30 in age, 30 in debt

h07_2012

Over the last couple of months I saved up all of my receipts. Food / grocery shopping was coming in at nearly £400. Batch cooking has really helped me chop this down to around £250 (inclusive of all meals and household bits.) The most difficult part, as my daughter has additional needs, is finding healthy meals to batch cook for her (mostly beige diet.) A bit if trial and error on that front. I am enjoying trying to cut my waste right back and use everything we have in. Part of this is for environmental reasons as well as my financial ones. I’m trying to buy with minimal plastic packaging, too. 

h07_2012

Debt as of 10/09/2023
Starting amount Owed / now

Barclaycard £2845.35 / £2919 
Fluid credit card  £3103/ £4267
Halifax credit card £910/ £979
Post office CC £427/ £491
Capital one £451/ £492
Tesco credit card £239/ £213
Vanquis (new) £1148

Updraft loan £4828/ £3630
Monzo loan £3388 / £868
Monzo flex £1042/ £526

npower debt £500/ £300

Next catalogue £1150/ £754
Very £1255 / £ 2582

car hp £3886/ £1518

Halifax overdraft £1500/ £1500
Monzo overdraft £2000/ £750

Total = £27,524.35 / £ 22,937

I’ve found it so difficult to post this. I’m not where I wanted to be, all the while it is a lesser amount of debt. I’m hoping to really give it my all in 2024. 

Very was for some appliances which are on BNPL, they will be paid in full on due dates. 

MatyMoo

You may wish that you had made more progress but a reduction in overall debt is worth celebrating 🥳🥳🥳

londoner2019

Seconding MatyMoo. I think many said that your target was extremely ambitious when you first posted, but what you'll find is you've cut down 4.5k in 11 months - that's around 420 a month. Let's celebrate this!

Consider building up an emergency fund now, if you haven't already. You could use that for times you need to replace appliances (such as the Very applicances). 

Also going to add - I had the same thing in my 20s, and it was so easy for things to build up. But it gets better and you already have a handle on things. You went through your receipts and cut out grocery spending - that's a win!

Others will say to look at items you might be able to sell - but what I found worked was to have a meticulous focus on my daily spending, and work out a realistic budget. Where I went backwards was when I tried to pay off too much, too soon... and then I would get annoyed for 'failing'. 

Best of luck!