Diary of a 30-something idiot

Karonher

I was going to type that hopefully MrFox would want to contribute now that his son is paying his way - basically his son is supporting him as well as you are, but if he is OK with FIL lending money - I am assuming that is his father - then I doubt it.

Purplelady65

I agree with another OP suggestion. Could you postpone the electrician until you have the money together so you can focus on your daughter’s birthday instead. 

MFWannabe

foxandflowers said:

Chased up insurance = they are awaiting information from the vet from before we had Ronnie to ensure there was no pre-existing condition. No idea how much longer that will be.

Spent my lunch on the phone to Stepchange. Monthly payments of £110 resuming in September this year. 23 years and 3 months until DFD with them, so I would be 57. The advisor mentioned that there was a possibility of splitting the plans and looking at separate options. If we did that Mr Fox could potentially get a DRO and would write off £16.5k of the overall debt. But I don't know enough about it. And obviously I've been supporting him for the last several years, but they want to check that you haven't disposed of assets over £500 in the last five years, and we were very spendthrifty during the Covid years, so I'm a bit worried about that. I will discuss it with him. 

@MFWannabe figures at YTD are below. Have put in bold where I know we have an overspending issue. 
_____ FIXED SPENDS _____

Groceries				£3,028.54
Sky Internet				£245.00
Welsh Water				£184.42
Gas & Electric				£526.00
Tesco Mobile				£140.21 - When is this out of contract? You can get sim only for far less than this
Vodafone Mobile				£115.56 - As above
Adrian Flux				£343.88
Transport				£333.20
Fuel				£866.50
RAC				£66.00  - When is this up for renewal? I pay less than this for the year
Monzo Plus				£31.00 - Do you really need to pay this?
Home Insurance				£35.76
Council Tax				£537.92
DVLA				£26.25

____ VARIABLE CATEGORIES _____

Ronnie					£2,547.88
Cloud Storage					£11.75 - Do you really need to pay this?
General					£791.36 - You’ve rightly highlighted this is high
Eating Out					£709.49 - As above
Takeaways					£637.73 - As above
Clothes					£117.65
Spotify Family					£77.96 - Do you really need this?
Netflix					£54.97 - As above
Amazon Prime					£26.97 - As above
Ring Doorbell					£24.00 - As above
Playstation Plus | GTA +					£15.00 - Is this amount correct?This would be only £2.50 per month
Chris					£160.00  - Not sure what this is?
Smoking					£428.98 - I don’t need to tell you this is ridiculous
illumicrate					£36.38 - I believe this is for you so you need something x
Home Improvements					£378.98
Shopping					£1,198.49 - What is this for? You’ve already listed groceries?
Youtube Premium					£29.98 - Unnecessary expense, do you really need this?
Discovery+					£7.98 - Do you really need this?
Holidays					£330.85
Invoices					£496.93 - What are these for?
Vaping					£57.86
Subscriptions					£65.00 - What subscriptions

hello Fox. 

I’ve made some comments above 
You are spending a LOT per month on lots of different subscriptions, why? Bet most don’t even get used.
 You really need to put a stop to these, they’re draining money from you that you do not have. 

You really need to sit hubby down and show him all this, you cannot  carry on like this. It’s unsustainable. 

Why can you not claim benefits? If hubby cannot work then you need to claim! 

So sorry about pup. Do chase up the vets, someone may have forgotten to fill in paperwork, it should not take this long! 

foxandflowers

RAC is not up for renewal until next January, where I will be looking to see what I can do. It covers Mr Fox regardless of which vehicle he is in, which was useful when we had two vehicles, and now is useful as OB (Oldest Boy) learns to drive and needs an adult in his janky car with him.

Monzo Plus, so far yes I have found that it has been incredibly helpful as I can create custom categories etc and it means I know where my money is going. The family and friends railcard has been useful too! But I will review this at the end of the year.

Mobile phones are both in contract – Mr Fox until next summer, and me for another two years, so a fair while yet. I think I have about £600 outstanding on my handset. Mr Fox is sim only, and we are going to look at changing his plan as unlimited everything just isn’t needed.

