

Good work with the plans, you seem like you are on top of things. 

ThisLife

bigbeff said:

Well done on the £10 - £8.50 of mine went in. Spent on an emergency snack. Just going shopping and planning to buy some chewy bars to keep in my desk drawer so I don't do that again! 

Good work with the plans, you seem like you are on top of things. 

Thanks  I have a plan, just need to stick to it. Things will be a bit tight this month as the emergency fund is now down to £100  It's never been that low before. My husband and I have just started to budget together, as we got married in the Summer. It will take some months to get right I think, as Christmas, then a car bill and some birthdays really hammered it.

We will be better prepared next year!

Well done on the £8.50, that's really good. I'm looking forward to smashing the pot at the end and seeing how much is in there 

bigbeff

ThisLife said:

bigbeff said:

Well done on the £10 - £8.50 of mine went in. Spent on an emergency snack. Just going shopping and planning to buy some chewy bars to keep in my desk drawer so I don't do that again! 

Good work with the plans, you seem like you are on top of things. 

Thanks  I have a plan, just need to stick to it. Things will be a bit tight this month as the emergency fund is now down to £100  It's never been that low before. My husband and I have just started to budget together, as we got married in the Summer. It will take some months to get right I think, as Christmas, then a car bill and some birthdays really hammered it.

We will be better prepared next year!

Well done on the £8.50, that's really good. I'm looking forward to smashing the pot at the end and seeing how much is in there 

I've decided mine is going on the credit card each week - get the interest down. I might keep track on a spreadsheet to see totals  

ThisLife

Just done the monthly money shuffle. Emergency fund now is back up to £250, need to keep working to get it back up to £1000. 

Prolific earned this month is £19.29, just short of my £20 monthly target, so I'll take that as a win.

Things are very tight at the moment. We are due to go on holiday over half tern in Scotland. It was a holiday booked for last year this time, which didn't happen due to Covid. So we rolled it to this year instead. Between then and now, we've had a wedding and Christmas.

Really looking forward to it, as it's where we got married  We'll just have to be careful, enjoy it, but be aware of our spending.

ThisLife

January Round Up

Money - £285.24 off total debt this month, £22,173.95 left to go. I need to improve on that next month.

Health and Well Being - Not been good at all this month. Too many sugary treats, which I need to stop. Shopping is done for this week and I have done a weekly menu, so I'm organised and ready to go. I don't drink enough water. I forget and then wonder why I'm thirsty in the middle of the afternoon. Then remember I've only have one drink all day - not good. Planning to keep my water bottle filled up, one before mid morning, one before lunch, one in the afternoon and another in the evening.

The longer days are so welcome, which means we will be able to go for a walk after work. All good 

Onwards to February 

bigbeff

Well done on your debt total this month, every little counts. Keep going with it. 

I'm looking forward to longer days. I plan at least 10000 steps on average a day... easier said than done! And I know the feeling re water. I often get to mid afternoon and realise I haven't drunk anything 😂

ThisLife

Am going to set myself some little challenges for my wellbeing. I've got a notepad and I'm going to mark every day for the following categories:
No Spend, Water, Walking, Sugar Free and Moisturise

No Spend:  this is anything extra over the monthly spending already agreed.
Water:         3 bottles of water per day at least
Walking:      I'm trying to get out at lunchtime at work, rather than staying in the building. Or maybe a 20 minute walk around the  
                    block before driving home. It's dark by the time I get home (although this will get better soon) Weekends are ok.
Sugar free: Anything with obvious sugar, e.g. cakes, biscuits, sweets etc, I'm not counting things like soups, tomato sauce etc
Moisturise: Remember to moisturise morning and night, and hands through the day. My skin feels so dry at the moment.

So I'm thinking a lot of these will help with the money side of things too.

I'll add anything else I can think of, but those are the main ones at the moment.

ThisLife

Hmmm ... not been going well. There are some good points from the last nearly 4 months:

The good -

Debt is continuing to go down, from £22,173.95 to £20,910.55 so that's good, but not really as fast as I'd like.
I'm keeping on top of everything, recording spends and doing a budget each month.
Doing a bit of Prolific here and there.

But ... even though I'm recording all my spending I still spent £124.94 on unnecessary food this month. This is buying food on the way to work because I haven't got organised at home and treats here and there. Not meals out or anything like that, just bits and bobs, snacks in the car etc. That's £1499.28 a year wasted! We do a weekly shop so there is no excuse, all the food is there to make lunch. So that needs to be the focus next month. 

The increasing price of fuel for travel is taking an extra chunk out of the monthly budget too. I do a 70 mile round trip each day for work, so it all adds up.

Also we are still waiting for our £150 council tax rebate, so once that comes it will help a bit.

So, main focus for next month is to make sure I make lunches for work and see how many non spend days I can have.