Subscriptions were two x annual subscriptions in January – mine for Finch, a self care birb app, and Mr Fox for MyFitnessPal.  Discovery+ & Youtube Premium have both been cancelled. Illumicrate is for me, but I tend to skip it most months unless there is a theme I really like. It probably averages 4 boxes a year, so £140 for the year. I’ve had two boxes so far in 2024. Cloud storage is necessary currently – I have a lot of photos etc I have digitized to downsize physical space and until I sort them all, I need to have the additional storage online. That will be a project for winter. Playstation Plus & GTA + is £20.48 a month (6.99 for GTA and £13.49 for PS) This is being looked at as a matter of priority. Netflix/Spotify/Amazon Prime are must keeps unfortunately, at least for now.

Takeaways are now banned in the Fox household after a long discussion on Sunday morning down the harbour with a [free] coffee. More on that later. Smoking is also no longer a necessary category.

Invoices are work done on the previous van, I had to keep them separate somehow – not sure why but that is what my brain decided. I suppose because its not in our possession any more therefore is not an ongoing cost?

Eating Out is a difficult one – as I really enjoy going out for food, and at my current job there is a monthly book club which is always held at an eatery. I will start ordering less! I budget £50 a month for eating out so am obviously overspending, but I don’t want to cut it out entirely.

Shopping is where I put all the things I buy for the household, like bedding, or diary refills, or hamster bedding, or lightbulbs etc. It’s quite high because we bought quite a few bits for the dog, including an under the stairs freezer for his food (since sold). We also spent over £400 on an awning tent and accessories for the new van. So realistically, this is probably closer on average to £100 a month, and that really needs to be cut down on. General is my own stupid spending, and stupid tax. Where I’ve forgotten to cancel something, or had to withdraw cash, or bought something incredibly daft like coins for an online game, it goes in this category to shame me. This also covers paying for the yearly parking permit at the country park, and heavy waste collection from the council. General nonsense that doesn’t have a better category!

Actual post about this weekend to follow.....

warby68

Where are Mr F's expenses for his other children accounted for Fox - I expect they add up to quite a bit ?

dawnybabes

We’ve a sim only unlimited contract from and it’s about £17 a month 

Bluegreen143

Looking at it, between takeaways and eating out, you’re averaging £192 over the past seven months of this year. 

I know that you’ve explained that eating out is really enjoyable for you, but I hope you don’t mind me saying gently that this is not a level that is congruent with the amount of debt you’re in. Neither are expensive subscriptions whether they’re yours (illumicrate) or your husband’s (PlayStation). 

I don’t think you should cut out everything that brings you joy, as I know you’ll be on your DMP for quite a long time, but your summary above strikes me as the summary of a person who has a much higher disposable income than you. 

I’ve been massively overspending this year so I get how easily it is done, and how hard it is to give things (subscriptions, regular meals out, a certain standard of living) up once it’s been part of your life. So no judgment, just a few suggestions. 

I wonder if it’s worth though trialling out to live without some of these things until December. It’s not that long, and if you find some of it unbearable make a pact with yourself that you’ll bring back whatever it is next year. Maybe allow yourself just one meal out a month with your book group? Actually cancel Illumicrate rather than skip? 

Obviously there are areas where you won’t have any further spending (your old van, Ronnie, smoking etc) so hopefully things will start to feel easier financially with those expenses gone. 

It might be eye opening to work out what % of your spending is on “wants” versus “needs”. I think you have a fairly generous “wants” budget - but is it allocated in the way that’ll bring you most happiness? Only you can decide but it does feel like you have a lot of commitments through subscriptions.

On sim only contracts, mine is with GiffGaff and £8 per month - but it’s only 5GB of data which may be too low.

Lollyj32

Sorry to hear about your puppy.

As dog lovers, would it be an option for yourself and husband to register as home boarders and supplement your income this way? Then you get the benefit of having dogs around without the vets bills

dawnybabes

Or could your DH become a self employed dog walker ? There’s a huge demand here for it and most of our local ones have closed there books.

ET22

Hi, apologies for just throwing my two pence in but your partner seems to be financially abusing the mother of his children too. If he starts work he will have to pay child maintenance for them, how sad he is avoiding that.

Sorry to hear about your puppy x

Ive just cancelled the couple of subscriptions i had.Honestly,you will hardly notice theyre gone :-)